Ubuntu Productivity

AnandTech ran an interesting (and VERY thorough) review of Ubuntu 8.04. I wanted to highlight my favorite section.

Titled CPU Benchmarks, they test applications running on both Windows Vista and Ubuntu. The amazing thing is the applications running on Ubuntu via Wine performed better than they did on Windows!

Let’s let that sink in for a moment…the open-source project written ½ by volunteers and ½ by commercial interests, intended to duplicate the Windows API on Linux, actually outperforms the software it’s intended to mimic. That’s amazing to me.

Check out these two images from the article that prove Wine can be faster than Windows:

Excel running on Windows & Ubuntu via Wine

Photoshop CS2 running on Ubuntu Linux (via Wine) and Windows XP

The strangest graph of them all is the last one on that page: it shows mp3 encoding on Ubuntu, Windows Vista, and Ubuntu via Wine. The Wine version ran faster that either the native Windows or native Ubuntu test.

I’m really looking forward to this project maturing: Nautilus support for Google Docs.

During his 12 weeks at Google’s Summer of Code this developer managed to integrate Google Doc’s cloud with Nautilus, so all your docs can be browsed and edited on Linux just like normal documents. This is how I imagined cloud computing working, where the document can be accessed both locally and remotely, and all the cloud docs can be easily backed up like any other file on your system.

I’m particularly interested in the fact that all the docs appear as OpenOffice files.

I am excited to see that gPHPEdit is now under active development again. I downoaded the Feb 9, 2009 snapshot and tried compiling it.

At first I was given the error that the following libraries were not installed:

gtk+-2.0
libgnomeui-2.0
gnome-vfs-2.0
libgtkhtml-2.0

So I ran these commands to install them:

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev
sudo apt-get install libgnomeui-dev

Then navigate to the source directory and run these commands in your terminal:

cd gphpedit
./configure
make
sudo make install

Here is gPHPEdit 0.9.91 running on Ubuntu 9.04

gPHPEdit 0.9.91 running on Ubuntu 9.04

Recently I re-configured my setup for more convenient dual-booting between Mac OS & Ubuntu Linux. I created a common hfs+ partition that both Ubuntu and Mac OS share, and this is my main storage for my work.

It took a bit of finagling to get Ubuntu Linux writing to the hfs+ drive, so I wanted to share my experience for those who might benefit from it.

Furthermore, I experienced a wierd issue where, while running Ubuntu my computer improperly shut down, and the hfs+ drive was no longer writeable. Below is how I fixed that.

Setup

Mac OS Leopard on hfs+ journaled partition

Ubuntu 9.04 on ext4 partition

Common hfs+ (unjournaled) partition for sharing data

Prepare Ubuntu

I found everything I needed to mount an hfs+ drive already installed on Ubuntu. But write support was not working be default. So I edited my /etc/fstab to include this as the last item, and it mounts the drive with read/write permissions.

/dev/sda3 /mnt/common hfsplus user,auto,uid=1000,gid=1000 0 0

From what I found about fstab, here’s what all that means:

1. “/dev/sda3″ is the path to the drive’s partition
2. “/mnt/common” is the location I want to mount the drive at
3. “hfsplus” is the partition type
4. “user” allows a normal user (not just root) to mount this drive
5. “auto” means mount automatically when booting
6. “uid” is my user’s id, allowing it access to this mount point
7. “gid” is my user’s group id, allowing that group access to this mount point
8. The two zeros at the end…
   1. zero 1 is the dump option: “should this be backed up?” Zero means “no”
   2. zero 2 is the order in which fsck should check the filesystems. Zero means “don’t check”

One caveat, I had to adjust the permissions on all files that I want read & write access to in both operating systems. Otherwise, when Ubuntu saved a file, OS X only had read permission, and vise-versa.

