I’m busy, again. A ton of things just bunched up towards the end of the month, and I’m on-site with a customer in Cambridge some of next week, so I’m keeping my head down a little right now. Here’s a news-blast though.
I love Ubuntu server
I’ve been setting up my new server. I’ve probably said this before, but for servers, Linux rocks. I’m ambivalent about Linux on the desktop, where I believe consistency and usability are more important (the Mac floats my boat the most there, and Windows if only because of MSVC++), but for a server Linux really brings great things to the table. Rock solid server apps, ridiculously good performance for the hardware (a mere Intel Atom 330, goes like a greased whippet), easy and most importantly infrequent maintenance. When it comes to distros, I loved Debian for its sensible defaults and great package management, but Ubuntu server takes that and makes it even better. The added bonus of a LTS version that I know will be supported with security updates until at least 2013 is welcome too, because I like to set these things up and mostly forget about them.
I’m glad Ubuntu’s default mail/IMAP servers are Postfix and Dovecot respectively – they’re just ridiculously easy to set up. I’d been using Exim4 on my Debian box, which was the default at the time, and learned to dislike it because of the over-complex configuration (I’d been used to Postfix when I ran a Gentoo server before that). I’m also planning on trying out Bacula as a replacement for my manual backup scripts this time around.
PSUs hate me
One of my jobs this week was building a machine around some customer hardware which I was testing an abberation on. Having built it, I realised I didn’t have a spare PSU rated highly enough, so I ‘borrowed’ one out of another GPU test machine I had. It ran all day, then decided to die – this just 2 weeks since my server’s PSU died and needed to be replaced. It’s just bad luck – my decent APC UPS should be providing ample power regulation. So, I’ve ordered 2 new PSUs to make sure I have enough stocked in future!
Excitement is infectious
I was happy to show off some shots of my new & improved core terrain system for Ogre, which isn’t entirely done yet but was usable enough to get some nice shots out of. I knew I had to move on to some other work for a while but I was still pleased to be able to show off some initial eye candy (which BTW, is still very early – I haven’t finished yet by any means). I was glad to get some positive & constructive feedback, but of course now people are rushing off an including it in their projects, since all the code is public in svn. Despite my slapping a big red warning sticker on it saying ‘handle with care – volatile material’ and that they shouldn’t assume it works properly yet, people are hacking on it already, with some nice results I have to say (such as Ogitor integration) – but of course with many questions and issues. Such is the nature of open source – it’s a blessing that you get instant, voluminous feedback, and it’s a curse that you get instant, voluminous feedback 
I hope to get more time to deal with the fallout from that if not next week (because of my travels), then the week after.
The OGRE Patch Mountain
Our community is always active, and it’s great to get patches. I do have a quite high validation standard for the core though, and processing patches can often take a fair bit of time. I try to spend a few hours per week doing this, but mostly that’s only just enough to keep the level static, rather than reducing the backlog, and it still spikes up sometimes (as it has this week) – that’s because even if I get an afternoon on it, to review and test things properly can eat that up very fast.
If there are any experienced members of the Ogre community who would like to assist me with keeping the patch mountain down to a small hillock in future, and are willing to adhere to our high standards of review, please contact me at sinbad AT ogre3d DOT org.
iPhone 3G / 3GS port coming soon
We’ve had a fledgeling GLES rendersystem around for a while, and obviously the iPhone / iPod touch are the highest-profile targets of that. I’d been intending to have a go at it later in the summer, but masterfalcon on the forums has beaten me to it and already has it running (with a few small issues remaining to be ironed out) on the 3G and 3GS. There should be a public release of that in the relatively near future.
3D Web Browsing With OGRE
I love this video. Nice work princeofcode (aka ajs15822)
That’ll do for now I think.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I like Ubuntu on Desktop. While it is no Windows XP in ease of use it is the easiest Linux to use.
Your PSU’s are ahunted by dark cults, may be.
Terrain screenshots are very close to real terrain(hilly regions, dirt coated). I hope it will work great with other terrain formations also.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
“While it is no Windows XP in ease of use it is the easiest Linux to use.”
Hehe – and Windows XP is no OS X when it comes to ease of use & general productivity either. Being the easiest of all Linuxes isn’t good enough in my book, it needs to aim higher.
