Linux Cookbook

Linux Toys

Linux Devices is a great website for news about new things that run Linux; unfortunately, it's less great if you're actually looking for links to those great new toys.

But they recently posted an article: Open source, Lego-like computer modules run Linux about this really cool new toy thing that's not available yet (yeah, that's another thing you can read a lot about on Linux Devices). But then I Googled the company name to see if I could find more, and I did!

Check out Bug Labs. They aren't shipping their BUG platform products yet, but they do claim they will ship in Q4 2007, which has got to be soon. And it sounds really cool:

BUG is a collection of easy-to-use, open source hardware modules, each capable of producing one or more Web services. These modules snap together physically and the services connect together logically to enable users to easily build, program and share innovative devices and applications. With BUG, we don't define the final products - you do.

So far, the product line consists of the base, as well as hardware modules for GPS, digital camera/videocam, color LCD touchscreen, and accelerometer/motion sensor. I don't know what this stuff is likely to cost, nor do I want to know (at least not yet) if only because my guess is it'll be priced too high.

What's too high? Well, for what is essentially a plastic toy with a computer inside, I'd want to pay less than I would pay for a full-sized desktop computer (and I've heard that Walmart's started selling Linux boxes for $200). OLPC, originally intended to cost $100 is coming in at about $200. And you can get the Asus Eee micro-laptop for $400. So, for me, the right price would be under $200 for the platform plus enough at least one plug-in module. My guess is that the actual price will be closer to $400 for the base platform unit, and the add-in modules running anywhere from $100-300 each.

Oh well, time will tell. This would make a killer holiday gift for the geek and his/her spawn.

Miro: Open Source TV/Video Player

Miro is the new name for the old Democracy Player, now that it's ready for prime-time with a 1.0 release. It's a "free, open source internet tv and video player", and about time, too. Finally, you should be able to watch just about any video content--Quicktime, WMV, MPI, MPEG, XVID, and more--on a free and open source player--on Windows, Mac, and yes, Linux.

Now, if only the hardware manufacturers would get busy producing computers compact and quiet enough to go in the living room, we'll be able to make some awesome home video player applications.

Compiz Fusion Hotness, Vista Aero Not-ness

Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) may not be necessary for personal computing, but they sure have made it much more accessible and easy. You can get an idea of how the GUI has evolved over the past decades here, Windows Evolution. From 1.0 to Vista. Maybe you think Vista Aero is pretty cool. If not, you can get an idea of Microsoft's concept for the future here, MSNBC: Microsoft unveils table top computer.

But if you're interested in some seriously cool GUI action, check out the Compiz project (see also OpenCompositing for more about the now-discontinued Beryl fork of the Compiz project).

You can see beaucoup demos of Compiz on Youtube, but you should really check out this side-by-side demo of Vista vs Compiz to get an idea of which one really rocks. And remember, you have to get Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, or Ultimate to get Aero.

Here's a quickie how-to from OS Novice, "How to Install Compiz Fusion", that should be enough to get started. I haven't yet tried it yet myself, and suspect that it takes a bit more tweaking under the hood than I'm prepared to do right now. But I will point to any additional tutorials/how-to's I find as time goes on. Eventually, I expect Compiz will be added to mainstream Linux distributions, so the tweaking won't be necessary.

More Ubuntu-related applications

Here's a nice little list of notable but not widely noted applications for Ubuntu from the nice/new Little Ubuntu blog/website.

Wine is Not an Emulator, nor is it a panacea

If you're still running Windows, you probably have at least one critical application that doesn't run anywhere but Windows. There are still a few pieces of proprietary software whose function can't quite be duplicated yet under LInux, after all.

You could just throw your hands up in the air and yell, "I'm stuck with Windows!" Or, you could try Wine, "a compatibility layer for running Windows programs." Wine is not a Windows emulator, though: it doesn't reverse engineer Windows, but rather acts as a compatibility layer that implements the Windows API so software written to run on Windows can (sometimes) also run on Wine.

My one success with Wine is, oddly, not really about Wine: Google's Picasa photo organizer was made available for Linux not by porting all the code, but rather by encapsulating the Windows version inside a sort of run-time verion of Wine. The whole thing installs just like any other Linux application, but it's actually running inside Wine--without the user having to do anything special.

Now, Wine has been around practically forever (since 1993), but even Wine developers still the most recent release (0.9.40) "not yet suitable for general use", which is unfortunate if the Windows application you want to run doesn't cooperate with Wine.

You can get more information from the WineHQ website, including downloads and a database of applications that work with Wine. There's also Frank's Corner, an independent website with pointers and tips for running Wine successfully. Also, there are two commercial versions of Wine:

• CrossOver Linux from CodeWeavers for running office productivity apps including Microsoft Office and Intuit Quicken/Quickbooks.
• Cedega from Transgaming, for running popular Windows-based games under Linux.

Personally, the only Windows-only software that I ever need to run are programs for my kids: things like iTunes, or software to load updates onto my kids' gaming consoles. So far, I haven't had any luck with those programs in Wine, but I live in hope that someday either the vendors will take a page from Google's playbook and ante up to encapsulate their code a la Picasa--or that Wine will eventually be able to execute that code more easily.