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| author | luxagraf <sng@luxagraf.net> | 2020-04-28 09:37:09 -0400 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | luxagraf <sng@luxagraf.net> | 2020-04-28 09:37:09 -0400 |
| commit | 94ed5760bee1e23becc313645d4c101f984be5aa (patch) | |
| tree | fe0c57ab6fd5a86c8834dbdd55c80f5cde833bf1 /register | |
| parent | 20aac11bc5d957521f3daa0575fc6327038f6c80 (diff) | |
cleaned up register merge
Diffstat (limited to 'register')
63 files changed, 284 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/register/fedora28-gnome.png b/register/fedora28-gnome.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..67e166a --- /dev/null +++ b/register/fedora28-gnome.png diff --git a/register/fedora28review.txt b/register/fedora28review.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a1b74a --- /dev/null +++ b/register/fedora28review.txt @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +The Fedora Project has released Fedora 28, a significant update for Fedora users, which includes something Fedora has shunned for years, an official repository for non-free third-party apps. + +The new third-party repositories allow you to easily install Chrome and Steam on Fedora 28, but for some they may come at the sacrifice of Fedora's long standing ideals. Fedora has always had a very clear policy about which types of software were included, though it has always allowed for non-free firmware, which <a href="http://www.gnu.org/distros/common-distros.html">keeps it from making</a> GNU.org's list of truly free distros. The new third-party repos though go a step further, offering non-free apps in an official way. + +There are two things worth noting before your free software hackles get raised. First, the third-party repos are not enabled by default. Download Fedora, do nothing and you won't be able to get any non-free software. Unlike Ubuntu, Fedora is not including these repos out of the box. The second thing worth noting is that the official repos are currently limited to Steam, Chrome, PyCharm and NVIDIA graphics drivers, all of which, and much more, have long been available via unofficial repos like RPMFusion, or through COPR. The first three included apps honestly feel unnecessary and none of them are hard to install via RPMfusion. But the NVIDIA drivers, if you need them, will be very welcome, and enable Fedora to run on a larger range of hardware (Linux tip: Avoid NVIDIA graphics cards if possible). + +That said, the sky is sort of falling here and it is a little disappointing to see. Fedora has long been the closest to a completely free distro -- of the major distros anyway -- and that has always been a big part of its identity and I suspect for many, its appeal. The new third-party repos, even if they aren't enabled by default, or particularly full of software, are nonetheless a step in the direction of, well, let's face it, Ubuntu. That's not to knock Ubuntu, but do we need another Ubuntu? I've always enjoyed Fedora for its principles and its developer-centric focus and frankly this change makes me nervous for the future of Fedora. It feels like Fedora is chasing a different audience all the sudden, and while the sometimes works out well for the distro, it often doesn't work out well for long-time users along for the ride. + +The good news is that, if you ignore the new repos, Fedora 28 makes an otherwise fantastic update. I updated my Fedora machine using the DNF system upgrade plugin and had no difficulties. I also did a fresh install in a virtual machine and aside from one strange quick of the installer, had no problems there either. What I found somewhat odd in the installer is that you don't create your user account until after the system is installed and your reboot in the GNOME Shell. The account creation is apparently handed by GNOME and, very closely mirrors Apple's macOS installation process. Not surprising given how much GNOME already apes macOS, but a little disconcerting if you're used to the install process followed by very other distro/desktop. + +Speaking of GNOME, Fedora 28 ships with the very latest release, GNOME 3.28, which arrived earlier this year. GNOME 3.28 has a couple new features worth mentioning, including a much improved version of GNOME's virtual machine manager (Boxes), some new organizing tools in the Files app, and a more refined version of the default font, Cantarell, that goes a long way to improving the polish of the interface. + +Fedora is one of the few distros that actually ships with Boxes, GNOME's rather nice, if a little bare bones, virtual machine manager and Boxes has a nice new feature in this release -- the ability to search and download operating systems straight from the new box assistant. All you need to do to create a virtual machine is pick the OS you want and Boxes will take care of the rest. It's pretty slick and unlike much of GNOME, Boxes is surprisingly speedy, better in my testing than Virtualbox (though again, not as full-featured at this point). + +Another GNOME app in 3.28 that's worth mentioning here despite not being in Fedora 28 by default is Usage, a system monitoring app. Fedora doesn't include it because it's considered a "technology preview", which I think is GNOME-speak for beta, or maybe even alpha. It's a neat app though and it goes beyond simple monitoring to try to help diagnose and resolve performance issues. Right now it looks at CPU and memory consumption and highlights any potential problems. If you're low on disk space or running out of RAM for instance it will point out potentially problematic files/applications. It is a little buggy (it crashed quite a bit on me), but worth check out anyway, you'll find it in the official Fedora repos. + +While I'm not thrilled the Fedora has made non-free, third-party repos at all, I must say the interface they created and the way they handled the opt-in is very well done. After upgrading to Fedora 28, the first time you launch the Software application you'll see a blue bar at the top of the window with a notification asking if you want to enable the non-free repositories. Click the "enable" button and the repos will be added and Software will have your non-free apps available. It's very well done and strikes a nice balance between making opt-out the default and still making it easy for less advanced users to opt-in if they'd like to. + +I'd like to see Ubuntu steal this interface for its data-gathering tool, make it opt-out by default and this easy to opt-in and see what the community response is. As it stands I fear Ubuntu is going to be pilloried for choosing opt-in for its controversial new tool, Fedora will be pilloried for its controversial decision to officially support non-free software (even though it's opt-out) and this interface design will be quietly lost in the spittle of philosophical arguments, which is a shame. + +One of the reasons I keep a Fedora box around (my primary machine dual-boots Arch and Fedora) is because I admin many a CentOS server. As I imagine this is a common use case, it's worth noting a really cool new feature