Archive for the 'Desktop' Category
Thursday, September 2nd, 2010
Ohio Linux Fest registration extended
If you can be in the Columbus Ohio area Sept 10-12, head over to Ohio Linux Fest! Registration has been extended to Sept 8th. IBM is a sponsor again.
http://ohiolinux.org
Friday, October 9th, 2009
Internet Explorer’s share plummets to just 65%; Chrome nearly matches Safari
There are some very interesting browser share statistics over at Ars today…
Between September and August, Internet Explorer dropped a significant 1.26 percentage points (from 66.97 percent to 65.71 percent) and Firefox moved up a sizeable 0.77 percentage points (from 22.98 percent to 23.75 percent). Safari increased 0.17 percentage points (from 4.07 percent to 4.24 percent) while Chrome once again moved further away from Opera: it gained a worthy 0.33 percentage points (from 2.84 percent to 3.17 percent).
Thursday, May 21st, 2009
Consider this… Vista vs Netbooks
Why are Netbooks such a threat to Microsoft? It’s not just the abundance of Linux shipping on them. It’s their profitability flying off the shelves (or via UPS these days…)
- Consider: 1 license for Vista Home Basic $199 at Best Buy
- Consider: 1 Dell Mini 9 Netbook with Vista Home Basic for just $299
- Consider: 1 Dell Mini 9 Netbook with Ubuntu for just $249
So, for $199 you can get a software license for Microsoft. For just $100 more, you can get a working netbook with that software license. Or, for just $50 more, you can get that same Netbook with Linux.
If you had just $300 to spend, who wants to pick the software license?
Now, consider what this is doing to Microsoft’s margins… Your premium pricing power has just been put under pressure – not by Linux, but by the hardware underneath the OS that just dropped from days of $1,000 laptops to $299. Microsoft can’t justify doubling the price of the product just for its software license. And Ubuntu is clearly offering hardware vendors a key counterpoint in their negotiations with Microsoft.
Microsoft is also in a bind as enforcing its premium pricing will either
- invite priracy b/c who can look at the offerings and justify paying that much retail for the OS, and which hurts their margins more (a paying customer is better than a pirating one…)
- 2) alienate a new set of younger, price conscious buyers entering the market (not just in the US, but around the world)
Clearly Microsoft is in need of a strategy refresh – and fast. I see the tide turning where their downstream users and upstream suppliers will create a challenging negotiation. Michael Porter would have fun with this analysis.
And with that… I may just order myself a Netbook soon. They’re almost as cheap as iPods now…
Thursday, December 4th, 2008
IBM takes on Desktop cost challenges (with Linux)
Interesting news out of my employer today. Here’s the thing, everyone who hears “Linux desktop” has a knee-jerk reaction and thinks of all the things they do on their own PC, laptop, Mac. The reality is you’re probably not the target market for virtual desktops. The market is large desktop environments that have thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of users and who are not doing consumer-oriented work (or shouldn’t be). The cost savings of moving from physical PCs in a 1 user to 1 PC model to a managed model with virtual terminals can be significant. We’ll see where the market goes for this model, but I know of a few very large companies that want to make this model very real. The economic situation and the impact on IT budgets may act as an accelerant.
Oh, I forgot to mention that the IBM solution runs on Ubuntu and can be easily deployed on RHEL/SLED too ;-)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/04/ibm_linux_lotus_virtual_desktop/
IBM is working with Virtual Bridges and its VERDE (Virtual Enterprise Remote Desktop Environment) product to ship a virtual Canonical Ubuntu Linux desktop, with Lotus email, word processing, spreadsheets, unified communication, and social networking software included, to a variety of end-point devices. Virtual printing is also included.
…
When we look back several years from now, I think we’ll see this time as an inflection point when the economic climate pushed the virtual Linux desktop from theory to practice. The financial pressures on organizations are staggering; the management of PCs is unwieldy, and traditional office software innovation is paltry. Today’s virtual desktop is delivering superior collaborative software, an innovative delivery method, and an open-source operating system that is demanding clients’ consideration.
