Danimo's blog - Comments

maninalift: UserBase and TechBase: Achievements and Challenges

nospam@example.com (maninalift) — Sat, 09 May 2009 16:59:59 +0200

There is lots of KDE content such as the "about KDE" sort of pages on kde.org, Userbase, the KDE help pages etc that could do with some sort of meta management of some sort.

I'm not exactly sure what. But for instance it would be great if items (webpages etc.) could be marked with a "valid until KDE release 4.3", then as soon as KDE 4.3 is released (a) all of the pages that need updating appear in a database somewhere with a web front-end (b) a little notice appears at the top of the page saying "this page does not refer to the latest release of KDE, some of the content may be out of date". Contributers can then run though the table updating stuff. Something to make it easier to prioritizing jobs such as the main KDE pages over UserBase. Also there is some duplication of content which might be managed better.... I don't know.

Just some thoughts.

Elvis Stansvik: Qt Creator RC 1 Out For Your Testing Pleasures

nospam@example.com (Elvis Stansvik) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:57:37 +0100

Forgot to say; great with a fake Vim mode. I'm a complete vim junkie Downloading now to check it out.

Elvis Stansvik: Qt Creator RC 1 Out For Your Testing Pleasures

nospam@example.com (Elvis Stansvik) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 17:55:14 +0100

Cool! BTW little paste error in the post; the link "Qt Creator RC1" goes to Thiago's post about 4.5-RC

(Ed: Fixed!)

Siebrand Mazeland: Userbase I18n And You

nospam@example.com (Siebrand Mazeland) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:06:56 +0100

Hey daniel. I was pointed to this entry by Niklas, a MediaWiki developer. He is trying to get you into #mediawiki-i18n on Freenode IRC. I myself am a project manager at Betawiki / http://translatewiki.net, the MediaWiki localisation project, and MediaWiki committer for i18n/L10n related issues.

What you need is http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Translate which implements the tag .

blueget: Userbase I18n And You

nospam@example.com (blueget) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 23:18:10 +0100

I don't have a solution for the problem, but at least that blog post got me to write a german userbase page for Amarok (OK, mostly I just translated the english stuff)

patpi: Userbase I18n And You

nospam@example.com (patpi) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 22:45:05 +0100

Hi,

This concept of mullti language Wiki is very good. In Kadu Instant Messanger we would also like to have one master article, lots of translations on our MediaWiki.

Please keep us posted when you will resolve those issues. I'm really interested.

jmaspons: Userbase I18n And You

nospam@example.com (jmaspons) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:57:47 +0100

I don't know if it's already implemented in mediawiki but TikiWiki have what you want. Take a look at http://wiki-translation.com

jef spaleta: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (jef spaleta) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 01:03:03 +0100

Anyone got any gripes with maemo as a linux distribution? What if maemo which was developed for small form factor tablets like the Nokia 810 were adapted for netbooks. The displays on some netbooks isnt that much bigger than the N810. And the functionality isn't that much different overall.

As a user you may be tempted to think of these netbooks as laptops..but in terms of software design constraints..its probably better to imagine them as beefy smartphones with big keyboards. The small display sizes really break conventional desktop oriented UI elements. The sort of physical constraints Maemo has a distribution has been addressing for years now.

Even if Canonical's OEM customized pre-installs of Ubuntu solve some perceived problems it maybe be too late to see significant market penetration of Ubuntu. The retail market may have decided on XP already.

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/22362/53/

Toshibia, a Canonical OEM partner, confirms that XP accounts for 90%+ of its netbook sales in line with Acer's sales numbers. If Linpus were the problem and Ubuntu Mobile were the solution, you would expect the adoption of the linux pre-install of the Toshiba model to be doing better compared to the Toshiba XP pre-install...but its not. Dell didn't go on record with numbers in the article, but there is an implication there that Dell's numbers are in line with the Acer and Toshiba linux/XP split.

And on top of that both Toshiba and Dell are minor players in the overall OEM market in market research estimates. Acer and Asus dominate the market. If Ubuntu was the answer you would expect Canonical's OEM partners.. Dell and Toshiba to be competitive as a top player in marketshare with either Asus or Acer. They are not....not yet.

http://www.displaysearch.com/cps/rde/xchg/displaysearch/hs.xsl/Strong_mini_note_shipments_buoy_notebook_PC_Market_Q3_08.asp

And thats just the Atom based netbooks. There is a MIPS based hardware out there using a custom debian distro with a 2.4.x kernel!

http://davidnielsen.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/the-two-only-netbooks-of-real-interest/

And to muddy the waters further, Canonical is working towards supporting new ARM based devices, which are going to be entering the market later this year (maybe) sporting low power consumption...but by the time those devices land the market is going to have matured and at the rate things are going..its going to be a XP retailer market. That itwire article doesn't point to linux being more than a 10% player in the market...at best.

If compatibility with traditional laptop and desktops are a driving purchasing considering, XP will dominate. For linux on netbooks to really be attractive in the pre-install space, these things will have to be marketed as devices. They need to competing more with smartphones and wifi tablets like the Nokia N810, where limited functionality is accepted and the target consumer isn't looking for the depth of software that a traditional desktop or server linux distribution provides.

Targeting a marketing campaign for these devices at people who desire the ability to run apache on these things is a marketing failure. Sure you can do it, but talking about doing it isn't going to help you sell linux based products to the mass consumer audience.

