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diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore new file mode 100644 index 0000000..84c0b24 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitignore @@ -0,0 +1 @@ +published/* diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/tab-stack-hover.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/tab-stack-hover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 180d7fd..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/tab-stack-hover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-extensions.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-extensions.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 47bae38..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-extensions.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-focus.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-focus.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 118b9d9..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-focus.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-keyboard.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-keyboard.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 7550aa3..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-keyboard.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-notes-tiled.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-notes-tiled.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d7d175a..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-notes-tiled.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-quick-launcher.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-quick-launcher.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6fb7a4d..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-quick-launcher.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-start.jpg b/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-start.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index be3b871..0000000 --- a/Vivaldi-1.0/vivaldi-start.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/published/invoices/2014-06-29_ars-invoice-02.rtf b/invoices/2014-06-29_ars-invoice-02.rtf index 07197ec..07197ec 100644 --- a/published/invoices/2014-06-29_ars-invoice-02.rtf +++ b/invoices/2014-06-29_ars-invoice-02.rtf diff --git a/published/invoices/paid/2014-05-02_ars-invoice-01.rtf b/invoices/paid/2014-05-02_ars-invoice-01.rtf index d3e8f36..d3e8f36 100644 --- a/published/invoices/paid/2014-05-02_ars-invoice-01.rtf +++ b/invoices/paid/2014-05-02_ars-invoice-01.rtf diff --git a/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreen.html b/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreen.html deleted file mode 100644 index 9942738..0000000 --- a/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreen.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,20 +0,0 @@ -<p>Nicholas Rubin, a 16-year-old programmer from Seattle, has created a browser add-on that makes it incredibly easy to see the influence of money in U.S. politics.</p> -<p>Rubin calls the add-on Greenhouse and it does something so brilliantly simple that once you use it you'll wonder why news sites didn't think of this themselves.</p> -<p>You can install Greenhouse for Firefox, Chrome and Safari over at <a href="http://allaregreen.us/">allaregreen.us</a>.</p> -<p>Greenhouse pulls in campaign contribution data for every Senator and Representative, including the total amount of money received, as well as a breakdown by industry and size of donation. It then combines this with a parser that finds the names of Senators and Representatives in the current page and highlights them. Hover your mouse over the highlighted names and it displays their top campaign contributors.</p> -<p>Greenhouse adds another layer to the news, showing you the story behind the story. In politics, as in many other things, if you want to know the why behind the what, you need to follow the money. Somewhat depressingly, in politics it seems that it's money all the way down.</p> -<p>For example, suppose you read <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/business/senate-hearing-on-general-motors.html">this story</a> in the New York Times, in which three Senators take G.M. to task for failing to recall millions of small cars. What do the three have in common? Just that their top campaign donors are lawyers and law firms.</p> -<p>Or try Greenhouse on this story on House Republicans who think the Affordable Health Care Act is an <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/house-republicans-obamacare-lawsuit-108957.html">illegal overreach</a> by President Barack Obama. Greenhouse will highlight six names in that story. All but one get the majority of their campaign funds from a combination of two groups -- health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry.</p> - -[image="screenshot01.png" caption="Greenhouse in action. Opposed to Health Are reform? Check. Primarily funded by Healthcare Industry? Check."] - -<p>Cynical yet? No? There's plenty more examples; follow the <span class="citation">[@allaregreen]</span>(https://twitter.com/allaregreen) Twitter account for your daily dose of money in U.S. politics. As allaregreen.us puts it, playing of the color encoding of U.S. politics: "Some are red. Some are blue. All are green."</p> -<p>There is one ray of hope in Greenhouse's data. Near the top of the panel it displays you'll see the percentage of contributions under $200. In other words, the percentage of contributions from people like you and me. There's also a small badge indicating the member's position on campaign finance reform.</p> -<p>For his part Rubin says building and using the add-on hasn't made him cynical. "Actually, I think Greenhouse is making me hopeful," Rubin said when I asked about cynicism in U.S. politics. "I've received such great feedback from people around the world... people want transparency like this and Greenhouse may actually play a role in the solution."</p> -<p>Among the early users offering positive feedback is Harvard Law professor and author of <cite>Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It</cite>, Lawrence Lessig, who <a href="http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/88073919937/incredibly-cool-politic-code-get-it">calls Greenhouse</a> "easily the coolest plugin that I use".</p> -<p>Indeed Greenhouse does something most attempts at transparency do not -- it gives context to data. Transparency in government is good, few would argue otherwise, but as Lessig <a href="http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/93500567957/escapethe1990s">wrote recently on his blog</a>, "merely making data available isn't enough to deal with an underlying corruption problem."</p> -<p>Open government data tends to be very big data with little context to it. For example, all the data Greenhouse uses comes from <a href="http://www.opensecrets.org/">opensecrets.org</a>, which has had that data available for years. Chances are though, you've never bothered to dig through opensecrets.org and follow the money. By taking that data and injecting it into the context of the news, Rubin has managed to turn raw information into useful knowledge.</p> -<p>Did I mention Rubin is just 16?</p> -<p>The idea for Greenhouse came from a presentation Rubin gave back in 7th grade when a teacher assigned him to the topic of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Corporations_as_persons_in_the_United_States">Corporate Personhood</a> and campaign finance. Rubin came away from that experience thinking that more people should know about how corporations run U.S. politics. But, "the information about sources of funding ... wasn't simple and easily accessible when people needed it." Later when Rubin started to teach himself to code he decided to try to combine the two interests and Greenhouse was born.</p> -<p>Rubin plans to keep expanding Greenhouse. He's looking to build a sort of reverse Greenhouse -- a tool that would, for example, highlight all mentions of Google on a webpage and show which campaigns the company contributes to -- as well as a tool for other countries, though the latter will depend on whether or not the data is actually available. He also hopes to build Greenhouse into an interactive community rather than simply a browser add-on.</p> -<p>If you want to participate or just follow along, grab the add-on and follow <span class="citation">@allaregreen</span> on Twitter.</p> diff --git a/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreen.us.txt b/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreen.us.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 7b316db..0000000 --- a/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreen.us.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,36 +0,0 @@ -Nicholas Rubin, a 16-year-old programmer from Seattle, has created a browser add-on that makes it incredibly easy to see the influence of money in U.S. politics. - -Rubin calls the add-on Greenhouse and it does something so brilliantly simple that once you use it you'll wonder why news sites didn't think of this themselves. - -You can install Greenhouse for Firefox, Chrome and Safari over at [allaregreen.us](http://allaregreen.us/). - -Greenhouse pulls in campaign contribution data for every Senator and Representative, including the total amount of money received, as well as a breakdown by industry and size of donation. It then combines this with a parser that finds the names of Senators and Representatives in the current page and highlights them. Hover your mouse over the highlighted names and it displays their top campaign contributors. - -Greenhouse adds another layer to the news, showing you the story behind the story. In politics, as in many other things, if you want to know the why behind the what, you need to follow the money. Somewhat depressingly, in politics it seems that it's money all the way down. - -For example, suppose you read [this story](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/business/senate-hearing-on-general-motors.html) in the New York Times, in which three Senators take G.M. to task for failing to recall millions of small cars. What do the three have in common? Just that their top campaign donors are lawyers and law firms. - -Or try Greenhouse on this story on House Republicans who think the Affordable Health Care Act is an [illegal overreach](http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/house-republicans-obamacare-lawsuit-108957.html) by President Barack Obama. Greenhouse will highlight six names in that story. All but one get the majority of their campaign funds from a combination of two groups -- health professionals and the pharmaceutical industry. - -[image="screenshot01.png" caption="Greenhouse in action. Opposed to Health Are reform? Check. Primarily funded by Healthcare Industry? Check."] - -Cynical yet? No? There's plenty more examples; follow the [@allaregreen](https://twitter.com/allaregreen) Twitter account for your daily dose of money in U.S. politics. As allaregreen.us puts it, playing of the color encoding of U.S. politics: "Some are red. Some are blue. All are green." - -There is one ray of hope in Greenhouse's data. Near the top of the panel it displays you'll see the percentage of contributions under $200. In other words, the percentage of contributions from people like you and me. There's also a small badge indicating the member's position on campaign finance reform. - -For his part Rubin says building and using the add-on hasn't made him cynical. "Actually, I think Greenhouse is making me hopeful," Rubin said when I asked about cynicism in U.S. politics. "I've received such great feedback from people around the world... people want transparency like this and Greenhouse may actually play a role in the solution." - -Among the early users offering positive feedback is Harvard Law professor and author of <cite>Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It</cite>, Lawrence Lessig, who [calls Greenhouse](http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/88073919937/incredibly-cool-politic-code-get-it) "easily the coolest plugin that I use". - -Indeed Greenhouse does something most attempts at transparency do not -- it gives context to data. Transparency in government is good, few would argue otherwise, but as Lessig [wrote recently on his blog](http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/93500567957/escapethe1990s), "merely making data available isn't enough to deal with an underlying corruption problem." - -Open government data tends to be very big data with little context to it. For example, all the data Greenhouse uses comes from [opensecrets.org](http://www.opensecrets.org/), which has had that data available for years. Chances are though, you've never bothered to dig through opensecrets.org and follow the money. By taking that data and injecting it into the context of the news, Rubin has managed to turn raw information into useful knowledge. - -Did I mention Rubin is just 16? - -The idea for Greenhouse came from a presentation Rubin gave back in 7th grade when a teacher assigned him to the topic of [Corporate Personhood](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood#Corporations_as_persons_in_the_United_States) and campaign finance. Rubin came away from that experience thinking that more people should know about how corporations run U.S. politics. But, "the information about sources of funding ... wasn't simple and easily accessible when people needed it." Later when Rubin started to teach himself to code he decided to try to combine the two interests and Greenhouse was born. - -Rubin plans to keep expanding Greenhouse. He's looking to build a sort of reverse Greenhouse -- a tool that would, for example, highlight all mentions of Google on a webpage and show which campaigns the company contributes to -- as well as a tool for other countries, though the latter will depend on whether or not the data is actually available. He also hopes to build Greenhouse into an interactive community rather than simply a browser add-on. - -If you want to participate or just follow along, grab the add-on and follow @allaregreen on Twitter. - diff --git a/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreennotes.txt b/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreennotes.txt deleted file mode 100644 index c5c3fe4..0000000 --- a/published/New Folder With Items/allaregreennotes.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,53 +0,0 @@ - - -Greenhouse - - - -It sounds cynical, but if you want to understand why politicians make the decisions they make and vote the way they vote you just need to follow the money. - -For every story there is a story behind that story. - - -Robert Anton Wilson often used a playful idea of seeing the "fnords", that is seeing the story behind the story. - - -In other words Greenhouse isn't doing anything thousands of other people couldn't have done. But they didn't. Nicholas Rubin did. - -Rubin has received a lot of attention from the press in part because he's just 16 years old, but that catchy factoid sometimes hides just how fantastically useful Greenhouse is regardless of who built it and how old they might be. It's fantastically useful if you want to see the threads behind the news, to follow the money as it were. - - - - - -1. how did you come up with the idea for Greenhouse? - -Corporate personhood and - -(if he talks about corporate personhood, mention that most people don't know that, can he expand a bit on that idea) - -1a) ask about relationship to Lessig. - -2. One of the things I found interesting about Greenhouse is that on one hand staring this data in face can make you cynical about politics, how did you feel about that? Has it been depressing to discover the sort of almost 1 to 1 equation that seems to exist between money and the way politicians vote on issues? - -2a) at the top there you have a little ray of hope -- AKA, the contributions from ordinary people -like you and I. Was that there from the beginning? and do you see those numbers -as a kind of solution? (can follow up with Lessigs Grant and Franklin proposal - -3. In reading some of the past coverage of greenhouse I noticed that you had a lot of people from all sides of the political spectrum -- pretty unusual to have Tea Party supports say nice things said about at the same time anti-Tea PArty supporters are saying the same thing. It's a bit like uncovering the money might unite some pretty dissparate ideologies around a common goal -- have you found that to be true, -that money is the common enemy of pretty much everyone seeking political reform? - -3a) what's the most egregious example you know of -- who is the most paid for politician in america? - -4. What are your goals for greenhouse? - -5. i noticed that cory doctorow suggested a sort of reverse tool, where any time the name of a company or individual who makes massive donations comes up it shows the politicians who benefit from that money. Is there data out there for that sort of thing? - -6. Can you share any plans for the future of greenhouse? - -Lessig said recently on his blog that " -Opensecrets.org can tell you. Next time you read an article about how you local representatives voted, head over to opensecrets.org and check to see if the vote happens to -- coincidentally I'm sure -- to benefit the your representative's top donors in any way. Congrats, you've followed the money to the why behind the what. - - - -In this case the "green" in Greenhouse refers to money, as in campaign contributions and how they influence the U.S. political system. The download page gives away the answer in its slogan -- "some are red, some are blue, all are green". diff --git a/published/New Folder With Items/fedora21review.html b/published/New Folder With Items/fedora21review.html deleted file mode 100644 index 2f393b4..0000000 --- a/published/New Folder With Items/fedora21review.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,55 +0,0 @@ -<p>The Fedora Project recently rolled out a major update in the form of <a href="https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/">Fedora 21</a>. This release marks the first that's built around the newly restructured Fedora Project.</p> -<p>Like most Linux distros Fedora is a massive, sprawling project that has, frankly, felt unfocused and a bit lost at times. Just what is Fedora? Fedora has served as a kind of showcase distro of GNOME 3 ever since GNOME 3 hit the beta stage, which would seem to target everyday users, but then at the same time the project pours tremendous energy into building developer tools like <a href="http://devassistant.org/">DevAssistant</a>. So is Fedora a developer distro? A newbie-friendly GNOME showcase? A server distro? An obscure robotics distro?</p> -<p>Recently Fedora did a bit of soul searching and discovered that the answer to all those questions is yes. The way to make sense of it all is what Fedora calls <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora.next">Fedora.Next</a>.</p> -<p>Fedora.Next is Fedora's term for its new organization and release structure. There is a core (no, not like the old Fedora Core/Extras division, this is different), then there is a second layer, the APIs and such, and then the "Environments" that users like you and I interact with.</p> -<p>You can think of Fedora.Next's structure as a series of concentric rings where each ring is supported by the one inside it. At the center are the core components of the system, APIs that applications hook into and so on. Up from that are the actual system components and then the most visible of the new layers, what Fedora calls "Environments." For now the available Environments consist of Workstation (Desktop), Server and Cloud. Each environment is optimized to suit what it says on the tin. Because these are very modular it won't be hard for Fedora to add new Environments as needed. For example perhaps there will one day be a Mobile Environment.