Sunday, November 30th, 2008
Ubuntu, Gnome Theming
I love this theme NeoDave posted in his screenshot of Ubuntu. I can pick out many of the technologies that he used to create each aspect, but why can’t we have simplified, comprehensive theme packages at this point? I haven’t looked into it, and perhaps it’s more a Gnome issue than any particular distro, but it would be nice to just download his theme in a package and run it easily. Not just the window colors/elements, but the dockbars, the position of elements, widgets, all of it.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neodave/2752500743/sizes/l/
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008
TurboPrint releases version 2 with new GIMP printing plugin
Despite using Linux to organize my pictures, I’ve always had to boot into Windows to print them properly. I have a Canon i960 photo printer which Canon has stoutly objected to supporting on Linux. Where there’s a gap, there’s an opportunity and TurboPrint has stepped up to fill a void due to printer vendors’ lack of support.
I’ve tried just about ever trick in the book to get my Canon just to print. Last year I gave up and finally just paid for TurboPrint. It’s a decent program and while it’s not cheap, it is cheaper than buying a new printer. Today they announced a new version 2 with updated features. Take a look if you’re interested. You can download the trial version first and check it out before paying.
I’m not sure what color management and color profiling services do exactly, but they may help with printing pictures. I haven’t seen a great solution for managing color, but perhaps they’ve “fixed the glitch”. The other real challenge I’ve had is doing borderless printing…
New Features:
- color management
- status monitor with panel applet
- duplex printing
- print preview
- ink management & ink saving mode
- color profiling service
Monday, November 17th, 2008
Adobe (finally) releases a 64-bit flash version for Linux
I can’t tell you how long ago I switched to running 64-bit Ubuntu and have been frustrated by the workarounds to get a 32-bit flash player working. While Ubuntu tries to make it painless, it creates havoc when you make changes to the “standard way”.
Well today it looks like my pain may be resolved. Adobe has let loose a 64-bit “alpha” version of Flash Player 10. I will be installing this promptly and report back, but in the meantime, you can get it yourself over here. You can read more about what’s new, etc at Adobe’s announcement page here.
Furthering Adobe’s commitment to the Linux community and as part of ongoing efforts to ensure the cross-platform compatibility of Flash Player, an alpha version of 64-bit Adobe Flash Player 10 for Linux operating systems was released on 11/17/2008 and is available for download. This offers easier, native installation on 64-bit Linux distributions and removes the need for 32-bit emulation. Learn more by reading the 64-bit Flash Player 10 FAQ.
Release versions of Flash Player 10 for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux are now available from the Flash Player Download Center.
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Seen on campus: 2 Ubuntu Laptop Success Stories
I have two younger sisters who are currently in college – both at the same school. It’s a private college and has what I would consider your average IT setup for a campus.
Within the first two weeks, both had their laptops infected by viruses separately – different viruses, different times. One was running XP, the other Vista on you basic Dell laptops. Of course, who did they call? Answer: me.
Well, I took in both laptops and tried to fix them. I found that viruses today are far more advanced – one modified the MBR and the other completely wiped out the Dell recovery partition – savvy indeed. I did my best to try re-installing their respective Windows OSs, but I found that Microsoft’s licensing practices prevented me from succeeding. First, I only had Pro CDs of XP and Vista so the Home license keys on the underside of each laptop were of no use. I’d install the OS, then Microsoft Genuine Advantage would block me… thanks Microsoft.
So I had them try calling Dell – of course, no luck. They wouldn’t send a replacement media for Windows. If I had the time and energy, I’d file a lawsuit against them tomorrow.
So I turned to my laptop OS of choice: Ubuntu. No chance for a license key or media obtainment problem.
My sisters had both seen me using Ubuntu before so they had seen “what it looked like” but they never knew it wasn’t Windows. When I loaded it on their laptops, they actually didn’t know it wasn’t Windows. In fact, the first thing they both did was try downloading/installing iTunes from Apple.com. No luck – Apple, where’s an Ubuntu client?
So I set them up with all the software they needed for iPods. They actually installed their own printers without even calling me (HP printers – great compatibility). They use OpenOffice for their papers/spreadsheets/presentations, Firefox was not new to them, and Evolution is just as easy as Outlook.
They’re now both about to close out their first semester – both made it on Ubuntu alone. And the best news – not a single virus.
More amazingly, the overall number of “support requests” have gone down. Even when they had Windows there were other reasons for calls, but now… only an occassional “how do I?” type question here or there. It’s been great. They easily download from the digital cameras, they manage their music collections (no corrupted iTunes libraries), and they use all the latest social media networks. Now they would both prefer to get a Mac, but that’s the really interesting part – they have no need for Windows.
We’re making progress. Ubuntu is leading the way.
