How Shiny is Chrome?

Like everybody else, I was intrigued by Google's latest venture.

A new browser, promising to redesign the browsing experience. Introduced by the company who redesigned all of our browsing habits.

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In their introductory press release, (already a plus to the Comic nerd in us all), the big G hit all the right notes.Read the Rest

New Javascript VM, Tab Centric, Open Source, sandboxed pages, process manager. Where do I sign up? Oh, here (and no sign up required.)

If you've been here before you know MrCopilot runs on Linux. Sure, occasionally a VM safely encompasses a Windows OS for testing. Imagine my surprise at discovering that in such an environment was the only place I could try Chrome.

Which brings me to the first dulling of the shine. Chrome's download page is a little different for us Linux Users, you'll notice right off that the download link is nowhere to be found. Instead you will see links to Chromium.
Chromium is the open source project Chrome is built from. Containing parts WebKit, V8 -the new JavaScript VM Engine and some other nifty bits.

If you are having trouble reading the fine print in the Red Box let me clarify it.

Note: There is no working Chromium-based browser on Linux. Although many Chromium submodules build under Linux and a few unit tests pass, all that runs is a command-line "all tests pass" executable.

This may be the reason that Google has decided to call it Chrome for Windows "Beta" but considering every other Google product spends a lifetime (for software) in Beta it may not be as likely as first thought.

Undettered, having a Windows user send along the executable for Linux emulation testing, my attempts in Wine, and Cedega were unsuccessful.

This is a HUGE disappointment for us Linux users, and perhaps a missed opportunity for Google. A Linux port would give them a leg up in the mobile and netbook arena. Here's hoping that Google does the obvious and fixes this omission before Android's 1.0 release.

Now if you happen to be still in the clutches of Windows, Chrome is a breath of fresh air. Speedy and out of your way. Features, like the ability to get more of the user interface out of your way by creating an application shortcut for your favorite web sites, and the default new tab (no longer a blank page ala FireFox but an Opera like thumbnail collection of most visited pages), are welcome newcomers.

Also handy are the inclusions of the process manager, Most Visited button and the pop-up capture feature.

Only once in my testing did I have a tab crash, and that was using a shortcut provided by Google to do so. It had a strange effect on my system taking down TortoiseSVN with it, for reasons unknown, requiring a reboot to get it back.

More on Shortcuts


The usual problems did rear their ugly head in a few places, the "just released" security vulnerabilities, Sites refusing to run due to the unknown Browser ID. Virgin Radio UK's online player, for instance. Which brings up another point.

One of the many Firefox features that drew so many users to the fold, was its customization, through extensions, themes and add-ons. None of which is offered in Chrome (although a few careful inspectors did find an OS specific themes folder. untested Howto to create your own themes)

On the Whole, I give Google a thumbs up on their new browser for Windows, with a huge wag of the finger on it's lack of Linux support.

MrCopilot

Why Miguel, Why?

Dear Miguel,

Read your post. One question immediately springs to mind.

Why?

You said:

I have been reading the OOXML storm in a teacup for more than a year now. Am looking forward to the approval of OOXML as an ISO standard and to be able to move the discussion back to the things that actually matter: free and open source software.

I think we all agree that what matters is Free and Open Source software. Where we differ is in the looking forward to the ISO approval of OOXML.

How would this be beneficial to FLOSS? The implication is that the long string of "countless bytes" being "wasted" on this subject would be over, and we will all get back to writing about more important matters.

The problem with this way of thinking is not to hard understand. Most of the Free Software community is strongly opposed to OOXML as an ISO standard, either because of the FACT that it is a horribly incomplete and unimplementable document format or the FACT that OOXML is redundant. ISO already approved a document standard, ODF.

Punditry and lobbying will not get us very far, real work will.