in the Server variant of Fedora 28, something called Modular repositories. The official docs on Modules say that it's a "release-independent package groups on independent lifecycles, providing alternative streams of content to Fedora". + +That's a bit of head scratcher, but basically it solves the old too-old, too-new dilemma by providing packages for multiple versions of software independent of the underlying distro packages. Take my CentOS server, I like it because it's stable and slow to update. I dislike it because I can't install Django from the repos because it's hopelessly out of date. With Modules I can install the latest Django and still have the stability of CentOS. Or at least I will when Modules make it to CentOS. It's a pretty cool idea, <a href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/fedora-project/subprojects/fesco/en-US/Using_Modules.html">worth a deeper look</a> if you're a sysadmin. + +There's plenty of other upgrades that make Fedora 28 well worth installing as well, including all the latest developer tools and software that you'd expect from a Fedora update. You can find full details on all the minutiae in the <a href="https://docs.fedoraproject.org/f28/release-notes/index.html">Fedora 28 release notes</a>. + +Fedora 28 is available in three versions, the Workstation release (desktop users), Server and Atomic Host of containers, the latter is even available via a click to launch interface for Amazon EC2. Fedora 28 will be supported for approximately 13 months (until one month after the release of Fedora 30). + + +fedora28-third-party.jpg - Fedora's nicely done opt-out/opt-in dialog, which you will see the first time you launch Software after updating to Fedora 28. +fedora28-gnome.jpg - The main GNOME interface remains largely unchanged in this release +fedora28-boxes.jpg - Download and install distros from with GNOME Boxes +fedora28-usage.jpg - GNOME Usage, now you can get all the details on RAM-hungry GNOME using a native app (note CPU graph, redlined by GNOME itself). + diff --git a/register/invoices/paid/draft_scott_gilbertson_invoice_65.doc b/register/invoices/paid/draft_scott_gilbertson_invoice_65.doc Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2576efc --- /dev/null +++ b/register/invoices/paid/draft_scott_gilbertson_invoice_65.doc diff --git a/register/invoices/paid/scott_gilbertson_invoice_46.doc b/register/invoices/paid/scott_gilbertson_invoice_46.doc Binary files 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differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3541619 --- /dev/null +++ b/register/invoices/scott_gilbertson_invoice_99.doc diff --git a/register/open-source-insider-1802.txt b/register/open-source-insider-1802.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3e8044 --- /dev/null +++ b/register/open-source-insider-1802.txt @@ -0,0 +1,28 @@ +The Open Source Initiative, a non-profit that advocates for open source software -- and coined the term -- is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month. It's difficult to conceive of where the internet, indeed the world, would be today were it not for open source software, and perhaps more importantly, the free software movement that preceded it and continues to promote free software today. + +The difference between free and open source software is at this point largely moot, save for deep philosophical differences that don't currently matter to anyone outside a very small community of thinkers. + +You can read an <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/02/03/open_source_turns_20/">entertaining history</a> of the Open Source Initiative here at The Reg. Here's my extremely foreshortened version: Open Source Software is of course what happened to the Free Software movement when, to borrow a phrase from 1980s punk rock, the suits showed up. + +To businessmen who only ever thought of the word "free" as a term to describe not having to pay for something, free software was anathema. It probably didn't help that the most prominent free software advocates also looked the part of, and by all accounts were, counterculture fans. From the conservative world of business in the 1990s free software looked like a bunch of dirty hippies trying to destroy capitalism. + +Enter the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The OSI wanted to make Free Software "more understandable to newcomers and to business". They felt the term 'free software,' with "its seeming focus on price" distracting. + +The founders of the OSI felt they needed the business world on board if the idea was every going to catch on. As Open Source advocate Bruce Perens, who wrote the Open Source Definition, <a href="https://perens.com/2017/09/26/on-usage-of-the-phrase-open-source/">writes</a>, "Open Source was meant to be a way of promoting the concept of Free Software to business people, who I have always hoped would thus come to appreciate Richard [Stallman] and his Free Software campaign. And many have. Open Source licenses and Free Software licenses are effectively the same thing". + +Effectively perhaps, but not actually. + +Still, despite what Perens and other OSI backers believe there is a philosophical difference between Free Software and Open Source Software. It may not be important to most people taking advantage of Free Software, but it is there. As Richard Stallman <a href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html">put it</a>, "ideas of 'free software' made some people uneasy... raising ethical issues such as freedom, talking about responsibilities as well as convenience, is asking people to think about things they might prefer to ignore, such as whether their conduct is ethical." + +Perhaps the most ironic thing about the origins of open source today is that it too had become a watered-down term that is increasingly is danger of losing its meaning as well. On the web today Open Source is used to refer to plenty of projects that use Open Source approved licenses, but ship unmodifiable binaries, something Free Software explicitly forbids, but Open Source doesn't address. Open Source has also been broadened to apply to devices that aren't patented, even, in the case of the New York Times, to apply to beta testing in public, which has nothing at all to do with open source or free software. + +These days Stallman and other Free Software advocates tolerate open source. As Stallman himself points out, "different values can lead to similar conclusions." In the end most of the Free Software Foundation's approved licenses are also Open Source licenses, though the opposite is not 100% true. That is, Free Software is Open Source software, but Open Source Software is not necessarily Free Software. + +And that philosophical divide remains there in the background and may come to a head one day. Unfortunately the age of the philosophical programmer is largely behind us, and, should things ever come to a head between Free Software and Open Source, it's not hard to imagine which one will come out on top. The Open Source world probably has the money, corporate backing and developer mindshare