Google Chromium OS!

Date: November 20, 2009. Categories: distros, google and news. 1 Comment

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Today Google has announced operating system Google Chromium OS. It still not ready to end users as is under deep development but now everyone can see its concepts, benefits and nature. Astonishing news as for me. There were a lot of rumors about Google OS (gos) before it was presented to the public in real. Now it’s clear that the most promising OS these days is based on Linux kernel. Let’s see what Google just have presented in details:

  1. All apps are web apps. The entire experience takes place within the browser and there are no conventional desktop applications. This means users do not have to deal with installing, managing and updating programs.

  2. Because all apps live within the browser, there are significant benefits to security. Unlike traditional operating systems, Chrome OS doesn’t trust the applications you run. Each app is contained within a security sandbox making it harder for malware and viruses to infect your computer. Furthermore, Chrome OS barely trusts itself. Every time you restart your computer the operating system verifies the integrity of its code.

  3. We are obsessed with speed. We are taking out every unnecessary process, optimizing many operations and running everything possible in parallel. This means you can go from turning on the computer to surfing the web in a few seconds.

  4. Chromium OS User Interface Concepts (video)

    5. Chromium OS screenshot

  5. Design Documents: Software Architecture, Security Overview

VMware Virtual Machine with Chromium OS can be found here (torrent).

GIMP to be removed from Ubuntu?

Date: November 19, 2009. Categories: applications, distros, linux and ubuntu. 8 Comments

This could be an outstanding news by its significance. The next version of Ubuntu (Lucid Lynx or Ubuntu 10.04) won’t include GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) by default due to its user interface that is too complex… What a #@^*?

Actually complex UI is not the only decision why GIMP should be vanished from Ubuntu so here is the full list:

  • the general user doesn’t use it
  • its user-interface is too complex
  • it’s an application for professionals
  • desktop users just want to edit photos and they can do that in F-Spot
  • it’s a photoshop replacement and photoshop isn’t included by default in Windows…
  • it takes up room on the disc

(taken from here)

Still sounds like fresh nonsense? What about F-Spot as a replacement? Well, an average user most probably claim that above mentioned reasons are true. Maybe that’s why GIMP already dropped from latest Fedora 12. But what should do people who use GIMP every day and loves Ubuntu???

Just execute ‘sudo aptitude install gimp‘ :)

Poker and Linux [guest post]

Date: October 2, 2009. Categories: linux. 0 Comments

Most online poker players take it as a given that they are going to need Windows to play online poker on their favorite site. Windows is the most popular operating system anyway, so this isn’t even something most poker players worry about.

However, what if you are a Linux user? Shouldn’t there be a way for you to play your favorite game with your favorite operating system? Does Windows somehow have a monopoly on the online poker industry? The answer is no. In fact, you can play online poker using Linux. One way to play at the best Linux poker sites is with the Wine application. This is essentially an open source application that creates compatibility for Linux to run Windows programs. No actual Windows software is necessary, as Wine mimics Windows using entirely non-Microsoft code. However, the Wine application will allow you to run programs more commonly run in Windows, such as, in this case, online poker. To get Wine, simply visit Wine HQ online to download/install Wine and WineTools. After completing the setup process, you can run or install poker client software with the wine command. Once complete, you should be able to enjoy online poker with your Linux operating system.

Wine enables online poker Linux play for such prestigious online poker sites as PokerStars, UltimateBet, Party Poker, Titan Poker and Paradise Poker. If you are interested in another poker site, you can do some online research to see other sites that Wine allows Linux to work with, or you can experiment yourself.

However, the above sites probably represent about 90 percent of online poker traffic. You should be able to get what you want using one of these services. Once you’ve been able to install poker software and register for a site, you might want to spend some time watching the action before jumping in with your own money. It’s free to watch, and you might learn a few things about poker from your Windows-using brethren that can help you earn more of their money down the road.

Top 3 Linux HTML editors

Date: July 28, 2009. Categories: centos, debian, fedora, gnome, kde, linux, ubuntu and xfce. 12 Comments

This post is dedicated to quality html editors for Linux and Ubuntu operating system in particular. You may think that nowadays nobody uses offline editors as there are so many content management systems (CMS) like Drupal (my favourite one), Wordpress, Joomla etc. which contain embedded visual html editors. But today I made sure myself that sometimes it’s real pain to draw a 10×20 table using Wordpress’s editor…

Text editors like gedit, emacs, nano or vi will certainly live forever but thankfully there are numerous visual html editors for my Ubuntu :) They are sometimes called WYSIWYG editors, it mean “What You See Is What You Get”.

1. Quanta Plus

This is KDE/Qt visual html editor available as binary package for numerous Linux distributions
including Debian and Ubuntu. From developers’ site:

Quanta Plus is a highly stable and feature rich web development environment.
The vision with Quanta has always been to start with the best architectural
foundations, design for efficient and natural use and enable maximal user
extensibility.

In order to install it in Debian/Ubuntu run the following CLI command:

sudo apt-get install quanta

Fedora, Centos, Redhat users type this:

sudo yum install kdewebdev

I found Quanta html editor extremely useful, this is just an outstanding application of this
field.

2. Bluefish

Bluefish HTML editor logoBluefish is a powerful editor targeted towards programmers and webdesigners,
with many options to write websites, scripts and programming code. Bluefish
supports many programming and markup languages, and it focuses on editing
dynamic and interactive websites.

I found this really versatile html editor. Besides HTML/CSS it handles C,
Java, Perl, Python, XML and others.

Ubuntu and Debian users type:

sudo apt-get install bluefish

Fedora/Redhat/Centos:

sudo yum install bluefish

Gentoo:

emerge bluefish

3. Screem

SCREEM is a web development environment. It’s purpose is to increase
productivity when constructing a site, by providing quick access to commonly
used features. While it is written for use with the GNOME desktop environment
in mind it does not specifically require you to be running it, just have the
libraries installed.

This is one of the most user-friendly Gnome HTML editor. Its simple interface
brings extremely powerfull HTML editor so if like minimalistic design Screem
is your choice.

Update: below is the bottom line from Linux.com’s review of three Linux HTML editors (Quanta Plus, Blowfish,
Screem). I found that review after I wrote this post.

  • If you use GNOME, use Screem. It’s a fast, simple, and powerful tool for web editing. However, it does not have the large feature sets that Bluefish and Quanta Plus have, especially for languages other than those directly related to Web page editing.
  • If you use GNOME and need the more powerful features of Quanta Plus, load the required libraries and run it.
  • If you use KDE and want a code editor, choose Quanta Plus. Ignore the WYSIWYG capabilities and take advantage of the tremendous editing capabilities, especially for CSS style sheets.
  • If you use Xfce, Quanta Plus should run fine. Screem would still require loading additional libraries.
  • Finally, if you use GNOME, find that Screem does not meet all your needs, and you don’t want to bother with loading the KDE-native Quanta Plus, then load Bluefish. It is nearly as capable as Quanta Plus, but will run well without a lot of fussing with libraries.

Google Chrome Operating System

Date: July 8, 2009. Categories: linux and news. 1 Comment

google-chrome os logoHere is astonishing news I came across today at Google Official Blog:

We’re announcing a new project that’s a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It’s our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

…

The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

Read more >>

Another pulications on the topic:

1. Alas, poor Microsoft at PCWorld
2. Google Chrome: Lookout Windows and OS X at Gizmodo
3. Google Chrome lives at arctechnica

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