If you would like to see the General Session that I hosted at BrainShare 2007, it is now online.
It’s now official: I will be hosting the Friday General Session at BrainShare 2007!
So far, the Friday line-up is really solid. It looks like we will have some cool Linux stuff with Nat Friedman, a demo of some open source identity components with Baber Amin, a look at what is planned for the next GroupWise with Ken Muir, and some mind-bendingly cool data center automation stuff with Alan Murray.
And to top it off, we will be giving away ten–count ‘em! ten!–primo AMD-powered, custom painted laptops.
It’s going to be a lot fun. Hope to see you there!
My friend Michael Loeffler who works on openSUSE informs me that the openSUSE team is conducting a survey of their end users right now. If you use openSUSE, please take a few moments to fill it out. (And of course, there is some thank-you swag involved.)
After posting a couple videos from my SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 system, some network admins have asked me to share how I record these. One said that he sees practical use in creating how-to videos for his end users.
So here is how I set up my SLED10 system for capturing my desktop as a video file.
The Short Version
The Detailed Version
Install
Launch
Use
A Few Best Practices Suggestions
How often do we Linux advocates and enthusiasts hear the complaint that Linux lacks the polish and refinement that users expect from their desktop? For most end users, it doesn’t matter how good the underlying software is. If the interface sucks, then the software itself sucks. While it may pain some avid Linux adherents to say it, this is part of the reason why desktop Linux has yet to catch on with a broader set of users: Linux has struggled for years to come out of the woods and be perceived as visually appealing and pleasant to use.
Those who read this blog probably know that Interaction Design matters a lot to me. It has been one of the things I have advocated extensively in my work with desktop Linux. To be sure, part of why I still like working for Novell* is that the desktop team at Novell continues to produce not only great technical advancements, but also continuous improvements in the look and feel of the desktop. The new Main Menu for Gnome that debuted with SLED10 showed how studying user interaction with the desktop can result in a strikingly improved interface. (I don’t kid myself here–there are many who have vocalized their preference for GNOME’s traditional Applications-Places-System menu. But, many do like it.)
I’m pleased to share that the desktop design team at Novell is working on further improvements to the original Main Menu. The video below comes from the upcoming SLED10 Service Pack 1 as it looks in the current internal beta 3. (The unreleased status means that this is not necessarily the final product, and things may change from what you see today.
Video information:
*Yes, I say “still” that is an admission that I have been challenged with a certain, recently-cemented partnership
Related Posts:
So you don’t like the SLED10’s Main Menu–you prefer the traditional Applications-Places-System menu in Gnome. A few people have commented to me that they hope that SLED doesn’t force them to use the new menu. Rest assured, SLED10 provides you choice on that.
I made a quick video to show that, no, you do not have to use default Main Menu in SLED10. With a couple quick clicks you can change it back to the way you like.
Video information:
SUSE has many, many interesting hackers who have been hacking on free software for years. Greg Kroah-Hartman is a well-known and widely respected Kernel hacker. A friend of mine in the UK recently pointed me to an eloquent post by Greg about the need for community considerations with free software projects. It’s a perspective well worth considering.
My apologies to our listeners for the delay in posting any interviews about the Novell-Microsoft agreement. I know that there are a lot of questions and I have seen plenty of concern and speculation among the community at large. (There is an annual sales kickoff event that has everyone at Novell tied up. That’s not an excuse, it’s just the terrain I have to navigate to get information.)
The outcry from the free software community about the Novell-Microsoft agreement has been substantial, and a lot of people have been turning to me and asking for answers. I hear you, and I am at last starting to assmble some material.
I finally secured an interview with Novell CEO Ron Hovsepian and Novell General Counsel Joe LaSala this afternoon. Having received many questions from the community, I chose two major items to take up with Ron: Why deal with Microsoft, and, Is Novell abiding by the GPL? More specifically, the questions are essentially these:
I know that there is a lot more ground that needs to be covered than these four questions, but because they will get into technical detail, I will commit to going deeper and further into the matter with people who are involved in the technical aspects.
I’m staying up late tonight to review the audio, and I’ll be mastering this edition myself. As soon as I get it done, I have to put it through approvals (which happens when questions involve legal matters). I hope to have it online by mid-day Thursday (MST), depending on how quickly some of the stakeholders can get back to me. Thanks for bearing with me on this.
