Jamie's Random Musings

The Moblin steering committee has announced the "release" of the Moblin 2.0 Beta for netbooks and nettops. I have a couple of questions and comments about that, before I get into the last few observations about the software.

First, what are they "releasing" with the announcement yesterday? The current download image has been available for nearly two weeks. I've noticed that several batches of updates came through in the past couple of days, so maybe there were some fixes implemented prior to this announcement. But if that is the case, then why not make a new build available for download, with all the latest updates? Seems a bit odd to me.

Also, I find the addition of "nettops" in the announcement interesting. Not only as the proud owner of one, but also as a sign that they are keeping an eye on their target users.

Ok, now for my last few comments about Moblin. I've already written about the Moblin desktop, so this time I just want to fill in some details about how specific things work. Right at the top of the list is the browser. Now, I know that they say the Moblin browser is based on "the latest Mozillabrowser technology", but is it really necessary to invent yet another browser which looks, feels and works completely differently than Firefox, Chrome, Safar, IE or whatever? Maybe it is - maybe they think that their target users are so different from traditional computer users that they really need to design a new and different browser. But for experienced users, or really anyone who has used a browser before, the Moblin browser is likely to be the source of a lot of confusion and frustration at first. It certainly was for me!

I like the idea of "Pinned pages", especially because of its consistency with "Pinning" applications to the Favorites area. But that brings up the thing that confuses me - what is the difference between "Pinned Pages" and "Favourite Pages", and how do things get moved between those two? I looked high and low for Bookmarks before I finally realized that pressing the push-pin in the address bar would add the current page to the "Pinned pages" list. How and why do pages get added to "Favourites", how long do they stay there, how could I add my own to that list, or remove unwanted ones from that list? It looks to me like recently visited pages automatically get added, but it doesn't take much thought to realize that isn't a very good idea at all - in fact, it is just the opposite of the "private browsing mode" that IE and Firefox have been working on recently. If I visit the American Greetings page to create a birthday card for someone, and I don't particularly want her to know about it until I give her the card, why would I want that page added to my Favourites? How would I get it out of there after it was automatically added? You get the idea...

Second, Moblin seems to have decided to minimize the number of mouse/button actions. There are no "Minimize/Maximize" buttons in the window title bars, and there are only the simplest of "Backward/Forward" buttons. Also, I haven't found anyplace where right-clicking the mouse does anything at all... it's almost like someone from the original Apple Lisa/Mac group was involved, the ones who said "An N-button mouse has N-1 too many buttons". Again, this is a significant problem for experienced users, but might not be so serious for users who were first starting with Moblin.

One thing Moblin does not do which UNR does is start every window full-screen. Most of the top menu items are full screen, such as myZone, Internet and Media; others start with less than that, but may expand depending on what you do with them, such as Status, People and Pasteboard. I think both Moblin and UNR are going to have to rethink this a bit if they are serious about adding nettops to their target list. Automatic full screen is probably good when you only have a tiny netbook screen, but with a 19" screen on a nettop, there's not much that I want to see full screen, thanks very much.

Finally, the entire concept of desktop management seems odd to me. No task bar or system tray, or any other kind of always (or automatically) visible display of active windows. I suppose you are supposed to do all window management (or desktop management) by going to the "Zones" menu item, but that seems rather tedious to me, and besides I once again don't understand what gets put into which zone or why. Experienced users want to click an icon to go directly to whatever window they need. It looks to me like the "Zones" display will get pretty cluttered and confusing very quickly - but then again, maybe you aren't supposed to have a lot of open windows simultaneously, so it shouldn't matter.

All of the comments above, and some that I have made previously, lead me back to the same conclusion about Moblin. It looks like they have chosen novice or inexperienced computer users as their target audience. The entire setup, organization, desktop layout and options of Moblin seem to be geared toward using it as the center of your "Social Networking" activities. I think this is significant because there is a big difference between concentrating on netbooks and the like which have limited hardware, both input (small keyboard and touchpad), output (small display) and processing power (Atom CPU), which is what the Ubuntu Netbook Remix has done, and developing for a totally different target user group.

As I have said before, Moblin may well turn out to be exactly right with their approach. The success of Social Networking so far makes it obvious that this target group is very large. If Moblin appeals to them, and the netbook/nettop market continues to grow rapidly, they might end up in a great position. It might well be that if your target hardware is netbooks and nettops, then specifically not targeting experienced users is a good idea. We have had several discussions here on ZDNet UK about the fact that experienced users are frequently dissatisfied with the inherent limitations of netbook hardware. But if my own experience is any indication, nettops might confuse that, because I really like my Dual Atom nettop, but I would never consider running Moblin on it for my own use.

