Windows has always had a horrifying and peculiar fascination for me. Version 3 crashed a lot, 3.1 was little better. I used OS2, with it's built in version of Windows 3.1 for work that required the dreaded Microsoft operating system. OS2 was rock solid, and I found myself using Windows less and less. Then Windows 95 was released – lauded as a proper 32 bit operating system, it was a bit of a cheat, built on 16 bits and ported up. It was better, but still suffered from blue screens of death, rebooting after practically every software install, random freezes and crashes.
It was about this time that I first became interested in Linux. I installed RedHat, tinkered with it for a while, before settling down with Mandrake and the KDE desktop. Ubuntu, when it arrived, was a revelation to me: for the first time I could see Linux going main-stream – a complete desktop operating system, powerful, easy to use and rock solid.
I still installed the new versions of Windows that came out – after all, I had to keep up with technology and many of my clients were trapped in the usual cycles of Windows despair: upgrade hells, driver problems, virus and malware attacks. So I installed and played with Windows 98, Windows Millenium, XP, Vista and Windows 7. While there were eye-candy tweaks and stability improvements, Windows never impressed me. Vulnerable to attack, prone to crash, multiple reboots required.
I had some issues with Ubuntu too: the change from the Gnome 2 desktop to Unity was, in my opinion, a retrograde step. I played with Mint for a while before settling down with Kubuntu, and the KDE desktop.
Recently I had cause to return to the Windows experience, like a dog returning to it's own vomit. A client, running Windows 8 was having problems installing Skype. Could I sort it for her?
Windows 8 is one of those rare human creations: a total turkey. An abortion of an operating system. A septic carbuncle on the festering backside of computing. An operating system, built for everyone, pleasing no-one. Microsoft introduced 8 as a new computing paradigm, a quantum change from previous versions that would carry the Windows flag into a new digital age. The Age of Convergence. 8 was to be an operating system that unified a common interface to desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone platforms. A grand idea, let down by poor implementation, bad design, and a stunningly corporate lack of concern for the people who were going to be using it.
Windows 8 looks like it was designed by a modern artist paying a homage to Mondrian. It's all colourful boxes, without substance or usability. Like Unity, it requires users to adopt a totally new way of working – in Windows case, programs have been replaced by apps, which run full screen. One has to learn new techniques of working, replacing all those hard learned skills that previous versions of Windows had in common. Designed for the smartphone generation, kids with limited attention spans, 8 sinks down to the depths of the lowest common denominator. For those who have invested time, energy and money in learning to work Windows, 8 is nothing less than a catastrophic mistake.
My user had recognised the limitations of Windows 8 and had installed a shell extension which allowed her to go back to the classic Windows 7 look, with her programs, widgets and system tray information easily accessible. She had even told me that she was more than willing to pay money to downgrade to 7 which she felt more comfortable with. She handed me the laptop, and left me to it.
It was running like a dog. I didn't expect 8 to be a greyhound, but surely it wasn't an overweight pug? There must be something wrong. A quick look at Internet Explorer and the system tray pointed me in the right direction: multiple toolbars on the browser, garbage running in the system tray and a torrent of pop-ups which offered to fix non-existent errors, update my drivers and allow me to play extremely poor quality arcade games.
I sighed, and reached for Malwarebytes. The quick scan found over 500 separate nasty bits, even though Windows 8 has Microsoft Security Essentials built in (I was told this when I tried to install it), and AVG was running, up-to-date and the latest version. After the first tranche of malware was removed, I ran a full scan and found a further 80 odd problems. I then started to uninstall all the rubbish toolbars that did have an uninstall option, along with seven or eight other programs that can only charitably be described as excremental detritus of the very worst quality.
After several reboots the laptop was running a lot quicker and the pop-ups had been consigned to the severest levels of digital hell, hopefully to spend the rest of eternity alongside their creators. I fixed a problem with my clients Microsoft ID, installed Skype and was informed by the App Store that a free upgrade to 8.1 was available. Never one to miss an opportunity to be astounded, humiliated and confounded by the Goblins of Redmond, I clicked on the install button.
3 hours and 4 reboots later, I was presented with a brand new login screen which asked me all the questions I had already entered into Windows 8. I had to re-enter my client's Microsoft ID, click on a button to verify her email address (this had already been done) before it would allow me into the new version of the Start screen. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss... as The Who once sang. It all looked jolly familiar, except that the Skype, Mail, Contacts and Calendar tabs had no icons, just colourful squares with little crosses on them. Clicking on them resulted in a blue flickering screen and a swift return to the Mondrianesque wonders of Metro.
Now I'm not a man who can be trifled with in this way, and I immediately brought the Great Guns of Google to bear on the problem. Well, well, well. Funnily enough, many thousands of other people have this problem following the upgrade, and not all of them have managed to solve it. Try uninstalling the apps and then re-installing them, suggested one happy chappy. It had worked for him. I gritted my teeth and did just that.