to weather any sort of conflict with Free Software. + +I consider that a shame. I see nothing wrong with open source -- that is, Open Source as defined by the OSI -- but I'm not sure why you'd be committed to Open Source. As they say in Hollywood, I'm not sure what my motivation is in this scene. + +If you're going to bother stepping outside the norm, and, outside of the developer community open source is definitely still outside the norm, why not chose to do something for reasons that go a little deeper than "it works" or "it doesn't cost anything". Proprietary software often works just as well. It's often a practical choice, so what's the motivation for the open source user to go with open source over the same proprietary software? Because the source is available? If that's enough for you then carry on, me, not enough. + +Free Software has a much more defined purpose and clearer mission. The Free Software user always knows why she chooses free software, because it offers freedom. As Stallman writes, "if we value our freedom, we can act to maintain and defend it." + diff --git a/register/open-source-insider-1803.txt b/register/open-source-insider-1803.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d79e728 --- /dev/null +++ b/register/open-source-insider-1803.txt @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +Where do we go from here? That's the question that's been on my mind lately, as I browse through Git repos looking for interesting projects, attempting to informally survey the state of open source and, closer to home, how open source might be able to fix the web. Because let's face it, the web today is about as interesting as the chatter of an encyclopedia salesman was a couple generations ago. + +I've found I'm far from alone in thinking this. Time Berners Lee has sounded a similar alarm, + +But something I find that today's brightest seem to miss is that the web wasn't always this way and doesn't have to be this way today. + +The internet was once little more than some very strange, some might say primitive, pages connected together by links. In the very early days there was no searching, there was simply exploring. The further you went the more you found. Pages and sites spread by word of mouth. Eventually out of this beautiful primordial cesspool some structures began to emerge. There were things called "web rings" which were sites that had banded together to help people find like-minded pages, authors, enthusiasts, what have you. + +In these days the World Wide Web had yet to attract the attention of commerce. It was too unpredictable, scattered and lacking in any kind of discernible business model. This was the heyday of the independent creator. Suddenly mainstream media was unseated from its thrown by a thousand voices with a thousand different opinions. The notion of a shared cultural script was effectively chucked in the waste bin. Instead people were able to immerse themselves in millions of different streams of information, ideas, stories, and ways of living that had previously been difficult to discover or outright impossible. + +For a few years, the World Wide Web really was exactly what it was envisioned to be -- a world loosely linked and endlessly free. It was rare that you went looking for specific things, instead you browsed, you explored. + +This worked for a time, but the web kept growing. Web rings could be hard to find if you didn't stumble onto one of the sites on your own. Thus began the rise of the search engine. Lycos, Alta Vista and other early pioneers attempted to map the growing chaos of the internet. The early search engines did a pretty good job, good enough that they quickly became the first stop for newcomers. + +Then came the rise of Google, which ordered the web better than its predecessors, but also went beyond simple organizing into value judgements. In roughly February of 2011, Google launched a change to its algorithm the began to favor corporate sites over independent publishers. Independent publishers lost 50 percent, often more, of their traffic and for intents and purposes were destroyed. Before that Google had banned web rings, calling them "link exchanges" and with those two moves Google effectively divided and conquered the web, killing the independent publisher and paving the way of the corporate commodified web of today. + +These days search engines are largely gone. Google manages to cling to life, but its demise is all but fait accompli. Facebook and Twitter are the new starting points and if people search the web it's out of habit rather than because it gets them interesting results. What you get from Google these days is akin to what you got from mainstream media when independent publishing took off -- bland, boring content whose primary purpose to provide whitewashed, advertiser safe content against which ads can be sold. + +What does all this have to with open source? Well web rings were effectively open source, search engines were not. All things move in cycles and I happen to believe that we're nearing the end of a closed source cycle. That doesn't mean that open source solutions will replace it, but certainly the opportunity for that to happen will come in the near future. + +I also don't mean to say that Google will disappear. It won't completely, Microsoft still exists though its influence has waned and no really cares what it does these days. Google is well on its way to the same. Already web developers have (finally) woken up to the <a href="http://ampletter.org/">dangers it poses</a> to what remains of the web. More than its hostile approach to the web though what really spells Google's end is very simple: can anyone remember the last time Google did anything innovative or even moderately interesting on the web? + +While I'll enjoy a good jig atop Google's grave, I'm far more interested in what comes next. + +But what does come next? Crystal balls are notoriously murky, but I see two possible futures. The first and easiest prediction is that nothing happens next. The web becomes increasingly fragmented, corporatized and essentially turns to the digital equivalent of modern American cities: endless strip malls of the same ten stores repeated over and over again across the landscape. Depressing as it sounds, this is where my money would be if I were a betting man. + +But you don't want to hear that. I don't want to either. I'm not ready to give up. And I believe that enough of us got enough of a taste of what the internet could be -- nay was -- for those few short years in the early part of the 21st century that we'll try to recreate it. I don't know what it will look like, but I do know it will be open source in spirit, which is to say it will probably not have a business model, it will not cede its central functions -- browsing and discovery -- to outside influences and it will not use a server-client model. + +There are already some efforts that vaguely look to be headed in this direction, like <a href="https://ipfs.io/">IPFS</a>, but IPFS has goals well outside creating a more experimental and creator-friendly web. It might be part of an answer, but not the whole thing. There is also the so-called dark web, that is all the onion sites out there that most people don't seem to know how to get to (hint: <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">install Tor</a>, and start looking for an onion site directory, which is similar to the web rings mentioned above), but at the moment the onion side of web has a reputation for being a haven of criminals, which it at least partly deserves. Again, this might be part of an answer, but not all of it. + +Most of the answer remains elusive. Indeed, as I said before, it may not happen. It may be that all we get is a sense of nostalgia for the golden days of an internet that will never return. diff --git a/register/small-linux.txt b/register/small-linux.