user friendly installer

Since I have switch to linux, I have found a lot of things very useful and really better than windows on linux.

The only thing which stuck me everytime is looking for package, find it, and install it.

The idea of a centric application sharing server is great but why show to final user all library when he only search front a front end for example.

The search & install system is really slow because it will looking for package in all repository.

For example, I have looked a video viewer (Video lan ) and I have found all package about video ( gstream lib, …) whereas I only search a front end.

For me, yast must have a basic and an advance mode.

The basic mode will show you only front end with name,description and a small screenshot. Best is too show it by category and allow user to filter with a textbox. And when you install Yast select all needed missing dependencies.

And if you are looking for a library, you will have to switch to advanced mode where you have a lot of more technical information.

This system will be far user friendly than search in thousand answer to video player…

EDIT: gnome-app-install seems to answer to my need. But it is on ubuntu (apt) whereas I am on opensuse (rpm). I will search if there is a solution for suse else I will try ubuntu. I know that suse is better for configuration with yast but ubuntu   is far better for package management.

help for suse

I have found a beautiful blog which talk about Suse Linux in French. It explain all basic and is great for newbies.

Thanks to this great blog, I have found a second great site named www.Kameleon-facile.org which can generate a script to add all repository easily!!

This script is generate for smart but you can just modify a little it for Yast by adding “zypper sa <URL> <name>” where URL is the URL you have and name is the name you want to attach to this repository.(Paid attention to have name in one word)

hello from linux !!

I have switch to Linux.

All I see is incredible far from what I have seen on Linux few years ago.

I run an OpenSuse 10.3 and all my bad point on Linux have disappear :

• The starting time have now reduce to about 30 seconds thanks to the SUPER project
• The delay and freeze that you have with yast have disappear… No need of smart!
• The installation system in general have been really improve. A single click is just what you need to install nvidia non oss driver!

There is a lot of other things which is really user friendly. Like the small textbox which appear when you are in a folder and hit some key to find a file. You will not just search with first letter but with you can hit more than one letter to find what you search. Yast is a lot easier and faster than previous version. You have search engine everywhere to find what you search quicker.
EDIT:

this is my desktop

yast:

start menu:

control center:

With only a small time I can only conclude that MS Windows is far from what we have now on Linux. It is amazing! Few years ago, we have a system where you have to use console every-time you want to do something and here you have a real desktop with 3D effect!

fish in the cube

cool animation when you close a window:

The first thing I do is get my rsa key from my windows partition and get svn/compile Mono It is faster than cygwin and easier

Rem: all screenshot come from opensuse site because I have not found how done screenshots ^^ (will try with print screen tonight). But I install compiz fusion and I have the same effect

Rem2: the only issue for moment is that I have no sound on flash player ( I have no sound for all at start but it is just because I have 2 sound card and I select the good one in admin panel)

innovate !!

Who innovate today in desktop experience?

This is a complex question…

Google is the first who come in my mind. A lot of engineer have left Microsoft to Google. Google have make a lot of new things as Google hearth, Google Desktop, Gmail, Google reader, Igoogle, Gcalendar , Google spreadsheet,… But Google video was a badtrip and they have to buy Youtube. Google have nothing really new since few month… Google have done a great job to make a web “Office” but it is just a migration to web not a real new idea.

EDIT: they have just released the google presentation.

MAC OS X have add a lot of new idea in desktop but nothing new since it.Apple have take a strong leadership in mp3 reader and Iphone will be a success. So, Apple is now clearly investing in Iphone, Ipod which bring more money to them.

The big one, Microsoft, fall down. The OpenXML have been refused by International Organization for Standardization.Windows Vista is compare to the Windows Me and Microsoft have provide a downgrade to Win XP.

And Aero is not as good as compiz. Microsoft is good to copy something and make it better for everyone (MACOS->Windows, Lotus 1-2-3-> MS Excel, Java->.NET,…). But Microsoft is in bad way. MS Office and MS Windows are the products which bring cash to Microsoft. MS office is challenged by openOffice, Google spreadsheet,… And MS Windows is left for Linux on server side. and now the last part (but bigger one) desktop environment is more and more challenged by Untubu & Suse who have simplified Linux to make it usable for everyone.

Innovation come from open source today. Power of community get bigger!

The console is left for beautiful GUI on linux. Microsoft have seen the trap and contract with Novell to save him for future but revolution come fast and who know what will be the future market-share of desktop?

Imo, It will take time.I am switching to Linux as many other people. I am an engineer and for moment most of people who switch to Linux are IT engineer but they are prescriptor. When someone want to buy a computer and know nothing about it, he ask for advice to prescriptor. The other sign is that administration switch to Linux. A lot of project improve compatibility (Mono, Moonlight, cygwin…) and other products are on both plate-form (OpenOffice, Firefox,…). So all this things make migration easier but a lot of issue is still there because of the lack of support for Linux.

