Ubuntu 8.04 vs. Fedora 9
New versions of two of the world’s biggest Linux distributions have hit the street. How do they match up?
Over the past decade, Linux has emerged from a herd of obscure and nerdy operating systems to warrant a place in even the most technologically unsophisticated business environments. And in the past three years, a few distributions have made stupendous leaps in performance and usability, winning the affection of millions of mainstream desktop users.
The recent releases of Ubuntu 8.04 and Fedora 9–two top Linux distributions–mark another step forward in the evolution of the Linux desktop. I’ve been running both of them to see which offers the better blend of usability and advanced features.
Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron
Since the release of version 5.10 (aka Breezy Badger) in 2005, Ubuntu Linux has stood apart from hundreds of other Linux distributions, capturing the attention of penguin heads and of users seeking a free, stable, usable alternative to Microsoft Windows. With its click-and-go Live CD installation and its support for a broad base of hardware devices, Ubuntu built a reputation for ease of use that changed the way many people think about Linux. PC World was so impressed that Ubuntu landed on our list of “The 100 Best Products of 2006,” a first for any flavor of Linux.
The latest version of Ubuntu, 8.04 (aka Hardy Heron, or just Hardy for short), builds strongly on the foundation laid by its predecessors. This release is a Long Term Support edition, to be supported until April 2011, and Hardy Heron shows more polish and refinement than any other Linux distribution I’ve seen.
The operating system comes packed with new features, beginning with a revised kernel (2.6.24), the latest version of Xorg (7.3), and the most recent Gnome desktop interface (2.22.1). On top of these advances, Hardy offers several new default applications, including Brasero for CD/DVD burning, the Transmission BitTorrent client, and Vinagre virtual network computing software for remote desktop viewing. You also get support for enhanced security via SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux)–but in Ubuntu 8.04 it’s not installed by default, as it is in Fedora 9.
From the get-go, the Hardy Heron experience is smooth. I installed it on several machines, including an aging laptop with a Via graphics controller that’s notorious for making a hash of things in Linux. Each installation found and recognized all of my hardware without requiring a reboot. Even my media card slot, which Windows can never locate a driver for on its own, worked right off the bat. Existing Ubuntu users enjoy even slicker installation: The Hardy Heron upgrade comes through the Update Manager, and one click initiates a totally automated –albeit fairly long–upgrade process that leaves all of the user’s data in place.
Ubuntu’s automated Hardware Drivers utility seeks out proprietary drivers for devices in your system, simplifying the task of grabbing the latest proprietary nVidia driver, for instance, so that you can enable Desktop Effects. Some hard-core open-source advocates disapprove of Ubuntu’s compromise with the closed-source world, but end users who care more about usability than ideology will find this arrangement a boon.
Apart from the new default apps, Ubuntu hasn’t changed much in overall look and feel this time around. Sure, there’s artsy heron-themed wallpaper, but longtime Ubuntu desktop users will find little else to poke at in this version. That development indicates that Ubuntu has matured to the point where it can focus on refining its feature set rather than massively reworking its elements in each new version.
The changes in the default apps seem judicious rather than sweeping. Brasero, for instance, is a far more complete disc-burning utility than Serpentine, the relatively simple CD burner found in previous versions of Ubuntu.
Hardy Heron still lacks a few features that I had hoped to see as defaults by now, such as a Desktop Effects Manager for Gnome. Downloading Compiz Configuration Settings Manager through apt-get (the command-line tool for handling packages) isn’t hard, but it should really be there in the first place. Without it, newbies have no idea how to turn on the desktop cube they’ve heard so much about. Also still absent is a decent theme manager to take advantage of Desktop Effects.
Minor quibbles aside, Ubuntu 8.04 is the best-assembled and most polished Linux distribution I’ve ever used. Ubuntu 8.04 performs well where Windows XP and Vista screech to a halt, particularly on older hardware. And since it comes with OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Evolution Mail, and a host of other apps right out of the box, it may be the best way to breathe new life into a seemingly moribund PC.
Fedora 9
Fedora was born as an all-open-source alternative to the business-centric Red Hat Linux. As such, it enjoys a solid legacy of Linux development. Unfortunately, as the nonprofit cousin of a major commercial distribution, Fedora doesn’t always seem to get the attention it deserves. But last year, Fedora doffed the shadow of rival Ubuntu by releasing of Fedora 8, which offered a simple, graphical installer and the best hardware support we’d seen from the Fedora distribution. Nevertheless, it lagged behind Ubuntu in ease of installation and overall usability–largely because its commitment to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) left it without complete drivers for some major hardware, including nVidia and ATI cards and various wireless cards. Any astute Linux user could add these, certainly, but the process was too geeky for average Joes who just wanted to give Linux a try.
