Software Installation on Linux

Software is only as good as how its perceived to be. The perception of its usefulness is controlled by the user. These days, the user really does not care if the software installation is "user specific" or not. From a user's point of view, it needs to work. That's it.

As a user who doesn't care about how the system works, if you're prompted to enter a password for software installation, that's one more dialog box you have to deal with. If software could be installed on a per user basis, as a user, you'd still see a dialog box that asks you if you want to install it for you or for everyone. Now, does that sound familiar? Windows does it. How many times have you actually stopped to think about the merits vs the demerits of installing the software for others when you answered that question? That's your answer for you right there - the real problem is the additional step of communication required.

What is needed is an App Store for Linux that is distribution agnostic. From a user's point of view, they need one place to search for "an application that does what they want". They need one way to install it. Finally, they need to know how they can access the application they have installed.

What I'm essentially talking about here is reducing the learning curve for Linux. A byproduct of this effort will be making distributions more compatible. Nintendo and Apple have both proven that if you want real market growth, you need to convert new users. Easing installation of applications on Linux will go a long way towards that. What will also help is integrating the functionality of websites that provide the names to the Linux equivalents of popular Windows and Mac software from within the same application installation search box.

A new user is most likely to look for "photoshop for linux" if they're after a good photo editing suite. If they get results that show them equivalents and how they have been rated by others, that will go a long way into boosting the user's confidence that they might actually be able to get what they want done using Krita or The Gimp.

Have your cake and eat it too

If you're building a PC right now, the AMD/Intel choice essentially comes down to two things - your budget and how often you would want to upgrade. I'm assuming here that you want the fastest processing power your budget can buy.

Until now, if speed was a real priority, you were going the Intel i7 route. If you wanted to be reasonably future proof, you'd go the AMD socket AM3 route and sacrifice a little speed for long term compatibility.

Phoronix have posted a series of benchmarks that say that an overclocked AMD Phenom II X3 710 is very similar in performance to an Intel Core i7 920. Further, the overlocking is easy - no hardcore stuff. You can get i7 performance out of an X3 710. The price difference between the two processors alone is about USD100. This is not counting the difference between motherboard costs. Suffice it to say that your budget will not be affected that much - you get the speed of an i7 with the longevity of the AM3 socket with some simple overclocking.

Now you tell me - isn't that cool?

Microsoft Office 2007's OpenOffice Support

In a word - destructive. Microsoft might claim that Office 2007 has support for OpenOffice documents. Here are the facts:

1. MS Excel 2007 removes formulas from an OpenOffice spreadsheet
2. Microsoft Office 2007 does not support password protected OpenOffice files.
3. Microsoft Office 2007 does not support tracked changes in OpenOffice files.

If you're the type of person who, like me, believes in the details, here's a PDF for you. Here is the press release from the ODF Alliance about this issue.

So if you're about to buy Microsoft Office 2007 because you think it will allow you to edit both MS Office and OpenOffice documents perfectly, you know now better.

There was a suggestion on Slashdot not too long ago about the need for an ODF Acid Test. I think its right on the money and the sooner we have one, the better. The fact that Microsoft were even able to get away with it to date points to a problem. There is lack of a transparent mechanism to measure ODF standards compliance. The root of the problem needs to be addressed and an ODF Acid Test is the answer.

Convince me Windows 7 is worth it

Windows 7 is expected to be better than Windows Vista. What I’d like to see are real world performance comparisons with Windows XP. What’s keeping me away from upgrading XP are two things: performance and DRM. So Windows 7 would have to improve on both fronts.

Before you ask, between work and home, on a daily basis, I use flavours of Windows from XP Home to Vista Ultimate, Mac OS X Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard beta and 3 of the latest Linux distros. I do believe that’s sufficient grounds for me to compare.

Guess which ones I end up using the most? Ubuntu with KDE 4.2.2 and Mac OS X Leopard. I’m sorry, but Windows anything looks dated in comparison. The Mac has its uses and between the two, the only place I cannot escape using Windows is to play games (for now). I have found that has actually started affecting the games I choose to buy - I will not buy a game that does not support Linux, unless I really really want it (going by the quality of games these days, that is a rarity). Sure, I’ll fire up Windows to check out a demo if I don’t have anything else to do, but that’s a rarity too.

Honestly, I do not see the need for Windows these days. I have even stopped using Picasa because digiKam is so amazing - it has automatic DSLR lens correction built in! So unless anybody can give me a damn solid reason for Windows 7, I’m going to keep using my combination of Linux (for the most part) and the Mac (for my mobile computing) and will keep recommending that combination to everyone I meet.

A Linux App Store?

