Ubuntu Daily

Time 2021-11-21 07:24:45

Web Name: Ubuntu Daily

WebSite: http://www.ubuntudaily.com

ID:242702

Keywords:

Ubuntu,Daily,YourDailyDoseOfUbuntuLinux

Description:

keywords:Your Daily Dose Of Ubuntu Linux
description:Your Daily Dose Of Ubuntu Linux
Home Download UbuntuRequest a postAbout Ubuntu DailyYour Daily Dose Of Ubuntu Linux Feed on Posts Comments A short preview of Google Gadgets for Linux

Jun 4th, 2008 by Tim

About a year ago, Google released their desktop search called Google desktop for Linux. Since then they released some updates to Google Desktop adding support for 64 bit and more file fomats, but they left out one big feature of its Windows and Mac counterparts: Gadgets, mini-applications written in HTML and JavaScript.

Today Google released an open source version of the Gadgets runtime for Linux!

This is extremely cool, obviously, for two reasons: First, you dont have  to use Google Desktop if you dont want to, and I guess there are more people who use Beagle, Tracker or Strigi on Linux.

Second, well I already told you, its open source!

So my first reaction to this was to head to the official Google Gadgets for Linux site and download the tarball. I installed the dependencies and compiled it, following the HowTo in their wiki.

After the build and install finished I started Google Gadgets with the -s switch to open the sidebar. After adding some gadgets it looked like this:

As you can see, it is just a subtle, semi-transparent black bar sitting on your desktop. It uses real transparancy which means you should be running Compiz or some other compositing manager.

I dont know how good the desktop integration is altogether, but the Gadgets correctly pick up the time from my system and even the network status. Sound also works using GStreamer. The signal-strength and name of my current wireless network is shown. The source for this is NetworkManager, which is used by default In Ubuntu and other well known Linux distros like Fedora and OpenSUSE, making this a smart choice.

I had to set up the weather gadget manually and it didnt pick up my location form my weather applet in the Gnome panel.

Other gadgets I tried didnt show up at all or looked very bad with stretched images and barely readable text, making it clear that this really is alpha quality software right now.

To add more Gadgets, there is a browser application that looks like this:

You can add gadgets to the sidebar like shown above, but you can also keep them like normal applications on the desktop. To do this, just drag them out of the sidebar or run Google Gadgets without the sidebar at all.

On the right side you can see the Google Adsense Gadget I dragged to my desktop.
This shows the incredible wealth I have accumulated with this blog.

So what do I think about Google Gadgets?

Well right now the software quality is pre-beta as I already said, but I firmly believe this piece of software will be great for the Linux Desktop in the future.

Gadgets are not exactly a killer feature, but its a nice thing to have around to get information, that often changes, quickly. MacOS X has Widgets, Windows Vista has whatever they call it, and now Linux has Google Gadgets. Yes I know, there are already other solutions for Linux like GDesklets or Screenlets, but everything I tried felt very rough around the edges and had little to no momentum behind it.

With Google Gadgets, we get the best of both worlds: A solution backed by a big company with many Gadgets already out there and something that is open source. Additionally, its the only product right now working on all three major platforms, which might turn out as the feature that makes this the de-facto standard. A sign that Google is serious about this is the fact that you can build this against GTK, like I did, but also against Qt, so there is integration for KDE aswell.

I will closely follow the development of Google Gadgets and I will keep you updated on it. Right now, Im looking for a .deb file because building this from isnt exactly nice, so if anyone has a link I will gladly update this post and include it.

Update:

There is a package available at the PPA for the Google Gadget team

Posted in Bling, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

The Hardy Heron has landed

Apr 24th, 2008 by Tim

After 6 months of development, the new version of Ubuntu is available. The release is named Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron. The numbers stand for the year and month of the release date while Hardy Heron is the codename. LTS stands for long-term support, which means that this release will be supported for three full yours with fixes and security updates, the server version is even supported for four years.

Check the feature tour to find out about all the exciting stuff that is new in this release, some of the higlights are

GNOME 2.22 with GFVS, a new file system abstraction layer that makes many file operations fasteXorg 7.3 with a new screen resizing and rotating utility that makes manging mutliple monitor easierFirefox 3 Beta 5Wubi, a new installer that installs Ubuntu inside a file in Windows without changing the partitionsTransmission, a lightweight but full-featured BitTorrent clientBrasero, a disc-burning applicationA firewall called UFW (Uncomplicated Firewall) that makes it easier to allow or disallow connections via command-line

Ubuntu is available for download on the Ubuntu website. Alternatively, free Ubuntu CDs can be ordered through Ubuntu ShipIt.

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Order free Hardy Heron CDs now

Apr 18th, 2008 by Tim

The upcoming Ubuntu release 8.04, codenamed Hardy Heron can be pre-ordered now.

Ubuntu ShipIt is a service sponsored by Canonical where anyone can order Ubuntu CDs free of charge. This is especially useful for people with slow internet connections or restricted transfer volumes.

So to everybody who cant or doesnt want to download the next release: head over to ShipIt and order Ubuntu for free.

Posted in Ubuntu News | 4 Comments

My Shell history

Apr 10th, 2008 by Tim

Follwing the latest meme, here are my 10 most used commands in the shell history:

tim@tim:~$ history | awk {a[$2]++ } END{for(i in a){print a[i] i}}|sort -rn|head
89 sudo
42 ls
42 cd
31 rm
18 java
17 unrar
16 wget
16 gksudo
15 ajcore
10 mv

Posted in General Thoughts | 7 Comments

First impressions of Adobe AIR for Linux

Mar 31st, 2008 by Tim

AIR (Adobe Integrated Runtime) is a platform that allows the creation of web applications and run them on the desktop alongside classic software. The Windows and Mac OS X version of AIR has been around for a while and today, Adobe released a first alpha version for us Linux users.