Here's another metric. I think it would be interesting to give a netbook with Moblin to a novice user, and see how they get on with it. But I am so uncertain about Moblin myself that I would never risk it with anyone who came to me for help. As I've said recently, I just set up a neighbor with Ubuntun Netbook Remix on an old Eee PC, and she is very pleased with it. I was just asked for similar help by another friend, but this time she didn't have a netbook yet, so I have ordered a new HP Mini 2140 for her. I will load UNR on it as soon as it arrives - I wouldn't even consider giving it to her with Moblin on it. Has anyone else done just the opposite, perhaps? I know there have been one or two comments to my previous blog posts about Moblin from people who were considering using it, or setting it up for other family members or friends. If anyone actually did that, I'd love to hear how it worked out, and what the user comments, successes and failures were.

One last thing. I'm still very disturbed by the lack of a "Stop/Shutdown/Off" button on Moblin, and I don't think I am the only one bothered by that, especially with experienced users but also with novices. I can see the argument about other devices simply turning off with the switch, such as cell phones, smart phones, PDAs or whatever. I've also heard the arguments about how conceptually difficult or confusing designing such a button or menu can be - there was a fascinating article about the internal workings at Microsoft that focused on the design of the "Shutdown" menu for Vista. But would it be so difficult, or dangerous, or confusing, to put one more button on the menu bar? There are plenty of hieroglyphics on there already, adding one more isn't likely to suddenly put the confusion factor over the top, is it? Especially if it is one that simply looks a lot like a power switch, sort of like the Gnome or KDE Stop/Shutdown buttons do?

Maybe I'm wrong - if there is anyone out there who thinks the lack of a Shutdown option, and having to use only the computer power button to shut down Moblin, is a good idea, I'd love to hear from you, so speak up!

jw 30/6/2009

Although I have been mostly occupied with UNR and Moblin for the past week or two, I have managed to take a little time to look at the new Fedora release. The results have been decidedly mixed.

The first hurdle I had to get over was the installation quirk that I wrote about recently. Once I got that worked out, I was able to install Fedora 11 on both of my notebooks (Fujitsu S6510, Intel, and Fujitsu-Siemens S2110, AMD/ATI), and it works very well. Support for all of the various integrated devices and controllers is just fine, including the ATI display controller, Broadcom and Marvel wired network and Atheros and Intel wireless network. Speed seems good, although I have the feeling that it actually doesn't boot quite as fast as Ubuntu 9.04 - I haven't tried to time it yet to see if this is true, though.

I was also able to install it on the Dual Atom nettop system with no trouble, The performance seems much worse than on the laptops, though. The display in particular seems very sluggish; admittedly, that system only has an Intel 950 display controller, but Fedora is noticeably slower on screen updates and such than any of the other Linux distributions I have loaded on it. Two examples - when the login screen comes up, and I click on my name, it is very noticeably slow in changing the display to the "Password" prompt - I can actually watch most of the screen changes taking place; also, if I leave the system idle until the screen saver comes on, then touch the keyboard or mouse to wake it back up, it takes 5 seconds or more before it finally prompts me for the password. Now, to be fair, this is only an Atom-based system, but as it is a pretty well equipped dual CPU Atom system, I suppose this means that I wouldn't be rushing right out to put Fedora 11 on a netbook...

Which brings me to the last problem. I wasn't able to install it at all on my HP 2133 Mini-Note systems. It boots and starts the installation process just fine, but about halfway through it gets an "unexpected exception", and the installation process crashes. I've tried both the LiveCD and the Installation DVD, and both do the same thing. I've tried a few things to get around it, but I didn't really have much time to spend on it, so I gave up fairly quickly.

So, in summary, if you are a Fedora fan, and you have a more or less "standard" desktop or notebook, you will probably be able to install Fedora 11 without too much trouble, and you're very likely to be happy with the results. But if you have a netbook, with either an Atom or VIA CPU, I don't think you'll have much luck - I certainly didn't.

jw 28/6/2009

Update: After writing this (on Ant under Fedora 11), I let it install all the latest Fedora 11 updates. The display is clearly faster now. It's still not spectacularly fast, but the Intel 950 is not a spectacularly good display chip. It is certainly good enough now, though.

jw

It's been a week since I loaded my neighbor's Eee PC with UNR, and last night I had the chance to talk with her about her experience with it so far. The Reader's Digest version: she loves it. It works, it's does all that she wants (and more), and it's easy to use.