They un-installed fine, but re-installing them just brought up a helpful message saying that 'installation has failed: error code 0x80070005'. I let a helpful obscenity escape from my overheating mind – it fled through my neuronal pathways, down the corridors of my throat and came out through my pursed and narrowed lips. Bollocks. Well, there must be other things I could do to fix this. I would not be beaten – I would emulate Gandalf, standing in the path of dark, demonic hordes, shaking my staff and shouting, “They Shall Not Pass!”
Maybe a sacrificial visit to the Goblins of Redmond would help. I accessed the Microsoft Support website where I learned the following helpful information:
“The error code 0x80070005 is also described as "ACCESS DENIED." You may receive this error if you don't have the appropriate permissions to install a particular update. This can also happen if malware is on your computer.”
There were two recommended ways of fixing the problem. Firstly, log in as an administrator. I checked my client's account. Yes, she was an administrator and logged in. Secondly, check for malware. Hang on, I'd already done that. But I checked again and this time the scan came up clean. The Goblins were playing hard to get. Back to the Great Guns of Google.
I won't bore you with the various attempts I made over the next few hours trying to get this problem resolved, suffice it to say that I failed and the Goblins triumphed. Finally I placed my metaphorical tail firmly between my legs and in desperation I installed Yahoo mail on my client's machine, logged her into it (thankfully her email account is with Yahoo!) and then downloaded and installed the desktop version of Skype which she could use from her desktop panel. She is happy. I'm not quite so over the moon.
Windows 8 succeeds in removing the user from the experience of computing. When you are running Metro, you have no way of knowing if you are connected to the internet or not. So when a web page fails to load, multiple clicks of the mouse are required just to check your network connection. Because there is no system tray, you can't easily find out what is running on your machine. It's as if Microsoft have decided that users should be deprived of any technical information, obviously because we poor mortals are unable to understand that information must come from somewhere and arrive somehow. Perhaps the Goblins really want us to believe in magic?
Bollocks.
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Monday, 16 September 2013
Reclaim Your Sense of Safety From Hoaxers
A virus that will 'burn your hard drive' if you click on a logo. Black vans outside schools abducting children. People stealing dogs from front gardens to use as bait in dog fighting. Young women being kidnapped at motorway service stations and gang-raped as part of an initiation into gang culture. We've all seen warnings about these scenarios in email or Facebook status form. Well meaning individuals pass these on because it is a natural human quality to warn friends and family of imminent danger. What's wrong with that?
All the above scenarios and many, many more are hoaxes, started by individuals who have a warped sense of success. The more reposts and forwards they get, the better they like it. Some of these stories have gone round the world: the planned kidnapping of a young lady from services on the M3 becomes a truck stop in Australia. The wording stays the same, just the geographic locations change.
Quote: This actually happened a few weeks ago right here near Fairfield in Brisbane. It was early evening and a young lady stopped to get petrol at a Quix. She filled her tank and walked into the store to pay for her petrol. The cashier told her "Don't pay for your petrol yet.....walk around the store for a while and act as if you're picking up some other things to buy. A man just got into the back of your car. I've called the police and they're on their way".
Quote: This actually happened a few weeks ago on the M3 FLEET SERVICES!!! It was early evening, and a young girl stopped to get petrol. She filled her tank and walked into the store to pay for her petrol.. The cashier told her, 'Don't pay for your petrol yet......walk around the store for a while, and act as if you're picking up some other things to buy. A man just got into the back of your car. I've called the police, and they're on their way'.
One of the ways human beings assess risk is through 'salience': the ease with which information comes to mind. For example, you are more likely to assess air travel as a risky activity if there has recently been news about a plane crash, despite the fact that air travel statistically remains much safer than travel by car. Equally, stories about kidnapping or child murders will raise our perceived risk of these things happening, despite statistics which show that both of these remain highly unlikely. If we live in a climate of fear, we stop our kids from going out to play and we don't go out at night. What kind of society do we want to live in?
How can we stop this? First and foremost, common sense. For example, if you Google the first two lines of the email/status above, you will be pointed to several sites which debunk this information. Secondly, if you are asked to forward the information to all your friends and the people in your email address book, you can be practically certain that you are the victim of a hoax. Spend a little time processing the information: for example the post about the M3 kidnapper contains the information that the perpetrator was caught by the police, confessed that he was just about to kidnap and gang-rape the young lady, but was released because all they could charge him with was trespass. Does this seem likely? He has just conspired to commit a serious crime and was attempting to do the same. He would have been charged with conspiracy or attempted rape.
This is our country, and we have the right to live in it unafraid and without having to spend our lives in dread of the supposedly terrible things that are happening all around us. Let's reclaim our lives and our space for ourselves and our children.
