aGNUdomain.net unplugged: Ubuntu

Ubuntu

02/25/2013

Hands-on with Ubuntu Touch Preview for the Nexus 4

aGNUdomain.net - This weekend I formatted my Nexus 4 and loaded up Canonical's new Ubuntu Touch Preview. I was impressed by its polish and beauty.

Ubuntu Touch launched Feb. 19, 2013. As aGNUdomain's Ant Pruitt explained, Ubuntu Touch is Canonical's attempt to break into the mobile market. Smart Linux users already know how to run full-fledged Ubuntu on some Android devices, but this preview marks the first time Google released a developer version immediately installable on the latest four Nexus devices from Google.

If you have a Galaxy Nexus, Nexus 4, Nexus 7 or Nexus 10 -- and you're feeling adventurous -- you can download the Ubuntu Touch preview code now.

Installing Ubuntu Touch was simple, though the current installation method is only supported using Ubuntu for desktop. After downloading the code only one command is required: phablet-flash -b.

If you are inclined to check out Ubuntu Touch yourself, be warned that your entire phone will be erased during the installation process. It is also possible that you could break your phone.

In reality there is not too much to see at this point. The folks at Canonical correctly labeled this release a "developer preview." You can think of it more like a model home. It is certainly a beautiful operating system but is hardly functional.

If you would rather wait for a more fleshed-out version of Ubuntu Touch, included are some screenshots of it running on my Nexus 4. Enjoy!

Have you flashed Ubuntu Touch? Do you think it has potential or is another non-starter? Leave a comment on the site and over on Google Plus.

For aGNUdomain.net, I'm +Eric Finkenbiner.

Posted at 06:00 PM in aGNUdomain, agnudomain.net, android, How To Ubuntu, Ubuntu | Permalink | Comments (1)

02/21/2013

Ubuntu Tablet/Phone Developer Preview Released

The developer preview of Linux distro Ubuntu is now available for tablets and mobile phones. Excited? I am. Well, I was initially. Sadly, I'm a Galaxy Nexus (Toro) owner. The preview is available to Nexus devices but only the GSM variants. I own the Nexus 7 tablet but I decline to install the preview for now.

Image credit: Ubuntu

The OS demostrations I've seen of late seem to be promising, offering yet another open platform for our mobile devices. Ubuntu's video details more on the features of the OS for tablets and phones. My first glance at the real world views of Ubuntu Phone lead me to think the OS was slightly lagging in performance. The UI is nice, but the devices being tested showed slow transitions from screen to screen and app to app.

I had to take this first look with a grain of salt. I mean, the OS is in preview. It's not going to be perfect just yet.

I shared the information about the developer preview to my circles on Google+ It was received with mixed reactions from my wonderful geek followers. Some felt that removing the Nexus experience from current devices was pointless. Others were just curious to see what the OS had to offer.

Darryl Barnes is clearly excited about the OS preview. "Downloaded. Installing to Nexus 4 tonight ... can't wait to dump Android," he says. There are concerns that the preview will not allow for the radio to handle cell calls. It will be a WiFi device only. Barnes has other ideas.

"I will have data working on mine by this weekend," he says. "It's nothing to reverse-engineer the radio for use under Ubuntu."

I can't wait to hear about Barnes' progress on getting the radios to work for him. Hopefully he will keep us in the community updated.

If I catch a wild streak in my personality, I may take the dive in formatting my Nexus 7 to play around with the OS preview, but I won't make any promises. What are your thoughts on the preview? Will you experiment with the images available for your Nexus device? Leave me a comment with your plan and thoughts on Ubuntu Tablet/Phone Developer Preview.

I'm Ant Pruitt and this is aGNUdomain.

Jordan Keyes of TWILDOTTV installed the preview on his Nexus 7 to give us his first look. Check out the video below from his channel.

Posted at 05:40 PM in agnudomain.net, Ant Pruitt, Ubuntu | Permalink | Comments (0)

02/14/2013

Burn the Heretic! John Carmack Talks Linux Gaming and Steam

John Carmack, the man behind some of the most influential video games of all time, caused a flurry of discussion over on Reddit last week when he expressed his opinions regarding native Linux ports of popular video games. Carmack's response on Reddit was an eloboration of a Twitter update he made on Feb. 4th where he stated that, "Improving Wine for Linux gaming seems like a better plan than lobbying individual game developers for native ports."

Carmack's logic is simple: There simply is not enough potential to monetize a native Linux port for game studios to invest the time, money and effort. So what if you started a company which ported popular games to Linux on behalf of a publisher? Carmack states that even if you were able to show a potential profit, it would need to be significant in order to recoup the high ancillary costs that most large publishers incur regardless of the size or scope of a port.

What is the solution to this problem? According to Carmack the solution is to invest more resources into projects such as WINE, which allow for the installation and execution of Windows applications in Unix-based operating systems. He states that, " ... figuring out exactly what the difficulties are and making some form of 'D3D interop' extension for OpenGL to smooth it out is a lot easier than making dozens of completely refactored, high performance native ports."

At the end of his explanation Carmack also stated that Steam could be, "a plausible path forward."

This spurred responses from gamers in the Linux community who have been feeling optimistic regarding native ports of Linux games following Steam's long-awaited release of the Steam for Linux Beta client. Some expressed concern regarding the current state of WINE. Even in games which are listed as Platinum, there are still a litany of errors and fix-me's that occur when those applications are run.