First, and most importantly, she didn't know or care that it was running Ubuntu, or Linux, or Not Windows, or anything else. She has, of course, noticed that the desktop and programs were different from what she has on her "normal" PC, which is running XP. But she was able to understand how to use the Eee PC, from what I had shown her and from discovering on her own (she had tried out Cheese and taken some pictures with the built-in camera, for example).

She has been using Firefox for web browsing, and was likewise not bothered by the differences between it and Internet Explorer, which she had been using on her XP system. She was particularly pleased that the Eee PC is so small and light, and connects quickly and reliably to WiFi, so she is able to use it all through the house, and even outside in the garden.

She also wanted to use Skype, to talk to family and friends in the U.S., but hadn't been able to get it going. I looked at it with her, and after the usual round of test calls and "Can you hear me now?", "Can you see me now?", I got the Skype settings properly adjusted, and it all works. Text chat (of course), audio calls both using the built-in microphone and speakers and using a headset connected to the audio jacks, and video calls using the built-in camera.

I discovered an SD card in the card reader slot, and she said oh yes, she had tried that, and it worked just fine. She has transferred the pictures to the Eee PC with no problem. I am honestly pleased and surprised by the things she has been able to discover and/or figure out on her own with UNR.

The only problems she has had are with the Eee PC hardware itself. The biggest of those is the no-button touchpad. Ugh. It's just awful to try to work with that thing, so she generally uses a USB mouse. The screen is also very small, which occasionally causes a problem when programs open a window that is not scaled properly and ends up being larger than the screen - with critical options or buttons missing off the bottom. I showed her how to Alt-Drag a window to get around that.

So, the first summary is, UNR on her Eee PC is a solid success. If there is such a thing as a "classic" netbook user and situation, she is it. She doesn't want much (at least yet), just web browsing, email, Skype, and basic digital photo manipulation. She wants to use it wherever she happens to be in the house, rather than being tied to her desk. She doesn't want it to crash, hang, ask questions that she doesn't even understand, much less know the answer to, or continually pop up windows informing, warning or asking for confirmation of something (all things that her desktop system has done). It just works, and she doesn't care how or why, or what is "under the hood", as long as it stays that way.

jw 25/6/2009

Yesterday I was working with some PDF documents, and realized that what I actually needed were a couple of pages which were buried in the middle of one multi-page PDF file. Fortunately, some time ago I had needed to do some fancy footwork with PDF files, and a quick look in Synaptic had led me to the excellent pdftk tool. It can split, merge, insert, delete, concatenate... pretty much anything you can think of doing with PDF files. Extracting the pages I needed, and assembling them into a new multi-page PDF, took a grand total of about a minute.

As I have been telling people for over 25 years, we can argue about operating systems until the cows come home, whether it is Unix, Linux, Minix, VMS, RSTS/E, CP/M, DOS, Windows or whatever else. But at the end of the day what sets the best apart from the rest is the variety and power of the tools on them.

jw

I'm going to take a look at the Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 desktop and user interface. My intention is to look from two different perspectives - my own, as a Linux "Pro", and that of my partner, my neighbor, or others who we might consider Linux "Amateurs", often having been Windows users. I think the results might be surprising. I will also include some comments about and comparisons with Moblin 2.0 Beta, based on my previous look at the Moblin Desktop and User Interface.

The UNR desktop is divided into three sections. The left section contains what is essentially the Gnome "Applications" and "System" menus, spread out so that they are immediately visible. For new users, this makes it much more obvious where things are located, and on the small screens of the netbook systems that UNR is intended for, it makes the entire menu system more readable.

The center section of the desktop shows the contents of whatever menu section is selected. Initially after boot or login, that is a new section called "Favorites", which is roughly equivalent to launchers on the Gnome panel. By default this contains obvious things like Firefox, Evolution, Cheese, Pidgin and of course Help.

Clicking on each of the other items in the left column of the desktop brings up its items in the center section - Accessories, Games, Graphics and so on, just like in the standard Gnome menus. Any of the items in the other sections can be added to Favorites by right-clicking on the item and choosing "Add to Favorites". Not as simple or obvious as Moblin, which adds a push-pin when an item is highlighted, which will add that item to Favorites.

