In my opinion (I run Beryl on my desktop) from the users perspective, compiz is a good default choice over Beryl.  I have yet to see any discussion from the beryl crowd, with technical merits, as to why beryl is superior.  Nor have I seen why the beryl crowd couldn’t release their changes as plugins to compiz.

If there is something I want to toy around with, sure I use Beryl because I am able to figure out issues when they arise.  If I had to recommend one for 99% of the users, it would be compiz.  This is not taking anything away from Beryl, as choice is a good thing, and can only spur further innovation.

 ”Beryl includes temporary solutions and workarounds that paper over issues in the overall infrastructure. I’ve been very unwilling to include such things in compiz as I believe that it hurts the open source desktop as it hides the real issues and I don’t want to do that for my own projects benefit. Helping other projects by fixing issues where they should be fixed is how we make the open source desktop unbeatable. Temporary solutions can be maintained outside the official tree or in branches for those who need them.”

For a reference: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/compiz/2007-February/001413.html 

Sometimes there are articles about Ubuntu getting big, and there is the inevitable comment about how Ubuntu will kill debian, hurt it, whatever.

Last I checked, the goal, atleast in what I have worked with, was to minimalize divergence from debian at all possible opportunities and send patches upstream.  If obtaining a larger testing base, and new developers, which will in turn submit patches to debian, how does this hurt debian?

I am sure there will be comments about them losing developers etc, but I would bet (with absolutely no statistics to back me up) that if you take the net figures, far more people are gained for the projects as a whole. (ie a developer that is new to linux, never contributed to debian, works on ubuntu, sends patches upstream, everyone benefits = +1 to both debian and ubuntu).

I don’t use it (no wireless = no go) but they have fantastic art direction.  Check it out.

I am very happy to have ESR climb on the Ubuntu train.

The number one request on the dell idea site is for them to provide Linux preinstalled. It would be awesome to see Ubuntu provided in this fashion, maybe Mark can open some line of official communication?

On a side note, visit that dell site and vote for it to show there is a demand.

Symfony 1.0 was released today.  This is a great web framework, and for me was very intuitive and easy to learn.  It uses PHP5 and works with just about any database.  Very cool.

Linus is right [ in my opinion ]. Isn’t there such a thing as usability, while not alienating those who want options? Check it out

Also I am a bit curious as to why some gnome guys don’t even want to discuss this. Linus would not have taken the time to voice his opinions if he clearly didn’t care about the project, and where does not discussing things leave us? Is that called “usability through obscurity“?

Jeff: “I think our current successes go a long way towards proving our position and ability to execute when it comes to usability and design (a position which you do not describe accurately, by the way). This discussion finished last year.” — Taco bell has “successes” but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t improve on the product (or bring back the grilled stuffed fajita burrito).

Please review NVIDIA’s recent financial information for 2007: “Thanks to a series of record quarters last year, the company’s 2007 fiscal year was its most profitable yet: Nvidia amassed revenue of $3.07 billion and net income of $448.8 million over the year”.

Also note nvidia provides linux drivers that work.  AIGLX? No problem.  Some companies can afford to make bad drivers, and if that is ATI / AMD, congratulations on being in that position.  Companies that don’t embrace new technology eventually get replaced by it.

On my last installment of “wannabie techie”, I mentioned I had a copied of Vista I didn’t install yet.  Check out this video for how to install it.

I wanted to post this just for those who might be considering running Ubuntu Linux. This is from my experience as a desktop user, and day to day activity:

What I can’t do with Ubuntu:

• Play games at a speed identical to Windows
• Counterstrike, World of Warcraft
• Use high-end audio devices to their full extent (ex. Line 6 Toneport)
• Edit and view Microsoft Excel documents as how they appear to Windows users
• Spreadsheets with many macros, formulas and various features end up looking incorrect
• Play proprietary music
• Itunes – I can unlock their music using utilities, but this is a chore
• Boot in safe mode – if I mess up my X configuration, there is no safe mode to get to a GUI and fix it
• Have not tested this in feisty
• Watch videos inside firefox that are non-flash
• No codec wizard for videos inside browser yet
• Auto configure 5 button mice to use all of their buttons (Microsoft / Logitech)
• The xorg ButtonMapping “1 2 3 6 7″ option fixes this, but that isn’t intuitive

What I can do with Ubuntu:

• Rip / Backup / Play media
• Music CDs, DVD movies
• 3D Desktop
• Beryl / AIGLX makes my desktop into a very useful cube
• View flash websites
• View downloaded media
• Feisty’s new codec wizard makes this easy
• Create Word, PDF documents
• Create / Edit pictures
• I always hear how hard gimp is to use, but if you can right click you can use it
• Create 3D scenes
• Blender may actually be hard to use, but very efficient if you memorize the shortcuts
• Point and click install of software
• Synaptic Package Manager makes it very easy, and “Add / Remove Applications” makes it even easier
• Install Linux completely from a GUI, no worrying about partitions etc
• Printing
• Wifi with WEP encryption
• Plug and play USB
• Send / Receive email
• Download torrents
• Use Instant Messanger

So that is just from my personal experience, everyone’s usage differs, but if you were curious about what the heck you can do on Ubuntu, there it is.