I hear a future Ubuntu will be looking to address some of these issues, Mark Shuttleworth has admitted that to break out of the desktop niches Ubuntu has to be nicer to use than Mac OS X, not merely an equal to Windows. It could be possible, but it’s not just about the OS, it’s about the apps; they also need to do something about the variable standards in apps. Everyone knows how to write a standard Windows or Mac OS X application, there are certain established design standards, and adhering to these makes the user experience better. The existence of several window managers in Linux has crippled the ability to establish a universal UI standard, it dilutes and fragments the application pool and makes the end user experience a bit of a mess. And there just aren’t enough good UI designers working with Linux; it suffers terribly from ‘programmer UI syndrome’. I think it’ll take a major shift in emphasis to even approach the usability of OS X, which Ubuntu is trying to make but needs the application creators to get on board with too.
The guts of Linux is great – that’s why I like it for my servers, where I don’t need a UI & usability, I just need it to be efficient and reliable. But it still has leagues to go before it’s a contender for the lead in the general purpose desktop space IMO, outside of dedicated devices where UI standards can be enforced & retrofitted because of the limited scope, like mobile phones and Moblin. I used to think that one of either KDE or Gnome had to die off to knock a few heads together and get some consistency in the application space, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Perhaps more likely is that a new contender will come along, possibly sponsored by a company like Canonical or Google, which just tosses away all the political history of the window manager wars and concentrates on what the user needs – a really great, easy, consistent experience. No excuses anymore – no ‘well, it’s free software with a huge amount of configuration options so that outweighs the usability difficulties’ – no, it really doesn’t; it only outweighs it for the fans. For everyone else, if it’s not better than OS X, then it’s not good enough yet, period. Mark Shuttleworth gets this, so there’s a chance.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:50 am
So true. I also always felt that it would have been lot better if there was only Gnome or KDE. With Qt lgpl now there is going to be more wars now between Gnome and KDE as that was a point which troubled many.
Yes actually it has to be better then MacOSX too to get above it(I never used MacOSX, though I see you complaining about it very rarely). Windows benefits so much from the large amount of apps. Maybe som new stabdard come up as true standard or people will get at one side for benefit of Linux. Standard UI is a big problem with Linux.
If just Linux becomes usable enough to windows XP(which is sufficient for a majority) and it has standard UI and all required apps, with good compatibility, then Linux has the other big advantage of being free which others do not have. A lot of development and mindsahre has gone in to Linux server roots in past, and UI has remained weak.
It is better though that Ubuntu has focussed on usability and they are taking positive steps.
Still at the end I feel Ubuntu as the easiest Linux and that in itself is positive. Anyway it is very good for developing countries atleast. They actually have a boon in form of Linux.
Though Linux is clearly better then any window offering on servers.
June 29th, 2009 at 9:55 am
I am using Windows system Restore nowadays to recover my PC from Virus. Brontok virus infected lots of my software setup on my hard drive. So my windows was again infected while installing software after formatting. It helped to restore 2 times and it works well. Though now I have replaced almost all my setups and other exe’s with their backups on DVD.(Another good use of optical drives).
Does MacOSX also has a system restore. I donot know about such a thing on Linux.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:17 am
“If just Linux becomes usable enough to windows XP(which is sufficient for a majority)”
That still won’t be good enough. To overcome the inertia of people using Windows, you have to offer something more than just parity – given two equal options, people will stick with what they know. The price isn’t a big enough factor alone – to most ordinary people, Windows is ‘free’ anyway, because they get it on their computer when they buy it. It’s mainly only the enthusiasts that separately upgrade their OS. Therefore people are just not going to choose Linux over Windows because of price – the difference is minor once it’s all bundled up in a package (see netbooks, which started off being all Linux, now they’re 90% XP – and yet netbooks are incredibly price sensitive).
If desktop Linux is to be mainstream, it has to be a conscious choice that’s made when buying the computer, and price isn’t going to do it. It has to be functionally better and more attractive than Windows for the average user, and by a big enough margin that people will bother to take the ‘risk’ of not using Windows. Macs are attracting people because they bring something better to the table (even with the drag factor caused by a lack of budget options), Linux needs to do the same.
I agree that for developing countries desktop Linux has been very successful, but it can’t rely on that. Developing countries become developed, and their needs & buying power become the same as the ‘old’ economies, at which point the ‘Windows tax’ is less of an issue. In the end, genuine competition will eliminate any significant price differences, and quality is all that matters.
Also, I can’t see a ‘serious’ mainstream desktop Linux play being free forever. Ubuntu is only as cohesive as it is while still being free because Mark Shuttleworth is bankrolling it, with little prospect so far of making any money back. Making something usable requires more than just random programmers, it needs designers and a cohesive strategy. Canonical provides this, but will it be willing to do it for nothing forever? I don’t know.
