Ubuntu Edge

Yesterday Canonical, the commercial entity which backs Ubuntu, launched their Indiegogo fixed funding campaign to raise $32m for the Ubuntu Edge project.

Shiny Ubuntu/Android smartphone. Want!

The Ubuntu Edge is going to be a dual boot smartphone running my favourite OSs Ubuntu and Android, with what looks like beautiful and powerful hardware. Initial specs are of a device with 4GB RAM and a 128GB SSD. The device will be able to be connected to a keyboard/mouse/monitor and run a full desktop environment as well as deliver a powerful smartphone experience.

The Indiegogo fixed funding campaign kicked off yesterday and a day in has already passed 10% of the total goal. I dilly dallied too long and seem to have missed out on the $600 option to get the device in May of next year for a discounted price. I will be making a token $20 contribution and will wait until the device is available through traditional commercial channels to get one.

The idea of a smartphone that acts as a more traditional computer when docked is not new, Ubuntu for Android has been pushing the idea for a while now. I like the idea, almost as much as the Chromebook/Chromebox one.

The smartphone/tablet/desktop computing world is going to be very different this time next year, lets see what Google, Mozilla, Samsung as well as Canonical get up to before then.

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below.

Source:  Indiegogo

Linux Mint 12 Is On The Way!

One of my favourite Linux distributions, Linux Mint, has just entered the release candidate phase.

The Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" Desktop (from LinuxMint.com)

Linux Mint 12 is much more revolutionary than Mint 11 was (I dare say that Mint 11 was evolutionary).

Mint 12 is revolutionary for Linux Mint because it comes with a brand new desktop, built with GNOME 3 and MGSE (Mint Gnome Shell Extensions). Essentially what the Mint team have done is take GNOME 3 and changed the pet hates many users in the Linux community had and get rid of the causes. The new Mint desktop uses GNOME 3 as its base, and then reverts certain tasks/activities back to something more similar to what people are used to and love from GNOME 2.x. As a result you get GNOME 3 with:

• A panel at the bottom of the desktop (as there was in classic Mint desktops)
• An application menu (a bit shinier, but just like in classic Mint desktops)
• A window list
• A task-centric desktop (you switch between windows, not applications. This will make many users very very happy)
• Visible system tray icons (I can hear GNOME 3 hater cheers...)

An Application Menu! (from LinuxMint.com)

These are just a few of the GNOME 3 improvements that MGSE brings. There are many other smaller and less visible improvements that in my opinion make the Mint 12 experience much more enjoyable than Ubuntu 11.10 (with Unity).

As usual with a new release of Mint, there is new artwork and theme tweaks. Shininess is always good in my opinion.

The default search engine in Linux Mint 12 will be Duck Duck Go. (I'm still waiting for Leo Laporte to start a new show on the TWiT Network called This Week in Duck Duck Go...).

You can read about all the new features of Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" here.

You can download the release candidate of Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" here.

Thanks to everyone involved in bringing us the Linux Mint distribution. It is probably the best Linux distribution for Linux newbies, and still one of the shiniest and most easy to use out of the box/liveDVD/liveUSB!

As usual, feel free to leave comments and/or questions below and let me know how you get on with Linux Mint if you give it a go.

Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal - Unity

On April 28th 2011 the latest version of my most used Linux distribution was released. Version 11.04 of Ubuntu, also known as Natty Narwhal, has brought some major changes to how the main Ubuntu distribution works and in the forms it is available in.

We bid farewell to Ubuntu Netbook Edition. There is now simply Ubuntu (available in 32bit and 64bit versions) and Ubuntu Server (available in 32bit and 64bit vesions). In a way I am sad to see the Netbook Edition cease to be. Ever since the early days of netbooks I had been running Ubuntu Netbook Remixes on a first generation Acer Aspire One and on my trusty EEE PC 900A. As time went by both the interface and the features evolved as a branch of the Ubuntu Desktop Edition, experimenting with new user interfaces and optimisations for smaller screens. Interestingly many of the developments that were experimented with in Ubuntu Netbook Remixes and Editions are now features of the unified Ubuntu.

In Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal the Unity Interface (first used in Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition) is the default one. Unity is powerful desktop and netbook environment that brings consistency and elegance to the Ubuntu experience.

Unity is designed for netbooks and related touch-based devices. It includes a new panel and application launcher that makes it fast and easy to access preferred applications, such as the browser, while removing screen elements that are rarely used in mobile and netbook computing.

Unity has a vertical task management panel on the left-hand side and a menu panel at the top of the screen. Using a sidebar for task management conserves vertical screen space, which is much more valuable on a widescreen netbook. The task panel displays icons for commonly-used applications and programs that are currently running. Clicking on an icon will give the target application focus if it is already running or launch it if it is not already running. If you click the icon of an application that already has focus, Unity will activate an Expose-style view of all the open windows associated with that application.

I really am enjoying using Ubuntu with the Unity interface. I must admit that from October last year I was quite skeptical about the shift from a Gnome interface, but now that I am used to the sidebar, the instant search services and notifications I am won over. As well as the UI changes Ubuntu 11.04 brings the usual boatload of bug fixes, more hardware support and faster boot times.

You can download and try out Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal from http://www.ubuntu.com/ for free.

Feel free to leave any comments and/or questions.