The VAR Guy

Until quite recently, the Linux world had, for the most part, only two major desktop environments: GNOME 2 and KDE. Fast forward to the present, however, and there’s an immense litany of different choices, all vying to become the new face of your open source operating system. To me, this shift signals a new paradigm in the world of free software — a turn that could have major consequences throughout the channel. Here’s why.

When it comes to branding, the open source world is rarely at the front of the pack. Free software hackers tend to be much better at writing code than they are at designing logos, inventing names and developing elegant color schemes. But Canonical has long stood out as an exception, and its latest stride — a new website devoted to helping the community adhere to Ubuntu branding conventions — is no exception. Here’s a look.

Just when I thought Ubuntu developers were going to take a break from reinventing the user interface to focus on other pursuits, such as Ubuntu TV, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth announced a new endeavor, the Head-Up Display, designed to replace window menus. Here’s a look at the plans and what they could mean for the Linux world.

We all have dirty secrets. Mine is this: Although I run Linux exclusively on all of my computers, I still use Microsoft Office. Why? Because LibreOffice — even if it’s through no fault of its own — doesn’t always get the job done for me. And sometimes I wonder if it ever will. Here’s why.

Last week I wrote about spinoffs of Ubuntu, noting that some of the once popular ones have now gone dormant. But later, I realized something else interesting: No Ubuntu variant — not a single one — uses Unity as its default desktop interface. Keep reading for some thoughts on why this might be, and what it says about Ubuntu and Canonical.

By now you’ve probably heard Canonical’s big announcement out of CES 2012: Ubuntu is coming to your TV (or so Canonical hopes). But what’s received less attention amid all the fanfare is the role of Unity, the Linux desktop environment on which the new TV interface is based. Since Ubuntu TV could have important, if surprising, ramifications for Unity, here are some observations to keep in mind.

Even if you don’t run Linux, chances are good you’ve heard of Ubuntu. You’re probably also familiar with its official cousins: Kubuntu, Xubuntu and the like. But there’s another subset of the Ubuntu ecosystem that gets less play — namely, the medley of unofficial spinoffs built by third parties. Although little discussed, the trends surrounding these distributions that hide in Ubuntu’s shadow reveal a lot about the open source channel more broadly.

Most politicians probably don’t use Linux. After all, some of them have barely figured out computers at all. But since the American presidential campaigning season is once again upon us, I’ve been wondering to myself lately: If the candidates did run Linux, which distribution would they choose? At the risk of offending various groups of people, here are my answers, for better or for worse.

Maybe it’s just a sign that I’m getting old, but more and more often lately I’ve found myself thinking thoughts like, “Back in my day, Linux didn’t have X, Y and Z. We did without!” With these sentiments in mind, I decided to put together a list of a few major desktop Linux technologies that millions of users now take for granted, but which didn’t exist only a few years ago. Read on for a look.

At first glance, Zentyal seems to be making all the right moves — raising more than $1 million to promote Linux into the small business server market. Zentyal is building a partner network for VARs — striving to counter Microsoft Small Business Server along the way. But The VAR Guy wonders: Can Zentyal really succeed in the SMB server software market — where so many other Linux distributions have failed?

The “year in review” pieces that proliferate old and new media alike around this time of year get tedious pretty fast. But because I’ve yet to see a good compilation of the major developments — and there were plenty of them — that affected desktop Linux in 2011, I couldn’t think of any better topic for my last post of the month. That may make me a hypocrite, but if you can forgive a personal flaw, keep reading for a look at how the Linux world has evolved in the last 365 days or so.

It’s no secret that Canonical’s Ubuntu One file-syncing service faces stiff competition from better entrenched rivals such as Dropbox. But recent signs indicate Ubuntu developers may be taking the service in a different direction by adding developer APIs. Will this be enough to differentiate Ubuntu One from competitors? Here are some thoughts.

Just a day after questioning whether multiple monitors are really necessary, I learned the design team at Canonical had purchased not two but six monitors to attach to a single computer. Fortunately, this seeming excess should benefit Ubuntu users — if not me personally — by improving the multi-monitor experience in Ubuntu. Here’s a look at these efforts so far, and how they fit into the larger open source picture.

Ubuntu 12.04 — the next longterm-support (LTS) release of the world’s most popular open source operating system — promises a lot of feature updates, including those involving the Unity interface and the Software Center. But if all goes as planned, your Ubuntu 12.04 laptop might last significantly longer on battery power as well. At least, that’s what Ubuntu kernel developer Colin Ian King promised in a recent blog post.

The Ubuntu Software Center, Canonical’s take on the app store concept, is slated to move a step closer to the big leagues by the end of December 2011 with the implementation of support for PayPal. Here’s the scoop, and why it matters.

“The cloud” can be hard to visualize, not least because the hardware behind it is often an ambiguous collection of servers scattered somewhere across the ether of the Internet. But in Canonical’s vision, the cloud can be something as simple and concrete as a USB stick running the Ubuntu Cloud Live image, which makes the creation of private clouds quite trivial. I recently got a chance to play around with this neat tool, and here’s what I found.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Canonical may have all but given up the fight to ship Ubuntu on consumer PCs in the United States, at least for now, but it remains staunchly committed to forging strong relationships with hardware manufacturers. The company’s latest effort in this vein is a new Web portal catered to that group — which is also a significant example of how Canonical is reconfiguring the way people find information about Ubuntu. Read on for details.

Linux’s ability to run on old or budget hardware has long been a popular talking point among free software advocates. Yet in recent years, the system requirements of mainstream desktop Linux distributions have been skyrocketing. At the same time, Windows 8 is slated to demand fewer resources than its predecessors. What could this mean for Linux? Here are some thoughts.

The latest buzz around Canonical may be about extending the Ubuntu Linux platform to TVs, phones and other mobile devices and selling PCs in Asia and Europe. But that hasn’t stopped the company from continuing to market Ubuntu aggressively as a solution for corporate desktops. Here’s a look at its latest effort — an ebook recently released — and what it says about Canonical’s strategy for the big-business market going forward.

I’m not sure many people become Ubuntu users because of its accessibility features. But that doesn’t mean Linux developers ignore this issue; on the contrary, as Canonical employee and “Ubuntu Community Manager” Jono Bacon noted recently, accessibility technologies are a key focus of the upcoming 12.04 release. Here’s a look at what to expect.

Right or wrong, plenty of Linux users — such as this guy — have been less than happy with the interface changes wrought by the advent of Unity and GNOME 3. Lucky for these people, there’s hope in the form of MATE, a fork of GNOME 2 that bills itself as “a non-intuitive and unattractive desktop for users.” Curious what MATE was all about — and pretty fed up myself with Unity — I recently gave it a spin. Here’s what I found.

In recent weeks Canonical has announced major initiatives to sell Ubuntu PCs in Asia and Europe, just like it tried — and mostly failed — to do five years ago in the United States. But will things be different this time?  Here are some thoughts.

It’s official: Canonical’s foray into the world of phones, tablets and even TVs has begun. Or at least, that’s what the introduction of formal development channels for these categories suggests. Here’s the latest, and what it says about Ubuntu’s future.