</p> -<p>The new pre-packaged Environments don't mean you can't configure Fedora however you like, just that these three Environments represent the primary areas of focus for developers. This offers Fedora a bit of direction and focus internally and more targeted "products" for users.</p> -<p>Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller <a href="http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-update-part-ii-whats-happening/">likens</a> the Fedora.Next structure to Lego: "One of the related (and perpetual) community discussions centers around what exactly Fedora is. Traditionally, the answer is: we take the 'raw plastic' of the software out there in the universe and we mold it into high-precision Lego bricks, and users can plug them together."</p> -<p>"The idea [with Environments] is," continues Miller, "we can take some of our bricks, and we can ship those as sets." That doesn't mean though that you can't build your own thing as well. Miller is quick to reassure long-time Fedora fans that the project is "not getting rid of the basic supply of bricks... we want you to build other things."</p> -<p>The renewed sense of focus apparent in the new Fedora.Next release structure seems to have re-invigorated the Fedora project -- at least it looks that way from an outsider's perspective. Whatever the case, Fedora 21 is one of the strongest releases the project has put out in recent memory and is well worth the upgrade.</p> -<h2 id="fedora-21-workstation">Fedora 21 Workstation</h2> -<p>The Workstation Environment is what you would have installed previously if you had just downloaded Fedora Live CD and installed the defaults.</p> -<p>In Fedora 21 that will get you a GNOME desktop. The old "spins", which consist primarily of different desktops, are still available (and presumably build on the same basic set of packages found in the GNOME Workstation release), but as noted earlier Fedora has long been a showcase distro of GNOME 3.x and with that in mind I stuck with the default GNOME 3.14 desktop.</p> - -[image="fedora21-desktop.jpg" caption="The basic GNOME Shell search screen in Fedora 21."] - -<p>First though you have to install Fedora using what I think is supposed to be an intuitive installer that's so simple you can't fail. Except that instead of "can't fail", it's so simple you can't tell what you need to do. Perhaps I'm just too brainwashed by the form-based installers found in Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, ElementaryOS and well, just about everywhere, but Fedora's button-based installer -- buttons, which hide forms mind you -- drives me crazy. Why make me click an extra button to set up a user account for a workstation environment when I will obviously need a user account?</p> - -[image="fedora21-installer.jpg" caption="Fedora's nearly inscrutable installer, complete with instructions in the form of a tiny-font error message."] - -<p>The Fedora installer isn't part of the GNOME project, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn the same developer who turned the Nautilus file browser into a useless toy also had a go at the Fedora installer. I'm sure you'll figure it out, it's not Arch (at least Arch's arcane install process is well documented), but it gets things off the bumpy start.</p> -<p>The best thing I can say about Fedora's installer is that you only have to use it once. Just remember to create a new user and set your root password.</p> -<h3 id="gnome-3.14">GNOME 3.14</h3> -<p>Once Fedora 21 is installed you'll be greeted by the GNOME 3.14 desktop (assuming you found the button to create a user account).</p> -<p>Fedora leap-frogged over GNOME 3.12 -- Fedora 20 shipped with GNOME 3.10 -- so this is a major leap forward for Fedora fans. GNOME 3.14 brings plenty of new features, including a couple new applications, an updated theme and some more improvements in HiDPI screen support. In fact GNOME has long boasted some of the best HiDPI support around and this release continues to build on that, polishing the little details to the point that I haven't seen anything amiss running Fedora 21 in a virtual machine on a retina Macbook Pro.</p> -<p>Fedora's nearly stock GNOME 3.14 looks great on HiDPI screens and the updated GNOME theme gives the desktop a clean, simple look and feel.</p> -<p>If you're updating all the way from GNOME 3.10 you'll notice a completely rewritten Weather app that taps GNOME's new geolocation API to automatically pull in your local forecast. Fedora 21 does not, however, ship with some of the other new GNOME apps like Photos. Fedora 21 has elected to stick with the slightly more feature-rich Shotwell. GNOME Photos is available in the Fedora repos and has some new online account support, but in my experience it's a bit buggy for actually working with something as important as your photo library.</p> - -[image="fedora21-weather.jpg" caption="GNOME's revamped weather app with geolocation API."] - -<p>This release also brings the first real support for Wayland -- Mutter (GNOME's default display manager) can now work as a Wayland compositor. Just log out of the default session and click the gear icon to choose the "GNOME on Wayland" option. Fedora should seamlessly fall back to X where Wayland isn't supported.</p> -<p>GNOME 3.14 makes for a different, but perfectly usable desktop. At this point the 3.x line is well polished and feels mature. Its rather different take on the desktop interface is not for everyone, in fact it's not my choice for everyday use, but if you come around to its way of thinking GNOME 3 is perfectly capable of getting out of your way and letting you do what you want to do. The only real downside to GNOME I found is the default file manager, Nautilus, which is pretty limited. I swapped it out with the Nautilus fork, <a href="http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=198">Nemo</a>, and found I liked GNOME 3 a lot more after that.</p> -<p>If you haven't taken GNOME for a spin in a while it might be worth another look and Fedora 21 makes hands down the best GNOME platform I've tested.</p> -<h3 id="yum-now-with-more-yuminess">Yum, Now With More Yuminess</h3> -<p>As much as I love some of the developer tools and little side projects Fedora churns out (like the GNOME color management tools it pioneered), I've never been a fan of Fedora's package manager. Fedora 21 changes that. Yum is no longer the slow, awkward beast it used to be and by extension neither is the Software center tools (which is the pretty-much-only-works-in-Fedora GNOME Software app).</p> -<p>There was a time when Ubuntu's Software Center was perhaps one of the best graphical software installation tools out there and yum-based distros like Fedora looked slow and ugly in comparison. These days more or less the opposite is true. Not only is Fedora's graphical software app one of the fastest I've ever used (speed will obviously depend somewhat on your internet connection speeds and available mirrors) but it's also clean, well organized and offers a great search tool.</p> - -[image="fedora21-software.jpg" caption="GNOME's Software app in Fedora 21."] - -<p>And Fedora continues to target the developer audience with very up-to-date versions of Perl, Python, Ruby and most other languages you can think of. Anything that isn't there out of the box is most likely available in single DevAssistant command. If you're a developer and you haven't checked out DevAssistant you need to, it's the simplest way I've seen to get a complete development stack up and running.</p> -<h3 id="kernel-updates">Kernel Updates</h3> -<p>Fedora 21 ships with Linux kernel 3.17.1, which brings the usual slew of latest hardware support, but is also notable for giving Fedora 21 tentative support for ARM 64 chips. ARM 64 is not yet considered a "primary architecture" for Fedora, but most things should work according to <a href="http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-21-to-ship-the-3-16-linux-kernel-and-a-smaller-minimal-install-set/">Fedora Magazine</a>.</p> -<p>Fedora's kernel team has also adopted a more modular approach with this release, stripping things back a bit at the request of the Cloud environment developers. The result is a considerably smaller footprint for the Cloud environment, though both Workstation and Server will be roughly the same as the previous releases size-wise.</p> -<h2 id="fedora-server">Fedora Server</h2> -<p>While the Workstation environment is a good base on which to build your desktop experience, the new Fedora Server Environment is more specifically tailored to the needs of sysadmins and the like.</p> -<p>The first release of the Server Environment features a few new tools, like Cockpit, a server monitoring tool with a web-based interface you can connect to with your browser. If you're new to sysadmin tasks -- things like starting and stopping services, storage admin, and so on, or, if you just dislike doing everything through an SSH session, then Cockpit is worth checking out. It's more or less everything you're already doing on the command line, but available via a web-based GUI. It's all the same processes in the end, you can start Apache in the web panel and stop it from the command line. It's probably not going to replace your hand crafted shell scripts and preferred command line tools, but it's a nice option for newcomers.</p> - -[image="fedora21-server-cockpit.jpg" caption="Cockpit running on locally on Fedora 21 Workstation."] - -<p>This release also bundles in a couple new-to-Fedora tools like OpenLMI, perhaps best thought of as a remote API for system management, and FreeIPA, which aims to simplify the process of managing user and groups securely.</p> -<p>Then there's RoleKit, which is a brand new Fedora creation that looks like it will be very handy in the future, though it's limited right now. In a sense RoleKit is the sysadmin equivalent of Fedora's DevAssistant. That is, RoleKit will help you install and configure packages aimed a specific role. For example, call up everything you need to run a mail server, or everything you need to run a LAMP stack. Promising, but thus far incomplete.</p> -<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> -<p>I've used Fedora off and on since Fedora 6 (which at that time known as Fedora Core 6) and can say without reservation that this is the best release I've ever used.</p> -<p>That said, the GNOME desktop is not for me. Fortunately there are plenty of other "spins" available, including a version with the MATE-desktop, which can now use Compiz if you'd like to re-experience Fedora with wobbly windows just like the days of yore. There are also spins featuring KDE, Xfce and LXDE among other desktops.</p> -<p>More importantly, Fedora 21 sees the project plowing into the future with what feels like a renewed sense of direction and purpose.</p> -<p>If you're a desktop user there's a Fedora for you. If you're a sysadmin there's a Fedora for you. If you're chasing the dream of cloud server futures there's a Fedora for you. And of course if you're just looking for a distro on which to build the ultimate robot, there's still a Fedora for you.</p> diff --git a/published/New Folder With Items/fedora21review.txt b/published/New Folder With Items/fedora21review.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 979db7e..0000000 --- a/published/New Folder With Items/fedora21review.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,79 +0,0 @@ -The Fedora Project recently rolled out a major update in the form of [Fedora 21](https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/). This release marks the first that's built around the newly restructured Fedora Project. - -Like most Linux distros Fedora is a massive, sprawling project that has, frankly, felt unfocused and a bit lost at times. Just what is Fedora? Fedora has served as a kind of showcase distro of GNOME 3 ever since GNOME 3 hit the beta stage, which would seem to target everyday users, but then at the same time the project pours tremendous energy into building developer tools like [DevAssistant](http://devassistant.org/). So is Fedora a developer distro? A newbie-friendly GNOME showcase? A server distro? An obscure robotics distro? - -Recently Fedora did a bit of soul searching and discovered that the answer to all those questions is yes. The way to make sense of it all is what Fedora calls [Fedora.Next](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Fedora.next). - -Fedora.Next is Fedora's term for its new organization and release structure. There is a core (no, not like the old Fedora Core/Extras division, this is different), then there is a second layer, the APIs and such, and then the "Environments" that users like you and I interact with. - -You can think of Fedora.Next's structure as a series of concentric rings where each ring is supported by the one inside it. At the center are the core components of the system, APIs that applications hook into and so on. Up from that are the actual system components and then the most visible of the new layers, what Fedora calls "Environments." For now the available Environments consist of Workstation (Desktop), Server and Cloud. Each environment is optimized to suit what it says on the tin. Because these are very modular it won't be hard for Fedora to add new Environments as needed. For example perhaps there will one day be a Mobile Environment. - -The new pre-packaged Environments don't mean you can't configure Fedora however you like, just that these three Environments represent the primary areas of focus for developers. This offers Fedora a bit of direction and focus internally and more targeted "products" for users. - -Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller [likens](http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-present-and-future-a-fedora-next-2014-update-part-ii-whats-happening/) the Fedora.Next structure to Lego: "One of the related (and perpetual) community discussions centers around what exactly Fedora is. Traditionally, the answer is: we take the 'raw plastic' of the software out there in the universe and we mold it into high-precision Lego bricks, and users can plug them together." - -"The idea [with Environments] is," continues Miller, "we can take some of our bricks, and we can ship those as sets." That doesn't mean though that you can't build your own thing as well. Miller is quick to reassure long-time Fedora fans that the project is "not getting rid of the basic supply of bricks... we want you to build other things." - -The renewed sense of focus apparent in the new Fedora.Next release structure seems to have re-invigorated the Fedora project -- at least it looks that way from an outsider's perspective. Whatever the case, Fedora 21 is one of the strongest releases the project has put out in recent memory and is well worth the upgrade. - -## Fedora 21 Workstation - -The Workstation Environment is what you would have installed previously if you had just downloaded Fedora Live CD and installed the defaults. - -In Fedora 21 that will get you a GNOME desktop. The old "spins", which consist primarily of different desktops, are still available (and presumably build on the same basic set of packages found in the GNOME Workstation release), but as noted earlier Fedora has long been a showcase distro of GNOME 3.x and with that in mind I stuck with the default GNOME 3.14 desktop. - -First though you have to install Fedora using what I think is supposed to be an intuitive installer that's so simple you can't fail. Except that instead of "can't fail", it's so simple you can't tell what you need to do. Perhaps I'm just too brainwashed by the form-based installers found in Mint, Ubuntu, Debian, openSUSE, ElementaryOS and well, just about everywhere, but Fedora's button-based installer -- buttons, which hide forms mind you -- drives me crazy. Why make me click an extra button to set up a user account for a workstation environment when I will obviously need a user account? - -The Fedora installer isn't part of the GNOME project, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn the same developer who turned the Nautilus file browser into a useless toy also had a go at the Fedora installer. I'm sure you'll figure it out, it's not Arch (at least Arch's arcane install process is well documented), but it gets things off the bumpy start. - -The best thing I can say about Fedora's installer is that you only have to use it once. Just remember to create a new user and set your root password. - -### GNOME 3.14 - -Once Fedora 21 is installed you'll be greeted by the GNOME 3.14 desktop (assuming you found the button to create a user account). - -Fedora leap-frogged over GNOME 3.12 -- Fedora 20 shipped with GNOME 3.10 -- so this is a major leap forward for Fedora fans. GNOME 3.14 brings plenty of new features, including a couple new applications, an updated theme and some more improvements in HiDPI screen support. In fact GNOME has long boasted some of the best HiDPI support around and this release continues to build on that, polishing the little details to the point that I haven't seen anything amiss running Fedora 21 in a virtual machine on a retina Macbook Pro. - -Fedora's nearly stock GNOME 3.14 looks great on HiDPI screens and the updated GNOME theme gives the desktop a clean, simple look and feel. - -If you're updating all the way from GNOME 3.10 you'll notice a completely rewritten Weather app that taps GNOME's new geolocation API to automatically pull in your local forecast. Fedora 21 does not, however, ship with some of the other new GNOME apps like Photos. Fedora 21 has elected to stick with the slightly more feature-rich Shotwell. GNOME Photos is available in the Fedora repos and has some new online account support, but in my experience it's a bit buggy for actually working with something as important as your photo library. - -This release also brings the first real support for Wayland -- Mutter (GNOME's default display manager) can now work as a Wayland compositor. Just log out of the default session and click the gear icon to choose the "GNOME on Wayland" option. Fedora should seamlessly fall back to X where Wayland isn't supported. - -GNOME 3.14 makes for a different, but perfectly usable desktop. At this point the 3.x line is well polished and feels mature. Its rather different take on the desktop interface is not for everyone, in fact it's not my choice for everyday use, but if you come around to its way of thinking GNOME 3 is perfectly capable of getting out of your way and letting you do what you want to do. The only real downside to GNOME I found is the default file manager, Nautilus, which is pretty limited. I swapped it out with the Nautilus fork, [Nemo](http://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/?p=198), and found I liked GNOME 3 a lot more after that. - -If you haven't taken GNOME for a spin in a while it might be worth another look and Fedora 21 makes hands down the best GNOME platform I've tested. - -### Yum, Now With More Yuminess - -As much as I love some of the developer tools and little side projects Fedora churns out (like the GNOME color management tools it pioneered), I've never been a fan of Fedora's package manager. Fedora 21 changes that. Yum is no longer the slow, awkward beast it used to be and by extension neither is the Software center tools (which is the pretty-much-only-works-in-Fedora GNOME Software app). - -There was a time when Ubuntu's Software Center was perhaps one of the best graphical software installation tools out there and yum-based distros like Fedora looked slow and ugly in comparison. These days more or less the opposite is true. Not only is Fedora's graphical software app one of the fastest I've ever used (speed will obviously depend somewhat on your internet connection speeds and available mirrors) but it's also clean, well organized and offers a great search tool. - -And Fedora continues to target the developer audience with very up-to-date versions of Perl, Python, Ruby and most other languages you can think of. Anything that isn't there out of the box is most likely available in single DevAssistant command. If you're a developer and you haven't checked out DevAssistant you need to, it's the simplest way I've seen to get a complete development stack up and running. - -### Kernel