Wednesday, October 15th, 2008
Adobe releases Linux Flash player with launch of v10
My how far we’ve come when Adobe releases a Linux version of its Flash player concurrently with other platform releases. Great news! Now if only Apple would let them release an iPhone/Safari player..
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/15/200226
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Did hell freeze over? Broadcom releases an open source, Linux wireless driver
I had to read this article twice to ensure I was actually reading it correctly. Then I visited the Broadcom website and downloaded it just to be certain this wasn’t a hoax. Yes, Broadcom, the most open only about not supporting Linux has released an open source Linux wireless driver. And it’s really under an open source license. The source files I opened were clearly GPLv2.
So Dell and Canonical forced them into it – but they did it. I’m honestly shocked.
Linux has hit a critical mass. It may not be taking over the desktop world, but it has at least reached “Mac” support status.
http://blogs.computerworld.com/new_linux_broadcom_wi_fi_drivers_arrive
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
Red Hat beats estimates and Ohio Linux Fest is Almost Here
I can’t make sense of the “all eggs in a Solaris basket” strategy Sun is on especially when I see Red Hat just launched economic concerns back into the faces of Wall St. analysts by posting 24% growth over last year. Jim Whitehurst seems to be doing just fine in the new role – the Qumranet buy was also brilliant. I have high hopes for what we might see come from the acquisition.
And in other news, Oracle launched its own branded storage hardware product (made by HP) that is based on Linux. All around it’s been a positive day for accelerating growth of Linux.
And for those who haven’t registered, Ohio Linux Fest is coming up soon. I’m proud to say that IBM is once again the primary platinum sponsor (thanks for the funding Alena!). You can sign up here. I can’t say for sure yet, but it looks like Brian Warner from IBM’s Linux Strategy team will be joining me in person. If you’ll be present, send me an email and let’s meet up. There’s a great list of speakers for the event. I’ve never met Joe Brockmeier but I’m hoping to introduce myself at some point.
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
Get involved in the Linux Foundation – now accepting individual memberships
The LF is branching out to include individual members interesting in participating and collaborating on Linux topics. For just $50/year you too can become a member.
http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS2023858186.html
After announcing its first event for “end users,” the Linux Foundation has begun to promote “individual memberships.” Available now for $50 a year, memberships include a T-shirt, quarterly newsletter, and the “ability to run for and vote for a Linux Foundation board seat,” says the organization.
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Using Java with Google Chrome
I need to use Scottrade’s streaming quotes application which runs in Java and is launched from a browser window. In order to use it with Chrome, I needed to find a way to get Chrome working with Java support. This was actually easier than I anticipated. There are just two steps:
1) Install the latest (Release Candidate) JRE from Sun
2) Restart Chrome
Now Scottrade works just fine. For a Windows system, I can now switch to Chrome. The one last MAJOR problem is that Google still has not even published a build for Linux (at least not that I could find). I need a Linux version to switch. Now in reality, “switch” just means which browser will I use more often. I will always have Firefox on hand especially with all the great plugins for web development, etc that come in handy. I will use Chrome on Windows just for a lightweight, fast browser.
Thursday, September 4th, 2008
Red Hat Acquires Qumranet For $107M
Red Hat announced today that it will acquire Qumranet, the company behind KVM. Now Qumranet does not make its money on KVM, instead it uses KVM as part of its desktop virtualization solutions. Qumranet is also behind the very efficient SPICE protocol. I think this is a great move on both sides and I’m excited to hear a former IBM colleague’s bold move into a startup has paid off. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Qumranet was acquired, but it’s great to see it finally went through. Great ideas and technology leadership deserve to be rewarded.
I think you can expect to see an increase in KVM usage in RHEL going forward ;-)
I saw the press release here:
Monday, September 1st, 2008
Google “Chrome” browser is here. Google still treats Linux as second class?
I’m honestly surprised that we continuously see Google support Linux second. Google just announced “Chrome” on Labor Day stating a release for Windows and an “in the future” support for Linux and Mac. By all accounts, Windows is obviously the largest base, but why not wait just a little and do a simultaneous release? Heck, Google uses a ton of Linux on the desktop internally. Then I also have to remember, Linux already has a dominant penetration for non-Microsoft web browsers and already supports open standards… so maybe it’s just not needed – or is it? I think it’s too early to tell at the moment but Google is making its case with a compelling story.
