Finally got my turn to try out Jolicloud, a “cool new OS for your netbook“. I learned about it several weeks ago and it took quite a while for me to get a invite.

First off, I tried the live boot. I selected my native language etc. and while it was  booting, I stepped away for a few. Upon my return I glanced on the screen and much to my surprise, it seemed as if the netbook just loaded my regular system, Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

No – wait. It was the new OS, but with only subtle differences separating the initial state from its parent OS. A quick glance trough the installed applications revealed only “facebook” to be added initially – a shortcut to a prism application.

Ok, time to try out the jolicloud applications. When I logged into the application with my user name -  picked when I got the invite, I choose “MSI WIND 100″ as my notebook, as Medion Akoya e1210 was not on the list but afaik is just a re-brand of a WIND anyway.

The jolicloud application itself, as most of the applications it serves, is built upon Mozilla Prism. A “web OS” built upon the web itself – perfectly integrated in the social media system.
It synchronizes itself into your jolicloud profile – so couple that with a Dropbox and you have a notebook to carry around without having to think about the consequences of it being ( stolen or in any other way ) unrecoverable beyond losing a piece of hardware. No data or settings would be lost – or be easy to steal with some encryption.

One click is all it takes to install any application – native or web/prism. With my favorites like Google’s Picasa, Skype, Dropbox, Last.fm and Google Chrome already there – not to mention most of the biggest social media sites and web applications there as prism apps. Also there some Game and Education titles I have yet to see anywhere else. How to install the from the regular ubuntu stream – or adding more sources – is a mystery because no package manager is present. Besides that, system and application upgrades are fast – one click – operations.

Other changes might not be as apparent to the average user, but the kernel itself was – as I learned from one of the developers in #jolicloud – optimized for this specific use. Why this was needed and what this brings to the end user is – to me – unclear.

All in all, I can see a lot of this changes being up-streamed into Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The applications selection ( my personal favorite in jolicloud ) is something that could do Ubuntu (or Linux in general) a lot of good. Installing applications is easy in the Linux world but the hard part is actually finding a application to install. Did you know there are 5 excellent - insert appication type – to be installed on your system via the install system, but most actually just stick with the one that is already there and never even think there might be something out there that would suit them better ?

If you want to try it out yourself, you have to register for a invitation.

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A new toy to add to my collection, SpaceNavigator.

Put some extensive testing into it the past day, installed it on Ubuntu 8.10, MacOS and Windows Vista 64bit.

My initial reaction is, wow. It really shows they put a lot of effort into making it work where ever one might need it. Ubuntu needed a bit of configuration, as 8.10 has this hotplug Xorg driver that gets in the way. Then just a regular install and it works with a updated Blender.

The configuration tools are the same throughout platforms and usability is also identical. Trough the device depends on the applications use of it for OOTB functionality, it also has some individual program configurations.

The SpaceNavigator itself has absolute positioning, although it registers as a relative positioning device (that makes linux use it wrong without drivers). Phisically its a big heavy metal ring with plastic/rubber controol ends. The metal is there to keep it grouned while you use the up/down axis. Rotating it left/right works to about 5 degrees and about double that for all the other axes.

The thing I disslike about it is really something I fealt before with the graphics tablet but didnt mention. The bright blue circual light. When I leave my pc standing for some time, monitor turns off and the room turns blue. (not as bad as with the pulsating bamtoo tablet but non the less brings alot of unneeded attention to itself)

The best use I found for it is Google Earth and Blender. Worth the 60$ ?

Creating a kiosk environment.
The tools:

• Touchscreen Monitor

The requierments:

• Firefox 3
• Linux
• Non-exit-able
• Onscreen Keyboard

As you might expect, I tried everything.

R-Kiosk. Perfect.

A inline javascript Keyboard. While it did what was needed, it fails on forms that are on the bottom of the screen and in Iframes. Good side: Language was dependant on the page’s language. But Fail.

xvkbd. While I did manage to place it on top of Firefox and lock it so people cant close or edit it, and change their language.. it was annoying to do so. Moving it around the screen more so. Porting it to win32 impossible. Fail.

Ok, lets try a different aproach.
http://stlouis-shopper.com/~jtjsoftware/software/vkeyboard.xpi is a firefox Addon I found. A simple tweak made it work on Fx3. Here is what I made. The first step in porting the app, is thus in bad shape. ~Win.

If there is enough interest in such a plugin for Fx3, I myself and the original author will continue to work on it. A lot of things are already on my mind that I want to do with this project. Suggestions ?