All the above scenarios and many, many more are hoaxes, started by individuals who have a warped sense of success. The more reposts and forwards they get, the better they like it. Some of these stories have gone round the world: the planned kidnapping of a young lady from services on the M3 becomes a truck stop in Australia. The wording stays the same, just the geographic locations change.
Quote: This actually happened a few weeks ago right here near Fairfield in Brisbane. It was early evening and a young lady stopped to get petrol at a Quix. She filled her tank and walked into the store to pay for her petrol. The cashier told her "Don't pay for your petrol yet.....walk around the store for a while and act as if you're picking up some other things to buy. A man just got into the back of your car. I've called the police and they're on their way".
Quote: This actually happened a few weeks ago on the M3 FLEET SERVICES!!! It was early evening, and a young girl stopped to get petrol. She filled her tank and walked into the store to pay for her petrol.. The cashier told her, 'Don't pay for your petrol yet......walk around the store for a while, and act as if you're picking up some other things to buy. A man just got into the back of your car. I've called the police, and they're on their way'.
One of the ways human beings assess risk is through 'salience': the ease with which information comes to mind. For example, you are more likely to assess air travel as a risky activity if there has recently been news about a plane crash, despite the fact that air travel statistically remains much safer than travel by car. Equally, stories about kidnapping or child murders will raise our perceived risk of these things happening, despite statistics which show that both of these remain highly unlikely. If we live in a climate of fear, we stop our kids from going out to play and we don't go out at night. What kind of society do we want to live in?
How can we stop this? First and foremost, common sense. For example, if you Google the first two lines of the email/status above, you will be pointed to several sites which debunk this information. Secondly, if you are asked to forward the information to all your friends and the people in your email address book, you can be practically certain that you are the victim of a hoax. Spend a little time processing the information: for example the post about the M3 kidnapper contains the information that the perpetrator was caught by the police, confessed that he was just about to kidnap and gang-rape the young lady, but was released because all they could charge him with was trespass. Does this seem likely? He has just conspired to commit a serious crime and was attempting to do the same. He would have been charged with conspiracy or attempted rape.
This is our country, and we have the right to live in it unafraid and without having to spend our lives in dread of the supposedly terrible things that are happening all around us. Let's reclaim our lives and our space for ourselves and our children.
Sunday, 6 May 2012
Why Mint Debian is better than Ubuntu
After several very happy years with Ubuntu I’ve decided to do something special: delete it and install Mint Debian instead. Over the last 5 years or so Ubuntu has made massive strides and made Linux easy to install and relatively easy to use. The Linux user base has increased dramatically.
Funnily enough, this is precisely why I have decided to change my distribution of choice.
The thing I really love about Linux is the fact that it has taught me to become a better, more skilled computer user. If things don’t work ‘out of the box’ then you have to tinker to get them to work. This teaches you all sorts of things about how computers and operating systems work and interact, and in the process you learn valuable skills.
After installing the latest version of Ubuntu (12.04 LTS) I twiddled my thumbs awhile and wondered what to do. While Ubuntu is easy to use, Unity (the default Ubuntu desktop) is not everyone’s cup of tea. I hate it. I have found that the simplistic interface and the lack of customisation have resulted in the kind of patronising arrogance shown by Apple and Windows: ‘we know what the consumer wants best. Do it our way or not at all’. I might install Ubuntu on my mum’s computer but it will no longer reside on mine.
Installing Mint Debian was a breath of fresh air. Having to manually partition the drive and choose a root partition for installation, using a Cups server to install my Dell laser printer and get it working, configuring Samba shares and updating Thunderbird. No longer ticking boxes, but ‘getting under the hood’ and coming to grips with the way the operating system works. I’ll let you know how I get on!
The thing I really love about Linux is the fact that it has taught me to become a better, more skilled computer user. If things don’t work ‘out of the box’ then you have to tinker to get them to work. This teaches you all sorts of things about how computers and operating systems work and interact, and in the process you learn valuable skills.
After installing the latest version of Ubuntu (12.04 LTS) I twiddled my thumbs awhile and wondered what to do. While Ubuntu is easy to use, Unity (the default Ubuntu desktop) is not everyone’s cup of tea. I hate it. I have found that the simplistic interface and the lack of customisation have resulted in the kind of patronising arrogance shown by Apple and Windows: ‘we know what the consumer wants best. Do it our way or not at all’. I might install Ubuntu on my mum’s computer but it will no longer reside on mine.
Installing Mint Debian was a breath of fresh air. Having to manually partition the drive and choose a root partition for installation, using a Cups server to install my Dell laser printer and get it working, configuring Samba shares and updating Thunderbird. No longer ticking boxes, but ‘getting under the hood’ and coming to grips with the way the operating system works. I’ll let you know how I get on!