Updates - -Fedora 21 ships with Linux kernel 3.17.1, which brings the usual slew of latest hardware support, but is also notable for giving Fedora 21 tentative support for ARM 64 chips. ARM 64 is not yet considered a "primary architecture" for Fedora, but most things should work according to [Fedora Magazine](http://fedoramagazine.org/fedora-21-to-ship-the-3-16-linux-kernel-and-a-smaller-minimal-install-set/). - -Fedora's kernel team has also adopted a more modular approach with this release, stripping things back a bit at the request of the Cloud environment developers. The result is a considerably smaller footprint for the Cloud environment, though both Workstation and Server will be roughly the same as the previous releases size-wise. - -## Fedora Server - -While the Workstation environment is a good base on which to build your desktop experience, the new Fedora Server Environment is more specifically tailored to the needs of sysadmins and the like. - -The first release of the Server Environment features a few new tools, like Cockpit, a server monitoring tool with a web-based interface you can connect to with your browser. If you're new to sysadmin tasks -- things like starting and stopping services, storage admin, and so on, or, if you just dislike doing everything through an SSH session, then Cockpit is worth checking out. It's more or less everything you're already doing on the command line, but available via a web-based GUI. It's all the same processes in the end, you can start Apache in the web panel and stop it from the command line. It's probably not going to replace your hand crafted shell scripts and preferred command line tools, but it's a nice option for newcomers. - -This release also bundles in a couple new-to-Fedora tools like OpenLMI, perhaps best thought of as a remote API for system management, and FreeIPA, which aims to simplify the process of managing user and groups securely. - -Then there's RoleKit, which is a brand new Fedora creation that looks like it will be very handy in the future, though it's limited right now. In a sense RoleKit is the sysadmin equivalent of Fedora's DevAssistant. That is, RoleKit will help you install and configure packages aimed a specific role. For example, call up everything you need to run a mail server, or everything you need to run a LAMP stack. Promising, but thus far incomplete. - -## Conclusion - -I've used Fedora off and on since Fedora 6 (which at that time known as Fedora Core 6) and can say without reservation that this is the best release I've ever used. - -That said, the GNOME desktop is not for me. Fortunately there are plenty of other "spins" available, including a version with the MATE-desktop, which can now use Compiz if you'd like to re-experience Fedora with wobbly windows just like the days of yore. There are also spins featuring KDE, Xfce and LXDE among other desktops. - -More importantly, Fedora 21 sees the project plowing into the future with what feels like a renewed sense of direction and purpose. - -If you're a desktop user there's a Fedora for you. If you're a sysadmin there's a Fedora for you. If you're chasing the dream of cloud server futures there's a Fedora for you. And of course if you're just looking for a distro on which to build the ultimate robot, there's still a Fedora for you. diff --git a/published/ars-mobile-friendly.png b/published/ars-mobile-friendly.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 2511af0..0000000 --- a/published/ars-mobile-friendly.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/dellreview.html b/published/dellreview.html index d4538fa..d4538fa 100644 --- a/dellreview.html +++ b/published/dellreview.html diff --git a/dellreview.txt b/published/dellreview.txt index b0b7b7e..b0b7b7e 100644 --- a/dellreview.txt +++ b/published/dellreview.txt diff --git a/published/intrepid-ibex.png b/published/intrepid-ibex.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index cd3f748..0000000 --- a/published/intrepid-ibex.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/published/kde5review/kdeplasma5.html b/published/kde5review/kdeplasma5.html deleted file mode 100644 index 08b1ca2..0000000 --- a/published/kde5review/kdeplasma5.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,119 +0,0 @@ -<p>The KDE project has release KDE Plasma 5, a major new version of the venerable K Desktop Environment.</p> -<p>Plasma 5 arrives in the middle of an ongoing debate about the future of the Linux desktop.</p> -<p>On one hand there are the brand new desktop paradigms represented by GNOME and Unity. Both break from the traditional desktop model in significant ways. Both also attempt to create interfaces that will work on the desktop and the much anticipated tablet-based future (which <a href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/op-ed-tables-really-are-pcsbecause-theres-no-point-in-buying-new-ones/">may or may not ever arrive</a>).</p> -<p>Linux desktops like KDE, XFCE, LXDE, Mate and even Cinnamon are the other side of the fence. None have re-invented themselves too much and continue to offer users a traditional desktop experience. Which is not to say these projects aren't growing and refining. All of them continue to turn out incremental releases that fine tune what is a well-proven desktop model.</p> - -[image="screenshot-unity.png" caption="Ubuntu's Unity desktop."] - -[image="screenshot-gnome.png" caption="GNOME 3 desktop."] - -<p>GNOME and Unity end up getting the lion's share of attention in this debate though. They're both new and different. They're both opinionated and polarizing. For every Linux user that loves them there's another that loves to hate them, which makes for, if nothing else, lively comments and forum posts in the Linux world. But the difference between these two camps is about more than just how your desktop looks and behaves. It's about what the future of computing looks like.</p> -<p>GNOME and Unity believe that the future of computing consists of multiple devices all running the same software. The new desktop paradigm both have created really only make sense in this context. Neither are really building desktops for the future, but include a hybrid desktop fallback mode for now and appear to believe that the real future is in devices. The other side of the schism largely seems to ignore devices.</p> -<p>This split, with these radical new attempts at what a desktop should look like and how it should behave on one hand, and the more traditional setups on the other, amounts to a distributed discussion about what the future of computing looks like.</p> -<p>Unlike the world of closed source OSes, where changes are handed down, like them or leave them, the Linux world is in the middle of a conversation about these ideas.</p> -<p>That said, it can be frustrating as a user. The last thing you need when you're trying to get work done is an update that completely changes your desktop, forcing you to learn new ways of working. Even the best case scenario, moving to another desktop when your old favorite suddenly veers off in a new direction, usually means jettisoning years of muscle memory and familiarity.</p> -<p>There's a simple way to navigate this mess and find the right desktop for you. Here it is in a nutshell: do you want to bend your will to your desktop or do you want to bend your desktop to your will?</p> -<p>If you fall in the first camp and don't mind learning new ways of working then Unity and GNOME 3 will be your best bet. If you fall in the latter camp, XFCE, Cinnamon, Mate and a host of others will all likely prove a good fit. If you want to go non-traditional in the opposite direction from GNOME 3 and Unity, there's always Xmonad, Ratpoison and others that very few Linux users will ever try (a shame, since Xmonad may be the best thing in Linux since Linus said, uh, hey, here's a kernel for your GNU system).</p> - -[image="screenshot01.png" caption="KDE Plasma 5's new boot screen"] - -<p>But what if you fall somewhere in the middle? You like the traditional desktop experience and you're not ready to give up your menu and shortcuts for HUDs and other new tools. At the same time, you're curious about tablets and other form factors and you want something that will work across them all. You, my hypothetical friend, are an excellent candidate for the brand new KDE Plasma 5.</p> -<p>KDE is attempting to do something no other desktop in Linux has tried to date -- move toward the tablet and mobile device future while still producing a desktop experience that's familiar, functional and infinitely customizable.</p> -<h2 id="kde-plasma-5-and-the-world-of-convergence">KDE Plasma 5 and the World of "Convergence"</h2> -<p>KDE users who made it through the transition from KDE 3.5 to 4 likely still flinch at the mention of a major upgrade to any part of KDE, but there's good news for KDE fans in Plasma 5 -- this is a major update yes, but with a handful of exceptions (which I'll get into in a minute) you'd never know it.</p> -<p>It turns out that the incredibly bumpy move to KDE 4 really did lay the groundwork for a better future. And we are now in that future.</p> -<p>With this update KDE is laying the groundwork for the future again, but in a less disruptive way. This time the future means a move to tablets and other form factors. Fear not though, KDE seems poised to do what GNOME and Unity could not -- branch out to other form factors without abandoning the traditional desktop.</p> -<p>KDE has, in other words, resisted the urge to mess with the tried and true just because there's something new on the horizon.</p> -<p>You'd be forgiven for not remembering this, but the whole convergence thing that Canonical goes on about with each new Unity update? KDE started using the word "convergence" way back when Canonical was still running user tests to determine the optimal shade of brown for GNOME 2 menus.</p> -<p>And behold, with KDE Frameworks 5, Qt5 and some other updates to the plumbing that come along with Plasma 5, KDE's version of convergence is here. You may not notice it though; it's under the hood where it belongs.</p> -<p>You also probably won't notice it because while the components are there to allow the KDE project and its developers to build different interfaces, the Plasma 5 desktop is, thus far, the only interface. But the frameworks and developer tools needed are there now. KDE calls these new frameworks the "converged Plasma shell", which is what loads up the desktop in Plasma 5.</p> -<p>KDE plans to build out other interfaces, and the <a href="http://www.kde.org/announcements/plasma5.0/">official release announcement</a> for Plasma 5 says that "a tablet-centric and media center user experience are under development."</p> -<p>KDE's vision of convergence is not unlike what Ubuntu envisions in that the user interface will change based on the device and hardware. For example, you might have the "tablet-centric" interface that's in the works running while you're reading the web on the couch. But get up, walk back to your office, connect to your wireless keyboard and the interface would shift to something more keyboard friendly.</p> -<p>This scenario has some potential problems, some of which Windows 8 users are likely already familiar with. For example, what will happen when a keyboard is plugged in, but you still want to interact with the screen via touch? What happens if you plug in a mouse, but still want to scroll with your fingers?</p> -<p>I mention these small points not to say that KDE hasn't thought them through -- I hope they have -- but because this idea of "convergence" of adaptive user interfaces will be very difficult to get right. One thing KDE has long had that gives me hope for the project's ability to pull off this vision of computing is limitless configurability.</p> -<p>My hope for KDE on a tablet is that I would be able to configure every last detail of the experience. That there would be a way for me to determine what <em>I</em> want to happen when a keyboard is detected rather than letting the OS determine for me.</p> -<h2 id="the-plasma-5-desktop">The Plasma 5 Desktop</h2> -<p>KDE Plasma 5 is KDE 4 evolved rather than any kind of revolutionary new interface.</p> - -[image="screenshot02.png" caption="The KDE Plasma 5 desktop"] - -<p>I've been using this release -- still not completely stable in my testing, though most of the glitches have been graphical, not data threatening -- for over a month now in virtual machines, dual booting on a Retina MacBook Pro and, to see how well it holds up on older hardware, an aging, underpowered Toshiba laptop. I've tested it using Kubuntu (virtual machine and the Toshiba) and atop a fresh install of Arch Linux (dual boot MacBook).</p> -<p>If you'd like to try out Plasma 5, the simplest way is to grab the <a href="http://files.kde.org/snapshots/neon5-latest.iso.mirrorlist">Neon live CD available from KDE</a>. That will get you Plasma with Ubuntu under the hood. If you want to commit and test it on an existing Kubuntu install, here's the commands for that:</p> -<pre><code> -sudo add-apt-repository ppa:neon/kf5 -sudo apt-get update -sudo apt-get install project-neon5-session project-neon5-utils project-neon5-konsole project-neon5-breeze project-neon5-plasma-workspace-wallpapers -</code></pre> - -<p>Restart your machine and you should see a new option at the login screen offering to start up a Neon session.</p> -<p>Once you have Plasma 5 up and running, the first thing you'll notice is the new default KDE theme, known as Breeze.</p> -<h2 id="plasma-5s-breezy-new-look">Plasma 5's Breezy New Look</h2> -<p>Breeze is what KDE refers to as a modernized interface, with "reduced visual clutter throughout the workspace." Indeed, the busy, somewhat cluttered feel that has long been a part of the default KDE look is gone.</p> - -[image="screenshot03.png" caption="The KDE Plasma 5 desktop's Breeze theme is most complete in the Kickoff menu. Note the type to search message."] - -<p>The entire interface has been flattened out, with bigger fonts, better contrast and a sort of flat, "frosted" look that's somewhere between OS X Yosemite, Android L and KDE 4.x. That's not to say KDE ripped off Apple or Google. They couldn't have since Plasma 5 and the Breeze theme were well on their way before Apple revealed Yosemite or Google announced Android L.</p> -<p>Still, while it would be incorrect to say KDE has ripped anyone off, Breeze's visual design and overall aesthetic are very much a product of its time. In that sense it looks "modern", so long as you define modern to mean lots of strong type, few textures or outlines, lots of translucency and monochrome iconography.</p> -<p>KDE's designers have put a lot of work into Breeze and it shows. This isn't just a new coat of paint. Breeze makes KDE more approachable out of the box with cleaned up menus, a less cluttered notification center and a revamped Kickoff start menu.</p> - -[image="screenshot04.png" caption="A cleaner, less nagging notification center"] - -<p>How much Breeze matters depends on whether or not you'll ever even use it. KDE tends to attract users that like customizing their systems which, presumably, includes customizing the theme. One thing to look forward to is what distros that heavily customize the default KDE theme -- notably OpenSUSE -- will do now that Breeze provides a somewhat higher starting bar.</p> -<p>For now at least most distros will probably not jump on Breeze since it is very much a work in progress. Indeed, Breeze is where you'll also notice some of the first signs of incompleteness in Plasma 5. While the Kickoff menu has some nice new icons, most of the rest of the interface does not. And as of the latest updates available in the Kubuntu ppa, Breeze does not use its new Window Decorations. The Window Decorations are installed, but they aren't turned on by default. You can head to the System Settings app and turn them on for a more complete, though possibly buggier, Breeze experience.</p> - -[image="screenshot05.png" caption="Top is the default Oxygen Window Decorations, bottom the new Breeze theme."] - -<p>Not everything is ideal and sometimes it's hard to tell what's a bug or incomplete feature and what is just poorly designed. For example, there's quite a bit of window and overlay translucency in Breeze, some of which looks nice, but at other times it gets in the way. Stacked windows and preview overlays bleed into what's behind them and become hard to read in the background. Pulling them to the foreground solves the problem, but it's hard to say what the value of the transparency is in this case.</p> - -[image="screenshot06.png" caption="Transparency... why?"] - -<p>So yes, Breeze is still a work in progress, and not just in terms of features and design, but also in terms of genuine bugs and glitches. I have encountered some unexpected behavior, particularly with regard to screen redraws, which happen frequently and slow enough to notice them. Windows disappear at times, the menu bar occasionally only draws half of itself.</p> -<p>Plasma 5 has never crashed on me, nor has it lost any data, but little visual glitches abound and I would suggest waiting for things to stabilize and the distro of your choice to integrate it before you jump in with both feet.</p> -<h2 id="plasma-menus-go-vertical">Plasma Menus Go Vertical</h2> -<p>Breeze gives Plasma 5 a new look, but there are also a number of changes in behavior. For example, both the widget explorer and the alt-tab window switcher are now vertically oriented and located in the same place by default -- the far left side of the screen.</p> - -[image="screenshot07.png" caption="The default look for the alt-tab switcher menu."] - -<p>While that consistency is probably good for KDE newcomers, who will learn to expect that various stuff will appear to the left of the screen, it can be a little frustrating for long-time users expecting something else. And some of these changes seem somewhat arbitrary.</p> - -[image="screenshot08.png" caption="The widget explorer menu"] - -<p>The KDE project claims the shift to vertical instead of horizontal lists in things like the widget explorer and window switcher, "provide better usability," but stop short of saying how exactly. The release docs also claim that moving the window switcher to the side of the screen "shifts the user's focus towards the applications and documents, clearing the stage for the task at hand". But if you only call up the window switcher when you're, ahem, switching windows, then it seems more likely that the user is between tasks rather than involved in one.</p> - -[image="screenshot09.png" caption="KDE still loves offering options. Notice the dark gray bar to the right, that's an artifact (glitch) from dragging the window."] - -<p>This is KDE though, not Unity, infinite customization is a feature not a bug. A trip to the System Settings will get your old style window switcher back, indeed there are some 10 different visual possibilities for the window switcher in Plasma 5. If the default is not to your liking, customize away.</p> -<h2 id="so-long-nepomuk-and-thanks-for-all-the-spinning-fans">So Long Nepomuk and Thanks for All the Spinning Fans</h2> -<p>If you're a heavy user of KDE's sometimes awesome, sometimes not, search features, this may be the biggest news in Plasma 5.</p> -<p>It's true, KDE has ditched Nepomuk in favor of a new search engine known as Baloo.</p> -<p>Nepomuk, which started life as an EU-funded metadata search project with the lofty sounding goal of creating a "Networked Environment for Personalized, Ontology-based Management of Unified Knowledge". By the time it trickled down to the KDE project, Nepomuk became a somewhat more mundane desktop search tool that alternated between brilliant and maddening.</p> - -[image="screenshot10.png" caption="Searching for files in Plasma 5"] - -<p>Baloo takes much of what made Nepomuk great -- namely full text file search and an uncanny ability to pick up on relationships between files, for example, knowing that particular document is related to a contact -- and <a href="https://dot.kde.org/2014/02/24/kdes-next-generation-semantic-search">improves it</a>. Actually use the search features in Plasma 5 and you'll notice two things right off the bat -- it's faster and your fan doesn't go haywire every time something new is indexed.