With version 9, Fedora has stepped up its ease-of-use game. Gnome 2.22 brings a host of great new features, including support for Webcam videos. A prerelease version of Xorg 7.4, however, causes problems with nVidia cards, preventing Desktop Effects–which is now standard in Fedora 9–from working. At posting time, this problem remained unresolved, though contributors to the Fedora Forums suggested that it would soon be corrected. Fedora 9 also has a newer kernel (2.6.25) than Ubuntu 8.04.
One of the most important changes in the new Fedora is immediately visible: its Anaconda installer can dynamically resize NTFS hard-drive partitions, making the task of adding Fedora to existing Windows installations much easier. Ubuntu users have long enjoyed a similar feature, so it’s nice to see Fedora catch up. Another new feature of the installer is a one-click option for drive encryption. Overall, Fedora’s revamped install routine is the distribution’s best yet, and it nearly matches Ubuntu’s in simplicity and ease of use.
I liked Fedora 9’s new PackageKit, a graphical interface for Fedora’s Yum update utility, too. PackageKit is the nicest update manager I’ve tried in Linux, with big, friendly icons for bug fixes and security updates. Also, like Ubuntu 8.04, Fedora 9 now uses PulseAudio to control sound devices throughout the OS.
By default, Fedora includes SELinux, which enforces security policies throughout the OS. Developed by the U.S. National Security Agency, this app does an excellent job of alerting users to potential security threats and managing user authentication. Most users will find that the biggest benefit of SELinux is its management of root user authority: The program alerts you when you’ve had root privileges activated for more than a few minutes, so you can minimize your exposure from this vulnerability.
For users who are already familiar with Linux, Fedora 9 is an excellent choice. Robust security features and installation options make it somewhat more versatile than Ubuntu, which offers a more streamlined (and therefore more restricted) installation. For most users, though, including millions interested in trying Linux for the first time, Fedora lacks the polish and ready-to-run simplicity of its more popular rival.
Ubuntu 8.0.4 offers a level of functionality comparable to that of Mac OS and Windows, from delivery to installation to daily use. Unfortunately, the ties that bind all Linux distributions–primarily a lack of support for major Windows- and Mac-based business, design, and gaming applications–still hold Ubuntu back from mass popularity. For users with such moderate computing needs as Web browsing, e-mail, and basic document creation, however, Hardy is a compelling option.
fbOpen Released - Facebook Platform Now Open Source!
Facebook is turning parts of its application platform open source, the company announced today. It’s available here for download.
This comes a little more than a year after Facebook Platform first launched to allow third party developers a way to get their applications directly onto Facebook. The company says more than 24,000 applications have now been built on the platform and more than 400,000 developers are building these applications. 140 new applications are added to the directory each day. “Nearly all” Facebook users have added at least one of those applications.
Facebook Open Platform is licensed under the Common Public Attribution License (CPAL), except for the FBML parser, which includes Mozilla source code, which is licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPL).
Facebook says they’re doing this “to give back to the developer community.” That may be somewhat true, but the key reason for fbOpen is to compete with OpenSocial, the Google/MySpace/Yahoo/AOL led open source competitor to Facebook Platform.
Competing social networks, including the still-larger MySpace, are lining up against Facebook via OpenSocial. This is their way of responding.
It may be too late. Tellingly, Facebook was unable to line up any partners to add to today’s announcement, although some social networks we’ve chatted with say they will almost certainly implement it in the near future.
More here.
Apple Ships OS X 10.5.3
Today Apple released another free minor update for users of OS X 10.5 “Leopard”. Depending on which version you’re coming from, it weighs in at somewhere in the 200 to 400MB range, which is pretty frightening for something that’s mostly fixes rather than new features. It will take a few days for people to figure out what’s significant here, but the release notes do indicate some fairly major changes. I for one am hoping that the fixes to Airport and Time Machine for Time Capsule users get rid of some of the lingering issues that I’ve seen in that area.