Monday, 2 May 2011
Natty Dread
The latest version of the Ubuntu operating system, Natty Narwhal (11.04) is now available for download. This release marks a radical departure from the vanilla Gnome desktop previously enjoyed by Ubuntu users. If you have appropriate hardware (any recent 3D graphics card) you will (eventually) boot into a new desktop environment: Unity.
It is somewhat ironic that Canonical have decided to call something which is proving so divisive in the community "Unity". Unity is purported to be the computing interface which will continue Ubuntu's movement into mainstream desktop computing. "Easy, Intuitive, Simple, Stylish, Fast, Clean, Streamlined" are the words being used to describe it. "And now you can even decide how you want it to look. Simply choose between our new and classic desktop experiences..." says the Ubuntu website.
My own (and many, many, others) experience of Ubuntu 11.04 has been a little different. Not so much Natty Narwhal, more Natty Dread. I dread starting it up, and have found it to be truly dreadful.
Installation
I first upgraded my existing, flawless and beautiful 10.10 installation using upgrade manager. This eventually gave me the new Unity desktop which promptly and regularly crashed every few minutes. Eventually I bit the bullet, smiled grimly and ruefully, and went for a new, full installation.
The Ubuntu installer is a thing of beauty and I am well used to it, having seen it recently many more times than I would care to. At the end of the installation, you are prompted to reboot. If you have a proprietary graphics card (and who doesn't) you are then presented with an ugly, old fashioned X Window prompt which informs you that as you do not have the requisite hardware to run Unity (I did! I do! No really, I do!!) you will boot into Ubuntu Classic (the old Gnome 2) and you do.
It is at this point that most casual users flirting with Ubuntu and tempted to move from Windows will give up and return to the blandishments of Mr William Gates. It would make much more sense if you were asked, during installation, if you wanted to run Unity and install the appropriate video drivers for your graphics card. Because you are prompted to do this anyway, once you have reached the classic Gnome 2 desktop. But you have to go through the motions and another reboot before you are presented with your shiny new Unity desktop.
Everywhere and Nowhere...
I know my way around Gnome 2 and thus, I am used to being able to find and launch applications, navigate to files and folders, and change system settings with a few clicks of the mouse. I was hoping to find Unity equally user friendly - but in fact it is a nightmare hodge-podge of layers of overkill carefully crafted in denser layers of impenetrable obfuscation. Navigating in Unity reminds me of the first lines of the song "Hi Ho Silver Lining", made famous by Jeff Beck: "You're everywhere and nowhere baby, that's where you're at...". Everywhere, because by default the Applications icon on the Launcher opens showing applications, well, everywhere; nowhere because unless you are lucky enough for one of the six icons shown to be exactly what you are looking for, you have to take a deep breath and dive through more piles of dross.
You can't always get what you want...
System settings should be easy to find, right? No. Some genius decided to put them on the log-out menu. It wasn't until I was desperate to get out of Unity that I found them - by accident. And again, you are presented with everything without an opportunity to drill down to what you really need.
I noticed that some of the applications I have grown to rely on were not showing in the system tray. Some Googling and Ubuntu Foruming later I found out that there is now a 'whitelist' of 'approved' applications that can have an icon in the system tray. Us poor deluded users are no longer allowed to choose for ourselves which applications we find useful or necessary. This is now decided by the faceless bureaucrats at Canonical who are no doubt better equipped than ourselves to choose our applications for us. In fact, the whitelist can be circumvented by some dedicated terminal hacking, but less experienced users will again find themselves floundering when applications they install fail to show up in the taskbar. They will assume that these applications do not work. They do, you just can't do anything useful with them! This makes me want to spit. Coupled with this, every couple of hours the menu features of the system tray icons freeze and this requires a reboot to get back full functionality.
Ch... Ch... Ch... Changes....
One of the things I have come to love about Linux in general and previous versions of Ubuntu in particular is that everything is configurable. Usually, if you don't like things you can change them. The Unity Launchbar is a massive step backwards for those of use who value individuality: almost nothing about it is configurable. You can't change the position. You can't get rid of it. You can't change the icons for better looking ones. OK, you can make it smaller (if you install Compiz Config Settings Manager, find the Unity plugin and configure it). You can make the icons blink instead of pulse. But that's about it. By default it will show you icons for all your running applications, rather than those running in your current workspace, and there's no way to change that either. The workspace switcher icon does not let you know which desktop you are in or which other desktops have running applications.
It really ,really pains me to say this: the Windows 7 taskbar is more configurable and offers you more choices than the Unity Launcher. Ouch.
Classical Gas
Having found Unity frankly disappointing, I knew that I had an ace up my sleeve. I could just log out of Unity and log into the familiar, powerful and inspirational Gnome 2 desktop by selecting 'Ubuntu Classic' from the logon screen. Ahh! Back to sanity! Back to my useful eye-candy; my favourite time savers like the desktop cube. I could hardly wait. My hot little fingers, desperate for a fix of Ubuntu normality, flicked with impeccable expertise through the logoff/logon procedure. Yes! There it was! The classic Ubuntu desktop I have come to know and love so well. Honey, I'm home!