You can see the “story” behind Chrome’s purpose on Google’s website at the URL below. Google put its argument for Chrome and its approach in comic format which I found quite entertaining. For engineers out there, this is a great medium (in my opinion) for communicating the benefit/value of an architecture decision. The technology and impact on the users are clearly defined.
http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/
I’m actually quite excited to see Chrome in action. First, there’s been a lot of work going on with Javascript engines and I’m sure Google did some performance work that should help Google Maps, Gmail, etc. Second, there appears to be a very strong integration of Google Gears into Chrome which should lend to great offline performance and features. Finally, it also looks like Google is going to revolutionize the “behind the scenes” processing your browser does. Instead of implementing a single threaded web processing model as we’re all used to, Google is going to split each tab into its own process. This gives you a multitasking performance boost if you’re a big time power user with multiple tabs executing at the same time. More important though should be the isolation – if Google Maps crashes, it shouldn’t take out the entire browser.
Google Inc. is releasing its own Web browser in a long-anticipated move aimed at countering the dominance of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer and ensuring easy access to its market-leading search engine.
The Mountain View-based company took the unusual step of announcing its latest product on the Labor Day holiday after it prematurely sent out a comic book drawn up to herald the new browser’s arrival.
The free browser, called “Chrome,” is supposed to be available for downloading Tuesday in more than 100 countries for computers running on Microsoft’s Windows operating system. Google said it’s still working on versions compatible with Apple Inc.’s Mac computer and the Linux operating system.
Now, yet another question is why do we need another web browser for Windows, Mac and Linux? How about one that supports open standards for the iPhone? Unfortunately Apple is unlikely to budge on its Apps policies which will, I can guarantee, limit its enterprise adoption for the iPhone. I’m honestly shocked that Apple has been touting its “enterprise” potential in some circles and been so standoffish towards enterprise applications vendors who those “enterprise” clients would need. Wake up Apple. You need Symantec, Cisco, AT&T and other network/AV/etc providers. Not everyone uses Microsoft Exchange so you’ll need Lotus Notes, IMAP support, etc. Oh well, I can only hope Apple will one day “get it”.
Friday, August 22nd, 2008
Firefox gets a major Javascript performance boost
I always like to see innovation in open source software development because it flies in the face of many critics. Ars is reporting the Mozilla team has identified methods to improve Javascript interpretation performance by up to 40% in some case. Their goal is to make the interpreter faster so that many of the glitzy “web 2.0″ apps that we’re getting used to perform well enough for users. Obviously there seem to be no downsides here, but it also appears the new tracing optimization technique also opens the potential for future gains as well.
ars benchmark graph
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
iPhone SDK is Mac OS X only
I just went to download the iPhone SDK early this morning and realized they only have a Mac OS X version. No Linux or Windows version – how nice. I guess I should have expected that. Not having a Mac, I’m obviously not going to be test writing any apps.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent uptick in Mac sales.
Monday, July 14th, 2008
Linux Kernel 2.6.26 is out; so is Gentoo 2008.0
I actually haven’t been using Gentoo at all recently. It’s on an older laptop that just doesn’t keep up with all the compiling. However I have a very fast AMD64 desktop at home just waiting to try out the latest Gentoo. I was also waiting for the latest kernel to come out b/c there are some KVM, webcam, and other driver updates I’m interested in taking advantage of. In other news, 2.6.26 adds KVM support for S/390 (IBM Mainframe), PPC (IBM Power) and Itanium processors.
I also noticed KGDB (kernel debugger) supports x86 and SPARC right now – SPARC? Hmm…
You can read more about the new kernel features here: http://kernelnewbies.org/Linux_2_6_26
And you can get the latest Gentoo LiveCD over here: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/where.xml
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
Bob Sutor goes 100% Linux on the desktop; Mac surges; where’s Windows?
Nice to see Bob Sutor has made the complete switch to Linux for laptop use at work. I remember the day I wiped out my Windows partition on my laptop – it was memorable. I then went an entire year booting Windows in VMWare only about 3-5 times.
It’s great to see the transition starting to happen everywhere. Even if some of the transitions are to Mac, it’s greater choice.
This is all going to be even easier as technologies like Firefox, OpenOffice/ODF and open standards start to permeate the set of options available to users.
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008
The Register Open Season Podcast
This was another interesting podcast. I’m obviously a fan of Mr. Vance (has anyone ever called him “Mr.”?) – maybe I’m the first. I also need to meet Matt Asay at some point… have much to discuss.
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