</p> -<p>Baloo significantly reduces the resource footprint of searching and, according to KDE, is more accurate. I can't vouch for the latter since I never used search much in older versions of KDE (see fan spinning comments), but in terms of accuracy, simple files searches in Plasma 5 are on par with what you'll find in Ubuntu, OS X and elsewhere. The success of more complex searches involving relationships or complex metadata will vary depending on how much you use the default KDE apps. For example, you need to use the Kontact Suite if you want to take advantage of Baloo-based searches involving relationships between contacts and files.</p> -<p>That will likely change as time goes on though because another big change from Nepomuk is the new, improved developer API. The API for searching means third-party apps can tie in Plasma 5's Semantic Search infrastructure and take advantage of the same tools the default apps use.</p> -<p>Curiously, for something that's seen as much work as Baloo has, the visibility and discoverability of the search feature has taken a step backward. Fire up Plasma 5's Kickoff menu -- KDE's answer to the Windows Start menu -- and search is nowhere to be found. If you look closely you'll see a tiny little reminder to "type to search", which is step up from the first release, which had no indication that you could search, but still isn't as discoverable as a dedicated search box.</p> -<h2 id="kickoff-and-its-new-cousin-kicker">Kickoff and its new Cousin, Kicker</h2> -<p>KDE's answer to the Windows Start button has always been overkill in my view, packing too much in too little space, but with Breeze the menu has been cleaned up a bit and feels less visually overwhelming.</p> - -[image="screenshot11.png" caption="The Kickoff menu in the default theme."] - -<p>If it's still a bit too much for your needs, Plasma 5 offers a new, more traditional menu-based launcher called Kicker. Kicker does less -- it's much closer to the Start menu in XP, a single, narrower pane that offers expanding menus where needed -- and makes a lightweight alternative if all you want to do is launch applications and files. It also has a very obvious search box.</p> - -[image="screenshot12.png" caption="The new Kicker menu option"] - -<p>The other side of the menu bar has been revamped and cleaned up bit as well. The most notable change is the notification app, which seems to kick up fewer notifications and does a better job of displaying them and quickly getting them out of the way.</p> -<h2 id="opengl-qtquick-and-hidpi-screens">OpenGL, QtQuick and HiDPI Screens</h2> -<p>Plasma 5 finishes up KDE's migration to Qt 5 and QtQuick, the latter of which uses a hardware-accelerated OpenGL scenegraph to render graphics. Most of what's new with OpenGL pertains to offloading graphics to any available GPU. That means, provided you've got the hardware for it, Plasma 5 can take full advantage of today's powerful GPUs.</p> -<p>Indeed on newish hardware (my MacBook's NVIDIA GeForce GT graphics card, for example) Plasma 5 is snappy, considerably snappier than its predecessor. Perhaps even more impressive, take away whatever GPU advantage Plasma 5 might gain over KDE 4.x systems and it still feels faster. That is, while running on older hardware still isn't KDE's strong point, but the story is better than it used to be. Still, if you're looking to get some extra mileage out of older hardware, stick with Xfce, LXDE or something even simpler like Openbox.</p> -<p>Interestingly, the revamped Frameworks that make up Plasma 5's graphics stack also pave the way for KDE to switch to the Wayland display server protocol. KDE doesn't seem to be in a hurry to make the switch to Wayland though, noting only that full support will be available in "a future release".</p> -<p>This release also claims improved support for HDPI displays. But, as with the HDPI support in GNOME and Unity, the actual experience is a very mixed bag. Font rendering in particular is nowhere near as smooth as what OS X offers. Even installing and fiddling with Infinality has never produced satisfactory results for me. I'm still not sure if the problem is in my setup and I'm not in fact seeing the new HDPI features. Or, if possibly the KDE project and I just have very different definitions of what constitutes HDPI support. Hopefully it's the former.</p> -<h2 id="whats-missing">What's Missing</h2> -<p>Earlier in this review I said that the transition from KDE 4 to the Plasma 5 desktop would not be as bumpy as the move from KDE 3.x to 4.x. For the most part that's true, but for some people there may be exceptions.</p> -<p>The KDE project says the focus for this release has been "concentrated on tools that make up the central workflows" and notes that "not all features from the Plasma 4.x series are available yet." That might ring a bell for those who made it through the KDE 3 to 4 transition.</p> -<p>In my testing I didn't run across any noticeable gaps in functionality or obvious missing features, save what I've mentioned -- the incomplete Breeze theme, some graphical glitches and some questionable design choices. That said, have a look at the <a href="https://community.kde.org/Plasma/5.0_Errata">list of known issues</a>, in particular the note about performance.</p> -<p>And I suggest trying Plasma 5 first to make sure all your must-haves are there before you jump in with both feet.</p> -<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2> -<p>KDE's Plasma 5 release lacks the attention-grabbing, paradigm-shifting changes that keep Unity and GNOME in the spotlight. Instead the KDE project has been focused on improving its core desktop experience. Plasma 5 is not perfect by any means, but unlike Unity and GNOME it's easy to change the things you don't like.</p> -<p>What's perhaps most heartening about this release is that KDE has managed to get a lot of the groundwork done for alternate interfaces without messing with their desktop interface much at all. The speed improvements are also good news. If you've tried KDE in the past and found it too "heavy" you might want to give Plasma 5 a fresh look.</p> diff --git a/published/mint17/mint17review.html b/published/mint17/mint17review.html deleted file mode 100644 index a234fce..0000000 --- a/published/mint17/mint17review.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,151 +0,0 @@ -<p>The team behind Linux Mint Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24 this week. Mint 17, nicknamed "Qiana", is based on Ubuntu 14.04. </p> - -<p>Mint 17 marks the start of a major new direction for what has quickly become one of the most popular Linux distros available today. </p> - -<p>Like the recently released Ubuntu 14.04 (<a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/ubuntu-14-04-review-missing-the-boat-on-big-changes/">Ars review</a>), Mint 17 is a Long Term Support Release. For Linux Mint 17 that means support will continue until 2019. Perhaps more important though, this release marks a change in Mint's relationship with Ubuntu, which forms the base on which Mint builds. </p> - -<p>Starting with this release and continuing until 2016, every release of Linux Mint will be built on the same package base -- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. That means that instead of working to keep up with whatever changes Ubuntu makes in the next two years, Mint can focus on those things that make it Mint.</p> - -<p>Given that Ubuntu has some major changes coming in the next two years, Mint's decision makes sense not just because it frees up the Mint team to focus on its two homegrown desktops (Cinnamon and MATE), but also because it spares Mint users the potential bumpy road that is Ubuntu's future. </p> - -<p>In other words, Mint can sit back and work on perfecting its desktop while Ubuntu stumbles through the Wayland and Unity 8 transitions. When things have settled down in Ubuntuland, Mint can jump back in with both feet (assuming it still wants to) when Ubuntu 16.04 LTS arrives.</p> - -<p>If all goes the way Mint developers intend, the changes will give Mint users a more polished, stable distro. </p> - -<p>The decision to stick with 14.04 means that Mint 17 is an important release since it's what Mint will be working with for the next two years. The good news is that Mint 17 will indeed make a great base on which to build.</p> - -<p>As with all Mint releases there are two separate downloads available, one for the Cinnamon desktop and one for the MATE desktop.</p> - -<h2>Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon</h2> - -<p>The more interesting of the two Mint 17 releases, to my mind anyway, is the Cinnamon flavor, which features the just released Cinnamon 2.2.</p> - -[image="screenshot01.png" caption="The stock Cinnamon 2.2 desktop in Linux Mint 17."] - -<p>The Cinnamon desktop is a curious hybrid, combining some of the best elements of KDE with the best elements of the now abandoned GNOME 2.x line. Cinnamon also has more than a few tricks of its own that build on those earlier foundations. That might sound like a recipe for a terrible Frankenstein of a desktop, but fortunately that's not the case. Instead, Cinnamon ends up being perhaps the most user-friendly and all-around useful desktop available on any platform.</p> - -<p>That's not to say there aren't problems in Cinnamon, but fortunately 2.2 solves many of the worst. Cinnamon 2.2 is much faster and much more stable than previous releases. In fact, if you tried out Cinnamon even just a few releases ago and dismissed it as slow and buggy -- can't say I blame you; it was -- I highly suggest you give it another try in Mint 17.</p> - -<p>Among the more noticeable changes in Cinnamon 2.2 is the revamped system settings panel, which is no longer divided up into the somewhat arbitrary sections "normal" and "advanced". Now there are just settings. The various settings panels are all in one place and have been reorganized into some basic categories that make it easy to find what you're looking for and change it.</p> - -[image="screenshot02.png" caption="Cinnamon's revamped settings panel."] - -<p>In fact, given that the new settings app is easy to use and it's simple to jump between settings, I'd like to see a way to remove all the individual settings that clutter up the main Cinnamon menu and just have a single "settings" button that opens the app. Alas, that does not appear to be possible at this time.</p> - -<p>Buried away in the revamped settings panel is one of my favorite new Cinnamon features -- the ability to shade or fade windows with the mouse wheel. To turn this on, head to Settings and click the Windows option. This will bring up a panel with all the options for controlling window behavior. Click the option to set "Action on title bar with mouse scroll" and switch it to whichever option you prefer. Now whenever you want to see what's behind your currently active window, you can just scroll the mouse wheel (or scroll on your trackpad) and the foremost window will fade out (or shade up). </p> - -[image="screenshot03.png" caption="Setting the behavior of the mouse wheel when hovering over window title bars."] - -<p>This makes it much easier to refer, for example, to something in the web browser while you're working in a word processor or text editor. You don't need to switch apps, which can break your concentration and rhythm, when all you want to do is double check a fact. </p> - -[image="screenshot04.png" caption="Fading a window to read what's behind it."] - -<p>It's not an earth-shattering feature -- in fact, buried as it is many users will likely never know it exists -- but it's one of many handy little extras that together add up to give Cinnamon a level of polish and user control that sets it above other desktops.</p> - -<p>Two other notable tweaks to the various settings panels include some changes to Cinnamon's Hot Corners and HUD features. The HUD, which is there to let you know that you are snapping a window to the edge of the screen, now only appears when you get really close to the edge. It's less sensitive which means it's harder to trigger it accidentally. The Hot Corners feature now has options to trigger events on hover, a click or both.</p> - -<p>Another welcome change in Cinnamon 2.2 is support for HiDPI screens. I tested this in a virtual machine running on a Retina Macbook Pro and found that while Cinnamon mostly looks just fine on a HiDPI screen, font rendering in particular isn't all that great. The same can be said of most Linux distros though, HiDPI support or not. One solution is to use <a href="http://www.infinality.net/blog/">Infinality</a>, which makes it relatively easy to tweak the font rendering to your liking.</p> - -<p>Nemo, the default Cinnamon file manager, gets a couple new features in this release, including a new Recent Places sidebar item and a new tab switching keyboard shortcut -- control-+ and control-shift-+ will cycle through your open tabs.</p> - -[image="screenshot05.png" caption="The new Recent Places item makes it easy to find the files you've been working on."] - -<p>The main Cinnamon menu resembles what you'd find in KDE or Windows 7, but looks a bit prettier thanks to some nice icons. Cinnamon 2.2 adds a new option to remove applications right from the menu, which can make the process of uninstalling unneeded apps a little easier. Just right click an item in the menu and you'll see a new option to "uninstall".</p> - -[image="screenshot06.png" caption="Uninstalling app right from the main menu"] - -<p>To go along with the uninstall, the Cinnamon menu also now highlights newly installed applications. Or at least the release notes say it will. I never noticed anything after I installed a new application.</p> - -<p>There a few other minor changes in Cinnamon 2.2, including some bug fixes that make it work better alongside GNOME 3.x on the same machine. You should no longer see GNOME Control Center in Cinnamon, or Cinnamon Settings in GNOME, making it easier to take Cinnamon for a spin without necessarily switching to Mint 17. Along those lines it's worth noting that the old Cinnamon PPA for Ubuntu is no longer being maintained, though given the increasing popularity of Cinnamon, it seems inevitable that a new one will pop up eventually.</p> - -<h2>Linux Mint 17 MATE edition</h2> - -<p>Cinnamon, while nice, definitely requires newer hardware to really shine. If you're looking for a lightweight desktop that sticks with the basic interface that served GNOME 2.x so well, Linux Mint 17 MATE edition is for you.</p> - -[image="screenshot07.png" caption="Linux Mint 17 MATE edition"] - -<p>Mint 17 ships with MATE 1.8, which isn't quite as new as Cinnamon 2.2, having been released in March 2014, but this is the first Mint release to use it. </p> - -<p>The MATE desktop began life as a fork of GNOME 2 and it continues to, by and large, carry on the user interface experience of GNOME 2. Don't come to MATE looking for revolutions, this is a desktop of incremental improvements and refinements.</p> - -<p>The version of MATE that ships with Mint 17 is in fact even lighter than its predecessor, using less RAM than MATE 1.6 running Mint 16. MATE 1.8 also claims to be faster as well, though I did not see a huge difference testing both Mint 17 and Mint 16 on an old EeePC 1000HA. </p> - -<p>While MATE updates tend to be a little boring, there are some new features in MATE 1.8. Marco, the window manager, now supports side-by-side window tiling, making it more consistent with Cinnamon. There's now an option to shuffle pictures when the default image viewer is in slideshow mode. The screensaver also now shows the date and time and MATE's documentation and translations have been improved.</p> - -<p>The Mint dev team has also done some Mint-specific work to improve Mint integration with MATE. The MintMenu got a "huge" amount of bug fixes (which is slightly odd since it's never been particularly buggy in my use, but if you had problems, hopefully this release will fix them). The MintMenu and the Mint-X theme were also adapted to respect mate-panel's transparency settings. If you happen to use Compiz with MATE, the MintDesktop now features a cleaner UI and no longer shows Marco settings when you are running Compiz.</p> - -<h2>Common Ground</h2> - -<p>MATE and Cinnamon share the same base and there are quite a few improvements that apply to the release regardless of which desktop you use.</p> - -<p>Linux Mint 17 gives the Update Manager a notable overhaul. The app offers considerably more information through a revamped user interface that's cleaner and feels much faster than previous releases.</p> - -[image="screenshot08.png" caption="The revamped Update Manager."] - -<p>The Update Manager features a new set of icons to indicate both the nature and severity of an available update. A very important security update for an installed application will be highlighted with a red exclamation point in the left column (to show that it's a security update). If an update isn't security related it gets an downward arrow icon, which doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense, but is at least consistent.</p> - -<p>These indicator icons make it easier to distinguish version upgrades from important security updates, which means you can prioritize security updates while bypassing potentially unwanted version upgrades.</p> - -<p>There's also a new column of numbered and colored ratings designed to show at a glance how likely a new package is to mess up your system.</p> - -[image="screenshot09.png" caption="Update Manager package "levels"."] - -<p>A minty green "1" means that the update in question comes from a certified package, tested or maintained by Mint. A green "2" means the package is recommended (tested and approved by Mint, but not from Mint). A yellow 3 denotes safe upstream packages that have not been explicitly tested, but are believed to be safe. </p> - -<p>Levels 4 and 5, orange and red respectively, are for packages that are considered potentially unsafe, for example updated kernel headers. By default any updates that fall in the 4 or 5 categories are shown, but not selected. If you're confident that you're not going to screw up your system you can go ahead and install them by checking the box.</p> - -<p>Generally speaking the first thing you should do after installing and backing up your new desktop is download the latest security patches and updates. The MintUpdate icon on the task bar will remind you that you should update, but Mint has taken some flack over the years for how and when they push out certain updates, especially kernel updates.</p> - -<p>The new 1-5 ranking system will hopefully make it clear to those without the technical knowledge which updates are fine and which they might want to wait for. Previously Mint didn't even show what will now be labeled "4" and "5" level updates. So while they still won't be installed by default, it's now much easier to go ahead and install these things yourself. For example, I went ahead and updated the kernel and thus far have had no problems. Though again, it's possible there might be problems, so proceed with caution and be sure to read the kernel changelogs before diving in with both feet.</p> - -<p>The improved Update Manager is also easier and less annoying to use in Mint 17. For example, it no longer needs to reload itself in root mode when you click on it and it will not hang up, waiting on the network manager before loading.</p> - -<p>The Update Manager log also now shows all installed updates, whether you installed them through Update Manager, apt-get or something like gdebi. Previously only updates installed via Update Manager would show up in the history.</p> - -<p>Another update tool has a very welcome improvement -- the Driver Manager is now able to install drivers without a connection to the Internet. That means if, like me, you have a Broadcom wifi chip that's not supported out of the box, you can plug in your install disk and install what you need from there. There's no need to dig out an Ethernet cable to get your wifi up and running.