Wait: what's this? There don't seem to be any desktop effects enabled. Well I'll just enable them then. But the desktop effects tab has gone. Because, I am told in manic Googling and Foruming, we users don't need it anymore. Desktop effects are 'on' by default. Except they arent. So I open Compiz Config Settings Manager and disable desktop wall, enable desktop cube and cube rotation. I'm told that I need Open GL. I accept. I'm told I need compositing. I accept. Bang! All my window menus and borders disappear. The desktop cube doesn't cube and doesn't rotate. I look at my graphics drivers. Aha! I'm told that the Nvidia driver is downloaded, installed and activated (but not currently in use).
Never seen this before! How the hell do I tell the system to use the driver? Perhaps an uninstall and re-install will help? Bang! Five minutes later I'm staring at the blank screen of a computer that refuses to boot at all. Despite booting from a live CD, no amount of tinkering with xorg.conf will allow me to boot. Finally, it's back to the familiar, beautiful, Ubuntu installation screen. More Googling and Foruming tell me that the message that the driver is activated but not in use is a known bug. Well, now I know.
I have now given up trying to configure Ubuntu classic with desktop effects. When Compiz is enabled as the window manager, the system leaps into Unity. When I select Metacity, CCSM loses all it's settings and resolutely refuses all requests to enable the cube without compositing. With compositing all the menus and borders disappear. No two ways about it, Ubuntu Classic is well and truly broken.
How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?
So after all this, am I giving up on 11.04? Is Natty Dread the death of my relationship with Ubuntu? Well, not quite. I will stick with it for at least a month to see if updates bring back the functionality I need. In the meantime, I will explore other options like Gnome 3, other distros and will not be recommending Natty to my customers and those who want to ditch Windows.
Unity doesn't work because it takes away choice. It takes away freedom. It destroys individuality. These are all the things Linux is renowned for. These are the real reasons why Linux normally beats Windows into a cocked hat.
I hope and expect to see huge improvements in Natty over the next few weeks. The good thing about Linux is that there are many people out there who want to make it work. There is an immense amount of goodwill in the Free Software Community. Ubuntu will need every single bit of this over the next few weeks.
Edit, Saturday 7th May:
I have found the solution to some of the problems detailed in this article, including (finally) getting desktop effects enabled in Classic. This, and other fixes are detailed in my post to the sticky in Ubuntu Forums, which you can find here.
It is somewhat ironic that Canonical have decided to call something which is proving so divisive in the community "Unity". Unity is purported to be the computing interface which will continue Ubuntu's movement into mainstream desktop computing. "Easy, Intuitive, Simple, Stylish, Fast, Clean, Streamlined" are the words being used to describe it. "And now you can even decide how you want it to look. Simply choose between our new and classic desktop experiences..." says the Ubuntu website.
My own (and many, many, others) experience of Ubuntu 11.04 has been a little different. Not so much Natty Narwhal, more Natty Dread. I dread starting it up, and have found it to be truly dreadful.
Installation
I first upgraded my existing, flawless and beautiful 10.10 installation using upgrade manager. This eventually gave me the new Unity desktop which promptly and regularly crashed every few minutes. Eventually I bit the bullet, smiled grimly and ruefully, and went for a new, full installation.
The Ubuntu installer is a thing of beauty and I am well used to it, having seen it recently many more times than I would care to. At the end of the installation, you are prompted to reboot. If you have a proprietary graphics card (and who doesn't) you are then presented with an ugly, old fashioned X Window prompt which informs you that as you do not have the requisite hardware to run Unity (I did! I do! No really, I do!!) you will boot into Ubuntu Classic (the old Gnome 2) and you do.
It is at this point that most casual users flirting with Ubuntu and tempted to move from Windows will give up and return to the blandishments of Mr William Gates. It would make much more sense if you were asked, during installation, if you wanted to run Unity and install the appropriate video drivers for your graphics card. Because you are prompted to do this anyway, once you have reached the classic Gnome 2 desktop. But you have to go through the motions and another reboot before you are presented with your shiny new Unity desktop.
Everywhere and Nowhere...
I know my way around Gnome 2 and thus, I am used to being able to find and launch applications, navigate to files and folders, and change system settings with a few clicks of the mouse. I was hoping to find Unity equally user friendly - but in fact it is a nightmare hodge-podge of layers of overkill carefully crafted in denser layers of impenetrable obfuscation. Navigating in Unity reminds me of the first lines of the song "Hi Ho Silver Lining", made famous by Jeff Beck: "You're everywhere and nowhere baby, that's where you're at...". Everywhere, because by default the Applications icon on the Launcher opens showing applications, well, everywhere; nowhere because unless you are lucky enough for one of the six icons shown to be exactly what you are looking for, you have to take a deep breath and dive through more piles of dross.