Image by via CrunchBase

I’ve found myself trapped on a Windows Vista environment for the next two weeks. The reason is that I recently bought a new PC and while installing OpenSUSE I realized the next mayor version is due in less then a month so I decided to stick with the then installed Vista Ultimate 64bit to avoid the hassle of upgrading the distro. That would also give me a opportunity to get some insight on the capability of the hardware using the operating system the accompanying software was written for.

Read the story after the jump..

And, I had to continue working. That was mostly not a problem since all the tools I use in my work have Windows ports or at least capable counterparts. I installed the server software I need to a VirtualBox that I must say, works perfectly.

Image via Wikipedia

Going some distance from my duties, the media player Songbird caught my attention, but still no match for Amarok I grew to like so much. VLC was there to help me setup my regular webcam server. Putty for a alternative to my preferred terminal ssh and TortoiseSVN for terminal svn. I still use NoMachine‘s remote desktop although Vista is not exactly happy with it. uTorrent is one of the tools I wish were on KDE / Linux. Same goes for Google Chrome. We will see who gets there first.

A new tool I discovered while browsing is something I will definitely use when I am back on Linux in about two weeks. I am talking about Workrave, the program that assists in the recovery and prevention of Repetitive Strain Injury. One of the things that is becoming a increasing problem in my field.

Image via Wikipedia

Tho, 2 weeks into the experience my productivity is crippled. I found myself using putty to access my VirtualBox – CentOS installation’s bash for common everyday tasks. My Wacom tablet misbehaves in Gimp and sometimes Inkscape. I have to use strange file syncing tehniques to code on the server ( with encoding issues all around ) since I mostly work with *nix systems, I need that not to be a problem. And another bug is the AltGr on my keyboard.. a lot of layouts use that key to access special keys like [ ] { } ‘ ; l etc.. But it seems some apps steals Alt for their shortcuts and that cripples AltGr keys.. anyone know how to fix this ?

Ok, i confess. There are things I like here alot. Like the tablet input system and handwriting recognition, voice recognition software. Having the drivers from the manufactoreres and not having to recompile them every kernel upgrade.

But the i can not live without my terminal with the gnu toolset I love so much. Having to work on the same file system as the server is also something I now know I can not do without.

So.. Microsoft, please stop forcing Windows on everyone. Stick with next-door “PC Gurus” and leave grandma her Ubuntu and mom and dad their Mac’s.

PS: I did not mention games because I do not play them as much that it is a burden to reboot the pc.

PPS: I miss Klipper

Well, in any case. This is how to do it yourself ( source ):

cd ~
mkdir src
cd ~/src
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/apr/apr-util-1.2.12.tar.gz
wget http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/apache/apr/apr-1.2.12.tar.gz
wget http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.4.6.tar.gz
wget http://www.webdav.org/neon/neon-0.25.5.tar.gz
tar -xzf apr-util-1.2.12.tar.gz
tar -xzf apr-1.2.12.tar.gz
tar -xzf subversion-1.4.6.tar.gz
tar -xzf neon-0.25.5.tar.gz
cd ~/src/apr-1.2.12
./configure --prefix=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install
cd ~/src/apr-util-1.2.12
./configure --prefix=$HOME --with-apr=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install
cd ~/src/neon-0.25.5
./configure --enable-shared --prefix=$HOME LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install
cd ~/src/subversion-1.4.6
./configure --prefix=$HOME --without-berkeley-db --with-zlib --with-ssl LDFLAGS="-L/lib64"
make
make install


I didnt even try running it on windows/mac before I plugged it into my ‘box running OpenSuse 11. First thing I notice: Its already working. Kindof.  It’s got relative tracking and the pad/buttons dont work.

How i got it running and some pics, after the jump.

http://picasaweb.google.com/rawdevelopement/Wacom

First of all, wacom packages were installed in opensuse by default, so not much action was needed there. I tried running the command line tool wacomcpl-exec to no avail. xsetwacom didn’t find anything. That only meant that the devices were not intialised properly in xorg.conf and i would have to find and set them myself.

After some poking around, I found wacdump ( included with wacom packages ) was the tool i needed. Since Bamboo Fun is a USB device, /dev/input/event* is where you will find it. Using wacdump i located it at /dev/input/event7. And then a quick look at http://linuxwacom.sourceforge.net/index.php/howto/inputdev to find out the proper way to configure xorg.

Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "stylus"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event7"
Option "Type" "stylus"
Option "USB" "on"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "eraser"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event7"
Option "Type" "eraser"
Option "USB" "on"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "cursor"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event7"
Option "Type" "cursor"
Option "USB" "on"
EndSection
Section "InputDevice"
Driver "wacom"
Identifier "pad"
Option "Device" "/dev/input/event7"
Option "Type" "pad"
Option "USB" "on"
EndSection


Changing the “Device” appropriately. After a quick X restart (CTRL ALT BACKSPACE), everything started working. Then for the final touches, I used wacomcpl-exec, that recognised the devices now, to change the rotation of the wheelpad, the buttons and sentitivity etc. I tried Bamboo in Inkscape, where i only had to enable the device in Input Devices under File.

Debriefing:

Things not working:

• Custom shortcuts on buttons, trough you can set them but find you will only get nice shortcuts to crash X.
• WheelPad works but doesn’t support the tap up/down feature like it does on windows. (probably software based)

Things one would wish to work better:

• Configuration. Not just of xorg but the tablet itself needs to be configurable in a stable easy GUI way.

All in all, well worth the effort.

Image via CrunchBase

Spore, the multi-genre “massively single-player online game” by Maxis was succesfully tested on Linux trough WINE. The actual video after the jump.

Both the PC and Mac versions of the game will feature the full experience of cell through to space with editors for designing creatures, buildings, and vehicles. Spore for the Mac will be made possible through TransGaming‘s Cider Portability Engine, with experience gained from the past EA Mac titles.

Also, a side affect of the Cider port, its cousin project WINE has all the benefits. That also brings up the question why didn’t Maxis go and release the title under Linux.   

Since I am a big fan of the Half-Life series, I went and picked up Half-Life 1 Anthology ( Team Fortress Classic, Half-Life: Opposing Force, Half-Life, Half-Life: Blue Shift ) yesterday to play the original just like I did about 8 years ago.  Or so I thought.

My Inspiron 1525 is where I installed the game. A quite modern piece of equipment, thus more than capable of running HL1. But alas, under Vista, the resolution is limited to only 1024*768 (or smaller.) The game doesn’t go into fullscreen and it runs terribly slow. Changing settings is futile.

But I didn’t give up so fast. I was quick to boot my workstation and just missing the boot screen to go into WinXP, I decided to try my luck under my favorite OS openSUSE GNU/Linux. So the first thing to do was to install Steam onto wine: wine msiexec /i SteamInstall.msi etc.. then installing HL1 trough steam. Steam itself is slow on my P4 1.6GHz 512mb GF2MX, but it gets the job done.

I have to note how little trouble it was to get HL1 running under Wine. Besides the .msi installer trick I had to once again google to figure out, it was straightfoward.

Running HL1: Right away it went into full screen mode and unlike under Vista, it let me set resolutions to match my hardware (22′). Speed was no issue here.

Just goes to show the level of quality and dedication in Wine. Im off to play some HL =D

Image by Acid Zebra via Flickr

The recently released Banshee media player sparked interest after i read a linux.com review about it, so i thought i would check it out and compare it to my favorite player Amarok.

Since Amarok is well ahead of its competitor, lets focus on what they did right from the start:

• Video Player: since you dont have only MP3′s and you like to use your iPod for something other then those.
• Bookmarks: when you just dont want to make a playlist
• CD Media extraction: When you want to store that CD and find it later

Another important issue for me is Last.fm integration:
Amarok lets you play a preset list of genres and neigboors like radio station. You can add additional channels but thats about it.

It also reports the files you play and you can “love” or “ban” a song. Switching channels or skipping songs is best to be avoided. Also, stats sinhronisation on your iPOD and play reporting dont mix well. Banshee polished up Last.fm support. You can play induvidual songs from your picked channels or neigboors. So skipping/loving/hating isnt a problem.  What i missed was being able to put those songs on a playlist or que.

Media device integration:
Really not much to say. Amarok’s failure to play videos relays to it not being able to fill your ipod with them so Banshee is the winner here.
On the other hand, Amarok can use iPods statistics and synchronise them with its own and can also fill the device with cover art.

At the end, i cannot really part with Amarok since it deliveres where Banshee fails, for now.
Specifically, plugins+browser, Megatune, Shoutcast, visualisations and contextual data are what keeps me in place.

For My €0.02

I was simply fascinated how the distro is well polished, recognised my madwifi-based wireless card, sound, and graphics card instantly, so i was able to continue my work as the distro itself installed.

KDE4 was the desktop of my choice. Trough it was not able to shine fully since OpenGL was not setup in the live version, I found the interface to be quite appealing.

Yast2 has gotten a really impressive makeover, cutting down processing time multiple times.

Many programs arent ported to KDE4 yet so any big changes from what i had setup on 10.3 werent expected.

All in all, Install is fast, the interface is simple, the programs are new.