Surely, you don't honestly think the pundits do that work, do you? I'm a pundit and sure I submit bug reports (not as often as I should), I write software (not as much as I'd like), but my real contribution is as an advocate, to my customers and to my visitors. (and pretty much anybody else who doesn't run screaming from the room)

So I ask you again, how will ISO approval of a proprietary, incomplete, Microsoft format, benefit the Free Desktop, or Open Source office applications?

In short Why Miguel? Why are you looking forward to it?

We have about 24hrs left for the decisions of member countries to be tallied. I for one, am looking forward to Monday, when we (hopefully) will have a single open and implementable document format. I look forward to Microsoft supporting that format in order to meet the requirements of government agencies the world over who mandate their data be Vendor Neutral and long lived.

Looking forward to Microsoft subverting an International Standards Organizations submission process, and beginning a new era of vendor lock-in and monopolistic office suites seems to be antithetical to Free and Open Source philosophy.

Of course there is another possibility. Perhaps, and this pure speculation of the wildest kind, but perhaps, you care less about the philosophy of open source and Free Software than you would have us believe. Perhaps you speak publicly from the same script as Patrick Durusau, mainly that ISO approval of OOXML is good for ODF. I am as persuaded by your argument as I am by his. You seem completely unfazed by the questionable tactics Microsoft has employed to try to ram this spec down the ISO's throat.

Maybe it is time for you to get back to your roots. Your entanglement in Microsoft technology has become more troubling every year. It is as if, you cannot see the thorns of the brambles you are wading through. It troubles me personally, the free desktop world needs good coders and if nothing else you certainly are that.

What happened to you Miguel, you used to be cool?


MrCopilot

This is a verbatim copy of an email sent to Miguel, No comment section on his blog.

For more coverage of the ISO approval process of OOXML:
Last Minute Vote Switching in OOXML Decision
Continuing Coverage of the process at Consortium.org
Vote Tallies as we learn them @ OpenMalaysia

Update: Unofficial reports indicate Approval. By one vote. How depressing! We must wait until Wednesday for the official announcement according to Roger Frost @ ISO a press release will be issued.

Update#2 - 3/31/2008: Miguel has responded by email. First I must thank him (again) for his time. Second he has asked that I keep our conversation private. Rest assured he answered my Why question and made a vigorous defense of his position. He has done so in such a way that was, frankly, reassuring about his commitments to Free Software despite the allusions and appearances otherwise. I still disagree with him, but I understand his reasoning a little better now.

TeeWars becomes TeeWorlds, Stays Fun

A game I reviewed a while back, TeeWars has updated to a newer version 0.40 along with the updated weapons physics and gameplay comes a new name, TeeWorlds, and a new License. This was followed quickly by a bugfix release 0.4.1 a few days later.

I applaud the developers for all their hard work. TeeWorlds is a worthy upgrade and still way too much fun. A new weapon, the Laser Gun, was added. The physics tweaked and a double jump indicator has been added. Also included is a much needed map autodownloader. Gameplay balance has also been tweaked, although I didn't notice the changes in my testing. The game runs fine under Windows and Linux without hassle on my setups.

The laser seems a bit odd, kind of laggy. Could be just me though, as opponents seem to have no trouble hitting me with it.

A map editor is also included, Press Ctrl-Shift E to start it. Good luck figuring it out though as it is not supported by the developer as of yet.

Most interesting to me was the license change. I received many comments about the old license and the fact that it was not Open Source. Mattricks, the lead developer, reassured me that the new license would be.

Here is the text of the new license for TeeWorlds.

Copyright (C) 2007-2008 Magnus Auvinen

This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied
warranty. In no event will the authors be held liable for any damages
arising from the use of this software.

Permission is granted to anyone to use this software for any purpose,
including commercial applications, and to alter it and redistribute it
freely, subject to the following restrictions:

1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
4. Neither this software nor any of its individual components, in original
or modified versions, may be sold by itself.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

IMPORTANT NOTE! The source under src/engine/external are stripped
libraries with their own licenses. Mostly BSD or zlib/libpng license but
check the individual libraries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

With that being said, contact us if there is anything you want to do
that the license does not premit.