Compiz Fusion video

Compositing have bring a lot of thing in desktop experience.

Beryl which is a fork of Compiz have now fusion with Compiz Extra for plugin package part and have bring some features in compize core. To sum up, compiz is core with just few stable plugin and Compiz Fusion is a package of plugin which can be unstable on some plugin but which bring a lot of features to desktop.

Some video to show you progress of Compiz fusion and Compiz:

Microsoft Monopole

In US you have the antitrust law in France we have the anti packaging law.

This law just said that you can not sell 2 products together without selling each products.

In France, you can only found PC with Windows on it and a lot of constructor do not allow consumer to buy PC without it. So we have a petition to warn our country about this issue who do not let a change to other product of the market. The cost of software installed on your PC is about 20/25% of the total cost. This not only for MS windows, you will have a lot of installed software

So you can sign the petition to stop this bad practice which make price expensive and do not let the choice for your software.

Gnome 2.20 is out!

Gnome have just released the new version 2.20.

You can found here the full release note.

Else here is a quick summary:

Evolution (mail client)

• Auto detect missing attachments
• Mail received notification
• Backup & Restore system
• Magic space bar (by pressing space bar you can see all your mailbox)
• Calendar/Events improvements

Epiphany (browser)

• in-line completion improvements

Multimedia

• Eye of Gnome is faster and more stable
• Eye of Gnome have easier access to basic information and metadata
• Eye of Gnome transfer image to other image application
• Video & Audio codec installation work-flow

Back office

• Support for interactive PDF forms
• Note synchronization
• Syntax highlighting in text editor improve
• File management
• Improve user friendly/accessibility
• Switch between account in password management
• Better support for right to left language

linux marketshare

I have found a beautiful survey which show the market-share of Linux distro and Linux main tool ( windowing environment, browser, email client,…)

All this analyse is done by collecting vote in community so it is not a real market share but it can show you a good view thanks to the number of vote.

So first, we can see that Ubuntu is the first one (no surprises) but we see that SUSE have taken the major step forward (compare with 2006 survey).

The third place is Debian which is imo good for server but really bad for desktop. But it is only my opinion.

For windowing environment, we see that KDE and GNOME take quite all the market share ( no surprise too).

And Gnome take the lead over KDE. It seems OK because Unbuntu (and debian families) is really big and SUZE (out of Europe) is by default on Gnome. You can see all distribution with Gnome as default desktop here.

For browser, it is quite simple

Firefox have take all and let dust to other. Mozilla have really done a great job and have change the flat world of browser with Firefox.

Linux have really done a big step forward big get it more user friendly.

A lot for firm use it as server for long time but now with all good job done by Ubuntu, Suse,… team we have a easy OS that can be used by any person and not just engineer and IT people.

After user friendly effort, we have the virtualisation which provide a real windows emulation (not as wine).

I am more and more thinking to take the time to install a Suse on my pc to replace my old windows because I do not want Vista cause of the 1Go of ram taken by it at start. I have a VM player with a Suse under Windows, I will switch to Suse desktop with Qemu or vmplayer for windows

vala

vala is a new programming language which bring performance of c++ and user-friendly of the C#.

In fact, Vala is very closed to C#in syntax. It contains even the most recent thing of C# as :

• Lambda expressions
• Type inference for local variables
• Generics
• Non-null types

And a lot of other features from basic C#:

• Interfaces
• Properties
• Signals
• Foreach
• Assisted memory management
• Exception handling
• Type modules (Plugins)

But it only bring language features. We have no virtual machine, no framework!

This language just try to make the life easier for people who want to build compiled assembly.

Vala is a great language to build application with very good performance or wich interact with low level layer (hardware). Mono/DotNet is quick to develop, easy to maintain, user friendly and bring a big toolbox to not have reinvent the weel…So, Vala & Mono is at the end not for the same use. But it bring to developer who want to do low level thing or embded thing or developer who do not want to have VM.

Rem: A lot of developer are still saying that VM is bad for performance but a lot of snipset have shown that it is not so slow and can even be better in some way because the compiler JIT optimize things. so, if you do not want VM just for performance, it is not so simple… But there are a lot of other good reason to not use VM.

It is great to see that even low level language can become easy and powerfull with a good ratio of line of code by features.

Happy birthday to Gnome!

10 years of freedom.

Many thanks goes to Miguel to have launch this amazing project.

This is one of the most known (with KDE) desktop. It is really cute and a lot of people have ever switch to linux and use Gnome. I will do the switch soon. I have a multiboot and I use more MSwindows but I will leave it.

You can see a small presentation of gnome evolution here.