Here’s the command that recursively sets permissions an all files in the common drive to 777:

sudo chmod -R 777 /mnt/common

Fix hfs+ read/write when improperly shut down

Once, after hibernating my computer in Ubuntu, it would not wake up, so I force-restarted. Evidently this caused the common partition to have an improperly-unmounted flag that would not let Ubuntu write to it. After booting into OS X and restarting into Ubuntu, it worked. I guess booting into Mac OS reset that flag…but I’m not entirely sure. But it did fix my read/write access to my hfs+ partition

Meld is, by far, the best diff viewer & editor that I have used. Earlier I posted about getting Meld up and running on OSX and overcoming a couple of issues. With the current version of MacPorts (1.7.1) and Meld 1.2, it’s much easier Read the rest of this entry »

Here is a great article describing how the French Police saved money with Ubuntu. It starts out by saying

“France’s Gendarmerie Nationale, the country’s national police force, says it has saved millions of dollars by migrating its desktop software infrastructure away from Microsoft Windows and replacing it with the Ubuntu Linux distribution.”

“…has saved up to €50 million on licensing and maintenance costs as a result of the migration strategy”

“The Gendarmerie migration also demonstrates the significant cost savings that governments can get from adopting open source software. As the global financial downturn continues to put pressure on budgets, governments are going to increasingly look to open source software as a way to cut IT costs. We have recently seen moves in this direction from Canada and the UK.”

I found it interesting that they state the biggest difference between Ubuntu and Windows, from their point of view, was the icons

“Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority.”

I am also very encouraged that they’re concerned about open standards. I wish more businesses and institutions though this way and I hope the Gendarmerie’s example promulgate open standards.

“[The Gendarmerie] has found that open source software is better at handling open standards.”

I have been regularly using Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X Leopard on my iMac and MacBook for about a year now. During that time I have found Linux tools to complement my Mac tools so I can do just about everything I need on either system. Given that, I thought it would be interesting to compare the cost of each system.

Mac Software: $3,622.55
Linux Software: $0.00

1. It’s too inexpensive. In fact, paying is only an option & I don’t feel compelled to pay for it. It’s just not as fun owning an operating system I don’t have to pay for.
2. It’s too pretty. The ability to apply any theme, or build my own, ruins my sense of camaraderie with my fellow OS users. Where’s the sense in complete personalization?
3. It’s too fun. Computers were never meant to be fun. When they become fun they become dangerous.
4. It’s updated too frequently. All those updates are just pesky. Do we really need the bleeding edge all the time?
5. The community is too active. They’re just too helpful. I miss that sweet, subtle music while I’m on hold with tech support in India.
6. There’s too much software to choose from. Who needs choices when I can just by the stuff recommended and pre-installed by the OEM?
7. The hardware it supports is too modern. It creates that uncontrollable urge to upgrade my hardware!
8. It does too much. If only my operating system allowed me to do less, I’d feel less inclined to be productive with it.
9. It’s too friendly with other operating systems. I want my operating system to play in its own sandbox with like minded kids. None of this sharing and mingling.
10. It’s too productive. Can’t I just have an excuse to play games?

For my day job I own and operate BIG Images — a large format print shop. I know this is unrelated to Ubuntu and the main focus of this blog, but this is where I got my start writing software and developed an interest in open-source technology. I just finished my introductory article for my series on the future of printing and imaging. This is the first in a series describing the future of printing and what it means for print manufacturers like BIG Images and the designers who create the artwork.

Do you have any stories or insights as to how Ubuntu has made you more productive? Would you like to share your insights? I am looking for people who have thoughts that would help newcomers and seasoned users alike. Anything that can help Ubuntu users become more productive. Whether its with the Ubuntu OS itself, or other software tools you run on Ubuntu. Interested? Drop me a line at ubuntuproductivity [at] gmail [dot] com.

The only real requirement is your post must be relevant to the Ubuntu community and this blog’s focus on productivity. Some ideas are:

• Shortcuts
• Tips and tricks
• Resources
• Software tools
• Methods and workflows

Just to be up front about it, there’s no money involved. I just do this for fun and education. Your reward will be similar, including the enjoyment of sharing your experience + a link to your blog/site/whatever you want.