Ubuntu Productivity

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.

I did not know this until recently — it is possible to configure the java engine used by Ubuntu by running this command:

sudo update-alternatives –config java

You will be asked to select from a list of available java engines. Simply type in the number of your choice and hit enter.

Choosing the java engine on Ubuntu 8.10

Today I was using Google Docs and lamenting that there is no quality web-based code editing tool. The predictability that web-based tools bring to cross-platform work is amazing. Code editing would be much nicer with the same productive toolset on every platform.

Then I found Bespin.

While I have a lot of questions about this tool/service (like how secure is it to store code in “the cloud”?) I have to admit I am very impressed with the initial preview release and can hardly wait to try it on a real project. Some of the features that really intruige me are:

• Syntax highlighting
• Collaborative editing
• Open source code base
• A very nice dark color scheme
• Innovative and productive file browser
• True cross-platform performance and predictability
• Fast performance, even on a text file with 30,000+ lines of code

Give it a try at http://bespin.mozilla.com/.

Bespin, a Mozilla Labs code editor

I recently had a problem with Ubuntu 8.10 where my Add/Remove… software window was empty.

My empty Add/Remove… software list

Synaptic and apt-get via the terminal worked great, but Add/Remove… was broken. A bit of searching turned up this little gem that did the trick of restoring the list. Just run these two commands in your terminal:

sudo apt-get remove gnome-app-install
sudo apt-get install gnome-app-install apturl ubufox ubuntu-desktop

I use Google Docs quite extensively. On my laptop I like to eak out every bit of screen real estate I can, so I thought about how I could make my Google Docs experience a little more pleasing by removing stuff that’s not needed, such as the Google logo (which frees up about 25 pixels.) Using Firefox it is very simple to remove unneeded elements. Read the rest of this entry »

Coming from a lifetime as a Mac user you can imagine that I am rather trusting of the OS, especially as a creative tool. In recent years, as Apple has evolved OS X, it has continued to surprise me (in a good sort of way.)

Regarding their OS X server, given that I have used it since 2001, I was rather excited to try it out in my new web software venture. My impression was it would be as easy to run a web site on OS X server as it is easy to manage a creative project.

Wrong.

Read the rest of this entry »