Mac OS X doesn’t have a system restore, but it has less real need for one. You can ‘archive’ your system so that after a clean reinstall you can get all your settings back, and Time Machine lets you back up all your data. But there’s no registry to screw up, drivers are generally Apple-certified (fixed hardware), very few viruses to worry about, so less need for one. I’ve only ever used system restore once on XP in 8 years anyhow.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I think the UI choices in Linux is a non-issue. I use standard gnome ubuntu but I have one or two KDE apps which I use. It’s not a deal breaker which puts people off as they’ll happily use things like winamp, etc with it crazy skins.
I think there are just too many small things that Linux desktop needs to support which people currently do in windows. For example making comments in PDF files. Probably not useful to you or me but is to my girlfriend. Since she couldn’t do that at the time she was using Ubuntu it was a deal breaker which meant switching back to windows. Even if there was a work around for this it doesn’t really matter because it wasn’t supported out the box. I’m sure there are lots of people like this who have tried linux desktop and switched back to windows.
I think the major deal breaker is sound. I’m tired of the pitiful state that sound has remained in and it’s just got worse with pulse audio. Rather then fix the API they’ve bolted this damn sound server on top. A very ugly hack which only breaks things.
>> while still being free because Mark Shuttleworth is bankrolling it, with little prospect so far of making any money back.
Last I heard they’re breaking even in the bank there was a news post about it a few months ago so I don’t know the status know. Maybe they’re in the black.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
“It’s not a deal breaker which puts people off as they’ll happily use things like winamp, etc with it crazy skins.”
People still use WinAmp? Wow
I understand your point, and that does apply to a degree, only really for the casual crowd. That’s one target market for sure, but there are millions of users who are not technical, but are also not just casual users, who use a lot of diverse apps, and consistency is important.
Also, in my experience it’s only really good for the casual crowd if someone else has set it up for them, and is on hand to fix it if (let’s face it, when) something goes wrong. There are still too many things that you need to search a technical forum for. Linux needs to get to the stage that a regular person will go into a shop and *choose* to have it on their machine over the alternatives, with no guiding / cajoling required by a technical friend / partner. Moblin is trying, and it Ubuntu is too, but there’s still some way to go.
I had no idea Ubuntu was making money now. From where? Surely not from the desktop edition, in which case it’s still being bankrolled.
June 29th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
I (now a Mac user) used linux several times – and switched back to windows again and again. The apps a poorly interconnected (saying this from a Mac-point of view), Midi-support is (or at least was) good luck. Linux has a great tradition of producing nice little tools but when it comes for “real” applications – the big ones, those you do “real” work with – there’s almost nothing. And if there’s something, it’s that “just learn how to use me! come on, it’s not hard”-kind of stuff where I can’t help to ask myself: Hey, don’t YOU want ME to use YOU?
June 29th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
@andres Fenn, @steve
I found this news, which “may” be what Andrew is thinking about :
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
June 29th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
“Yes actually it has to be better then MacOSX too to get above it(I never used MacOSX, though I see you complaining about it very rarely).”
Not a big deal … being an occasional Mac user for about 6 months now ( I got one just to be able to develop for iPhone) I find OS X to be nothing special … It is essentially a Unix box with a proper GUI but not much more than that.
Personally, I found myself going back to Windows do just about everything short of doing cross-compilation and testing for the iPhone.
In fact, since my code development for the iPhone is limited to OpenGL, I actually write almost all my code on Windows ( using Imagination Technologies OpenGL ES emulator) because the environment is superior to anything you get on the Mac.
I can’t really get used to the Mac’s Dock ( which btw reminds me of beefed-up , animated version of CDE) – I seem to always be looking for my windows … the whole things just doesn’t make sense compared to pure simplicity of the way it is done on Windows.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Well, with reference to Lino’s post I’d say the usual console utils are pretty well conneted though. Text pipes FTW!
The philosophy is many small tools work together, rather than one big tool doing a lot of stuff, supposedly.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:04 am
@warmi: you sound like I felt a couple of months in on the Mac. There’s no single big thing on the Mac that’s nicer, there’s just a lot of little things – faster startup/shutdown/sleep, widgets that are actually useful, expose, more efficient task switching, generally faster & more efficient on the same spec, not having to pay for virus software (also linked with performance differences no doubt).
If you don’t like the dock, you won’t like Windows 7, since that takes the same approach (one icon per application, re-use the same icon for shortcut and running tasks). Of course they also have a version of Expose and the difference between switching tasks and switching documents, which I hated at first but now I totally love – it’s much more efficient when you have a lot of windows open.