You can't always get what you want...
System settings should be easy to find, right? No. Some genius decided to put them on the log-out menu. It wasn't until I was desperate to get out of Unity that I found them - by accident. And again, you are presented with everything without an opportunity to drill down to what you really need.
I noticed that some of the applications I have grown to rely on were not showing in the system tray. Some Googling and Ubuntu Foruming later I found out that there is now a 'whitelist' of 'approved' applications that can have an icon in the system tray. Us poor deluded users are no longer allowed to choose for ourselves which applications we find useful or necessary. This is now decided by the faceless bureaucrats at Canonical who are no doubt better equipped than ourselves to choose our applications for us. In fact, the whitelist can be circumvented by some dedicated terminal hacking, but less experienced users will again find themselves floundering when applications they install fail to show up in the taskbar. They will assume that these applications do not work. They do, you just can't do anything useful with them! This makes me want to spit. Coupled with this, every couple of hours the menu features of the system tray icons freeze and this requires a reboot to get back full functionality.
Ch... Ch... Ch... Changes....
One of the things I have come to love about Linux in general and previous versions of Ubuntu in particular is that everything is configurable. Usually, if you don't like things you can change them. The Unity Launchbar is a massive step backwards for those of use who value individuality: almost nothing about it is configurable. You can't change the position. You can't get rid of it. You can't change the icons for better looking ones. OK, you can make it smaller (if you install Compiz Config Settings Manager, find the Unity plugin and configure it). You can make the icons blink instead of pulse. But that's about it. By default it will show you icons for all your running applications, rather than those running in your current workspace, and there's no way to change that either. The workspace switcher icon does not let you know which desktop you are in or which other desktops have running applications.
It really ,really pains me to say this: the Windows 7 taskbar is more configurable and offers you more choices than the Unity Launcher. Ouch.
Classical Gas
Having found Unity frankly disappointing, I knew that I had an ace up my sleeve. I could just log out of Unity and log into the familiar, powerful and inspirational Gnome 2 desktop by selecting 'Ubuntu Classic' from the logon screen. Ahh! Back to sanity! Back to my useful eye-candy; my favourite time savers like the desktop cube. I could hardly wait. My hot little fingers, desperate for a fix of Ubuntu normality, flicked with impeccable expertise through the logoff/logon procedure. Yes! There it was! The classic Ubuntu desktop I have come to know and love so well. Honey, I'm home!
Wait: what's this? There don't seem to be any desktop effects enabled. Well I'll just enable them then. But the desktop effects tab has gone. Because, I am told in manic Googling and Foruming, we users don't need it anymore. Desktop effects are 'on' by default. Except they arent. So I open Compiz Config Settings Manager and disable desktop wall, enable desktop cube and cube rotation. I'm told that I need Open GL. I accept. I'm told I need compositing. I accept. Bang! All my window menus and borders disappear. The desktop cube doesn't cube and doesn't rotate. I look at my graphics drivers. Aha! I'm told that the Nvidia driver is downloaded, installed and activated (but not currently in use).
Never seen this before! How the hell do I tell the system to use the driver? Perhaps an uninstall and re-install will help? Bang! Five minutes later I'm staring at the blank screen of a computer that refuses to boot at all. Despite booting from a live CD, no amount of tinkering with xorg.conf will allow me to boot. Finally, it's back to the familiar, beautiful, Ubuntu installation screen. More Googling and Foruming tell me that the message that the driver is activated but not in use is a known bug. Well, now I know.
I have now given up trying to configure Ubuntu classic with desktop effects. When Compiz is enabled as the window manager, the system leaps into Unity. When I select Metacity, CCSM loses all it's settings and resolutely refuses all requests to enable the cube without compositing. With compositing all the menus and borders disappear. No two ways about it, Ubuntu Classic is well and truly broken.
How Do You Mend a Broken Heart?
So after all this, am I giving up on 11.04? Is Natty Dread the death of my relationship with Ubuntu? Well, not quite. I will stick with it for at least a month to see if updates bring back the functionality I need. In the meantime, I will explore other options like Gnome 3, other distros and will not be recommending Natty to my customers and those who want to ditch Windows.
Unity doesn't work because it takes away choice. It takes away freedom. It destroys individuality. These are all the things Linux is renowned for. These are the real reasons why Linux normally beats Windows into a cocked hat.
I hope and expect to see huge improvements in Natty over the next few weeks. The good thing about Linux is that there are many people out there who want to make it work. There is an immense amount of goodwill in the Free Software Community. Ubuntu will need every single bit of this over the next few weeks.
Edit, Saturday 7th May:
I have found the solution to some of the problems detailed in this article, including (finally) getting desktop effects enabled in Classic. This, and other fixes are detailed in my post to the sticky in Ubuntu Forums, which you can find here.