</p> - -<p>Under the hood both releases of Mint ship with what amounts to Ubuntu 14.04 plus Mint's unique set of packages.</p> - -[image="screenshot10.png" caption="Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24."] - -<p>That means the kernel is 3.13.0-24, which, as I noted in the Ubuntu review, can be a huge boon depending on your hardware setup. Mint 17 should have no trouble with dual GPU hardware that uses Nvidia Optimus to switch between GPUs. That can mean significantly better battery life, which will be especially helpful to Cinnamon users since its flashier interface is naturally a bit harder on the battery than MATE.</p> - -<p>If you happen to have a newer laptop with UEFI Secure Boot enabled, well, the Mint devs say you should turn it off. The release notes for both Cinnamon and MATE suggest "if your system is using Secure Boot, turn it off." There are, however, numerous reports around the web of people getting Mint 17 working with Secure Boot enabled. </p> - -<p>Mint 17 ships with a compliment of apps that will be familiar to anyone accustomed to the basic Debian/Ubuntu application suite. In Linux Mint 17 you'll find the latest versions of all the usual suspects like Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Gimp and others. </p> - -<p>There's one new app, HexChat, an IRC client. One possible reason for HexChat is that it automatically starts up configured to join the #linuxmint channel, making it dead-simple for IRC newbies to get some help with their newly installed Mint 17. It's a noisy channel but in the few minutes I hung around I saw several people ask for and receive assistance. If you're having problems and searching the web isn't yielding any answers, fire up HexChat and see if anyone can point you in the right direction.</p> - -<p>Mint ships with repositories for its own packages and the Ubuntu 14.04 repositories. There aren't any third party repos installed by default, but it's not hard to add what you need with Software Sources, which has received a slight makeover in this release. Software Sources now warns you about backports, suggesting you don't enable them unless you know what you're doing. If you leave your install media plugged in you'll see one item under the "Additional repositories" -- all the drivers included, but not installed by default are available through a deb that points to your install media.</p> - -<h2>Mint 17 vs Ubuntu 14.04</h2> - -<p>Given that they share a lot of common elements under the hood, which one you like better will be determined by which desktop you like better. If you want to explore a new desktop paradigm, Ubuntu is clearly the best option. If you're looking for a more traditional desktop along the lines of GNOME 2 or even Windows XP/7, then Mint will be more to your liking.</p> - -<p>In my experience testing both I found them both to be stable and never lacking when it comes to finding the right package. Mint 17 MATE edition is unquestionably the fastest of the three desktops, Cinnamon generally falls in the middle when it comes to performance with the heavyweight Unity bringing up the rear. At least that's how it falls based on RAM use while idle. In real world use on newer hardware I've never noticed a significant performance difference between Unity and Cinnamon.</p> - -<p>In the end I like Mint with Cinnamon over Ubuntu with Unity simply because Mint doesn't require me to uninstall anything just to maintain my privacy. The Mint project also feels like its more in tune with the needs of desktop users, solving real problems and adding useful features rather than working toward some may-or-may-not-work future of "convergence".</p> - -<p>In other words, Mint 17 feels like the perfect place to wait out the uncertainty of Ubuntu's future.</p> - -<h2>XFCE And Linux Mint Debian Edition</h2> - -<p>It doesn't get much press and it hasn't been updated yet to Mint 17, but there is technically an Xfce flavor of Mint as well. It's not listed on the <a href="http://community.linuxmint.com/iso">community page</a> just yet (there is a KDE version listed, though it looks like it will be a while before it's ready). Past releases of the Xfce flavor lagged about a month behind Cinnamon/MATE.</p> - -<p>Then there's Linux Mint Debian Edition, which aims to provide an identical desktop experience, but sitting atop snapshots of Debian testing rather than Ubuntu. LMDE is an interesting beast on several levels. It takes snapshot of what's normally a rolling distro (albeit a conservative one, Debian is not by any means Arch) and then sometimes falls considerably behind on things (for example, Debian Testing is currently using GTK 3.10 while the latest release of LMDE is at 3.8) before pouring in a ton of work and then pushing out a new release.</p> - -<p>As it stands LMDE is quite a ways behind Mint 17, with Cinnamon 2.0 and MATE 1.6 being the latest versions available. Still, if you want both Mint and Debian, LMDE does what you're after.</p> - -<h2>The Future of Linux Mint</h2> - -<p>As I mentioned at the start of this review, Linux Mint 17 will be the base on which the next three releases build. Rather than following Ubuntu through 14.10, 15.04 and 15.10, Mint is planning to release 17.1, 17.2 and 17.3, all based on 14.04.</p> - -<p>The idea behind the change is that sticking with a stable base frees up the Mint team to focus on Cinnamon and MATE (and possibly LMDE as well), but it also means that Mint will be sitting out the transition to Wayland and some of the other pretty major changes that Ubuntu has on the roadmap over the next few years. </p> - -<p>The concern among some Mint users is that by the time Ubuntu 16.04 (the next LTS release) rolls around, Mint may be quite a ways behind. That's a valid concern, especially given Mint's track record with LMDE. Though, to be fair, LMDE has always seemed more like a fun hobby project than a real distro.</p> - -<p>The other potential problem is that Mint may lag behind when it comes to incorporating new packages. The Mint team plans to offer backports for more popular applications like, one assumes, web browsers, mail clients, office suites and the like. </p> - -<p>There's another possible outcome as well -- focusing on what makes Mint Mint might allow the distro time to make itself less dependent on Ubuntu. Such a move would make Mint more of a distro in its own right, rather than an Ubuntu derivative and it would lay the ground work for Mint to move away from Ubuntu should it wish to in the future.</p> - -<p>Whatever does end up happening with future releases, Linux Mint 17 makes a fantastic Linux desktop today. It's stable, familiar enough for Windows refugees to pick it up without missing a beat and has all the familiar tools Ubuntu fans would expect. </p> diff --git a/published/mint17/mint17review.txt b/published/mint17/mint17review.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 181809f..0000000 --- a/published/mint17/mint17review.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,151 +0,0 @@ -The team behind Linux Mint Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24 this week. Mint 17, nicknamed "Qiana", is based on Ubuntu 14.04. - -Mint 17 marks the start of a major new direction for what has quickly become one of the most popular Linux distros available today. - -Like the recently released Ubuntu 14.04 ([Ars review](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/ubuntu-14-04-review-missing-the-boat-on-big-changes/)), Mint 17 is a Long Term Support Release. For Linux Mint 17 that means support will continue until 2019. Perhaps more important though, this release marks a change in Mint's relationship with Ubuntu, which forms the base on which Mint builds. - -Starting with this release and continuing until 2016, every release of Linux Mint will be built on the same package base -- Ubuntu 14.04 LTS. That means that instead of working to keep up with whatever changes Ubuntu makes in the next two years, Mint can focus on those things that make it Mint. - -Given that Ubuntu has some major changes coming in the next two years, Mint's decision makes sense not just because it frees up the Mint team to focus on its two homegrown desktops (Cinnamon and MATE), but also because it spares Mint users the potential bumpy road that is Ubuntu's future. - -In other words, Mint can sit back and work on perfecting its desktop while Ubuntu stumbles through the Wayland and Unity 8 transitions. When things have settled down in Ubuntuland, Mint can jump back in with both feet (assuming it still wants to) when Ubuntu 16.04 LTS arrives. - -If all goes the way Mint developers intend, the changes will give Mint users a more polished, stable distro. - -The decision to stick with 14.04 means that Mint 17 is an important release since it's what Mint will be working with for the next two years. The good news is that Mint 17 will indeed make a great base on which to build. - -As with all Mint releases there are two separate downloads available, one for the Cinnamon desktop and one for the MATE desktop. - -## Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon - -The more interesting of the two Mint 17 releases, to my mind anyway, is the Cinnamon flavor, which features the just released Cinnamon 2.2. - -[image="screenshot01.png" caption="The stock Cinnamon 2.2 desktop in Linux Mint 17".] - -The Cinnamon desktop is a curious hybrid, combining some of the best elements of KDE with the best elements of the now abandoned GNOME 2.x line. Cinnamon also has more than a few tricks of its own that build on those earlier foundations. That might sound like a recipe for a terrible Frankenstein of a desktop, but fortunately that's not the case. Instead, Cinnamon ends up being perhaps the most user-friendly and all-around useful desktop available on any platform. - -That's not to say there aren't problems in Cinnamon, but fortunately 2.2 solves many of the worst. Cinnamon 2.2 is much faster and much more stable than previous releases. In fact, if you tried out Cinnamon even just a few releases ago and dismissed it as slow and buggy -- can't say I blame you; it was -- I highly suggest you give it another try in Mint 17. - -Among the more noticeable changes in Cinnamon 2.2 is the revamped system settings panel, which is no longer divided up into the somewhat arbitrary sections "normal" and "advanced". Now there are just settings. The various settings panels are all in one place and have been reorganized into some basic categories that make it easy to find what you're looking for and change it. - -[image="screenshot02.png" caption="Cinnamon's revamped settings panel."] - -In fact, given that the new settings app is easy to use and it's simple to jump between settings, I'd like to see a way to remove all the individual settings that clutter up the main Cinnamon menu and just have a single "settings" button that opens the app. Alas, that does not appear to be possible at this time. - -Buried away in the revamped settings panel is one of my favorite new Cinnamon features -- the ability to shade or fade windows with the mouse wheel. To turn this on, head to Settings and click the Windows option. This will bring up a panel with all the options for controlling window behavior. Click the option to set "Action on title bar with mouse scroll" and switch it to whichever option you prefer. Now whenever you want to see what's behind your currently active window, you can just scroll the mouse wheel (or scroll on your trackpad) and the foremost window will fade out (or shade up). - -[image="screenshot03.png" caption="Setting the behavior of the mouse wheel when hovering over window title bars".] - -This makes it much easier to refer, for example, to something in the web browser while you're working in a word processor or text editor. You don't need to switch apps, which can break your concentration and rhythm, when all you want to do is double check a fact. - -[image="screenshot04.png" caption="Fading a window to read what's behind it".] - -It's not an earth-shattering feature -- in fact, buried as it is many users will likely never know it exists -- but it's one of many handy little extras that together add up to give Cinnamon a level of polish and user control that sets it above other desktops. - -Two other notable tweaks to the various settings panels include some changes to Cinnamon's Hot Corners and HUD features. The HUD, which is there to let you know that you are snapping a window to the edge of the screen, now only appears when you get really close to the edge. It's less sensitive which means it's harder to trigger it accidentally. The Hot Corners feature now has options to trigger events on hover, a click or both. - -Another welcome change in Cinnamon 2.2 is support for HiDPI screens. I tested this in a virtual machine running on a Retina Macbook Pro and found that while Cinnamon mostly looks just fine on a HiDPI screen, font rendering in particular isn't all that great. The same can be said of most Linux distros though, HiDPI support or not. One solution is to use [Infinality](http://www.infinality.net/blog/), which makes it relatively easy to tweak the font rendering to your liking. - -Nemo, the default Cinnamon file manager, gets a couple new features in this release, including a new Recent Places sidebar item and a new tab switching keyboard shortcut -- control-+ and control-shift-+ will cycle through your open tabs. - -[image="screenshot05.png" caption="The new Recent Places item makes it easy to find the files you've been working on."] - -The main Cinnamon menu resembles what you'd find in KDE or Windows 7, but looks a bit prettier thanks to some nice icons. Cinnamon 2.2 adds a new option to remove applications right from the menu, which can make the process of uninstalling unneeded apps a little easier. Just right click an item in the menu and you'll see a new option to "uninstall". - -[image="screenshot06.png" caption="Uninstalling app right from the main menu"] - -To go along with the uninstall, the Cinnamon menu also now highlights newly installed applications. Or at least the release notes say it will. I never noticed anything after I installed a new application. - -There a few other minor changes in Cinnamon 2.2, including some bug fixes that make it work better alongside GNOME 3.x on the same machine. You should no longer see GNOME Control Center in Cinnamon, or Cinnamon Settings in GNOME, making it easier to take Cinnamon for a spin without necessarily switching to Mint 17. Along those lines it's worth noting that the old Cinnamon PPA for Ubuntu is no longer being maintained, though given the increasing popularity of Cinnamon, it seems inevitable that a new one will pop up eventually. - -## Linux Mint 17 MATE edition - -Cinnamon, while nice, definitely requires newer hardware to really shine. If you're looking for a lightweight desktop that sticks with the basic interface that served GNOME 2.x so well, Linux Mint 17 MATE edition is for you. - -[image="screenshot07.png" caption="Linux Mint 17 MATE edition"] - -Mint 17 ships with MATE 1.8, which isn't quite as new as Cinnamon 2.2, having been released in March 2014, but this is the first Mint release to use it. - -The MATE desktop began life as a fork of GNOME 2 and it continues to, by and large, carry on the user interface experience of GNOME 2. Don't come to MATE looking for revolutions, this is a desktop of incremental improvements and refinements. - -The version of MATE that ships with Mint 17 is in fact even lighter than its predecessor, using less RAM than MATE 1.6 running Mint 16. MATE 1.8 also claims to be faster as well, though I did not see a huge difference testing both Mint 17 and Mint 16 on an old EeePC 1000HA. - -While MATE updates tend to be a little boring, there are some new features in MATE 1.8. Marco, the window manager, now supports side-by-side window tiling, making it more consistent with Cinnamon. There's now an option to shuffle pictures when the default image viewer is in slideshow mode. The screensaver also now shows the date and time and MATE's documentation and translations have been improved. - -The Mint dev team has also done some Mint-specific work to improve Mint integration with MATE. The MintMenu got a "huge" amount of bug fixes (which is slightly odd since it's never been particularly buggy in my use, but if you had problems, hopefully this release will fix them). The MintMenu and the Mint-X theme were also adapted to respect mate-panel's transparency settings. If you happen to use Compiz with MATE, the MintDesktop now features a cleaner UI and no longer shows Marco settings when you are running Compiz. - -## Common Ground - -MATE and Cinnamon share the same base and there are quite a few improvements that apply to the release regardless of which desktop you use. - -Linux Mint 17 gives the Update Manager a notable overhaul. The app offers considerably more information through a revamped user interface that's cleaner and feels much faster than previous releases. - -[image="screenshot08.png" caption="The revamped Update Manager."] - -The Update Manager features a new set of icons to indicate both the nature and severity of an available update. A very important security update for an installed application will be highlighted with a red exclamation point in the left column (to show that it's a security update). If an update isn't security related it gets an downward arrow icon, which doesn't necessarily make a ton of sense, but is at least consistent. - -These indicator icons make it easier to distinguish version upgrades from important security updates, which means you can prioritize security updates while bypassing potentially unwanted version upgrades. - -There's also a new column of numbered and colored ratings designed to show at a glance how likely a new package is to mess up your system. - -[image="screenshot09.png" caption="Update Manager package "levels"."] - -A minty green "1" means that the update in question comes from a certified package, tested or maintained by Mint. A green "2" means the package is recommended (tested and approved by Mint, but not from Mint). A yellow 3 denotes safe upstream packages that have not been explicitly tested, but are believed to be safe. - -Levels 4 and 5, orange and red respectively, are for packages that are considered potentially unsafe, for example updated kernel headers. By default any updates that fall in the 4 or 5 categories are shown, but not selected. If you're confident that you're not going to screw up your system you can go ahead and install them by checking the box. - -Generally speaking the first thing you should do after installing and backing up your new desktop is download the latest security patches and updates. The MintUpdate icon on the task bar will remind you that you should update, but Mint has taken some flack over the years for how and when they push out certain updates, especially kernel updates. - -The new 1-5 ranking system will hopefully make it clear to those without the technical knowledge which updates are fine and which they might want to wait for. Previously Mint didn't even show what will now be labeled "4" and "5" level updates. So while they still won't be installed by default, it's now much easier to go ahead and install these things yourself. For example, I went ahead and updated the kernel and thus far have had no problems. Though again, it's possible there might be problems, so proceed with caution and be sure to read the kernel changelogs before diving in with both feet. - -The improved Update Manager is also easier and less annoying to use in Mint 17. For example, it no longer needs to reload itself in root mode when you click on it and it will not hang up, waiting on the network manager before loading. - -The Update Manager log also now shows all installed updates, whether you installed them through Update Manager, apt-get or something like gdebi. Previously only updates installed via Update Manager would show up in the history. - -Another update tool has a very welcome improvement -- the Driver Manager is now able to install