I started off hating XCode because it was so unfamiliar but I really like it now. I still prefer Visual Studio, but that’s mostly because I use Visual Assist, which makes Intellisense actually work consistently. Also VS’s debugger is still slightly nicer, although XCode’s is almost as good now. XCode’s CodeSense doesn’t work as well as Visual Assist, but it’s on par with vanilla VS. Also, XCode has shortcuts built-in that I have to buy Visual Assist for normally, like the ‘Open Quickly’, ‘Switch Header/Source’ and others. I’ve also found my builds to be somewhat faster on XCode, even with parallel builds enabled on VS. So, still a win for VS, but XCode really is snapping at its heels now in a way that only Eclipse (with Java) did previously.
“the whole things just doesn’t make sense compared to pure simplicity of the way it is done on Windows.” I understand this view, but it’s really just because you’ve had years of acclimatisation to the Windows way of doing things. I found it very hard to get used to at first too, but I stuck with it and resisted the (natural) urge to flee back to the familiar, and now I love it. Like I say, you might think the same thing about Windows 7 at first since they have made some very similar changes.
Have you tried the OpenGL profiler? You say the GL dev environment is superior on Windows, but in my experience you have to buy gDEBugger to get GL tools like this on Windows, it’s built-in on the Mac.
@nikki: I agree, and this sort of thing works very well for back-end tools. But, I believe a user-friendly experience can’t be created in a piecemeal fashion, because it’s a design task rather than a development task.
June 30th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
WHAT IF Windows 7 will give all benefits of MAC OSX usability and will be cheaper and will imprve more. Waht then?
June 30th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
As an OS, OS X is cheaper, but obviously the hardware tends to be more expensive (although not by much if you match the spec precisely).
This autumn/winter should be interesting – I intend to upgrade my Mac to Snow Leopard and my desktop to Windows 7; I won’t be touching either of them until they’ve been officially out in the wild a few weeks but I think they’ll stack up pretty well against each other. Win7′s interface looks nice (thanks to some more OS X copying, sprinkled with a few ideas of its own), and they’ve allegedly gotten rid of the dead weight that made it slow & annoying at last, while Snow Leopard has relatively minor tweaks but has been made even leaner & faster (and it already put Vista to shame) so right now I can’t predict what will happen. I expect it’s inevitable that some of the gains the Mac has made after the train-wreck that was Vista will be eaten away, but the iPhone effect is still rampant, and more people are starting to grok that Windows (and even a desktop) isn’t the only practical option for computing now. I’ll still run both for sure, and the Mac as a laptop is still top-notch (if you’re into powerful, portable & stylish).
June 30th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
“[linux] It has to be functionally better and more attractive than Windows for the average user, and by a big enough margin that people will bother to take the ‘risk’ of not using Windows”
I used to agree, but I disagree now.
Here’s my little story: I’ve had a couple of friends that I was sick of going to their homes to fix their PCs because it was full of viruses, stopped working unexpectedly, BSODs, was going too slow, one of the kids miss-configured the system, etc.
So, one day I said (a bit angry and joking at the same time) “enough! I’ll install you linux and don’t bother me again!!” He asked what program that one was. I laughed and explained him what “having a different OS” means. He didn’t actually get it right until he saw it running.
The thing is, after I personally tunned the Debian box with KDE (the default settings **sucks** for an average user), he was happy, and I left his house.
I was expecting him to call in 1 week (as he’s been doing the last 3 weeks), I was sure he would tell me that he didn’t understand linux and wanted me to remove it.
……………he didn’t call. I had to call him, and to my surprise, he said he was really happy with it!!
He spread the word among his friends, and I had to install them linux as well (many of them still dual-boot to play video games in windows), and haven’t receive a complain since.
They all praise the “virus-free”, “stability”, and “how fast it is”, while the cons is that they occasionally find an Office file (mostly *.pps) that OpenOffice can’t display correctly, and the lack of video games. But they’re all satisfied because of the pros. None said anything about the prize difference. It was the least of their concerns.
Other software they praised as being better than WMP or even Winamp, was Amarok.
They all were used to Firefox (because I’ve recommended it long time ago) so that wasn’t a problem.
They also found very usefull that in order to screw the PC, you have to enter a password (the root login).
One of them had Vista and I asked him curiously because Vista also asks when you’re doing something wrong. Surprisingly he said that Vista was too invasive and that he hits OK without reading, but in Linux that doesn’t happen. Prompts aren’t that often and if he sees one, he knows that he is actually doing something he shouldn’t be messing with. His words, not mine’s
One of them said that the “linux version” I installed looked nothing like “that thing that came with my PC” when he bought it (came bundled with GNOME Ubuntu) and this one was much better.