#4 is a little troublesome, but according to the OSI's Open Source Definition, it qualifies.
Specifically

1. Free Redistribution

The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

In the final analysis, I highly recommend TeeWorlds. A cute, fun, multiplayer online platform shooter.

For a more in depth look, see our previous review.

MrCopilot

Kubuntu Mini Install Fest

Introduction
MrCopilot was asked to assist in a Linux deployment for a home over the weekend. I usually jump at the chance to help bring new users to the fold. This particular request though, came from a person with a Masters Degree in Computer Science. Installation of most distributions is now so easy that surely my learned colleague could handle this task on his own, I encouraged him to do so, and I would help with any problems he encountered.

Well I was wrong. Linux is not Windows. Those of us who use it regularly tend to forget how difficult the learning curve can be. I must give him and Kubuntu credit. He managed to get both machines up and running, wifi working and even a seamless virtual Windows installed with Virtual Box. Using the almighty Google to handle any questions. Unfortunately, adept was hopelessly broken and frustration started to set in. I was called on site.

1 Kubuntu disc, 8 Hours, and 4 PCs later. I offer this Post Mortem.

Users
The clients were 2 wonderful pre-Tween sisters, who up until now had shared a room and a single Windows PC in the "play room." Now they have their own rooms equipped with fairly beefy PCs. Their usage habits include surfing the web, playing online games (Club Penguin and Gaia Online) and a few anime MMOs.


Kubuntu 7.10 was chosen for a couple of reasons, ease of use, maturity, and stability. We have a few Kubuntu machines here and they have posed no major support problems.

Diagnosis
The first PC, (with the virtualized Windows) would not boot. Grub showed up but reported error 15 file not found. I briefly looked over the machine and having only the Kubuntu disc on hand, the decision was to start from scratch. All that was lost was the Virtual Windows install, which he has a ton of experience installing, and can do himself.

Not so Adept
Installation was (as usual) flawless, painless and quick, about 15 minutes.
Enable all repositories and Security updates, added another 10 minutes to get the 163 packages with updates, all handled (sort of) by adept.

Something broke during the security update. If you weren't paying close attention, you wouldn't have even noticed it. I was though, and after I explained that adept is a (couple of) graphical frontend(s) to apt-get and it is itself a frontend for dpkg, the problem was easily fixed.

Open a terminal.

sudo apt-get install

It reports "some packages were left unconfigured and installation cannot continue. Please run dpkg --configure -a"

sudo dpkg --configure -a

then

sudo apt-get install

to finish installation of updates. Viola, adept now works again.

Nvidia
Installing Proprietary nvidia-glx-new driver was also handled by adept. Unfortunately it was unable to update the xorg.conf file automagically. Why, I have no clue. Manually fixed with:

sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

change from Driver="nv" to Driver = "nvidia" and Save (ctrl-X, Yes)
Restart X (Ctrl-Alt-Backspace) and tada Nvidia logo.

FireFox
For reasons I do not understand Kubuntu chooses not to put Firefox in the default install, even though Ubuntu does. I love Konqueror but not for browsing. Back to adept, via add remove programs from the menu, to install Firefox with no problems. Flash and friends, using a handy Kubuntu package that includes Flash, Java and a few other proprietary things. No problems, after installation, Youtube, Google Video and Club Penguin and Gaia worked perfectly, and there was much rejoicing. We sat our new Linux user down for some extended Penguin Play.

Meanwhile the other machine was already installed but no updates had been applied for fear of breaking adept again. Now that the solution had been shown, we applied it identically and quickly brought it up to par.

This little one is a bit of a tom boy, she like Trucks, Cars, Tools and camouflage. I installed Trigger, SuperTuxKart, Torcs, TuxPaint and a few other Open Source games for her using adept through the add remove programs menu, and again much rejoicing.