As with other OS X updates, you can grab it by choosing “Software Update” from the system menu, or just wait for it to show up the next time your system automatically checks for updates. On my laptop, the installation was painless - but Apple suggests that you back up prior to installing the update, which is generally good advice.
140 million copies of Vista sold. How does Leopard compare?
Apple has no numbers to compare with the 140 million copies of Vista that Bill Gates says Microsoft has sold since the latest version of Windows started shipping in late 2006.
Literally, no numbers. The last time Apple released a Leopard sales figure was Oct. 30, 2007, when the company said that it had sold more than 2 million copies of Leopard in one long weekend. Apple reported $170 million revenue from Leopard sales in the December ‘07 quarter, but that represents fewer than 1.3 million copies. Apple also sold 2.32 million Macs that quarter, more than 2/3 of which probably had Leopard pre-installed.
Even so, the two operating systems aren’t even playing in the same ballpark when it comes to raw sales.
Of course, Vista was greeted with brickbats and Leopard with raves, but Gates didn’t dwell on that in Tokyo Wednesday, where he gave his Japanese partners an update on how Vista is doing. “That’s a very rapid sales rate,” he said.
Not necessarily.
“The most significant number,” says Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, “is Apple’s upgrade penetration vs. Microsoft’s. Apple estimated that about 19% of the OS X user base was on Leopard by the end of its launch quarter. By my math, Vista is used by about 12%-14% of the Windows user base more than a year after its retail launch.”
Alexa Updates Its Web Rankings
Amazon-owned Alexa has announced a major update to its 10 year old web ranking system. Previously, Alexa’s rankings were based solely on data collected from the downloadable Alexa Toolbar, but now the company is aggregating data from multiple sources. That’s good news, but it may be too little, too late for a company whose rankings have faded in relevance in recent years.
Alexa launched its web site rankings in 1998 based on data from its toolbar software. In the late 90s and early part of this decade, Alexa was more or less the only place people could turn for public ranking data on the web at large, and so their rankings — though often times inaccurate — were widely quoted. At the time, unless you wanted to pay for data from firms like Nielsen, comScore, or HitWise, it was Alexa or nothing. Alexa rank became a metric that people actually paid attention to and took seriously.
But in recent years, that has changed. Alexa now faces competition from Compete, which launched a similar public service in 2006, and from Quantcast, which was founded in 2005. Both of those companies gather data from numerous outside sources and their rankings are generally seen as more accurate than Alexa’s.
“In recent months we’ve heard from our Alexa users that understanding Internet usage beyond Alexa Toolbar users was increasingly of interest,” wrote Alexa in the announcement of their rankings overhaul. Recent months? The inaccuracy of the toolbar-based rankings has been discussed for years, which is why we think this might be too little, too late for Alexa.
Beyond the problem of public perception, Alexa also still displays their data in non-standard ways. The hard-to-understand pageviews per million, reach per million, and rank are not easily compared to other data sources, which makes Alexa’s information less useful than it could be, even if it is presumably now more accurate.
Historical data on Alexa is currently only available for the past 9 months while the company recalculates old data with its new ranking algorithm.
iPhone vs. BlackBerry 9000: The keyboard wars, round 2
Do smartphones need really need physical keys?
The folks who designed Apple’s iPhone bet that touchscreen keys would be good enough for most users, and based on a February survey of iPhone owners that found 72% “very satisfied” (versus 55% for RIM), Apple’s gamble seems to have paid off.
The complaints about the virtual keys that were so persistent when the iPhone first came out have largely gone away.
But not quite. Just as Apple (AAPL) begins manufacturing the second coming of its famous smartphone, we have two new data points suggesting that the keyboard wars are far from over.
The first comes from an open letter to Steve Jobs posted by Dan Tynan at PC World in which he lists “5 Things iPhone 2.0 Must Have.” No. 1 on his list: “Enlarge the Friggin’ Keyboard.”
Tynan cites an Aug. 2007 User Centric test in which 20 veteran thumb typists were confronted with the iPhone for the first time and, not surprisingly, took twice as long to enter text and made more errors.
What does Tynan suggest that Apple do about that? He likes the slide-out keyboard that HTC built for AT&T’s (T) Tilt, a solution he describes as “nifty.”
Gives how hard Steve Jobs and his team worked to design the iPhone — stripping it down to bare essentials and selecting a form factor with as few moving parts as possible — they are unlikely to take kindly to Tynan’s suggestion.