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff127b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/register/small-linux.txt @@ -0,0 +1,55 @@ +If you're new to Linux you'd be forgiven for thinking there are only a half dozen distributions -- names like Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE, Red Hat Enterprise Linux tend to get most of the headlines. + +These big distros are ones that tend to tackle big, headline grabbing projects like Wayland, systemd, Mir, and other tools that will, for better or worse, change Linux as we know it. The big fish always get the attention, if for no other reason than these are also the only distros with million dollar companies backing them. + +The big names are not, however, the end of the story. In fact there are hundreds, if not thousands, of distros out there that barely register on trackers like distrowatch and hardly ever grab headlines. + +Two such distros managed to grab headlines last week when both of them, for separate, but related, reasons, announced they were closing their doors. + +The main developer of Void Linux has <a href="https://www.voidlinux.eu/news/2018/05/serious-issues.html">apparently disappeared</a>. Void Linux is a small, independent distribution (not a fork), but does have more than one person working on it and more than a few users. It's notable for a couple of things, one of which is that it remains systemd-free, another is that it uses LibreSSL instead of OpenSSL. + +Other Void Linux developers recently took to the project's website to say they have "had no contact with [the main developer] since the end of January, and no meaningful contact for well over a year." While that's bad, it wouldn't be the end of the world except that the main developer is the only one with the ability to manage much of Void’s infrastructure, including the Void Linux GitHub account, IRC channels and domains. + +The project has reached out to GitHub and Freenode, and says that the latter issue should be fixable, but GitHub has denied them access to the project (which is entirely in keeping with GitHub's ToS and account security practices, for all GitHub knows the project leader may not want Void Linux to continue). + +Another troubling tale comes from the <a href="https://kororaproject.org/about/news/time-for-a-break">Korora project</a>, which is taking a break from development. Korora was based on Fedora, but added a bunch of things that haven't always been easy to get with stock Fedora, namely multimedia codecs and proprietary software. Korora also did a good job of setting some more user-friendly defaults than Fedora. + +"We are taking a little sabbatical to avoid complete burn out and rejuvenate ourselves and our passion for Korora/Fedora and wider open source efforts," the developers write on the project's blog. + +That's a fairly common fate for small Linux distros run by one or two developers as most are. Most have no revenue to sustain them and they are something that the developers do in their spare time. As most of us know, spare time has a way of disappearing, often quite suddenly. + +All these stories of small distros disappearing might be enough to put you off small distros. + +And I wouldn't blame you, I'm a former Crunchbang user and I too felt burned when it disappeared. Crunchbang happens to have <a href="https://www.bunsenlabs.org/">come back</a>, but by the time it did I had already moved on, to a bigger distro that was less likely to disappear from under me. I picked Arch Linux in large part because, while it's still independent of any parent company, it has a large, dedicated user base and seems likely to be around in five years. + +However, if the trend among users is moving against small distros, all Linux users may suffer, even those that never move away from the first distro they try. + +Without people willing to take a chance on unknown, but potentially really great distros there would be no Linux Mint, no elementaryOS and no Solus, to name three recent, very popular arrivals in the Linux world. + +All three are big now, but they got that way only because some people took a chance on them long before they were big names. Adventurous Linux users tried them, perhaps even contributed to them, at least told their fellow Linux enthusiasts about them, and helped make them into the bigger distros they are today. In the case of elementaryOS there's also a revenue model in place to help sustain it. + +Linux Mint founder Clement Lefebvre, says that while a lot of things changed since 2006, when Linux Mint got its start, it's still possible for small distros to grow. Could a new project replicate what Linux Mint and other have done in the past? "Yes, probably," says Lefebvre, "but this has consistently been getting harder throughout the years, not only because some of these success stories are still here today but also because user expectations have grown considerably and that's a real challenge for anyone starting small." + +Lefebvre remains optimistic about the future of small distros though. "That said I'm a firm believer in passion," he says, "if somebody's good at something and has the necessary skills and confidence to be successful, the only thing he needs is passion. I'm pretty sure we'll continue to see huge success stories in the future, particularly in niche markets, and also because of the changing nature of technology" + +Unfortunately, if we all stop using small distros passion might not be quite enough. As more companies, more developers, more desktop enthusiasts come to Linux, which they are, across the board, if not on the desktop, certainly in behind-the-scenes infrastructures, there's going to be less willingness to take a risk on a smaller distro. There's a reason RHEL, Centos and Ubuntu dominate the server market -- they're backed by companies that other companies can understand. Corporate customers are always going to stick with the bigger distros. This will pour more attention, more contributions, and, more importantly, more money into big projects like Ubuntu, RHEL, Centos and openSUSE. + +That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it may very well create a world of corporate-dominated "big Linux," a world where small distributions have a much harder path to gaining a toehold. There's nothing inherently