drivers without a connection to the Internet. That means if, like me, you have a Broadcom wifi chip that's not supported out of the box, you can plug in your install disk and install what you need from there. There's no need to dig out an Ethernet cable to get your wifi up and running. - -Under the hood both releases of Mint ship with what amounts to Ubuntu 14.04 plus Mint's unique set of packages. - -[image="screenshot10.png" caption="Mint 17 using kernel 3.13.0-24."] - -That means the kernel is 3.13.0-24, which, as I noted in the Ubuntu review, can be a huge boon depending on your hardware setup. Mint 17 should have no trouble with dual GPU hardware that uses Nvidia Optimus to switch between GPUs. That can mean significantly better battery life, which will be especially helpful to Cinnamon users since its flashier interface is naturally a bit harder on the battery than MATE. - -If you happen to have a newer laptop with UEFI Secure Boot enabled, well, the Mint devs say you should turn it off. The release notes for both Cinnamon and MATE suggest "if your system is using Secure Boot, turn it off." There are, however, numerous reports around the web of people getting Mint 17 working with Secure Boot enabled. - -Mint 17 ships with a compliment of apps that will be familiar to anyone accustomed to the basic Debian/Ubuntu application suite. In Linux Mint 17 you'll find the latest versions of all the usual suspects like Firefox, LibreOffice, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Gimp and others. - -There's one new app, HexChat, an IRC client. One possible reason for HexChat is that it automatically starts up configured to join the #linuxmint channel, making it dead-simple for IRC newbies to get some help with their newly installed Mint 17. It's a noisy channel but in the few minutes I hung around I saw several people ask for and receive assistance. If you're having problems and searching the web isn't yielding any answers, fire up HexChat and see if anyone can point you in the right direction. - -Mint ships with repositories for its own packages and the Ubuntu 14.04 repositories. There aren't any third party repos installed by default, but it's not hard to add what you need with Software Sources, which has received a slight makeover in this release. Software Sources now warns you about backports, suggesting you don't enable them unless you know what you're doing. If you leave your install media plugged in you'll see one item under the "Additional repositories" -- all the drivers included, but not installed by default are available through a deb that points to your install media. - -## Mint 17 vs Ubuntu 14.04 - -Given that they share a lot of common elements under the hood, which one you like better will be determined by which desktop you like better. If you want to explore a new desktop paradigm, Ubuntu is clearly the best option. If you're looking for a more traditional desktop along the lines of GNOME 2 or even Windows XP/7, then Mint will be more to your liking. - -In my experience testing both I found them both to be stable and never lacking when it comes to finding the right package. Mint 17 MATE edition is unquestionably the fastest of the three desktops, Cinnamon generally falls in the middle when it comes to performance with the heavyweight Unity bringing up the rear. At least that's how it falls based on RAM use while idle. In real world use on newer hardware I've never noticed a significant performance difference between Unity and Cinnamon. - -In the end I like Mint with Cinnamon over Ubuntu with Unity simply because Mint doesn't require me to uninstall anything just to maintain my privacy. The Mint project also feels like its more in tune with the needs of desktop users, solving real problems and adding useful features rather than working toward some may-or-may-not-work future of "convergence". - -In other words, Mint 17 feels like the perfect place to wait out the uncertainty of Ubuntu's future. - -## XFCE And Linux Mint Debian Edition - -It doesn't get much press and it hasn't been updated yet to Mint 17, but there is technically an Xfce flavor of Mint as well. It's not listed on the <a href="http://community.linuxmint.com/iso">community page</a> just yet (there is a KDE version listed, though it looks like it will be a while before it's ready). Past releases of the Xfce flavor lagged about a month behind Cinnamon/MATE. - -Then there's Linux Mint Debian Edition, which aims to provide an identical desktop experience, but sitting atop snapshots of Debian testing rather than Ubuntu. LMDE is an interesting beast on several levels. It takes snapshot of what's normally a rolling distro (albeit a conservative one, Debian is not by any means Arch) and then sometimes falls considerably behind on things (for example, Debian Testing is currently using GTK 3.10 while the latest release of LMDE is at 3.8) before pouring in a ton of work and then pushing out a new release. - -As it stands LMDE is quite a ways behind Mint 17, with Cinnamon 2.0 and MATE 1.6 being the latest versions available. Still, if you want both Mint and Debian, LMDE does what you're after. - -## The Future of Linux Mint - -As I mentioned at the start of this review, Linux Mint 17 will be the base on which the next three releases build. Rather than following Ubuntu through 14.10, 15.04 and 15.10, Mint is planning to release 17.1, 17.2 and 17.3, all based on 14.04. - -The idea behind the change is that sticking with a stable base frees up the Mint team to focus on Cinnamon and MATE (and possibly LMDE as well), but it also means that Mint will be sitting out the transition to Wayland and some of the other pretty major changes that Ubuntu has on the roadmap over the next few years. - -The concern among some Mint users is that by the time Ubuntu 16.04 (the next LTS release) rolls around, Mint may be quite a ways behind. That's a valid concern, especially given Mint's track record with LMDE. Though, to be fair, LMDE has always seemed more like a fun hobby project than a real distro. - -The other potential problem is that Mint may lag behind when it comes to incorporating new packages. The Mint team plans to offer backports for more popular applications like, one assumes, web browsers, mail clients, office suites and the like. - -There's another possible outcome as well -- focusing on what makes Mint Mint might allow the distro time to make itself less dependent on Ubuntu. Such a move would make Mint more of a distro in its own right, rather than an Ubuntu derivative and it would lay the ground work for Mint to move away from Ubuntu should it wish to in the future. - -Whatever does end up happening with future releases, Linux Mint 17 makes a fantastic Linux desktop today. It's stable, familiar enough for Windows refugees to pick it up without missing a beat and has all the familiar tools Ubuntu fans would expect. diff --git a/published/pic-globe-responsive.png b/published/pic-globe-responsive.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index e0557b2..0000000 --- a/published/pic-globe-responsive.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/published/pic-marcotte-example.png b/published/pic-marcotte-example.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index c5c1cc9..0000000 --- a/published/pic-marcotte-example.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/published/pic-ricg-site.png b/published/pic-ricg-site.png Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 29edc30..0000000 --- a/published/pic-ricg-site.png +++ /dev/null diff --git a/published/ubuntu1404/arsubuntureview.html b/published/ubuntu1404/arsubuntureview.html deleted file mode 100644 index 91054db..0000000 --- a/published/ubuntu1404/arsubuntureview.html +++ /dev/null @@ -1,109 +0,0 @@ -<p>Canonical pushed out Ubuntu 14.04 last week. This release is the first Ubuntu Long Term Support release in two years and will be supported for five years.</p> -<p>It feels like, for Canonical at least, this Long Term Support release couldn't have come at a worse time. The company is caught in a transitional phase as it moves from a desktop operating system to a platform that spans devices.</p> -<p>The problem for Canonical is that it's only about 90 percent of the way to platform spanning OS, but it just so happens that the company's release schedule calls for a Long Term Support release now.</p> -<p>Long Term Support releases are typically more conservative releases that focus on stability and long term maintenance rather than experimental or flashy new features. Things 90 percent done don't make it into LTS releases. And, unfortunately for Canonical, most of its huge foundation shaking changes for the future of Ubuntu are currently only about 90 percent done and thus not part of this release.</p> -<p>The two biggest changes on the horizon are the Mir graphics stack and Unity 8, neither of which are part of 14.04.</p> -<p>Mir just isn't ready for prime time yet and even the half-way step of xMir (which falls back to the X display server when it needs to) isn't ready enough to land in an LTS release. Were this <em>not</em> an LTS release it seems likely xMir at least would be included. As it stands, the graphics stack in 14.04 is -- aside from incremental upgrades -- the same as it was in last year's 13.10.</p> -<p>Likewise, Unity 8 will not make its debut in this release. The next version of Ubuntu's flagship UI isn't quite there yet, at least on the desktop. This puts Canonical in the unfortunate position of needing to now support Unity 7 on the desktop for 5 years going forward.</p> -<p>Ubuntu is planning to ship its first mobile devices later this year -- which will use Unity 8, since the mobile version is much further along than the desktop. Thus when Ubuntu Mobile launches Canonical will find itself having to maintain two separate platforms, both Unity 7 and 8, with Unity 7 desktops hanging around for a minimum of five years.</p> -<p>While Ubuntu 14.04 might be most notable for what it is not -- namely the next-generation version of the Ubuntu desktop -- it is nevertheless an important update because for those users sticking with LTS releases it represents the first major change in two years. And a lot has happened in Ubuntu land in the time since 12.04 was released.</p> -<p>There have been major leaps forward in the form of upstream kernel updates, application updates and several major user interface changes in Unity.</p> -<p>It's also the first time LTS users will have to deal with the Amazon Search Lens and Ubuntu's new privacy policy.</p> -<h2 id="the-kernel">The Kernel</h2> -<p>At the core of Ubuntu 14.04 is the Linux kernel 3.13.0-24.</p> -<p>The previous release, Ubuntu 13.10, used the 3.11 kernel, and the last LTS release, 12.04.4, currently ships with 3.8. A lot has changed since 3.8, primarily in the form of better hardware support, but there are some welcome improvements in this latest kernel release even for those already running 3.11 in Ubuntu 13.10.</p> -<p>How much the kernel update impacts your Ubuntu experience will depend a little bit on your hardware. For example, if you've got dual GPU hardware that uses Nvidia Optimus to switch between GPUs -- one optimized for performance and the other for conserving power -- the move from 12.04 to 14.04 will be huge. As of the 3.12 kernel there's now low-level support of GPU switching (which should happen automatically).</p> -<p>Users with SSD-based machines should see better performance in this release, partly because of some improvements in the kernel, but also because Ubuntu now ships with TRIM features enabled by default. There are some horror stories about TRIM support in Linux floating around the web, but those issues have largely been solved.</p> -<p>That means you can delete those cron jobs running the fstrim command and stop worrying about adding "discard" to all your fstab entries. Ubuntu 14.04 will handle this automatically right out of the box. If you're running Ubuntu on an SSD you will likely notice a speed improvement, particularly in anything that requires a lot of data being written to disk.</p> -<p>Another of the headline-worthy changes in the 3.13 kernel is the addition of support for <a href="http://netfilter.org/projects/nftables/">nftables</a>, which will eventually replace the iptables firewall tool. Nftables is more than just a replacement for iptables, it's a complete reworking of the way the kernel handles packet filtering. Right now nftables is not quite ready for prime time, and the command line tool nft is not installed by default. But when the 3.15 kernel rolls around (which will be well within the lifespan of Ubuntu 14.04) nftables can replace your iptables-based firewall.</p> -<h2 id="battery-life-improvements">Battery Life Improvements</h2> -<p>Power management remains one of the weak points in Linux, with battery life lagging far behind what you'll find in Windows and OS X running on the same hardware.</p> -<p>The good news for laptop users is that several recent kernel updates related to power management have dramatically improved battery life and these are all part of Ubuntu 14.04.</p> -<p>I started using 14.04 when the final beta was released in March and immediately noticed a huge difference in battery life on my primary machine, an early-2013 Retina Macbook Pro. It's hard to say whether these improvements come from the kernel updates or perhaps some Unity-level improvements, but whichever is responsible it's a big improvement over Ubuntu 12.04.</p> -<p>I typically use only a handful of apps, primarily a web browser -- Chromium with anywhere 20-80 tabs -- and a Terminal session with several Tmux sessions running inside it which I attach and detach depending on what I'm doing (for development and writing I run zsh, python, ruby, vim, mutt, cmus). None of that should produce a huge battery drain. I also occasionally use Darktable and Gimp for image editing, which of course shortens the battery life. I should note that I use a <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg?hl=en">Chromium add-on</a> which suspends background tabs and significantly reduces Chromium's overall system footprint even with the large number of tabs I typically keep open.</p> -<p>This setup, which is pretty minimalist in terms of battery draining apps, would in Ubuntu 12.04 still manage to drain the battery in under 4 hours, sometimes not lasting much more than 3 hours. I switched to running Ubuntu in VMWare (using OS X as the base system) and battery life improved somewhat, consistently lasting about 4 hours, but that's still not very good.</p> -<p>In 14.04 with the same workload on the same machine the battery lasts just over 4.5 hours on average. That's actually a pretty significant improvement and would be worthy of praise did it not still lag far behind OS X (6.5 hrs) and the minimalist Crunchbang Waldorf (currently my primary OS), which lasts nearly as long as OS X itself -- well over 6 hrs. Crunchbang and Ubuntu share the same Debian core and Linux kernel, which most likely makes Ubuntu's Unity interface the primary source of the additional battery drain.</p> -<p>That's been my experience with battery life thus far in 14.04, but remember that real-world battery stats are highly subjective. Hardware, system setup and the details of what you do make it nearly impossible to guarantee anything. That said, based on my experience with 14.04 on three different laptops you'll likely see at least some improvement over 13.10 and even moreso if you're upgrading from 12.04.</p> -<h2 id="the-unity-desktop">The Unity Desktop</h2> -<p>While Canonical is playing it safe with most things in this release, given the LTS nature of 14.04, there are some surprising and very welcome changes to the Unity interface. The biggest news on the Unity front is that Canonical has done an about face on a number of long-requested features previously rejected by the Ubuntu development team.</p> -<h3 id="menu-in-windows">Menu in Windows</h3> -<p>The first and most notable change in Unity is a new option to turn off the global menu bar and put application menus back in the window.</p> - -[image="screenshot1.png" caption="Menus in application window.] - -<p>Part of the rationale behind the decision to move the window menus out of the window and up into the global position was to save space. This made sense back with Unity was an interface for netbooks and other small screen devices, but it doesn't hold water on a 27in HD monitor.</p> -<p>There are other arguments for global menus, notably [Fitts's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law) which, among other things, says that it's easier to throw your mouse to the top of the screen then it is to try to hit any target within the screen. That's true and countless studies have confirmed it, but there's a counter argument to be made that it's equally difficult to get all the way back to where your cursor was before you went to the global menu with that flick of the mouse.</p> -<p>It would seem that there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and which is best depends on how you work; it would be disingenuous to try to categorically say one is better than the other.</p> -<p>Ubuntu is one of the few Linux distros that uses something like a global menu and, until this release, that was the only option. Now though you can opt to go back to window-level menus if you prefer that approach.</p> -<p>It's a nice option to have because Ubuntu's global menu is, frankly, a mess.</p> -<p>The most notable global menu in a desktop OS is undoubtedly the Mac OS, which has used a global menu since it debuted in 1984. But the reason OS X's menu works so well isn't just because Fitts's law is followed, it's also that the menus and the items in them are standardized across the OS.</p> -<p>For example, preferences are always in the application menu and always accessed with the keyboard shortcut cmd-,. That consistency makes for a simpler, more unified user experience. The user never has to think, now where are the preferences in this new app I just installed? Likewise they don't have to look to see what the keyboard shortcut is to open the app's preferences window, they just hit cmd-, and the preferences window opens.</p> -<p>Ubuntu, for reasons beyond its control, will never be able to achieve this level of OS interface consistency, which makes its global menu next to useless.</p> -<p>In fact the Unity global menu is not a global menu at all, it's a window-specific menu that got kicked up to the top bar for reasons only known to Ubuntu developers.</p> - -[image="screenshot2.png" caption="Ubuntu's global menu being less than global."] - -<p>No matter what kind of window is open in the application, the global menu in OS X remains the same. In Unity, however, as Ryan Paul noted in his <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/precision-and-purpose-ubuntu-12-04-and-the-unity-hud-reviewed/">review of Ubuntu 12.04</a>, "despite displaying the menu contents outside of the window, the menus are still window-specific. By design, the global menu bar displays the menu of the focused window. This proves awkward in some applications with dialogs and multiple windows."</p> -<p>It's not just awkward, it's potentially crazy-making as it means your menu items (which you can't see until you drag the cursor up to the top of the window) may or may not actually be there depending on the type of window you have in the foreground right now.</p> -<p>Say you're browsing the web with Firefox and you decide you want to edit a bookmark. You click the Firefox menu item "show all bookmarks", which opens a new window with Firefox's bookmark manager. But of course this window does not have a window-level menu, which means your "global" menu at the top of the screen is now unavailable. That also means your keyboard shortcuts won't work, a curious bit of consistency I suppose. So in this window when you hit control-Q (Quit) nothing happens. Do the same when a regular browser window is at the forefront and Firefox will happily quit.