A few days ago Lifehacker Australia carried a blog post where they said that they felt my method to get the Huawei E169G modem working on an EEE PC was a "tad fiddly". Well, they are probably right, so taking this as a challenge I've had a go at creating a package that will apply these steps automatically and make getting this modem up and running as simple as possible. This is one of my first attempts at packaging, so there might be some problems, however I've successfully tested that it works on both a Xandros and an Ubuntu powered EEE PC. The package is quite basic in what it does, so it may well work on some other Debian-based distributions too.

Back in December 2007 I installed SecondLife on a factory-standard Asus EEE PC to see if it would work or not, it did, even with just 512MB memory installed, but it was a little slow. So since adding a bit of extra power to my EEE by upgrading it to 2GB RAM and installing Ubuntu on it, I was curious to see how this might improve the experience. The SecondLife client has also been updated recently, the version I tested with is version 1.20.15.92456 which I downloaded directly from the SecondLife web site. The results were pleasing, the client was usable, the graphics more vibrant and details than before, as you can see from the picture, even with low graphic detail selected the detail was quite impressive.

I finally took the plunge the other day and decided to wipe the operating system that came with my EEE PC and install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and I'm very glad I did! I've been using it for a few days now and am really pleased with it, the new interface performs excellently on the small seven inch screen of the EEE and the time and thought the designers have put into how to make the maximum use of screen-size has certainly paid off. A particularly noticeable example is when using Mozilla Thunderbird, on the OS supplied with the EEE was was virtually no room to type a message when starting a new email, the design of the netbook interface means that there is now quite a bit of space. Installing Ubuntu on the EEE was not a straightforward process with a lot of manual adjustments that had to be applied, but there is a lot of good documentation of there that really helps and it seems quite a community of people running Ubuntu on their EEEs.

I've written before about the blurring of offline and online worlds and here is a great example of the concept in action; an interesting program that allows you to integrate your Flickr account into the file system of your Linux-powered computer, making it as easy to upload and download files as copying and pasting between folders. This is continuing the idea of merging a web experience with the desktop experience rather than the web being confined to your web browser. The program that makes this possible is called flickrfs and is available as a package for Ubuntu systems and is worth setting up as it is interesting and useful in itself, but also because offers an idea of what it would be like to use a filesystem based on tagging rather than one based on rigid structure or classification.

If you have treated yourself to a High Definition (HD) TV the chances are you aren't using it to its full capability. According to a recent report in The Register, only 1.7% of Western European households have the equipment necessary to receive HD broadcasts, and these consist of only a handful of channels. This situation is set to improve, in the UK we are lucky enough to have Sky HD and Freesat which both carry HD content, but the report goes on to claim that the widespread availability of free-to-air HD channels will not occur until 2015. However, there is no need to despair, luckily there is another interesting source of High Definition content; this time in the form of video podcasts: Miro. The advantage of video podcasts, or vodcasts is that you can subscribe to the content you want, no more being spoon fed by scheduler in a remote TV station! You don't have to watch these vodcasts on your computer either, pretty much every HD television can be hooked into your computer so you can enjoy HD content on your new TV.

I can't help noticing the number of Asus EEE PCs around now, it is strange to think that twelve months ago these weren't really about and there was still discussion of when will be the "year of the Linux desktop". Of course, events took a different turn, and suddenly the desktop didn't seem so important anymore. The real prize was a computer that was small and convenient, inexpensive and easy to carry about. The EEE PC came supplied with a version of Linux called Xandros (which I'd never heard of until then), but more importantly, in a fatal blow to the argument that Linux is too difficult for non-technical users, it came with an "Easy mode" menu that made finding and running applications very easy, with a tabbed menu and large icons. Now other manufacturers are working on their competitors to the EEE, and Canonical, the company that provides commercial backing to Ubuntu, has been working with a couple of them to produce the Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

One of my aims for this year is to learn the Python programming language. Why? Well it seems to be cropping up all over the place. If you own a Linux machine or an Apple Mac, chances are it is already installed. Google recently made it the primary language for their AppEngine platform. The design ethos behind it is very appealing, a down to business approach to programming that dispenses with needing lots and lots of code and allows the developer to ulitlise powerful libraries to get the job done. Python code can be run on many different devices, and it is possible to use it to develop desktop, server and web applications. Now it can also be used to develop applications for mobile phones. This is very appealing to me as a developer as it takes time to master a new skill and I would rather that skill provides a lot of flexibility and the chance to get involved in a wide variety of challenges.

Something we do have a wide choice of in Ubuntu Linux (and on many other Linux platforms) is virtualisation software. Previously in this blog I've covered VirtualBox, which was recently acquired by Sun Microsystems. A new version of this software is out, but unfortunately the download repositories have been disabled and the downloads moved to an old fashioned manual download and install model thanks to "U.S. export regulations". I hope Sun sort this out soon. Another option though has been quietly developing and as available in (K)Ubuntu 8.10. The Kernel-based Virtual Machine is an an open source option to run virtual machines on your computer which can benefit from hardware acceleration many many modern CPUs to achieve near-native speeds for the guest images. The user friendliness of this software has been greatly improved through the addition of Virt-Manager, a GUI front end for KVM which means that you don't have to use the command line anymore to set up, monitor and run your virtual machines. I took this software out for a test drive by making a virtual machine that can run Ubuntu 8.04 (32 bit) on my Kubuntu 8.04 (64 bit) system, you could of course also have Microsoft Windows as a guest, the software emulates an entire machine.

An area where Linux is sometimes criticised is the level of difficulty expericed by people new to the operating system when installing software. Earlier today, Dr A J Cann posted an example of this criticism when he suggested that Ubuntu should follow the same model of software distribution used Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X of having a downloadable installer file for your desired program. I don't agree with his suggestion, but do see his point that installing software for someone unfamiliar to Linux can seem a daunting task. If I know someone is about to try out Kubuntu, I always try to sit them down and explain the package management system to them. There is no direct equivant of this on other operating systems, so I find it helps to explain it to people. Once, somebody explained package management to me and it saved me a lot of time.

Congratulations to the Ubuntu community on the release of Ubuntu 8.04! I am currently downloading a copy of Kubuntu 8.04 KDE4 Remix and preparing to make a jump from KDE3 to 4, which should give a modern looking computing experience anyway. I've been playing with the beta version of the Remix CD for a while now, and KDE4 seems to have improved quite a lot since I first blogged about it back in January. I'll about the experience of installing it on my laptop in the next few days, and since seeing this video on YouTube I'm tempted to install it on my Asus EEE PC as well! Ubuntu is a project I much admire, the name is an African term for "humanity to others", a concept they bring right into their community through the use of a Code of Conduct which encourages participants to treat each other with respect. This has resulted in an atmosphere on sites related to their project, for example the Ubuntu Forums, which I think is quite welcoming to people.