[DistroWatch Readers: Welcome! Thanks for checking out this post. Please also check out the podcast that I host, Novell Open Audio.]
A reader recently asked me whether I prefer SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, or openSUSE?
The problem with the question is that it requires so much explaining. At the moment, I prefer SLED10.
Reasons:
But my current preference is not my general preference. You see, in a few short weeks, I will switch to openSUSE, just as beta 1 comes due.
Reasons:
Does that mean that I will I stick with openSUSE from then on? No. In about a year, I’ll start to track SLED11–probably when it reaches its first beta. I suspect it will attempt to outdo its predecessor almost the way SLED10 made the once well-revered NLD9 look like a child’s plaything. I hope to do the same thing I did through the SLED10 beta-to-release timeframe: track the tech and share with people what’s happening with it.
DO NOT FOLLOW THESE INSTRUCTIONS. THEY ARE NOW OUTDATED.
This post co-written with Erin Quill, and follows my presentation at Ohio Linux Fest. Thanks go out to everyone who came to my session. (Update: See 16OCT06, below.)
A few weeks before releasing iTunes 7, Apple rolled out a firmware update for iPod devices. The update rendered obsolete a key library for using Banshee with your iPod. (This is normally the point at which I would open up into a small-time rant about Apple, but I understand that the Mighty Aaron Bockover has one queued up for a near-term release.) So here is where we will step in and try to make ourselves useful by explaining how to update a SLED10 system (and probably an openSUSE system, as well) to the latest version of Banshee.
Updating to the latest Banshee does more than simply fix connectivity with any iPod devices that you might have mistakenly updated. It will also get you new plugins, including the aforementioned podcast plugin. (This is where the Amarok/KDE users chuckle about my foolish fascination with Banshee/Mono/GNOME. Fairly, I suppose. Amarok has had a podcatcher for quite some time.)
16OCT06 Update: You can now get RPM’s for the latest version of Banshee. (Even better, this will soon be a YUM repository.) Therefore, do the procedure that follows only if you really, really want to build from source. (more…)
I have previously mentioned that we have an upcoming episode of Novell Open Audio featuring Holger Macht and Timo Hoenig from SUSE’s “Team Mobile Devices.” Well, it’s finally online.
In a tip of the hat to the guys over at The Linux Link Tech Show, this edition involves beer. We recorded from Anderland, a fine beergarden in beautiful Nuremberg. Please consider the background noise on this one simply part of the ambience. Oh, and for our Provo-based listeners: yes, that is a baby crying in the background, and, yes, people commonly bring their infants to beergardens.
We remind you that the online listener survey closes on Saturday, so if you haven’t taken the survey yet, please do! We will award two limited edition green Novell backpacks–possibly stuffed with some other cool schwag–to two of the respondents. We’ll announce who wins them after September 30th.
While a 7-day stat may not sustain, this is nice to see!
Please give it a digg!
People may have missed seeing a really good blog post from Andreas Jaeger not too long ago, called “Propietary Software and openSUSE” on the Cool Blogs site. As one of the leaders of openSUSE, Andreas’ view on this matter should be of interest to anyone looking for the project’s stance on proprietary kernel modules and other software.
Regarding the 50 SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 activations that I recently blogged, there was a subsequent slashdot thread in which several people have sneeringly commented that SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 proprietary. This chaffes me because Novell is part way through a cultural change that I think is nothing short of astounding. Because of open source, the company is becoming a foundary of invention again. We’re finally starting to be recognized again as a place that can really drive new software technology.
So, if you have somehow ended up here having passed through the slashdot firebranding, I ask you to consider some details about SLED, SUSE, and Novell. (more…)
After featuring so much GNOME stuff on the lead up to the release of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop, a couple readers assailed me with directives to give some love to KDE.
While I was in Nuremberg, Coolo and I conspired to post a sneak-peak at the SUSE KDE team’s work on the new main menu that they have been prototyping around the time that we post his interview.
Looks like Stephan Binner has posted a flash movie of the “Kickoff” menu in action. So, if you missed its meteoric rise on Digg, check it out.
By the way, while I was at LUGRadio Live, I spoke with the peeps at the Kubuntu counter. They were friendly, but one did make some kind of snide remark to me like, “SUSE still does stuff on KDE?” Yes, Kubuntu counter guy, but its mostly this crazy stuff called research-based innovation. 