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Let the Bottom Fall Out of PC World
PC World do some generic re-manufactured ink cartridges for a variety of printers. Good value, you may think, when asked to pay the frankly obscene prices charged by the printer manufacturers.
Having to do a lot of printing some months ago, I popped into the Exeter branch of PC World and purchased two colour and two black printer cartridges for my Canon Pixma iP1800. The approved Canon cartridges cost £19.99 each for colour, and £15.15 each for black. The PCW Essentials ink cartridges cost £14.99 and £13.99 each respectively - so a considerable saving seems to be possible. Great! Approx. £70 from Canon, approx. £56 from PC World. Saving approx. £14 (or 5 pints of good bitter in my local pub). Rejoice!
Well, not quite. When I installed the first set of cartridges, they seemed to work OK. The colour was a bit iffy, certainly not up to the standard of Canon's output. But you pays your money...
Then the black cartridge started a slow leak - splodging inky droplets onto every page, smudging into what looked like dirty lines over each page. No amount of cartridge/roller cleaning would get rid of it. But I soldiered on (by this time the 5 pints of bitter were gone, drunk in a desperate bid to alleviate my disappointment).
Finally, the cartridges ran out. I replaced them with the second set. Black worked fine! "Huzzah!", I yelled in the approved theatrical Shakespearian manner. But the colour cartridge? Nada. Nuffink. Pining for the fiords.
So I repacked it into its shiny PC World packaging...
...and took it back to the store.
I was dealt with by a very nice young lady. She asked me for my postcode. I gave it to her. She said she couldn't find any record of this purchase under my address. I said, "so what?". "How do we know you purchased this item from us?", she demanded. I pointed out that the item was packaged and branded by PC World and I couldn't have purchased it anywhere else. She then asked my to go through my bank statements and bring in a photocopy of the transaction, otherwise she wouldn't give me a refund.
I had already driven 14 miles to Exeter PC World. I told her to forget the whole thing, and to keep the defective cartridge as a pleasant reminder of good customer relations. I also asked her to check the average amount that I spend at PC World per month, and that I would now be shopping for essential computer supplies elsewhere.
PC World have forgotten the important truth that good experiences are remembered, and bad ones reported to others. I won't be using them again - and have already sourced replacements that are less expensive online. PC World Essentials? Rubbish products, rubbish quality. And rubbish customer service.
Friday, 24 September 2010
Finally - an Email Notifier That Integrates With Gnome: Popper
One of the most amazing things about Open Source Software in general and Linux in particular, is the amount of customisation that can be done to the graphical user interface (GUI). One of the things that's been missing for a long time is a generic email notification system that integrates into the Gnome System Tray and will also give you bubble notifications of incoming mail.
Ubuntu users who use the default Evolution PIM and mail client have already seen the benefits of a fully integrated notification system. However, in my humble opinion, Evolution is broken, clunky and hard to configure. I've been using Thunderbird as my preferred email client, and together with Google Calendar and shared Google Contacts, it's unbeatable.
I've been relying on Firetray, an extension for Thunderbird which minimises the mail client to the system tray and notifies you of incoming mail, but you have to struggle a bit to get it working with the newest version of Thunderbird, and some of the publicised features do not work 'out of the box'.
I read about Popper on OMG Ubuntu, a fabulous site full of ideas and inspiration geared towards making Ubuntu the best operating system on the planet (and getting there, too!).
Popper works with all POP3 or IMAP mail accounts, and can be configured in a multitude of ways. It is not resource hungry, works straight out of the box and I heartily recommend it. You can download the latest .deb file here. I think this application should be included by default in new versions of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu users who use the default Evolution PIM and mail client have already seen the benefits of a fully integrated notification system. However, in my humble opinion, Evolution is broken, clunky and hard to configure. I've been using Thunderbird as my preferred email client, and together with Google Calendar and shared Google Contacts, it's unbeatable.
I've been relying on Firetray, an extension for Thunderbird which minimises the mail client to the system tray and notifies you of incoming mail, but you have to struggle a bit to get it working with the newest version of Thunderbird, and some of the publicised features do not work 'out of the box'.
I read about Popper on OMG Ubuntu, a fabulous site full of ideas and inspiration geared towards making Ubuntu the best operating system on the planet (and getting there, too!).
Popper works with all POP3 or IMAP mail accounts, and can be configured in a multitude of ways. It is not resource hungry, works straight out of the box and I heartily recommend it. You can download the latest .deb file here. I think this application should be included by default in new versions of Ubuntu.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Review: Acer Aspire Revo R3600 (Linux Edition)
The Acer Aspire Revo R3600 is a very small, practically silent unit. The Linpus version comes with 1GB RAM, NVidia ION Graphics, Intel Atom 230 processor, 160GB HDD, 6 USB ports, HDMI port, eSATA port, VGA, ethernet port, built in card reader, microphone and earphone sockets and wired USB keyboard and mouse. The unit can be mounted on the rear of a monitor or TV (bracket supplied) or attached to a stand (also supplied) for desktop or floor use.
