Kubuntu/Ubuntu needs a [better] Remote Desktop feature

Tristan Rhodes has written a blog post called "Ubuntu needs a secure remote desktop". I totally agree. It is already possible, but it is not easy or good enough. Kubuntu/Ubuntu needs something similar to what Windows have. My father isn't exactly a computer geek so I sometimes have to help him with something. Remote Desktop makes it much easier to help him. He requests my assistance and I am able to take over his desktop and show him how to solve his problem. I don't know what the best solution is, maybe FreeNX based?

3 Linux/Ubuntu reviews/blog posts

1. The first little review of the new Dell offering can be found here. It sounds like a neat system.

2. A person evaluates 60 days with Ubuntu. Overall he likes it and he will continue to use Ubuntu. Of course, there are things he don't like (nothing is perfect) and there are things he don't seem to understand:

Who cares if this driver is free or not?

I care and so should he because overall he will no doubt have a more stable system and experience less problems with free drivers. For further information about this, see this article, this article or this article.

3. Mark Pilgrim, a well known developer switched to Ubuntu from Mac a year ago and in this post he evaluates that last year with Linux. He hasn't regretted switching and specifically he talks quite a bit about the hassle of keeping your system updated with security fixes and such. Windows Update is fine, but what about all your applications? Of course, this is an area where Ubuntu and other Linux distros really shines. Keeping a Linux system updated is very easy.

Kubuntu Feisty Fawn Beta

I use Kubuntu on my Thinkpad Z61t and I have been pretty satisfied with it. I've hit a strange snag recently though. Sometimes the keyboard would do wierd things as if the keyboard layout has changed or CAPS LOCK had been pressed which as you can imagine is quite annoying :)

So, the other day they released the Kubuntu Feisty Fawn Beta and since I've heard good things about it, I thought why not? They wanted people to test the new Distribution Upgrade tool so of course I tried upgrading my system that way. A couple of notes about my system as it looked before the upgrade: My system was a Dapper install that was later upgraded to Edgy. That upgrade didn't go too well and required quite a few fixes before I had a working system again. Of course, a large part of the reason was my own fault because of various modifications I had made which the upgrade can't always handle too well. Also I have installed various other stuff - I've upgraded to the latest releases of various software like KDE itself, Amarok, Digikam and more. All in all, it is far from a standard Kubuntu Edgy install.

Considering the above, the upgrade tool did a quite good job I think, but it is not ready for release in my opinion. I'm confused about who it is meant for? If it is advanced users, then I don't really see the need for a gui tool. If it is meant for novice users, then it asks way too many questions. I'm far from a Linux expert but I have used it for some time now as a desktop so I think I know a bit, however I was surprised to get a lot of x.org configuration questions, some of which I couldn't answer (what kind of mouse is attached to your computer? it's a laptop and I don't have a mouse attached...). Why do it need to configure x.org? My laptop have Intel graphics with nice open source drivers, why can't it just used the current configuration that has worked nicely until now? Of course, it might be a broken x.org configuration that was the reason for the wierd keyboard behaviour.
In the end (almost at the end of the upgrade) the tool failed with a dpkg error and stalled. All I could do was to reboot. After rebooting I was greeted with a surprisingly well working system. I had expected a system that was more broken than after my previous install.

I played around a bit with it and I didn't find anything particularly wrong with it, but I still had that strange feeling of using an old system with a lot of cruft (I can't really explain it better than that), so I decided to do a fresh install (there's just something nice about a fresh install). The install went just as well as I expected. The only thing I'm not quite satisfied with is the way it handles partitioning. I wish I could come with a clear comment on what is wrong with it, but I can't, sorry. I just know that I've used better tools. Other than that, I'm impressed. You just answer a few questions about where you live and what language you want to use and that's it, you blink and Kubuntu is installed. Seriously, the install finished much faster than I expected - a nice surprise.

How do I like Feisty Fawn so far? I like it a lot I must say. I haven't really used it much yet, but I have tried a few things. I thought I would check whether the automatic install of proprietary stuff worked. First thing I did was go to YouTube to see if it would automatically install Macromedia Flash 9 for me but that didn't work for some reason. However, a friend then posted a link (can't remember which one) which I visited and apparently that needed flash and up popped a dialog asking whether I wanted to install flash! I clicked OK and it installed and I can now play flash movies on YouTube :)

I also tried playing a DivX video in Kaffeine which didn't work either so I launched the application installer and found a codec pack, installed it and it worked :)

Yes, I know proprietary codecs are bad and I hate them just as much as everyone else (I'm a huge supporter of free, open standards and hope software patents didn't exist!), but they are difficult to avoid, at least they are for me and then it is nice that it is easy to install them!

To sum it all up: I'm pretty happy with my new Kubuntu beta install - notice I haven't mentioned any crashes in the new install? That's because it's been rock solid so far - quite impressive from a beta release I think ;)

Ubuntu On Tap

Nice geeky service: Ubuntu On Tap

Beryl - 3D effects on a Linux desktop

Here is a nice video of aiglx + Beryl which gives some nice 3D effects or "bling" as some like to call it:

The next release of Ubuntu should include Beryl. It will be interesting to see how they integrate it. I don't know whether it will be available for Kubuntu (which I use), but I hope it will :)

The harder part (I think) will be to find some good uses of this cool new technology. 3D effects are nice and having a nice looking desktop is certainly not a bad thing, but it is also important to keep it usable. In what was can we use it to create a more userfriendly desktop?

3D desktop effects in Linux

Here is a nice video on Youtube that shows some effects on an Ubuntu Edgy Eft desktop with Beryl added. It should be available in the next Ubuntu release which should be ready for download sometime in April.