If the ARM based devices that Canonical is helping to port linux to make it to market, they might be exactly what is needed. ARM devices can't compete directly with Atom based devices...ARM devices can't run Windows XP. So if someone..like Nokia..comes into the market this year running Ubuntu on ARM, they might have exactly the right experience to build a successful marketing effort that positions their "netbook" which de-emphasizes desktop/laptop compatibility and emphasizes it as a portal to rich web based services with fantastic power consumption. But that's far from a sure thing.

Market forces aside, personally, I think traditional linux distribution is the wrong model for netbook or other consumer electronics. I think the way Foresight is built may have some compelling advantages and that the coronary and rbuilder technologies from rpath may have compelling advantages for updating OEM pre-install linux images.

freeflying: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (freeflying) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 14:23:20 +0100

www.gdium.com
preinstalled with mandriva 2008.1, you can use urpmi as the normal version.

DanaKil: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (DanaKil) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 14:38:05 +0100

I have a Aspire One too, regarding the hardware, it's a nice little netbook but I agree that they really failed for the installed OS...

I'm still hoping for a project providing a customized kernel for the Aspire One and based on a good distro (and KDE4 of course!). Any hints ?

bdgraue: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (bdgraue) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 10:01:13 +0100

i bought an samsung nc10 and installed kubuntu on it. it was really easy, the only thing i had to do for wlan was

- sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-intrepid linux-backports-modules-intrepid-generic

- kdesudo kate /etc/modules

and add ath5k to load the module.
i love kde4 on the netbook, its real fun

Caitlyn Martin: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (Caitlyn Martin) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 05:23:18 +0100

I bought a Sylvania g netbook. The hardware is brilliant but the installed gOS 2.92 distro (a beta!) was the absolute pits. gOS 3.0, downloadable from the Sylvania website, was hardly better. Both are based on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.1. Both have outdated apps. Both lack proper drivers for the hardware they are preinstalled on.

For example, the 1.2GHz Via C7-M ULV CPU, the same one you'll find in the HP MiniNote, fully supports frequency scaling. The 2.6.24.x kernel in gOS does not. There is a backport (kernel patch) that's been available longer than the machine has been on the market yet for some reason it's not included in even the final release. By default the machine comes up with the CPU scaled back to 600MHz. I'm sure that extends the battery life but performance is sluggish. With gOS there is no way to change it. I installed Vector Linux 6.0rc1 and the vcpufreq GUI application lets me setup scaling any way I want. At 1.2GHz the machine is quite fast and when I'm on battery power and don't need the extra power it scales back.

Similarly, gOS (either version) ships with an old, proprietary Via Chrome video driver that doesn't support 3D acceleration. You have to either download the latest (now open source) driver from Via or else use a distro that has the latest OpenChrome driver. Either of those work just fine.

The Realtek 8187 wireless chipset is fine for wireless but the driver included in gOS 2.92 is hopeless. They fixed this in 3.0 at least. Of course you need a USB CD or DVD drive to install 3.0. How many new netbook owners won't have that? How many would be comfortable reloading the OS? There is no upgrade patch from 2.92 to 3.0, BTW.

gOS also idiot proofs their system by hiding little things like any terminal apps, Synaptic (the package manager), or any other useful administration tools. They are installed but you have to either create a launcher or edit a .desktop file in /usr/share/applications to add them back into the menu. Of course they have a reason for doing this. gOS has no repositories of their own and doing a full system upgrade from the Ubuntu repositories breaks the OS and leaves you in single user mode at the next reboot.

So, yes, the problem is the distros and the way they assume that users 1) won't care about security, and 2) are clueless. HP and Dell (with SUSE and Ubuntu respectively) get it right. So does MSI. Even Sylvania wised up and put Ubuntu on their Meso g. I just pity anyone who buys an original g who isn't Linux savvy.

OTOH, I love my Sylvania g (original version) now that I have a real distro installed. These things are probably the least expensive well equipped netbook out there. Just don't use the OS that was provided.

Andreas Wenning: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (Andreas Wenning) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 01:08:50 +0100

The ASUS eee has much of the same problems. An old firefox/openoffice.org/amarok and an installation system that seems very odd. In most cases the best you can do is to install a system you know/trust with newer software and updates.

It can be noted that an eeePC 901 runs amazingly well with a KDE4 on top, with all the graphical effects it is still humming a fine tune (in my case a Kubuntu Intrepid + custom kernel from array.org). You just need to set the font size down a lot, and set a sane hotkey for the KWin "fullscreen" function.

Racchio: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (Racchio) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:48:01 +0100

Have you tried this:

http://www.acer.com/aspireone/support/files/connect.html ?

Here you can get and install Skype 2.0 and Firefox 3 quite easily and with official Acer packages. I found them quite useful. As for OpenOffice.org I can't help, but I find the installed version quite usable.

Hub: Why Current Linux-Preinstalls Pose Adoption Problems for Netbook Users

nospam@example.com (Hub) — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:09:11 +0100

All the problem come from the fact that these hardware vendor do not partner with a big name distro, and they see Linux as a way to force Microsoft to sell them Windows XP for cheap instead of providing a got user experience.

So you end up having none of the advantages of Linux.

They get a fail.