wrong with corporate-backed Linux, but it's entirely possible that the core developers at, to pick an easy target, Ubuntu, have goals and projects, very different from what you want. Anyone love the Unity desktop? Too bad Ubuntu doesn't. + +Void Linux is good example of the opposite of this. If Void disappears there's one less distro for those looking to avoid systemd (Void uses (used) <a href="http://smarden.org/runit/">runit</a> instead). At this point, if you don't want to use systemd your options are seriously limited (Devuan, Gentoo, FreeBSD and perhaps some other small ones like Void). + +Even if you don't care one way or the other about particular tools like systemd there are other reasons that make small distros well worth your time. Perhaps the most difficult to quantify, but personally satisfying, is the personal experiences small distros can lead you through. I'd credit Crunchbang with first getting me into minimalist desktops and more under-the-hood aspects of Linux. Crunchbang used, and still does use, the Openbox window manager with no desktop. At the same time it manages to make that a very usable environment, something I'd never been able to do on my own the Debian Minimal. To this day I use an old Crunchbang theme for GTK apps. + +The question becomes what does it take to sustain a Linux distro? + +The answer seems to be one a lot of Linux users aren't going to like -- money. + +While there are always exceptions, the distros that seem to last, large or small, tend to be the ones that have some form of revenue. Whether that revenue is from users, for example elementaryOS, appears to get by on app store revenue and download donations, or Linux Mint, which raises most of its money through donations, or whether that revenue comes from a corporate backer like the big name distros, at the end of the day, in our culture, money matters. + +That doesn't mean you should ignore distros that have no money. It just means that ones that do will likely last longer. It's very likely that elementaryOS, for example, doesn't pull in much revenue compared to Canonical, Ubuntu's backer, but it does have a means in place, which enables it to grow in a sustainable way. And that's the key to a long lasting distro. If there's no way to sustain that initial burst of energy and vision on the part of the person or persons who start a distro, history shows pretty clearly that they will eventually either burn out or life will simply get in the way and then poof, your distro is gone. + +Some of the burden of supporting small distros ultimately falls to the users. If you want your favorite distro to last, put your money where your mouth is, pull out your wallet and contribute. + +screenshots: +korora.jpg: Korora Linux's last release, based on Fedora 26, KDE flavor. +void.jpg: Void Linux, Cinnamon edition. diff --git a/register/ubuntu-data-collection.txt b/register/ubuntu-data-collection.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7b3e7f --- /dev/null +++ b/register/ubuntu-data-collection.txt @@ -0,0 +1,37 @@ +When Ubuntu 18.04 launched last month it included a new little welcome application that runs the first time you boot into your new install. The Welcome app does several things, provides a quick overview of the new GNOME interface, offers to set up Livepatch (for kernel patching without a reboot) and it offers to opt you out of Canonical's new data collection tool. In <a href="https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/04/27/ubuntu_1804/">my review</a> I called the opt-out a ham-fisted decision, but did note that if Canonical wanted to actually gather data opt-out was probably the best choice. + +I did not anticipate the little firestorm of controversy this little data gathering tool was going to create within the Linux community. Unfortunately the controversy is built on misinformation and outright lying. I've seen several articles, blog posts and especially YouTube videos, with so little grasp of the truth that I think, before we go further, there's one thing that must be said very clearly: Canonical is not spying on you, full stop. + +Canonical wants to know a little bit about the hardware its users run Ubuntu on. There's no spying, Canonical is asking and if you don't want to tell them you can easily opt out. + +If you are willing to share a little bit of data about your hardware you'll be helping make Ubuntu better in the future. In order to best focus development efforts, which are limited, Canonical likes to know basic data about its users -- what size screen they use, which chip is in their laptop, how much RAM you have, which flavor of Ubuntu you're using, whether you enable Livepatch and a few other things. + +In the 18.04 welcome app there's a link to actually view the JSON file with the data you'd be sending to Canonical. It doesn't get any more transparent than that. In my initial review I noted that the whole opt-out UI was very well done, making it simple to see exactly what data Canonical was gathering. You can click to view the actual data sent. I don't know of any other data collection by a large company that offers that level of control. Firefox, which has been shipping with an opt-out data collection tool for many years, does not, so far as I know, give you access to the actual data file that's sent. + +Unfortunately, I also fell victim to something that I think is rampant these days, especially among more tech-savvy users: paranoia about things that report, well, anything, to anyone. I also said that I had opted out of Canonical's data collection. I did that because I, like you, am paranoid about sending my data to anyone for any reason. I even had a wise crack about anonymization not working that my editor wisely removed, but that's where I am coming from, and I think that kind if deep-seated suspicion is common in our community. + +Ever since Edward Snowden confirmed so many once outlandish conspiracy theories, the technically savvy audience of Linux users, those who care about their privacy, have been (understandably) ultra paranoid about any data collection. So when people hear that Ubuntu 18.04 is collecting data, it sounds bad. + +But the problem here is not Canonical, not data collection itself. In this case the data is very simple, totally anonymous (the server doesn't even record the IP it's sent from), and most importantly, clearly disclosed so that you can decide for yourself if you're comfortable sharing it (if you already installed and can't find your way to the JSON file, <a href="https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/xWxbbDGBfn/">here's a sample</a>). + +No, the problem here is actually much deeper and more difficult to solve. The problem, what generated the controversy, is the need for click-bait headlines on YouTube and elsewhere in this day and age of advertising-driven small publishers. Combine the deep-rooted, well-founded suspicion of the average Linux user with the current money making models of sites like YouTube, a platform where the faster you release a video the more hits, and therefore more money, you'll make, and