Wait, didn't it say 4 PCs? Yes, it did, glad you are paying attention. Off in the corner was another broken Kubuntu, courtesy of a house guest. He, of course, has a totally different set of needs, Dual Booting. Sharing folders, Best of Both Worlds type. He too was stumped by the adept update bug and had been unsuccessfully banging away at trying to solve it. I showed him the problem, installed nVidia drivers and he was off and running in no time. Happily playing an MP3 in Amarok and rocking away with StreamTuner. Somewhere along the way he lost the ability to see his windows partition from inside Linux and I offered no help other to install ntfs-write in case he finds it again.

Wifi Easy?
While bouncing back and forth between these three machines something strange happened. All are on wifi, and it was reported that one of the Belkin adapters was not working. I moved it over to the guest's machine and tada no problems. He stated "great mine wasn't working anyway" An off brand dongle. I took his over to another machine, tada no problems. Here is the strange part. Kubuntu uses Knetworkmanager to handle configuring, notification and what not. The Belkin wifi adapter would not work on one of the three machines, but fine on the other 2. KNetworkManager, has a menu item marked configure, It consists of 2 radio buttons DHCP, and Manual Configure. On a working Belkin adapter, neither is ticked. If you click either DHCP or Manually Configure, you have now broken that adapter for that machine. Why? I still don't know. Nor do I know where it stores this information to remove it. We had to open a brand new one due to me checking it on 2 of them. I counseled him that thankfully we did not have to go through that whole ndiswrapper install and that is definitely a very good thing. I highly recommend the adapter pictured above for Kubuntu, provided you don't try to manually configure it. ($30 @ Walmart)

Where we failed
Unfortunately, Kubuntu could not do everything. One of the games the kids play is a nogo under Linux. Fly for Fun which uses GameGuard. GameGaurd games do not (and probably will not) run under wine or cedega. His only option (besides dual booting) is running it in Windows with VMware Workstation, which includes 3d acceleration, but at $189 per seat that solution is prohibitively expensive for a single game. Instead I pointed him to a few OpenSource MMOs, the girls chose PlaneShift and we'll see how that goes.

The fourth PC? That is his main machine. We put it off until later, he is working with mission critical apps until next week, at such a time I shall regale you with stories of a Monstrosity of a PC (Brand New AMD proc, Ridiculous Nvidia) running Windows Vista with a virtual Linux, Dual Booting with Linux running a Virtual Windows XP.

Conclusions
I really wanted this install to go super smooth. Quoth the Stones, "You can't always get what you want"

Still, installation was far less painful than the typical Windows install. I left only after setting up new (nonAdmin) user accounts for the girls and pointing him to a few invaluable resources for administering Linux installs.

Overall, he got what he needs.

A Video Tour of Kubuntu Installation Courtesy of Linux.com


MrCopilot

OSGGFG: 4.0 Free Racing Games

Next up in the Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games: OSGGFG 4.0 Racing Games.

It's been a long time since I looked into open source racing games, certainly long enough for some new entries to the field. What surprised me most was the complete dearth of motocross games. I've put out a memo to @gamestudio to get to work on 2 new games to help fill the void.

I have to confess a love, nay addiction of a certain closed-source non-free NFSU2 running under Wine. I had hoped to find a suitable Open Source replacement. Instead I found 10 open source racers to supplement it.

Read More @ AC

5th Place, I'm making a move.

No trophy for 8th place in Torcs

Multiplayer in Armagetron Advanced.

Trigger, It's Cool I know a shortcut.


Super Tux Kart

EXTREME Tux Racer = Extreme belly rash.


Slune Racing

TrackMania on a less than successful attempt.


VDrift Drift Style Racing

All in all, not a bad group. Read the Full Article @ AC

MrCopilot

OLPC A Good Idea, Badly Misunderstood

ITWire has a rant disguised as an opinion piece titled OLPC: one bad idea per child by Sam Varghese.