The Linpus system is on a 4GB partition, with an additional 2GB for tools, diagnostics etc. The system can be connected to a conventional monitor via VGA or to a HD compatible TV via HDMI.
The Linpus OS is underwhelming, allowing you a choice between email, web browsing, viewing images, listening to music or Skype. I was very quickly aching for more.
I installed Ubuntu 9.10 from a USB stick - the installation took around 20 minutes, but then booted into a fully functional system with the standard Ubuntu toolkit of OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox 3.5 etc. After
enabling the NVidia ION driver (ver. 185) I was able to enable desktop effects with Compiz. All the hardware was detected and fully functional "out of the box", including the wireless adapter which I struggled to get working under Linpus. I then installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package which enabled MP3 playback and MPEG video along with Flash and other restricted codecs.
The result was a fully functional system, quick and responsive and for the price - wow! This would make a great inexpensive family PC. It is so quiet that when attached to a TV it makes for an ideal Media Centre, and will play 720p HD video with stereo sound over HDMI very well. Plus you can connect wirelessly to your music collection and play or stream audio. I added XBMC's ppa and installed it giving me a fabulous interface to play video and music via my JVC flat panel TV and attached speakers.
I can see this unit (with a user-friendly Linux pre-installed, not Linpus) being a very marketable option for cash strapped families who need a fully functional home computer. The fact that it comes with OpenOffice and everything you need to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, edit photographs, play music, surf the web etc. without having to purchase additional software makes this a no-brainer. It would also be a very good way of enabling cheap community access to a wired or wireless infrastructure. It is easily upgradeable in terms of memory (max 4GB) and HDD requiring the release of one screw and voiding the warranty!
The Acer Aspire Revo is also now available with an Atom 330 processor (dual core) here for £169.99 (model R3610) and I'm seriously thinking of buying one for my mother. The unit blew me away - and the NVidia ION graphics allow for both the smoothness of HD video and the enabling of great eyecandy effects. This unit makes (with Ubuntu pre-loaded) a great first, second, or media centre computer. With the addition of a USB tuner you would have full PVR functionality and with 4 USB ports free you can attach printers, hard drives, DVD etc. The addition of a eSATA port allows for further expansion options.
In short - I like this unit. It is heartily recommended.Technorati Tags: acer, acer aspire revo, review, karmic, desktop replacement, affordable computing
The Linpus system is on a 4GB partition, with an additional 2GB for tools, diagnostics etc. The system can be connected to a conventional monitor via VGA or to a HD compatible TV via HDMI.
The Linpus OS is underwhelming, allowing you a choice between email, web browsing, viewing images, listening to music or Skype. I was very quickly aching for more.
I installed Ubuntu 9.10 from a USB stick - the installation took around 20 minutes, but then booted into a fully functional system with the standard Ubuntu toolkit of OpenOffice, Gimp, Firefox 3.5 etc. After
enabling the NVidia ION driver (ver. 185) I was able to enable desktop effects with Compiz. All the hardware was detected and fully functional "out of the box", including the wireless adapter which I struggled to get working under Linpus. I then installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package which enabled MP3 playback and MPEG video along with Flash and other restricted codecs.
The result was a fully functional system, quick and responsive and for the price - wow! This would make a great inexpensive family PC. It is so quiet that when attached to a TV it makes for an ideal Media Centre, and will play 720p HD video with stereo sound over HDMI very well. Plus you can connect wirelessly to your music collection and play or stream audio. I added XBMC's ppa and installed it giving me a fabulous interface to play video and music via my JVC flat panel TV and attached speakers.
I can see this unit (with a user-friendly Linux pre-installed, not Linpus) being a very marketable option for cash strapped families who need a fully functional home computer. The fact that it comes with OpenOffice and everything you need to create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, edit photographs, play music, surf the web etc. without having to purchase additional software makes this a no-brainer. It would also be a very good way of enabling cheap community access to a wired or wireless infrastructure. It is easily upgradeable in terms of memory (max 4GB) and HDD requiring the release of one screw and voiding the warranty!
The Acer Aspire Revo is also now available with an Atom 330 processor (dual core) here for £169.99 (model R3610) and I'm seriously thinking of buying one for my mother. The unit blew me away - and the NVidia ION graphics allow for both the smoothness of HD video and the enabling of great eyecandy effects. This unit makes (with Ubuntu pre-loaded) a great first, second, or media centre computer. With the addition of a USB tuner you would have full PVR functionality and with 4 USB ports free you can attach printers, hard drives, DVD etc. The addition of a eSATA port allows for further expansion options.
In short - I like this unit. It is heartily recommended.Technorati Tags: acer, acer aspire revo, review, karmic, desktop replacement, affordable computing
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