I certainly would like to see the application continue to grow and improve, however this does not mean that I do not want native ports of my favorite games to show up on Linux. While I'm not convinced that WINE is the right permanent solution to gaming on Linux, I think that it is a viable option for those of us who would prefer not to dual boot to Windows.

What do you think? Leave a comment or start a discussion on Google Plus. I'm +Eric Finkenbiner for aGNUdomain.net

Posted at 01:53 AM in aGNUdomain, agnudomain.net, Eric Finkenbiner, Ubuntu, Wine | Permalink | Comments (0)

02/09/2013

Eric Finkenbiner: Microsoft Hints at Office 2014 for Linux, LibreOffice Comparison

By Eric Finkenbiner for aGNUdomain.net: A few days ago Michael Larabel posted on his Twitter feed that Microsoft is currently considering a Linux release of Microsoft Office in 2014.

He learned this while attending the Free Open-Source Developers' European Meeting (FOSDEM) in Brussels this past weekend. This rumor is welcomed by those in the Linux community who still rely on Microsoft Office for their day to day work activity.

While LibreOffice is great, there are admittedly some situations where you need the actual Microsoft Office program for compatibility purposes. Even if you needed to run Microsoft Office on Linux it was a fairly straightforward proposition using WINE, the popular Windows compatibility application.

I will admit that it is tempting to think of a world where I could install Microsoft Office without the need for another application, such as WINE. However I'm not sure that I am very interested in the idea. I have been very lucky in that my last two employers were participants in Microsoft programs which allowed me to get Office for the heavily-discounted price of $9.95.

If that were not the case, I would not have purchased it. I have long been a fan of OpenOffice, which is now LibreOffice, and feel that it fits my needs quite nicely. The only exception to this is the apparent lack of functionality of the LibreOffice suite when compared to Microsoft Excel. Even given that fault, at the low price of free I find LibreOffice to be a great value for the everyday user.

LibreOffice just happened to announce this same week the release of their next iteration, LibreOffice 4. With this version they have even announced support for Microsoft Visio and Publisher files.

If you listen to Attack of the Androids you are probably aware of the sad state of my home internet connection. This means that I am still downloading the latest version of LibreOffice and can't give you my full opinion just yet. However I still feel justified in saying that this rumor, while yet unconfirmed, just doesn't evoke the immense feelings of joy and relief that it may have seven years ago when I started using Linux fulltime.

What do you think? Is this just the news you needed to convince yourself to move to the Linux desktop? Has Microsoft just ushered in the long-awaited, never-fulfilled dream of "The Year of the Linux Desktop?" Leave a comment below or chat me up on Google+.

I'm +Eric Finkenbiner for aGNUdomain.net.

Posted at 06:08 AM in agnudomain.net, Eric Finkenbiner, FOSDEM, Libre Office, Ubuntu, Wine | Permalink | Comments (5)

02/08/2013

Hello World -- in Ubuntu: Write It in GNU C++ (video)

aGNUdomain.net unplugged -- It's official. The edit team at aNewDomain.net is spinning out its first new media site. It's going to be called aGNUdomain.net -- our co-founder John C. Dvorak gets cred for coming up with the name.

It'll be Linux news, views, reviews, teardowns, Android rooting, open source advice, all flavors of Linux for the geeks who love open source. And we have a ton of great ones on our team, founded by Dvorak, Gina Smith, Dr. Jerry Pournelle and 70+ vets of the edit team that relaunched BYTE two years ago and turned about to create aNewDomain.net.

Led by aNewDomain.net's Ant Pruitt and Eric Finkenbiner, aGNUdomain.net will be a total, unbridled geek fest. That's guaranteed, as you can see when you scroll below the fold in this post.

The site at the agnudomain.net url will be up soon. In the meantime, this aGNUdomain unplugged site will let you watch as we start putting material and staff together for our launch. And if you're interested in geeking up with us, shoot Ant or Eric a note on Google +. We're always looking for great writers, podcasters, and vidcasters who are open about their love of open source.

In the meantime, we thought we'd say, Hello World! Here's a tech tutorial we found on YouTube via JTRtoday on how to write a simple Hello World program using the GNU C++ compiler for Ubuntu. Enjoy. This tutorial employs an older version of Ubuntu -- 10.04 -- but it's still relevant. The narrator is using its nano text editor to do it. Great work from JTRtoday.

Video credit: JTRtoday YouTube Channel

Here's a video intro of Eric Finkenbiner talking Android and aNewDomain.net from Rangoon. It'll give you a flavor of what you're in for.

And here's an Ant Pruitt video hosting a bunch of smartphone photographers on his popular Google+ hangout show, Point and Shoot with Ant Pruitt.

Video: Feb. 7, 2013

Joining Ant above are a bunch of current aNewDomain.net (and former teamBYTE) editorial staffers, contributors and tech pro commentators and photographers. The lineup includes Chris Miller, Mike Sweeney, Joey Kelley, Mat Lee, Robert Knight, Kenny Lee, M. Dean Jones and Michael King. Here's a video from Ant demonstrating the original Kindle Fire running Android version 4.1.1 Jelly Bean with help from XDA-Developers Forums.