I should let it be known I have written on the OLPC XO before. All of my articles have showered it with praise. My kid wants one, I wouldn't mind tinkering a bit with it myself. So it should come as no surprise how I feel about Sam's article. Although no real point was made, I will do my best to address his comments.

For instance, we have personal computers and poorer denizens of this earth do not. Development agencies are very good at exploiting this sense of guilt - which is fairly common in the West. These agencies have do-good agendas, well-meaning no doubt, but more focused on their own survival than anything else. One thing common to practically all these agencies is that they actually believe that Western technology can alleviate any and all problems in the Third World.

As proven time and again, technology from whatever part of the world can and does alleviate SOME problems in the Third World. Desalination, Purification, Solar Ovens, Solar panels, Cellular Phones, are all great examples.

Similarly, with these agencies, ads of poor children drinking water from a filthy stream are a good way to bring in a stream of donations, which in turn help to keep said agency running. It pays wages for a number of people who can then salve their consciences by convincing themselves that they are doing "good". Helps them to sleep at night, I guess.

Any actual good done, I suppose is irrelevant to your rant, I mean narrative.

And so we come to the One Laptop Per Child project. Not exactly built on the same lines as a project aimed at development in a poorer country, but exploiting many of the same feelings. The initial stated goal was to supply laptops that would cost $US100 to children in underdeveloped countries - Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, and Pakistan were those which initially signed up to participate.

An actual fact, Bravo.

Associating the project with the idea of "open source" was a wonderful way to get people involved - Red Hat supplies a customised GNU/Linux distribution for the XO - but that idea has now been diluted to some extent by the intrusion of Microsoft which is developing a version of Windows XP to run on the little laptop.

These are the stated principles of the OLPC project.

XO is built from free and open-source software. Our commitment to software freedom gives children the opportunity to use their laptops on their own terms.
http://laptop.org/en/laptop/software/

That part of "on their own terms" requires the XO to be able to run whatever software the child prefers and is capable of running. Microsoft is working as hard as it can to get the XO to run a stripped and gutted version of XP on it. The XO will ship with its own software and the purchasing country can choose to install whatever it likes. For OLPC's official stance on free software please refer to http://wiki.laptop.org/go/OLPC_on_open_source_software

Microsoft knows that catching them young is key to creating a whole new generation of Windows users - people who have no choice but to accept whatever the company dishes out.

That's 2 facts, Kudos.

As the OLPC's Ivan Krstic wrote,"To claim we should prohibit XO customers from running XP in the interest of freedom is to claim everyone should be free to make a choice - as long as it's a choice we agree with."

Yeah, what he said.

I don't know about the robustness - when I asked whether my son could drop the laptop from a height of five feet (it is supposed to be able to withstand such a shock), the man who had the laptop on display said "no" very fast.

It wasn't yours? You expected to be able to throw down the display model (possibly the only one) at a conference? I'm shocked they didn't let you hit it with a hammer. For demonstration of its robustness, see David Pogue with his demo unit. Note what happens at 1:25.

The OLPC appears to be on the defensive when approached by the media. I asked Jim Gettys, the vice-president of software, whether he was willing to spend some time talking about it recently while he was in Melbourne. His answer was "maybe." I gave him a time and place but though he showed up, he told me that he had to speak to a number of other people first. I waited for what I considered a reasonable amount of time and then went about my own business.

What you considered to be a reasonable amount of time. You mean as a blogger who wasn't giving a talk at the conference involved in a worldwide organization who had appointments with actual press and possibly people who would help the cause. In other words he had a job to do, and if he could fit you in he would.

Gettys's talk at the Linux conference in Melbourne in January is one of the few for which video is not available on the web. I wonder why. There are slides - with the standard heart-rending pictures of poor children from various countries who apparently will be the beneficiaries of this munificence.