you've pretty much got a recipe for needless controversy. Linux is hardly unique in falling victim to that. + +YouTubers and unscrupulous journalists have become experts at manipulating our fears, playing off them to generate clicks that they turn into a few pennies while throwing Ubuntu, Canonical and the larger Linux community -- that's you and I -- under the bus. + +Canonical makes an easy target for this sort of thing because it's the closest thing Linux has to a household name. + +The fallout is that now half a dozen videos and articles litter the web, spreading, at best, misinformed half-truths and in most cases, outright lies (which, depending on where you live, could leave you open to slander lawsuits my dear enraged YouTuber) and incorrect technical solutions that may well screw up your installation should you be so foolish as to blinding type in terminal commands you find on the internet. Canonical's Martin Wimpress (who, among other things, is responsible for Ubuntu MATE) pointed out in recent episode of Jupiter Broadcasting's <a href="http://linuxunplugged.com/249">Linux Unplugged show</a>, that several of these videos claim the solution is to remove a package which, wait for it... has nothing to do with data collection. + +The "solution" these uninformed, technically incompetent YouTubers and bloggers are pushing would be ridiculous even if they ever do figure out how to use dpkg-query to see which packages own which files. It would be ridiculous because if you uninstall rather than opt-out Canonical never knows you opted out and you've lost your chance to let Canonical know you didn't like the data collection. + +Predictably, these bloggers and YouTubers will be the first to complain when the next release of Ubuntu doesn't offer them anything new or helpful, and will never consider that perhaps their decision to not tell Canonical anything useful might be part of the reason behind that decision. At best perhaps they'll have pulled in enough YouTube pennies to finally move out of their parents' basements. + +That's not real problem here though, the problem here is that in letting these unscrupulous writers create this tempest in a teapot we're scaring away other projects from doing the same sort of data collection. We're forcing developers to work in the dark and then complaining when we don't like the results. + +Take GNOME for instance, it's rather famous for removing features (it just removed the ability to launch apps from the file browser), perhaps, if GNOME started gathering some basic data on a larger scale about how people use GNOME the project would make different decisions. Small developers have an even harder time with this sort of thing and if they think they're going to have their projects labeled as "spyware" and angry YouTube videos posted they're never going to even try getting data. They're going to continue developing in the dark and all of us will suffer for it. + +I'm not suggesting you should automatically opt-in to every bit of data collection every piece of software wants to do. There is a middle ground, there are some companies doing it right, some doing it wrong. I don't even know if you should opt in to Canonical's, that's something you need to decide for yourself. + +But you decide by reading the dialogs, looking at the actual data being sent, and considering the companies that want the data. Don't let ranting videos and articles playing off your fears make your decisions for you. Stop clicking on them at all. + +In my case I went back and opted in to Ubuntu's data collection because I use Ubuntu (both Kubuntu and Ubuntu Server) and I want to help it get better. diff --git a/register/ubuntu1804-final.txt b/register/ubuntu1804-final.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0c3c402 --- /dev/null +++ b/register/ubuntu1804-final.txt @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +Canonical has released Ubuntu 18.04, Bionic Beaver, as this one is nicknamed. The Beaver is a long term support release, which means it will be supported until 2023. + +For those who only upgrade from LTS to LTS releases this will be a major update, one you may not like. Ubuntu 18.04 will be your first Ubuntu without the Unity desktop. + +If you checked out last year's autumn release of 17.10 then you know what's in store, but for a significant portion of Ubuntu's user base, this will be the first brush with GNOME Shell. The good news is that, while not everything in Unity is possible in GNOME, most of it is and Canonical's developers and community have done an excellent job of making GNOME Shell feel and act like Unity. There are two places that GNOME can't match Unity, one is the HUD menu and two is the number of keyboard shortcuts out of the box, but in general, for most users, the transition from Unity to GNOME will likely be a smooth one. + +While the loss of Unity is the biggest news in this release, there's one other change for anyone who's already using 17.10 -- the Wayland display system has been yanked in favor of X.org. Wayland made the default for the more experimental 17.10, but for the LTS release, Canonical has wisely defaulted back to X.org. In my own testing of Wayland GNOME Shell usually performs pretty well, while KDE and others (I've used Sway a bit) are buggy, very buggy. Even in GNOME there are plenty of features that simply don't work -- often by design -- under Wayland. For example, screen sharing in Google Hangouts or Skype doesn't work and VNC supposedly works though I've never managed to get it running. + +Given that, and given that screen sharing and remote desktop capabilities are often fundamental functions of enterprise deployments, one of the biggest upgrade markets for an LTS release, I think ditching Wayland was the right move. It is of course in the repositories so if you've liked Wayland under 17.10 and want to keep on using it in 18.04 you certainly can. + +By the same token it's worth pointing out that there is a community-driven version of Unity 7 available so if you really dislike the GNOME experience you can get your Ubuntu 18.04 and have your Unity too. + +If you're upgrading from Ubuntu 16.04 LTS to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS then the question, "what's new" has a considerably longer answer than if you've already tried 17.10. In fact there's really too much to cover here. I'll stick mainly to the big story: GNOME Shell rather than Unity. + +Ubuntu's GNOME theme manages to make GNOME look very close to the Unity desktop you're leaving behind and, except for the items noted above, all the functionality of Unity is there, it just might be in a totally different place. Take a very small thing like the minimize, maximize and close buttons, they're on the right side now. If you're like me that saves you a step since the first thing I always did was move them from the left to the right. If you like them on the left now you have to install dconf-tools, launch dconf-editor and then head to desktop >> wm >> preferences where you can move your buttons back to the wrong side of the window. + +Another thing you'll notice