The dentiny of Longhorn?

truly enjoy a good Linux screenshot. Here is a nice OS X-type menubar, as well as a showcase for Composite transparency in X server. The menus are a brand-new GTK modification.

Move over to another operating system (Windows Vista under a Linux hypervisor) and find that there still appear to be many problems with the latest beta. It’s a good thing that Microsoft does not name/label its operating systems by the year. With all these delays, this could become very embarrassing and confusing. And I also found the following article this morning.

“I have been testing Microsoft operating systems since Windows 95, and this is the buggiest OS I’ve seen this late in development,” says Joe Wilcox, an analyst with Jupiter Research. “Look at the older operating systems, and by Beta 2 there is a stable foundation on which the [independent software vendors] can build. Right now, Vista is like a ship on stormy seas.”

Linux with KDE in its Baghira glory

Penguiniator expained this rather nicely in news:comp.os.linux.advocacy only days ago.

No anxiety over spyware in the form of “critical updates” that phones home to verify that your copy is legit. No danger that your software is tied to a company’s fortunes. No clandestine third party programs that disable your hardware when you “misuse” “their” music CD’s. No malware that turns your computer into an email zombie or that harvests contacts from your address book. No mysterious changes in your computer’s settings. No extra charges for bug fixes that are labelled as upgrades. No help files that are sprinkled liberally with marketting drivel. No need to reboot every time a new program is installed or updated. No artificial limitations placed on what you can do with your software, such as automating tasks, giving away your software, installing it on as many computers as you want, using it for commercial and non-commercial purposes. No need to relearn everything you knew about computers when your software vendor decides to replace the user interface with one that it promises will make you a more efficient user. No need to upgrade your applications just because you decide to upgrade your operating system. No need to upgrade your operating system just because you decide to upgrade your applications. And no need to look over your shoulder while you desperately try to stay ahead of rapidly approaching hardware obsolescence in the process.

When you learn a program, that knowledge remains valid for a very long time. File formats and communications protocols are open. Competition between developers is usually friendly and benefits everyone, especially end users. Availability of software is limited less by the financial resources of the user than with proprietary software. Users have direct access to developers and can influence the future development of their software. Technical support is more accessible and better organized than with proprietary counterparts via FAQ’s, how-to’s, Usenet, Web forums, wiki’s, IRC channels and email. Help files are more honest about a program’s shortcomings, listing known bugs and work-arounds for them. And it’s fun.

The older KDE-based version of SuSE Linux

NOTHER short Linux comparison has taken my attention. It is by no means a professional or comprehensive review, but is does provide a ‘taste’ of two ends — Ubuntu and Novell’s SLED — both of which are GNOME-based GNU/Linux distributions. Below is just a fragment.

In conclusion, SLED 10 brings everything that Ubuntu does and feels slightly faster. But Ubuntu has bigger and nicer community and .deb is simply better than .rpm. Out of 10, I give both of them 10. Linux desktop has never been so good.

I quite like the author’s illustration of the increasingly-popularised Mac OS X look in Ubuntu. There have always been significant visual improvement in SLED, particularly since SUSE 10.1 was released with grey shades in GNOME.

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

T is pleasant to see that the world is becoming more protective of choice and standards. More latterly we witnessed the Chinese adopting a strict policy which promotes the easy distribution of Linux on any PC. To quote the summary:

“Taiwan has mandated that all PCs purchased for government use must now be compatible with the Linux operating system.”

These days, I tend to collect and re-publish plenty of Linux advocacy items. Most of them can be viewed among my Digg submissions. I hope this separation keeps my Web Log diverse enough in terms of themes.

An Example screenshot from my KDE 3.1 environment. There is
also one from KDE 3.4 (local copy of screenshot)

DMITTEDLY, I am a huge fan of KDE. That said, many other alternatives (choices) do exist and they scale better with older hardware, levels of proficiency, the nature of the work, and taste. This morning I came across a site which provides a succinct overview of merely any desktop environment and window manager. To quote the introductory paragraph:

Welcome to my guide to window managers and desktop environments for The X Window System, as used mainly by Linux and UNIX operating systems. Here you will find descriptions, screenshots and configuration files for all popular window managers, along with related resources, including a news and discussion area.

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

have just returned from a very nice evening/night out with the European Free Software Foundation. It was a very intersting experience, which I would have happily become a part of had it occurred more frequently.

This weekend was their annual General Assembly, so we went out for drink and dinner. I appeared to have been the only person among the group (except for perhaps one other person) who was not in the foundation or the comity. Despite this, I believe we hit it off. All in all, we got along very well as everyone was open and friendly. I managed to meet the people who coordinate participantion and contributions in different countries across Europe. I might get involved or join them in the future. We shall soon find out. The goals seem more political than technical.

Season of the playful penguins from Oyonale

EVERAL years ago I foresaw the demise of Windows, especially when I was first introduced to Linux. Years later to find myself sought after by companies like Google, whereas giants like Microsoft only seem to offshore their job market as to cut margins and sustain stable figures.

As some recent large declines in the MSFT stock indicate, the trend looks unpromising, for Microsoft. If I was to predict the events of the next couple of years, I would argue strongly in defence of SOA and mobile computing, predominently run on Linux.

Concurrently, as an article in the CNN suggests, mobile devised will gnaw at usage of the personal computer. The evidence is there to be seen as Google liaise with Nokia on their Linux-based Internet tablet. Moreover, Motorola have just become friends of Open Source.