Actually it is 60 pages with a few pictures of children who did receive the XO laptop and a few pictures showing the environment in which they are used. All but one of the pictures of children show well dress schoolchildren working happily on their laptop. In between those pictures is a wealth of information that you dismiss without a word. You can and should download the presentation , actually read it instead of just looking at the pictures and decide for yourself.

(His talk clashed with one delivered by Dirk Hohndel of Intel and I attended the latter).

I can hardly wait to read the incredible story you will write based on a talk you actually attended.

Not every country which has been approached to join the project has looked favourably on Negroponte's advances. Way back in 2006, India categorically rejected the project. The Times of India quoted the ministry of human resources development as saying it was intrigued that no developed country had been chosen to be part of the project "given the fact that most of the developed world is far from universalising the possession and use of laptops among children of 6-12 age group".

Guess you have not seen this then. http://olpc.tv/2008/02/20/khairat-village-kids-show-off-their-xo-laptops/ The Indian government was under the same false impressions you are. Mainly

Technology can only do so much to eradicate deep-rooted cultural and social problems in developing and under-developed countries. You need political action to solve these problems, a laptop will do nothing to help. It may actually do more damage than good by creating wants which people then seek to satisfy by stealing.

If the village has ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD, who is going to steal them?


Try looking at this in a different way. We are not talking about whether we should be supplying these people with food, clean water, electricity, etc OR a laptop. We are talking about spending money on supplying books which are expensive, heavy and easily damaged or an XO for a child. Which does more good? Which is more utilitarian? Which is a better investment? Better yet which is the child more likely to learn from?

Not for nothing is this called a ground-breaking project. They'll have to break a lot of ground in a great many countries to bury all the waste that is left behind as the project's legacy.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were a reasonable person, I see now I was mistaken. You really think this is all being done for a nefarious profit based motivation don't you? It is easy to believe that OLPC is a selfish organization if you are unfamiliar with empathy and selfless acts of human decency. Shame on you sir.


MrCopilot

Free Software is Good, m'Kay

A few days ago a story was posted to FSDaily with the assuming title of "Can we please stop fighting FUD with FUD?" from Free Software Magazine. The gist of the article is the author's opinion that some, especially new, free software users have a habit of spreading FUD (Fear Uncertainty & Doubt) when comparing it to proprietary software.

In some ways he is right. Free Software usually wins on it's merits, if not it's philosophy. But I want to comment on a few of his statements.

If you’re to going run down Microsoft products then you need to be specific. What products suck, why and how do they suck?

Whoa, this may require more space than I really want to devote.

I see a lot of this type of thing that simply shows the proponent has rarely used the product in question. Aside from that, is this really a good argument to make?

It is a great argument, if the ways proprietary software sucks could easily be improved if it was released as free software.

Are we really going to be so arrogant as to imply that free software doesn’t suck at all? By running down the opposition aren’t we implying there are no issues with “our” software?

Excellent point, some free software does suck or has issues or both.
The only problem with this being that when we or someone else complains about how or why free software sucks, someone (the developers, you or anyone else) can come along and address those issues.

The article concludes by throwing down the gauntlet.

I—for one—would like to see more blogs and comments on why free software is good rather than why Microsoft is bad. So let’s start here. Your task is complete the sentence “Free software is good because…” in less than 50 words.

I pick up your gauntlet Mr Cartwright and offer my answer. Ahem...

Free Software is good because it offers you choices unavailable with proprietary software. It also eliminates vendor lock-in, patch dependence, forced upgrades, and per user license policing.

28 Words.

I would like to expound on the word choices above. These Choices or Freedoms give you the ability to :

Study the source code to learn how portions of the software work.

Modify the source code to adapt to your circumstances or fix problems.

Modify the source code to create new works and even compete with the original work.

Distribute the software freely, given that you follow the licensing terms.

Anyone who writes for Free Software Magazine already knows these points, but he felt it necessary to ask for them to be written, rather than write them again. I'm going to join Ryan Cartwright and ask that we all stop the FUD.

I mean really, hasn't Microsoft been through enough?

MrCopilot