The second data point comes from Engadget, which has released what it says are the first leaked photographs of the new RIM (RIMM) BlackBerry 9000. SteveJack at MacDailyNews was the first to point out the resemblance to — and the key difference with — the iPhone. He writes:
“RIM clearly seems to have tried to copy Apple’s iPhone’s exterior look, but beyond that derivative bit of attempted tomfoolery, the anachronistic physical buttons remain, taking up space whether or not they’re in use.
Also remaining is the small screen, mashed into the upper half of the device in order to make room for those tiny, slippery-looking plastic buttons festooned all over the bottom half of the device. The software’s UI has been prettied or messed up (depending on your taste), but it has none of the multi-touch goodness of Apple’s iPhone. It’s the same old, same old in an iPhone-inspired wrapper.
You can judge the distance behind and overall cluelessness of iPhone’s future roadkill by the amount they copy the iPhone’s exterior. See: LG, HTC, and now RIM, among many others. This ceaseless quest to dress up antiques in Apple veneer is pathetic and sad.”
A partisan review, to be sure, and more than a bit over the top. But he may have a point.
Apple iPhone 2.0 Software Preview
On Thursday, March 6, 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs hosted a special event at the Apple Town Hall on Apple’s Cupertino campus, where he and two other company executives detailed plans for iPhone 2.0, an upcoming iPhone software update that dramatically enhances the value of a product that is already, quite frankly, pretty darn valuable. What Apple is doing with this update is both revolutionary and exciting. Though I wasn’t invited to the event, I downloaded a copy of the video presentation and watched it on the plane ride home from Las Vegas, where I was attending Microsoft’s MIX’08 show.
iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK)
Scott Forstall, the vice president of iPhone software at Apple, presented the iPhone SDK portion of the event, which was a bit more technical, by definition, than the enterprise bit. (Forstall comes off as a vaguely smarmy Jobs clone, similar to the many Bill Gates clones that infested Microsoft a decade ago.) In keeping with his role as Jobs Jr., however, he started off with a quick review of how the previous iPhone development model, the woefully inadequate Web apps, has done. Forstall said the program has been “incredibly successful,” with over 1000 Web apps developed since last summer. The closest you’re going to get to a groan at a partisan Apple event is absolute silence, and that’s what Forstall got with that comment: Obviously, Web apps are not a first class development path for the iPhone. Indeed, the presence of the new SDK pretty much confirms that even Apple believes this too. That said, Forstall hinted that the iPhone 2.0 release would include some improvements to Web app development, but he didn’t explain what those might be, perhaps wisely.
Moving along, Apple’s native iPhone SDK appears to be far less locked down and controlled than most expected. Forstall said that the SDK includes the exact same tools and APIs that Apple uses in-house to develop their own iPhone applications. This is impressive, I suppose, though such a thing is common practice in other software markets. (Microsoft, for example, develops code with the tools it gives to third party developers as well, for example.)
Forstall described the APIs as “the platform,” which is based on “the most advanced platform in the world, in the form of Mac OS X.” (Ah, hyperbole.) Mac OS X is comprised of four architectural layers: Core OS, Core Services, Media, and Cocoa, the latter of which is the user interface application framework, sort of like Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) on Windows. (Though, of course, Cocoa is “The. Best. Application Framework. Out there,” according to Forstall.) The iPhone OS is built on the same basic layers: You get Core OS, Core Services, and Media, just like with Mac OS X, but the top layer is replaced by something called Cocoa Touch. That’s because Cocoa is based around a mouse and keyboard interaction paradigm. (This belies the best application framework claim above, but whatever.)
Cocoa Touch is combination of the object oriented Cocoa framework and “everything [Apple] knew about creating a touch API for the iPhone.” This suggests to me that Cocoa Touch is, in fact, a fairly recent development and that Apple did not, in fact, use these technologies when it create the original iPhone OS software. (Not that it matters, I suppose.) Anyway, Cocoa Touch is the user interface application framework for the iPhone.
Forstall then examined each of the iPhone OS architectural layers a bit more deeply. Core OS, for example, is the lowest level of the system, comprised of such things as the OS X kernel, sockets, security, power management, and the file system, among many others. The iPhone’s kernel is identical to that of OS X: It is built from exactly the same source code, he said, but optimized in certain ways for the device. This alone makes the iPhone compelling from a technological standpoint: Until MinWin hits with Windows 7, it’s hard to imagine anyone using the kernel from a desktop version of Windows to build a smart phone.