that's a bit different are the window bars themselves. They're a bit bigger and use what people seem to call "header bars", though the technical GNOME term is client-side decoration, which merges the title and menu bars into a single mess of icons, titles and, well, just about anything the app wants to throw up there. I find them difficult to use in nearly every way, harder to click menus, harder to drag windows and generally a giant usability fail, but they are here and there is no getting rid of them. + +Similarly, while you can customize most of the GNOME interface and change pretty much all the same settings as you could in Unity, the settings app itself iss very different with options often in different places. Still, if you spend a few minutes poking around in the settings app you should find everything you need eventually. If you don't there's always dconf-editor. + +Ubuntu's application stack has always been very close to the GNOME defaults and this release is no different. As you would expect all the major desktop apps that ship with Ubuntu have been updated to the latest version, or near the latest version anyway. + +There are, however, some very cool things about GNOME Shell that make life much better than it was in Unity. I travel constantly and use public wifi all the time. These days more often than not public wifi requires some sort of obligatory user agreement click-thru that Ubuntu used to be really bad at detecting and handling (browsers are pretty good about it, but if you're using SSH and forget that you haven't done that yet, you're going to end up very frustrated, trust me). GNOME gets this right and has never not detected the "captive portal" as this is called, eliminating some frustration from public wifi. + +Then of course there are the thing that have not changed, the Amazon App that no one has ever clicked on is still there in the dock (yes, now it's called a dock) and Ubuntu is still managing to raise free software hackles by wanting to collect some data about your machine and how it works. The data grabbed is pretty innocuous and supposedly anonymized, though, if you still believe in anonymous data please use the link above to get in touch with me about a bridge I have for sale. Still, looking at the phoning home the Ubuntu does I don't think it's a great violation of privacy, but as with so many things tech-related these days Canonical has done a very ham-fisted job of conveying what it's trying to do and it did the big no-no: you'll have to opt-out if you don't want to help the project gain some data about its users. + +It's something of a catch 22 for Canonical. If they make it opt-in no one will opt in so they may as well not do it. If they make it opt-out everyone will scream and holler about privacy, but at least they'll get a little data because almost no one will actually disable it. Canonical obviously opted for the latter route and I can't say I blame them. But I disabled it during the installation, pay attention to all the dialog boxes in the installer. Curiously, if you upgrade you'll be asked to opt-in rather than out. + +Speaking of the installation it has a interesting new option in it to do a "Minimal Install" which means the base system, GNOME and a web browser, terminal and other basic apps, but nothing extra like music players, office suites and so on. If you like to replace stock apps with your own favorites anyway the Minimal Install option looks like a good way to go. And note that this is different than Ubuntu's Minimal Installation CD, which just installs the base system, no desktop. + +Also worth noting for those coming from 16.04, Ubuntu now uses a swap file instead of a partition which saves you some disk partitioning work, though if you upgrade rather than fresh install Ubuntu will stick with the swap setup you already have. + +There are quite a few other small updates to this release including the GNOME To Do app, which makes the default app list for the first time, some subtle but nice updates to the default Ubuntu theme and, mostly of interest to server users, kernel-level live patching now works out of the box with Canonical Livepatch. + +There are plenty of good reasons to update to 18.04. Ubuntu has done a pretty good job of making the GNOME Shell feel like, well, Ubuntu and under the hood there are enough changes to definitely make 18.04 worth your time. If you decide you just can't stand GNOME, Unity is available in an unsupported form, although I suggest checking out Ubuntu MATE as a Unity replacement. + +screenshots: + +ubuntu1804-desktop.jpg: The new default GNOME desktop in Ubuntu 18.04. +ubuntu1804-gnome-ui.jpg: Unity is gone in 18.04, in it's place you'll find the similar, but different, GNOME Shell interface. +ubuntu1804-minimal.jpg: In the 18.04 installer you'll find a new "Minimal Install" option to install just the desktop and handful of apps. +ubuntu1804-client-side.jpg: Ubuntu's new GNOME theme, with combined header bar and menu bar. diff --git a/register/ubuntu1804-flavors.txt b/register/ubuntu1804-flavors.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27b9870 --- /dev/null +++ b/register/ubuntu1804-flavors.txt @@ -0,0 +1,57 @@ +The first beta release of Ubuntu 18.04 is now available. Ubuntu 18.04, which will arrive in official form next month, will be a long term support release and will be, for those who stick with LTS releases, the first time many see the new GNOME-based Ubuntu. + +The first beta, however, does not include the main GNOME-based release. Instead this is more of a community release, with most of the various Ubuntu flavors participating. This particular beta is slightly more noteworthy than usual since, thanks to the havoc wreaked by Spectre and Meltdown, which limited the use of many distros' build systems, this first beta is really the first milestone release for most of the Ubuntu flavor releases. It also came a couple of days late, which is unusual for an Ubuntu beta. + +As the <a href="https://xubuntu.org/news/testing-for-xubuntu/">Xubuntu developers note</a>, "the ISO Tracker has seen little activity for the last few development cycles. We know we have some excited users already using and testing 18.04. But without testing results being recorded anywhere, we have to assume that nobody is testing the daily images and milestones. And this has major implications for both the 18.04 release and the project as a whole." + +In my testing, many of these releases feel much more like daily builds than a beta. Which is to say things are somewhat rougher around the edges than what you'd usually find in an Ubuntu beta release. It's still a good time to check out all the various flavors of Ubuntu, but my advice would be to stick with running these in a virtual machine. + +## Xubuntu + +Xubuntu 18.04 is looking like a very interesting release, for perhaps some unexpected reasons. Ostensibly based on Xfce, Xubuntu is nevertheless replacing quite a few stock Xfce/GNOME apps with equivalent MATE desktop apps. PDF reader Evince will be jettisoned in favor of Atril, GNOME Calculator has been replaced by MATE