This is just an idea, but one whose time might have come. Take the packaging systems that Linux supports and add the ability to purchase software from within it. So in a typical use case, you could filter the applications available in your package manager based on whether you need to pay for them or not, you can choose the applications you'd like to install, pay for ones you need to and download and install in one step. Wouldn't that rule?

There are a lot of side effects, one being that the advantage "free" applications have right now would vanish - that of all being available and searchable from one point. Then there's regulating the descriptions and claims of the commercial software packages - what qualifies as a description and what qualifies as an ad? Speaking of ads, do you let them on? God no! But then with companies, that's a hard sell. How would you do it?

I think the answer is similar to the question, "How do you know which websites you can trust?". I think the solution is similar too - let the community (and the customers) regulate it based on ratings, popularity, etc. Guess what? We already have that built in! Well in Ubuntu at least (that's based on Debian - I'm not sure about other packaging systems though I would be surprised if they did not have something similar).

If any of you guys at Ubuntu are reading this...please do try it out. It has the huge potential of funding other open source projects. Take a small percentage from the application sales (Apple and Android take 30%). Make it self sustaining. Put the profits into the open source projects that matter.

I need a better game review site

I used to use gamespot, ign and gamespy to decide what games I'd like to try out and then buy. Lately, these sites (like a lot of others) have been recommending games that I simply don't enjoy. Well, maybe I've started out at the middle. Let me introduce myself.

I'm a PC gamer. I'm a techie. I've been playing games for the last 15 years. That means, I've played most of the best games in the last 15 years and I've loved every minute of them. Has that raised the bar for what I consider a good game? I'd like to think so. Does the fact that its really hard to find a good game that I don't get tired of soon mean that the quality of games has dropped? I hope not and I don't think so. Maybe the quality of games on average has dropped due to the increased volume of those mass produced titles that your local game stores are so full of. But there are still classics being made today. That brings me back to my problem.

How do I find them? It would seem the big three's recommendations have been diluted somewhat. What I'm looking for are games that I find truly enjoyable to play. Nowadays, I find myself having to look at about 20 sites and read tons of reviews before deciding on a game. I'm simply filtering out the noise through averaging, nothing more. I don't care about quantity and the top 10 lists. I want quality. I have a life outside games and would be really grateful for a site that really picks out the diamonds from the dung.

Why do I use Linux?

Just got me thinking and I decided to publish my thoughts.

Two main reasons:
1) I do not like lock-in - being forced to stick with one company's products and services.
2) I value my freedom of choice - I do not like my computing experience being directed by some company's vision and marketing goals.

For me to use Linux, I needed to have these conditions satisfied for my three main uses for a computer : Internet, Office & Gaming

First, Microsoft controlled the way I browsed the Internet by forcing me to use Internet Explorer - sites that did not work in Internet Explorer were a pain to navigate.Firefox helped me out of that hole - I could finally browse the Internet and expect the same experience on any operating system Firefox would run on. Google sweetened the deal because I now had a search engine that was not controlled by Microsoft giving me search results that were really useful. Google has gone on to give me more and more reason use it. However, the moment Google becomes another Microsoft is the day I stop using it. Anyway, I was now free as far as browsing the Internet went.

Microsoft still forced me to use Windows - because I had to use MS Office for stuff like resumes, spreadsheets, presentations and the like. OpenOffice helped me out there. I was no longer tied to Windows on the Office front, because OpenOffice worked on Linux as well. Those same documents would open without formatting changes and I could easily adapt my limited MS Office skills to work with OpenOffice - the cost to benefit ratio made it worth it. I was now free on the Office front.

I have always been a gamer - a casual one. Gaming helps me relax and is fairly important to me - I designed my computer so it could cope with the demands of the latest games. However, at this point in time, I am still forced to use Windows to play any game I want to. I hate being in this position and am therefore forced to keep Windows around for when I want to play a game. I do not have the skills to help change the way games work on Linux, but I do have some money and I will try to help the cause the only way I can : by buying video cards from whichever manufacturer gives me drivers that work well with Linux (NVIDIA: I'm looking in your direction - your drivers messed up KDE for a lot of people) and only buying games that also work on Linux. I do not have a lot of money to throw around and I am a statistic, but when multiplied enough, any statistic becomes significant - If enough of us do this, it will eventually change the market and force game companies to take notice and start releasing games that work on Linux as well.

At this point, I must mention id software, a company that has been releasing games for Linux. The game I'm currently playing (and really enjoying) is Quake Wars on Linux. In fact, I'm enjoying it so much that I hardly play any other game. So thank you id, for letting us gamers play on Linux. I will be buying more of your games in the future.

So that's why I'm now using Linux, in a very big nutshell. There are a lot more reasons, but these are the ones that matter the most to me. If you are a developer involved in an open source project, I thank you for helping to make my time at the computer so much more enjoyable.