My point is, these was feedback from average, non-saavy users (_very_ positive, for my surprise) Something that started as a joke ended up as a solution.
But I admit I have to hand-edit many settings for ease-of-use after the default installation. None of my friends were ready to install linux, even less to configure it correctly.
This a point that needs to get improved a lot. (A LOT)
I wonder though, what their opinion would be after trying Mac OS X (but none of them has a mac…)
June 30th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
@Dark Sylinc: these sorts of stories are good, and not that uncommon, but they have one common thread: a technical person had to be the one to suggest it, and that person had to install Linux and configure it on behalf of the regular user. And trust me, they will still screw up their Linux installs, they’ll just do it in different ways (when updating or something rather than viruses). And you’ll still have to fix it
IMO all the benefits you’ve mentioned there apply to the Mac, except that an ordinary person can set it up and maintain it (it’s really very friendly right out of the box), and the general interface and environment are more consistent & friendly outside of the usual suspects (browser, email, Open Office). Plus, it’s much harder to screw it up with an update (although not impossible). If Linux can nail those things, then it will have a shot at being a direct desktop choice for ordinary folks. Right now it still needs a tech standing in the wings, which the Mac doesn’t really unless there’s a hardware issue. Windows is getting better at this too, although it still has a feel of being ‘PC user centric’. Still, it’s good that there’s competition – even as a tech I’m at the stage where I just don’t want to bother with PC configuration issues anymore – I’ve ‘been there, done that’ over the past almost 20 years, I’m kinda sick of doing it. I’m all for stuff that just works and gets out of my face
July 1st, 2009 at 9:54 am
May be there is no escaping Windows untill Micrsoft does Vista bungle 3 times maybe.
Out of box running, no problem configuring, and I cannot screw it easily, are the main pouints for the desktop user actually. MacOSX has performed phenomenally there. Of Course hardware is a problem, but these casual users do not care of hardware.
I suspect that people have endless tasks for others and they will always find some way for there tech friends even on the easiest bulletproof system, as long as they have someone. Surprisingly while on their own they work remarkably intelligently by the need of the hour.
Still if Linux get easy to install(it is already virus and breakage free a lot), and use, I suspect a lot of people to go over in droves(they are so crazy about money, and many people want a computer but do not want to spend money on it ever), and world is full of stingy people who view desktop as just a entertainment TV.
I am too bored of configuring PCs for my girlfriends and friends who are boys, but I suspect they can break anything just to eat my time away.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:28 pm
“Still if Linux get easy to install(it is already virus and breakage free a lot), and use, I suspect a lot of people to go over in droves(they are so crazy about money, and many people want a computer but do not want to spend money on it ever), and world is full of stingy people who view desktop as just a entertainment TV.
”
Perhaps … until they figure out that 99% of apps or games they have heard about and want to try don’t run on their new and shiny Linux, and they are left with poor , perpetual-beta style, substitutions.
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:01 am
All the general purpose apps have good free substiutes on Linux(for that matter on Windows also where they are more popular). But professional Apps like 3DMax,Photoshop is different story. Still it is not that bad. But offcourse resistance to change for these people will be too much, when their every friend is on MS Office.
Availability of Games is also a very big problem. The best game visually available on Linux(natively) are very few UT2004, Quake3, Sauerbraten(Visually), and that is the end. That is a problem I do not see sorted soon. Using wine has penalty and has compatibilty problem like for HL2, and then using wine actually defeats the purpose of using Linux instead of Windows. Why not use Windows itself then instead of Wine.
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:32 am
Also due to these very good genearal apps market for general purpose closed source commercial apps is rapidly declining. Which paid music player is an alternative for Winamp or , Video player for vlc media player. Though I like Power DVD more, but vlc has become very good in past years with DVD playback also. 7 zip for winzip/winrar. Open Office for MS office 2003 and so on.
And I still use Winamp with all its crazy skins. Mua ha ha(laughs evil laughter)
July 5th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Yes, open source software has come a long road.
Personally I prefer Media Player Classic Homecinema (which is still open source, but Windows-only) over Power DVD or VLC.
Furthermore, media players aside, don’t forget most of the high-quality codecs we use today are all open source (XviD, LAME, ffdshow, x264, Ogg Vorbis to name a few)
@Steve: You’re right. They all have a technical friend (in this case, me). But I’m pointing out they needed me with Windows too. And with linux they BARELY call me now.
I can’t say anything about Apple because I haven’t tried. But I would love to.