Oh, it is worth mentioning at this point that UNR includes an "Office" item, which contains OpenOffice.org, while Moblin does not. I'm not sure whether this is a significant advantage, because on a real netbook, with a small screen and keyboard, you wouldn't expect to use Office applications. But I have learned from experience that a lot of people expect to do so anyway.

The right section of the desktop is essentially the Gnome "Places" menu, again spread out so that it is always present and more easily readable on a small screen. I was a bit put off by this section when I first looked at UNR, because it seemed quite busy and cramped. But of course that is only because I have so many partitions on the disk drive, for multi-booting various Linux distributions, and each partition shows in this list. On a more "normal" UNR installation, there won't be all of those partitions, what will show on the right of the desktop will be only "Home", "Desktop", "Network" at the top, and "Quit" at the bottom. By the way, Moblin doesn't have a "Quit" button anywhere that I could find; you just push the power button to shut the system down. I don't find that to be nearly as "obvious" as the developers of Moblin seem to, and it removes the ability to do other things like restart, susped, log out and such. (Please don't bother to write and tell me that you can do that by opening a terminal window and using "/sbin/shutdown" or whatever - I know it, I do it, but it will be a cold day before I try to explain how to do that to a beginning Linux user.)

The final section of the desktop is the status/system panel across the top of the screen. This is a condensed merge of the upper and lower panels of the standard Ubuntu Gnome desktop. The right side contains a few of the standard utility icons (date/time, volume, power and network) the left side contains a "Show Desktop" icon, and icons for open windows (much reduced from the tabs in the standard Gnome lower panel), and the middle is where the title bar for the currently active window goes when it is maximized (as it always is by default). More on this in a moment.

Ok, so that's the initial desktop layout. From the "Pro" viewpoint, I find it to be a bit cluttered, but I am quite a desktop "minimalist", and I don't put many icons or other such things on my desktop. From the "Amateur" viewpoint, my friends say that they find it to be very clear, and pretty obvious what is where and why - with the exception of the right side "Places" column. They both say that they could do perfectly well without that, or perhaps with only a "Places" item in the left column. I tend to agree.

Ok, so how does it work, or what does it look like in action? First, when you move the mouse over the items in the center section of the desktop (the menu items), their icon will "inflate" slightly to highlight the current item. Click on one of the items, and it will start the application. If your computer is a bit slow, or you pay close attention, you'll see the window open at some "normal" size, and then immediately expands to Maximized. This is apparently another concession to the relatively small screens of the intended target systems. You will also notice that when maximized, the window title bar does not contain the usual buttons for "Minimize" and "Restore" (or "Unmaximize"), it only has the "Close Window" X-button. If you are like me, and are either using a larger screen or just don't like having one window always fill the screen, you can get to the other buttons by right-clicking on the window title bar. Once it has been "Unmaximized", the window title bar contains the usual buttons again.

Once you have opened one or more windows, there will be icons at the top left of the display for each of them. You can move between windows by clicking their icons, or return to the desktop menus by clicking the "Show Desktop" (or "Go Home") button to the left of the window icons. For the "Pro" opinion, I find this desktop management system to be quite good - easy to understand and simple to use. For the "Amateur" opinion, when I asked my friends about it they both gave me a look like "DUH, it's obvious, why are you even asking about it". I find that rather interesting, considering that this is a very different way of working than they were used to with Windows!

Finally, a couple of comments about UNR compared to Moblin. The basic desktop appearance is quite different - UNR has everything spread open, and text labels for each item. Moblin has everything on a panel across the top, with a symbol for each item. I have to say honestly that the relevance of the symbol to the item escapes me and pretty much everyone else I've asked about it. I find desktop management and window selection to be more natural on UNR, but I suppose that is because it is essentially the same as what I am used to. While Moblin takes a very different approach, it might work out better on smaller (and smaller, and smaller...) systems in the future. I still think it is likely to drive experienced Linux users (including me) screaming into the night, though. As for pre-loaded applications and utilities, UNR has a lot more than Moblin, because it has pretty much everything that is in the standard Ubuntu distribution. A lot of that might be of no interest or use to the average netbook user, but I suspect that having useful things like OpenOffice and F-Spot, and lots more fun things like various Games might be a significant advantage. I still don't understand why Moblin doesn't seem to have any kind of email client, unless I am just overlooking it; and while Moblin also has games, there are not nearly as many, and they are lurking under the "Applications" menu, where neither of my friends had stumbled across them yet. I think Moblin would do well to give the Games their own item on the top menu - and just think what fun they could have designing an obscure symbol for it!

jw 25/6/2009