</p> -<p>This isn't a problem limited to browsers. The same situation arises in the Nautilus file manager. Just open a Property inspector window and see what the "global" application menu does (hint: there suddenly isn't one). If you create a file or even just a open a new window with a keyboard shortcut you'll need to first make sure that a "normal" Nautilus window has focus.</p> -<p>Nothing in Ubuntu 14.04 fixes the half-implemented nature of Ubuntu's "global" menu. In fact, nothing has changed at all in the default installation of 14.04. You'll have to go hunting in the system settings to find the new option to put menus back in the windows (it's tucked away under the Behavior tab in the Appearances panel), but at least it's now an option.</p> -<p>Naturally Ubuntu has put it's own spin on what window-level menus look like. Unlike other operating systems, which typically put window-based menus in a row under the window title bar, Ubuntu has opted to put them in the actual title bar. The window level menu is, as with the global menu, hidden away until you hover your mouse over the window.</p> -<p>One nice touch is that the menu items in the title bar manage to never get in the way of click-and-drag operations on the window. Canonical's developers deserve much credit for making sure that this potentially disastrous UI decision actually works without a hitch.</p> -<p>As a former OS X user I would prefer to see Canonical try to make a true global menu that works as well as Apple's, but in lieu of that I can at least have the consistency of menus in the window.</p> -<h3 id="minimize-to-launcher">Minimize to Launcher</h3> -<p>The second much-requested feature wish Canonical has finally granted is an option to minimize windows to the launcher by clicking the icon in the launcher.</p> -<p>The default behavior remains the same, when you click an icon in the Unity launcher the application launches. If the application is already running then it is brought to the foreground. If you click it again (when it's already the frontmost application) nothing happens.</p> -<p>There's been a long-standing request to change this last behavior to mirror what you'll find in several other desktops, namely that clicking the icon of the frontmost application will minimize that window.</p> -<p>To enable this behavior in Ubuntu 14.04 you'll need to install and open the Compiz Settings Manager and click the Unity plugin, where you'll see an option that says "Minimize Single Window Applications (Unsupported)".</p> -<p>Despite the name, you can minimize multiple windows. If you have two or more windows open and you click once the icon in the launcher the application will be brought to the front if it isn't already. Click again and it will move to the Unity window spread/switcher mode with the windows arrayed on a grid. Click the launcher icon again and all windows will be minimized. Click a 4th time and the window that had focus when all the windows were minimized will be brought back to the front while any other windows remain hidden.</p> -<p>Technically this feature is considered experimental and unsupported, but in my testing there were no issues and everything worked, if not quite as the wording would lead you to expect, at least consistently.</p> -<h3 id="small-changes-that-make-unity-in-14.04-more-usable">Small Changes that Make Unity in 14.04 More Usable</h3> -<p>To animate resizing a window in previous releases Ubuntu used a yellow rectangle to show the size of the window. The yellow rectangle is still used with window snapping, but resizing now uses live window animation. The live window resizing was an option in 13.10, but this is the first time it has been enabled by default.</p> -<p>There's another useful new feature half-hidden in the application window spread view, that is, the view you get when you click the Unity Launcher icon for an app with multiple open windows.</p> -<p>In 14.04 if you just start typing in the spread view (there's no text entry box, which is why it qualifies as half-hidden) and Ubuntu will filter your windows and highlight the one that matches your search. If you keep dozens of windows open in a single app and frequently lose track of what's where, this makes a quick way to find what you're after. This feature becomes even handier if you add a keyboard shortcut to toggle the window spread view (by default there isn't one, but you can set one in the Compiz Settings Manager >> Window Management >> Scale and then click the Binding Tab).</p> - -[image="screenshot3.png" caption="Searching for windows"] - -<p>With a keyboard shortcut you can activate the window spread view, type to find the window you want and switch to it without ever taking your hands off the keyboard.This would be a fantastic tool if it could spread out tabs within an application --particularly web browsers -- but it doesn't, it's only a window-level feature.</p> -<h3 id="the-unity-dash">The Unity Dash</h3> -<p>If you upgrade to every new Ubuntu release there's nothing new to see in Dash of 14.04. If you stick with LTS releases though, the Dash has some very big changes you may have heard about -- namely that, starting with 12.10, by default the Unity Dash will forward your search terms on to Canonical's servers which then query all manner of web services, including Amazon.com.</p> -<p>There two things annoying about this. First it clutters your search results with (often NSFW) junk when all you want is to find a file. The second and the far more serious problem is that it gives Canonical a massive amount of data about you.</p> - -[image="screenshot4.png" caption="Do you want to open the Ubuntu Software Center or buy some music? That's something <strike>only</strike> you and Canonical get to know."] - -<p>When it debuted in 12.10 the online search tools caused a privacy uproar with FSF and the EFF calling for Canonical to remove what in many users' eyes amounts to spyware.</p> -<p>Nothing has changed on this front since 12.10 was released. By default your searches are still sent to Canonical and on to, well, who knows really? Which is why we suggest disabling this feature by completely uninstalling it in the Ubuntu Software Center.</p> -<p>There has been some talk of Ubuntu offering more fine-grained controls over how and where your data is sent, but as of this release that hasn't happened. The privacy controls are still more or less the same -- a single on or off switch controls all your online search tools (not to be confused with the online accounts privacy controls, which do offer more fine-grained control over which apps can access your accounts).</p> - -[image="screenshot5.png" caption="Search privacy options, or lack thereof"] - -<p>The good news is that it looks like Canonical is finally going to make the online search components of Ubuntu opt-in, though not -- some might argue conveniently not -- in time for this LTS release. If you're just one person upgrading turning off these feature isn't that big of a deal, the EFF has some <a href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks">instructions on how to do it</a>. A couple clicks and you're done.</p> -<p>If you're upgrading an enterprise-level deployment of Ubuntu with thousands of machines to upgrade, disabling the online search features in each one is going to be a pain. Enough of a pain that you just might want to skip this release and wait for the next LTS in two years (or move to another distro). After all Ubuntu 12.04 won't reach the end of its LTS lifespan until April 2017.</p> -<h2 id="whats-missing">What's Missing</h2> -<p>Mir and Unity 8 did not make the cut, but they will be coming eventually (14.10 looks pretty likely to see at least xMir enabled by default). There are some other features though that have disappeared and will not be returning, the most notable being Canonical's Ubuntu One file storage and synchronization tool.</p> -<p>Canonical has wisely elected to <a href="http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/ubuntu-one-storage-and-music-service-shut-down-by-canonical/">pull out of the race to the bottom that is cloud storage and synchronization services</a>, which means that as of this release Ubuntu One is no longer a part of Ubuntu. The Unity Launcher item is gone and if you were using Ubuntu One you should have received an email from Canonical with instructions on how to get your data out before it disappears forever on July 31.</p> -<p>The other noticeably missing feature in the release is also web-app related, namely the browser behind Ubuntu's web apps has changed. Ubuntu 12.10 first introduced the ability to add web apps for certain sites to the Unity Launcher, giving them first class citizen status alongside desktop apps (a full list of supported sites can be <a href="https://launchpad.net/webapps">seen on Launchpad</a>).</p> -<p>That part hasn't changed. Ubuntu 14.04 still ships with an Amazon web app in the Launcher (the Ubuntu One web app is gone) and it's also still easy to create these apps for supported sites like Gmail or Twitter.</p> -<p>What's different is the web browser behind these apps. It's no longer Firefox or Chromium powering your web apps, but Ubuntu's own QML-based web browser. The change means that Ubuntu on the desktop uses the same browser as Ubuntu Mobile for all your web apps, which would fine if the Ubuntu browser were anywhere near as stable as, well, any other browser on the platform. Sadly, it isn't. It crashes frequently and I still haven't figured out a way to reliably get desktop notifications working with web apps. It also doesn't seem to have access to the Flash plugin even if it's installed system wide and works in every other browser (perhaps this is because Flash won't be supported on Ubuntu Mobile).</p> -<p>Fortunately, you can use the features in your favorite web browser to create web apps and then add those to the Unity Launcher to get the same sort of web-app-as-desktop-app feel, but with a reliable browser behind it.</p> -<p>For instance Chromium has an option to "Create application shortcuts" (under the Tools menu) which will offer to add a shortcut to the Launcher. It will lack the nice icon you get with the Unity-integrated web apps, but you can add your own icon by editing the .desktop file (you can also create sandboxes to sequester cookies and history, which means you can be logged in to multiple accounts in multiple web apps). This method, while more cumbersome to set up, is considerably nicer than trying to use a browser that's liable to crash at any given moment, may or may not actually notify you that a critical message has arrived in your inbox and won't let you watch the video of your kids that your spouse just posted to Facebook.</p> - -[image="screenshot6.png" caption="The Gmail web is Unity's doing, the Twitter app uis mine. They look identical, but one has a real web browser behind it."] - -<h2 id="where-ubuntu-14.04-fails">Where Ubuntu 14.04 Fails</h2> -<p>The one bright side to the bugginess of the web apps feature in Ubuntu 14.04 is that it serves as a reminder of just how stable the rest of the system is -- it wasn't all that long ago that any review of desktop Linux was more or less a rundown of bugs and workarounds, which is thankfully no longer the case.</p> -<p>Ubuntu 14.04 is incredibly stable and all the basic features you could hope for in a desktop system "just work". If you're a seasoned Ubuntu user, Ubuntu 14.04 is a minor, but welcome upgrade.</p> -<p>While all that is true, Ubuntu clearly wants to be not just the best of the Linux desktops, but capable of holding its own next to Windows and, probably more so, OS X.</p> -<p>To do this Ubuntu sweats the details like few other Linux distros out there and this release is no exception. Two details worth noting in 14.04 are some improvements to the rounded window corners which now feature much smoother anti-aliasing and the new borderless windows, which give windows a cleaner edge and make the overall appearance look sharper (particularly if you use a lighter theme like Radiance).</p> - -[image="screenshot7.png" caption="Smoother corners (old version on the right)"] - -<p>The problem is that details and small touches like this don't hide the larger usability issues that still exist in Unity.</p> -<p>As I mentioned above the global menu remains an inconsistent mess and it's not the only problem Unity has. The precise behavior of the search lens in the Unity search field seems to change with every release and applications move in and out of fullscreen mode in inconsistent ways (most do just fine but Terminal and some other, non-Unity optimized apps don't remember window size and position).</p> -<p>What makes these things frustrating is that they aren't new. These inconsistencies and half-implemented ideas have been around since at least 11.04. If these are the pain points that have had you itching to upgrade from 12.04 LTS, 14.04 is going to disappoint.</p> -<p>Ubuntu apologists dismiss such criticisms by arguing that these applications aren't Ubuntu's applications. That's certainly true. Nautilus and Terminal come from the Gnome project, Firefox from Mozilla. In fact nearly all the default Ubuntu apps are not built by Canonical developers, most come from GNOME. But if that's the defense, then what is Ubuntu? A Compiz plugin with a HUD/launcher and a "global" menu bar? If that's all it gets credit for what does it say that it still can't make menus behave consistently?</p> -<p>Ubuntu is one of the most polished desktops around, certainly the most polished in the Linux world, but in many ways that polish is increasingly skin deep at the expense of some larger usability issues which continue go unaddressed release after release.</p> -<p>None of these annoyances are deal-breaking problems for users familiar with Ubuntu or Linux. And they certainly won't stop enthusiastic Ubuntu users from updating. Nor should they, in the world of Linux desktops this amounts to splitting hairs.</p> -<p>But in the world of building usable interfaces these are glaring failures atop which smoother rounding for window corners and borderless windows are mere lipstick on a pig.</p> -<p>These UI failing also don't bode well for the future of Ubuntu Mobile. Perhaps part of the reason the desktop remains seemingly half done is that the development effort is focused on Ubuntu Mobile at the moment. That's part of the reason Mir and Unity 8 aren't part of this release and it might be a plausible excuse for other failings. Unity wouldn't be the first desktop to languish while developers worked feverishly on a mobile OS.</p> diff --git a/published/ubuntu1404/arsubuntureview.txt b/published/ubuntu1404/arsubuntureview.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 6e5b9fb..0000000 --- a/published/ubuntu1404/arsubuntureview.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,182 +0,0 @@ -Canonical pushed out Ubuntu 14.04 last week. This release is the first Ubuntu Long Term Support release in two years and will be supported for five years. - -It feels like, for Canonical at least, this Long Term Support release couldn't have come at a worse time. The company is caught in a transitional phase as it moves from a desktop operating system to a platform that spans devices. - -The problem for Canonical is that it's only about 90 percent of the way to platform spanning OS, but it just so happens that the company's release schedule calls for a Long Term Support release now. - -Long Term Support releases are typically more conservative releases that focus on stability and long term maintenance rather than experimental or flashy new features. Things 90 percent done don't make it into LTS releases. And, unfortunately for Canonical, most of its huge foundation shaking changes for the future of Ubuntu are currently only about 90 percent done and thus not part of this release. - -The two biggest changes on the horizon are the Mir graphics stack and Unity 8, neither of which are part of 14.04. - -Mir just isn't ready for prime time yet and even the half-way step of xMir (which falls back to the X display server when it needs to) isn't ready enough to land in an LTS release. Were this *not* an LTS release it seems likely xMir at least would be included. As it stands, the graphics stack in 14.04 is -- aside from incremental upgrades -- the same as it was in last year's 13.10. - -Likewise, Unity 8 will not make its debut in this release. The next version of Ubuntu's flagship UI isn't quite there yet, at least on the desktop. This puts Canonical in the unfortunate position of needing to now support Unity 7 on the desktop for 5 years going forward. - -Ubuntu is planning to ship its first mobile devices later this year -- which will use Unity 8, since the mobile version is much further along than the desktop. Thus when Ubuntu Mobile launches Canonical will find itself having to maintain two separate platforms, both Unity 7 and 8, with Unity 7 desktops hanging around for a minimum of five years. - -## What Ubuntu 14.04 Is - -While Ubuntu 14.04 might be most notable for what it is not -- namely the next-generation version of the Ubuntu desktop -- it is nevertheless an important update because for those users sticking with LTS releases it represents the first major change in two years. And a lot has happened in Ubuntu land in the time since 12.04 was released. - -There have been major leaps forward in the form of upstream kernel updates, application updates and several major user interface changes in Unity. - -It's also the first time LTS users will have to deal with the Amazon Search Lens and Ubuntu's new privacy policy. - -## The Kernel - -At the core of Ubuntu 14.04 is the Linux kernel 3.13.0-24. - -The previous release, Ubuntu 13.10, used the 3.11 kernel, and the last LTS release, 12.04.4, currently ships with 3.8. A lot has changed since 3.8, primarily in the form of better hardware support, but there are some welcome improvements in this latest kernel release even for those already running 3.11 in Ubuntu 13.10. - -How much the kernel update impacts your Ubuntu experience will depend a little bit on your hardware. For example, if you've got dual GPU hardware that uses Nvidia Optimus to switch between GPUs -- one optimized for performance and the other for conserving power -- the move from 12.04 to 14.04 will be huge. As of the 3.12 kernel there's now low-level support of GPU switching (which should happen automatically). - -Users with SSD-based machines should see better performance in this release, partly because of some improvements in the kernel, but also because Ubuntu now ships with TRIM features enabled by default. There are some horror stories about TRIM support in Linux floating around the web, but those issues have largely been solved. - -That means you can delete those cron jobs running the fstrim command and stop worrying about adding "discard" to all your fstab entries. Ubuntu 14.04 will handle this automatically right out of the box. If you're running Ubuntu on an SSD you will likely notice a speed improvement, particularly in anything that requires a lot of data being written to disk. - -Another of the headline-worthy changes in the 3.13 kernel is the addition of support for [nftables](http://netfilter.org/projects/nftables/), which will eventually replace the iptables firewall tool. Nftables is more than just a replacement for iptables, it's a complete reworking of the way the kernel handles packet filtering. Right now nftables is not quite ready for prime time, and the command line tool nft is not installed by default. But when the 3.15 kernel rolls around (which will be well within the lifespan of Ubuntu 14.04) nftables can replace your iptables-based firewall. - -## Battery Life Improvements - -Power management remains one of the weak points in Linux, with battery life lagging far behind what you'll find in Windows and OS X running on the same hardware. - -The good news for laptop users is that several recent kernel updates related to power management have dramatically improved battery life and these are all part of Ubuntu 14.04. - -I started using 14.04 when the final beta was released in March and immediately noticed a huge difference in battery life on my primary machine, an early-2013 Retina Macbook Pro. It's hard to