Calculator, and File Roller (the app that GNOME forgot) is out in favor of MATE's Engrampa. + +I haven't been able to find any details on why the change, but I'd be willing the bet it has to do with dependencies, dependencies the GNOME project might decide to get rid of tomorrow. Whatever the case it makes Xubuntu a little bit different than just Xfce atop an Ubuntu package base and goes a long way to making it feel like its own thing, much the way Ubuntu MATE feels very much like its own thing. + +Since last year's 17.04 saw a major Xfce update, there isn't too much new on the Xfce side. There's a new sound applet and status update plugin, but by and large the Xfce of 18.04 is pretty close to what you saw in 17.10. That's to be expected since this is an LTS release. + +## Kubuntu + +Kubuntu 18.04 sees a little life breathing into the Kubuntu project, particularly in the theme which is now considerably less blindingly white and feels more like, well, Kubuntu than just stock KDE. + +Over the past year or so I've come around to KDE, particularly its development process and objectives, which feel much more transparent and sane compared to say, well, some other big, often capricious, desktop environment that seems to get the lion's share of attention. Of all the KDE-based desktops I've tested Kubuntu stands out as one of the best. The project is great about getting the latest version of KDE tested and shipped. + +This release is no different, featuring Plasma 5.12 LTS and KDE Applications 17.12.2. The former will be the most noticeable part of the upgrade, bringing considerable speed improvements and using quite a bit less RAM than previous releases. It's still KDE, which is to say it's not the lightest desktop around, but it's a bit more svelte than it used to be. + +Other new features include far too much to cover in detail here, but the highlights in my testing have been a better layout for Kickoff (KDE's app menu) and Night Color, which adjusts the screen color temperature to reduce eye strain at night. That's a Wayland-only feature, but a very welcome one since Wayland breaks most third-party apps that do this in Xorg. Plasma 5.12 also fixes one of my big problems with KDE on Wayland: there's now a fullscreen option for Wayland windows. + +It's not new, but KDE's Global Menu feature -- which reduces all of a window's menu clutter to a single button -- is well worth checking out, especially if you're missing the (albeit somewhat different) global menus of Ubuntu's Unity interface. + +## Ubuntu MATE + +Ubuntu MATE continues to turn out a really nice, feature-packed, but simple to figure out desktop, which, for my money, is better than what Ubuntu proper is doing right now. + +This release sees the new MATE 1.20 desktop, which is most notable for solving what has long been MATE's biggest failing -- the lack of HiDPI support. That's now largely a thing of the past. MATE Desktop 1.20 supports HiDPI displays with dynamic detection and scaling. HiDPI hints for Qt apps are also part of this release so if you use any Qt apps they won't look out of place (or they won't be blurry anyway). + +MATE's Marco window manager gets a few new tricks in this release, including the ability to do quadrant window tiling, and there's some new shortcut keys to navigate the Alt + Tab switcher. + +Here's one to make Unity refugees happy: Ubuntu MATE's Global Menu integration has received a lot of polish and at this point works as well as Unity's ever did. When the Global Menu is added to a panel the application menus are automatically removed from the application window and only presented globally. Previously getting that working properly took some additional configuration work. Remove the Global Menu from the panel and MATE will automatically restore menus to their application windows. MATE's HUD, which mirrors the HUD of Unity, and, like the Unity version, holding Alt won’t trigger the HUD anymore. The HUD is also HiDPI aware now. + +Ubuntu MATE has also already adopted a feature coming to the mainline Ubuntu release, namely a Minimal Install option. Not to be confused with Ubuntu Minimal, which is an entirely separate download, the Minimal Install option in MATE and Ubuntu proper refers mainly to whether or not you want all the third-party bells and whistles. In the case of MATE you'll get the MATE Desktop, its utilities, its themes and Firefox. Everything else -- email client, video player, office suite, etc -- is left to the user. It's a handy option for those of us whose favorite default apps are different than the distro's defaults, but at the same time don't want to build their entire desktop from scratch as you'd have to do with the Minimal CD. + +## Ubuntu Budgie + +Ubuntu Budgie is the relative newcomer in the flavors family, but it's already turned out several very nice releases and 18.04 is no exception. Based on the Budgie desktop, which was created by the developers of Solus Linux, Budgie is a bit more lightweight than KDE or GNOME, but has a more "modern" design than say Xfce. It nicely straddles the middle ground between GNOME bloat and Xfce traditionalism. + +At the moment Budgie is based on GTK3 and as such look somewhat like GNOME, but Budgie's roadmap calls for the project to drop GTK and move to Qt as some point. That's been my sticking point with Budgie up to this point, I just don't see a low-level toolkit change like that being smooth, but I must say, using this beta convinced me that I liked Budgie enough to overlook its potentially tumultuous future. + +Among the new features in 18.04 are a new GTK theme with about a dozen new desktop applets available, much improved keyboards shortcuts and MP3 support out-of-the-box. Like the rest of the Ubuntu family there's a new minimal install option in the installer, which in this case is a god-send since the default Budgie apps and I do not get along. + +This release is also notable for what I think is the best use of a Snap app I've seen yet. The Budgie Welcome app, the little window that launches when you first start the desktop, is a pre-installed Snap app. That way the developers can keep it up-to-date, change or add links within its interface and push those out over the course of the LTS release cycle. + +## Lubuntu/Lubuntu Next + +While Lubuntu generally participates in the first beta release, as of the time of writing they haven't released anything. The Lubuntu Next project has likewise not released anything for the beta. If you're curious you can head over to the daily builds page and try one of those, but the in case of Lubuntu Next, which is based on the very much work in progress LXQt desktop, those daily builds will likely be quite buggy. + +## Conclusion + +The Ubuntu flavors family continues to turn out very impressive releases and in most cases would be well repected full-fledged distros if they were their own thing. As it stands they're often overshadowed by the main release of Ubuntu, but if you're looking for a change -- without distro hopping -- any of these will give you a nice, stable desktop with all the underlying Ubuntu tools you already know. |