The software isnt available on the home page of Adobe directly but can be downloaded at the Adobe Labs. The installer is a binary installer that requires root privileges, which were gained after a window prompted me to enter my password. This is the standard way in Ubuntu and therefore handled correctly.

The installation itself is fast and only consists of this window:

After a few seconds, Adobe AIR is installed into /opt and a new menu entry called Adobe AIR Application Installer can be found in the menu. All it does is opening a file chooser where you can select and .air file to install it.

The first application I tried to install was the Adobe Media Player.  When I opened the .air file I was greated by this error:

Sorry, an error has accoured

This application requires an update to Adobe AIR but downloading that update on your system is not allowed by your administrator. Please contact your administrator.

I dont know whether there is a workaround for this problem and I didnt bother to search for one. Instead, I tried other applications. The next one I tried was a Google Analytics interface, which installed whithout problems. I wont write anything about that application itself because thats not in the scope of this review.

There are many more AIR applications on the Adobe marketplace, but they are not installable because the website claims that Air is not available for my system.

I will leave it at that for now and come to my conclusions regarding AIR on Linux:

Adobe AIR for Linux really is alpha software. If you dont have strong reasons to install it, dontAdobe should settle on one way to deploy Linux software. Flash is available as rpm and tarball, Reader is also available as deb, now AIR brings its own .bin installer. The right way to do things is to offer packages for the major Linux distributions, like Skype doesFlash is a core part of AIR and Flash on Linux is pretty bad. For most people, Flash consumes lots of CPU power, crashes Firefox and makes fullscreen video impossible. If Adobe doesnt fix Flash, Air wont be any betterLast but not least: Its great to see that Adobe shows interest in Linux and a runtime that works on all three major desktop operating systems will probably bring more software to Linux. If, however, Adobe continues to treat Linux as a third class citizen AIR might do more harm than good to Linux because software vendors wont release native software but only Airplications that only run badly on Linux, similar to software running on Wine

Posted in Proprietary Software | 8 Comments

Brainstorm: Submit and vote on ideas for Ubuntu

Feb 29th, 2008 by Tim

Ubuntu brainstorm is a new site for Ubuntu fans to vote on which issues should have the highest priority. Everybody is free to register and submit ideas. Then, one can vote on every entry, either adding or subtracting a vote.

The site closely resembles Dells IdeaStorm, which incidentally contains a fair share of Ubuntu-related entries itself.

In my opinion, Ubuntu brainstorm is a great addition to classic bug-tracking and specifications, providing a good way to measure the interest in certain features of the Ubuntu community at large. Especially users who arent comfortable with diving into Launchpad or other more technical ways will now have the option to make their voice heard with a convenient and easy website.

So go ahead, visit Ubuntu brainstorm, start submitting your ideas and vote on existing ones.

Posted in Ubuntu Community | 5 Comments

Long time no post

Jan 31st, 2008 by Tim

Wow, for a blog thats called Ubuntu Daily there may have been not enough posts in the last time, maybe I should have called it Ubuntu Quarterly.

This post is just to inform everyone who is interested that I am not dead and neither is this blog.

I wont make any promises on how often I will post, but there is one thing you can definitely look forward to: a review of Ubuntu on the Dell XPS M1330.

I ordered the notebook a week ago and according to Dell it will arrive in the fourth week of february. You can expect my review in late february or early march.

Posted in General Thoughts | 4 Comments

Amazing open source image resizing

Sep 19th, 2007 by Tim

Not long ago a video popped up on the internet show what was called content-aware image resizing. Everybody was amazed by this new technology.

Now just a month later there is an open-source implementation and a free GIMP plugin to download.

Here is an example of what can be accomplished with this software:

Picture source: hackszine.com

Posted in Software | 5 Comments

Valve hiring to port games to Linux?

Sep 13th, 2007 by Tim

A job offer for Senior Engineer that recently appeared on Valves website lists among other things the following responsibilty:

Port Windows-based games to the Linux platform.

If they really mean games and not game servers this might be a major breaking point for Linux gaming and Linux on the desktop in general.

Valves Steam platform is probably the number one way to purchase games digitally, and if it gets ported to Linux it might be a big enough incentive for other game develops to port ther games to Linux, too.

Posted in Gaming, Proprietary Software | 6 Comments

Ubuntu in a Marvel Comic

Jul 26th, 2007 by Tim

Ubuntu is featured in issue #4 of the Marvel Comic Mighty Avengers.

You can see the boot manager GRUB and the list of Kernels to choose from, along with a movie-style Access Denied message:

Normally this isnt the point where you have to authorize in Ubuntu, and you could just use recovery mode to go to a root shell, but hey, its free software so they could have just modfied it to act like this.

Posted in Ubuntu Everywhere | 94 Comments

Older Posts

Archives June 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 September 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 Categories Bling Edgy Feisty Firefox Gaming General Thoughts Gnome Gutsy Hardware Launchpad Other Distributions Package Management Proprietary Software Software Ubuntu Community Ubuntu Everywhere Ubuntu News Uncategorized Wine Pages AboutDownload UbuntuRequest a post Blogroll Xubuntu Blog Friends 524a57adc9f41add2d957198035e732d-332

Ubuntu Daily 2021 All Rights Reserved.

TAGS:Ubuntu Daily YourDailyDoseOfUbuntuLinux

<<< Thank you for your visit >>>

Your Daily Dose Of Ubuntu Linux

Hot Websites