say whether these improvements come from the kernel updates or perhaps some Unity-level improvements, but whichever is responsible it's a big improvement over Ubuntu 12.04. - -I typically use only a handful of apps, primarily a web browser -- Chromium with anywhere 20-80 tabs -- and a Terminal session with several Tmux sessions running inside it which I attach and detach depending on what I'm doing (for development and writing I run zsh, python, ruby, vim, mutt, cmus). None of that should produce a huge battery drain. I also occasionally use Darktable and Gimp for image editing, which of course shortens the battery life. I should note that I use a [Chromium add-on](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/the-great-suspender/klbibkeccnjlkjkiokjodocebajanakg?hl=en) which suspends background tabs and significantly reduces Chromium's overall system footprint even with the large number of tabs I typically keep open. - -This setup, which is pretty minimalist in terms of battery draining apps, would in Ubuntu 12.04 still manage to drain the battery in under 4 hours, sometimes not lasting much more than 3 hours. I switched to running Ubuntu in VMWare (using OS X as the base system) and battery life improved somewhat, consistently lasting about 4 hours, but that's still not very good. - -In 14.04 with the same workload on the same machine the battery lasts just over 4.5 hours on average. That's actually a pretty significant improvement and would be worthy of praise did it not still lag far behind OS X (6.5 hrs) and the minimalist Crunchbang Waldorf (currently my primary OS), which lasts nearly as long as OS X itself -- well over 6 hrs. Crunchbang and Ubuntu share the same Debian core and Linux kernel, which most likely makes Ubuntu's Unity interface the primary source of the additional battery drain. - -That's been my experience with battery life thus far in 14.04, but remember that real-world battery stats are highly subjective. Hardware, system setup and the details of what you do make it nearly impossible to guarantee anything. That said, based on my experience with 14.04 on three different laptops you'll likely see at least some improvement over 13.10 and even moreso if you're upgrading from 12.04. - -## The Unity Desktop - -While Canonical is playing it safe with most things in this release, given the LTS nature of 14.04, there are some surprising and very welcome changes to the Unity interface. The biggest news on the Unity front is that Canonical has done an about face on a number of long-requested features previously rejected by the Ubuntu development team. - -### Menu in Windows - -The first and most notable change in Unity is a new option to turn off the global menu bar and put application menus back in the window. - -[image="screenshot1.png" caption=""] - -Part of the rationale behind the decision to move the window menus out of the window and up into the global position was to save space. This made sense back with Unity was an interface for netbooks and other small screen devices, but it doesn't hold water on a 27in HD monitor. - -There are other arguments for global menus, notably [Fitts's Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts's_law) which, among other things, says that it's easier to throw your mouse to the top of the screen then it is to try to hit any target within the screen. That's true and countless studies have confirmed it, but there's a counter argument to be made that it's equally difficult to get all the way back to where your cursor was before you went to the global menu with that flick of the mouse. - -It would seem that there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches and which is best depends on how you work; it would be disingenuous to try to categorically say one is better than the other. - -Ubuntu is one of the few Linux distros that uses something like a global menu and, until this release, that was the only option. Now though you can opt to go back to window-level menus if you prefer that approach. - -It's a nice option to have because Ubuntu's global menu is, frankly, a mess. - -The most notable global menu in a desktop OS is undoubtedly the Mac OS, which has used a global menu since it debuted in 1984. But the reason OS X's menu works so well isn't just because Fitts's law is followed, it's also that the menus and the items in them are standardized across the OS. - -For example, preferences are always in the application menu and always accessed with the keyboard shortcut cmd-,. That consistency makes for a simpler, more unified user experience. The user never has to think, now where are the preferences in this new app I just installed? Likewise they don't have to look to see what the keyboard shortcut is to open the app's preferences window, they just hit cmd-, and the preferences window opens. - -Ubuntu, for reasons beyond its control, will never be able to achieve this level of OS interface consistency, which makes its global menu next to useless. - -In fact the Unity global menu is not a global menu at all, it's a window-specific menu that got kicked up to the top bar for reasons only known to Ubuntu developers. - -No matter what kind of window is open in the application, the global menu in OS X remains the same. In Unity, however, as Ryan Paul noted in his [review of Ubuntu 12.04](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/05/precision-and-purpose-ubuntu-12-04-and-the-unity-hud-reviewed/), "despite displaying the menu contents outside of the window, the menus are still window-specific. By design, the global menu bar displays the menu of the focused window. This proves awkward in some applications with dialogs and multiple windows." - -It's not just awkward, it's potentially crazy-making as it means your menu items (which you can't see until you drag the cursor up to the top of the window) may or may not actually be there depending on the type of window you have in the foreground right now. - -Say you're browsing the web with Firefox and you decide you want to edit a bookmark. You click the Firefox menu item "show all bookmarks", which opens a new window with Firefox's bookmark manager. But of course this window does not have a window-level menu, which means your "global" menu at the top of the screen is now unavailable. That also means your keyboard shortcuts won't work, a curious bit of consistency I suppose. So in this window when you hit control-Q (Quit) nothing happens. Do the same when a regular browser window is at the forefront and Firefox will happily quit. - -This isn't a problem limited to browsers. The same situation arises in the Nautilus file manager. Just open a Property inspector window and see what the "global" application menu does (hint: there suddenly isn't one). If you create a file or even just a open a new window with a keyboard shortcut you'll need to first make sure that a "normal" Nautilus window has focus. - -Nothing in Ubuntu 14.04 fixes the half-implemented nature of Ubuntu's "global" menu. In fact, nothing has changed at all in the default installation of 14.04. You'll have to go hunting in the system settings to find the new option to put menus back in the windows (it's tucked away under the Behavior tab in the Appearances panel), but at least it's now an option. - -Naturally Ubuntu has put it's own spin on what window-level menus look like. Unlike other operating systems, which typically put window-based menus in a row under the window title bar, Ubuntu has opted to put them in the actual title bar. The window level menu is, as with the global menu, hidden away until you hover your mouse over the window. - -One nice touch is that the menu items in the title bar manage to never get in the way of click-and-drag operations on the window. Canonical's developers deserve much credit for making sure that this potentially disastrous UI decision actually works without a hitch. - -As a former OS X user I would prefer to see Canonical try to make a true global menu that works as well as Apple's, but in lieu of that I can at least have the consistency of menus in the window. - -### Minimize to Launcher - -The second much-requested feature wish Canonical has finally granted is an option to minimize windows to the launcher by clicking the icon in the launcher. - -The default behavior remains the same, when you click an icon in the Unity launcher the application launches. If the application is already running then it is brought to the foreground. If you click it again (when it's already the frontmost application) nothing happens. - -There's been a long-standing request to change this last behavior to mirror what you'll find in several other desktops, namely that clicking the icon of the frontmost application will minimize that window. - -To enable this behavior in Ubuntu 14.04 you'll need to install and open the Compiz Settings Manager and click the Unity plugin, where you'll see an option that says "Minimize Single Window Applications (Unsupported)". - -Despite the name, you can minimize multiple windows. If you have two or more windows open and you click once the icon in the launcher the application will be brought to the front if it isn't already. Click again and it will move to the Unity window spread/switcher mode with the windows arrayed on a grid. Click the launcher icon again and all windows will be minimized. Click a 4th time and the window that had focus when all the windows were minimized will be brought back to the front while any other windows remain hidden. - -Technically this feature is considered experimental and unsupported, but in my testing there were no issues and everything worked, if not quite as the wording would lead you to expect, at least consistently. - -### Small Changes that Make Unity in 14.04 More Usable - -To animate resizing a window in previous releases Ubuntu used a yellow rectangle to show the size of the window. The yellow rectangle is still used with window snapping, but resizing now uses live window animation. The live window resizing was an option in 13.10, but this is the first time it has been enabled by default. - -There's another useful new feature half-hidden in the application window spread view, that is, the view you get when you click the Unity Launcher icon for an app with multiple open windows. - -In 14.04 if you just start typing in the spread view (there's no text entry box, which is why it qualifies as half-hidden) and Ubuntu will filter your windows and highlight the one that matches your search. If you keep dozens of windows open in a single app and frequently lose track of what's where, this makes a quick way to find what you're after. This feature becomes even handier if you add a keyboard shortcut to toggle the window spread view (by default there isn't one, but you can set one in the Compiz Settings Manager >> Window Management >> Scale and then click the Binding Tab). - -With a keyboard shortcut you can activate the window spread view, type to find the window you want and switch to it without ever taking your hands off the keyboard.This would be a fantastic tool if it could spread out tabs within an application --particularly web browsers -- but it doesn't, it's only a window-level feature. - -### The Unity Dash - -If you upgrade to every new Ubuntu release there's nothing new to see in Dash of 14.04. If you stick with LTS releases though, the Dash has some very big changes you may have heard about -- namely that, starting with 12.10, by default the Unity Dash will forward your search terms on to Canonical's servers which then query all manner of web services, including Amazon.com. - -There two things annoying about this. First it clutters your search results with (often NSFW) junk when all you want is to find a file. The second and the far more serious problem is that it gives Canonical a massive amount of data about you. - -When it debuted in 12.10 the online search tools caused a privacy uproar with FSF and the EFF calling for Canonical to remove what in many users' eyes amounts to spyware. - -Nothing has changed on this front since 12.10 was released. By default your searches are still sent to Canonical and on to, well, who knows really? Which is why we suggest disabling this feature by completely uninstalling it in the Ubuntu Software Center. - -There has been some talk of Ubuntu offering more fine-grained controls over how and where your data is sent, but as of this release that hasn't happened. The privacy controls are still more or less the same -- a single on or off switch controls all your online search tools (not to be confused with the online accounts privacy controls, which do offer more fine-grained control over which apps can access your accounts). - -The good news is that it looks like Canonical is finally going to make the online search components of Ubuntu opt-in, though not -- some might argue conveniently not -- in time for this LTS release. If you're just one person upgrading turning off these feature isn't that big of a deal, the EFF has some [instructions on how to do it](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/10/privacy-ubuntu-1210-amazon-ads-and-data-leaks). A couple clicks and you're done. - -If you're upgrading an enterprise-level deployment of Ubuntu with thousands of machines to upgrade, disabling the online search features in each one is going to be a pain. Enough of a pain that you just might want to skip this release and wait for the next LTS in two years (or move to another distro). After all Ubuntu 12.04 won't reach the end of its LTS lifespan until April 2017. - -## What's Missing - -Mir and Unity 8 did not make the cut, but they will be coming eventually (14.10 looks pretty likely to see at least xMir enabled by default). There are some other features though that have disappeared and will not be returning, the most notable being Canonical's Ubuntu One file storage and synchronization tool. - -Canonical has wisely elected to [pull out of the race to the bottom that is cloud storage and synchronization services](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/04/ubuntu-one-storage-and-music-service-shut-down-by-canonical/), which means that as of this release Ubuntu One is no longer a part of Ubuntu. The Unity Launcher item is gone and if you were using Ubuntu One you should have received an email from Canonical with instructions on how to get your data out before it disappears forever on July 31. - -The other noticeably missing feature in the release is also web-app related, namely the browser behind Ubuntu's web apps has changed. Ubuntu 12.10 first introduced the ability to add web apps for certain sites to the Unity Launcher, giving them first class citizen status alongside desktop apps (a full list of supported sites can be [seen on Launchpad](https://launchpad.net/webapps)). - -That part hasn't changed. Ubuntu 14.04 still ships with an Amazon web app in the Launcher (the Ubuntu One web app is gone) and it's also still easy to create these apps for supported sites like Gmail or Twitter. - -What's different is the web browser behind these apps. It's no longer Firefox or Chromium powering your web apps, but Ubuntu's own QML-based web browser. The change means that Ubuntu on the desktop uses the same browser as Ubuntu Mobile for all your web apps, which would fine if the Ubuntu browser were anywhere near as stable as, well, any other browser on the platform. Sadly, it isn't. It crashes frequently and I still haven't figured out a way to reliably get desktop notifications working with web apps. It also doesn't seem to have access to the Flash plugin even if it's installed system wide and works in every other browser (perhaps this is because Flash won't be supported on Ubuntu Mobile). - -Fortunately, you can use the features in your favorite web browser to create web apps and then add those to the Unity Launcher to get the same sort of web-app-as-desktop-app feel, but with a reliable browser behind it. - -For instance Chromium has an option to "Create application shortcuts" (under the Tools menu) which will offer to add a shortcut to the Launcher. It will lack the nice icon you get with the Unity-integrated web apps, but you can add your own icon by editing the .desktop file (you can also create sandboxes to sequester cookies and history, which means you can be logged in to multiple accounts in multiple web apps). This method, while more cumbersome to set up, is considerably nicer than trying to use a browser that's liable to crash at any given moment, may or may not actually notify you that a critical message has arrived in your inbox and won't let you watch the video of your kids that your spouse just posted to Facebook. - - -## Where Ubuntu 14.04 Fails - -The one bright side to the bugginess of the web apps feature in Ubuntu 14.04 is that it serves as a reminder of just how stable the rest of the system is -- it wasn't all that long ago that any review of desktop Linux was more or less a rundown of bugs and workarounds, which is thankfully no longer the case. - -Ubuntu 14.04 is incredibly stable and all the basic features you could hope for in a desktop system "just work". If you're a seasoned Ubuntu user, Ubuntu 14.04 is a minor, but welcome upgrade. - -While all that is true, Ubuntu clearly wants to be not just the best of the Linux desktops, but capable of holding its own next to Windows and, probably more so, OS X. - -To do this Ubuntu sweats the details like few other Linux distros out there and this release is no exception. Two details worth noting in 14.04 are some improvements to the rounded window corners which now feature much smoother anti-aliasing and the new borderless windows, which give windows a cleaner edge and make the overall appearance look sharper (particularly if you use a lighter theme like Radiance). - -The problem is that details and small touches like this don't hide the larger usability issues that still exist in Unity. - -As I mentioned above the global menu remains an inconsistent mess and it's not the only problem Unity has. The precise behavior of the search lens in the Unity search field seems to change with every release and applications move in and out of fullscreen mode in inconsistent ways (most do just fine but Terminal and some other, non-Unity optimized apps don't remember window size and position). - -What makes these things frustrating is that they aren't new. These inconsistencies and half-implemented ideas have been around since at least 11.04. If these are the pain points that have had you itching to upgrade from 12.04 LTS, 14.04 is going to disappoint. - -Ubuntu apologists dismiss such criticisms by arguing that these applications aren't Ubuntu's applications. That's certainly true. Nautilus and Terminal come from the Gnome project, Firefox from Mozilla. In fact nearly all the default Ubuntu apps are not built by Canonical developers, most come from GNOME. But if that's the defense, then what is Ubuntu? A Compiz plugin with a HUD/launcher and a "global" menu bar? If that's all it gets credit for what does it say that it still can't make menus behave consistently? - -Ubuntu is one of the most polished desktops around, certainly the most polished in the Linux world, but in many ways that polish is increasingly skin deep at the expense of some larger usability issues which continue go unaddressed release after release. - -None of these annoyances are deal-breaking problems for users familiar with Ubuntu or Linux. And they certainly won't stop enthusiastic Ubuntu users from updating. Nor should they, in the world of Linux desktops this amounts to splitting hairs. - -But in the world of building usable interfaces these are glaring failures atop which smoother rounding for window corners and borderless windows are mere lipstick on a pig. - -These UI failing also don't bode well for the future of Ubuntu Mobile. Perhaps part of the reason the desktop remains seemingly half done is that the development effort is focused on Ubuntu Mobile at the moment. That's part of the reason Mir and Unity 8 aren't part of this release and it might be a plausible excuse for other failings. 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