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For the first time since I've been using Linux (for about 8 years now) I feel 100% comfortable with a distribution, and that is Ubuntu Dapper Drake. I've used Mandrake and Red Hat initially, and SuSE, Debian and the previous Ubuntu in more recent times.

I am a spoiled power user

I have to say that I consider my self a power user, not afraid of the CLI but very thankful of aiding graphical interfaces for some tasks. I prefer Gnome-Baker or K3b over cdrecord, for instance. But I also prefer to get my hands dirty with Perl to automate boring repetitive tasks, and I even enjoy reading man pages. I am no newbie Windows-like user, but I could use some visual aid.

Therefore Windows gets too stupid-proof for me, without even actually being stupid-proof in the end. Linux, on the other hand, was always a powerful tool. It always allowed you to go under the hood to see what was going on, and was also slowly creating an environment for those not willing to go there so often. But there was always something wrong. And I am talking beyond hardware support.

Broken expectations

In SuSE 10, for instance, USB sticks were automatically detected, but the unmount feature when right-clicking it showed some error stating that only root was allowed to do that. And this was the best experience I have always had with flash memory sticks in Linux.

Ubuntu to the rescue

I never really dumped Linux for these minor annoyances, but I always found my self needing Windows every once in a while. And I was never really able to fully convince my point-and-click relatives and friends that they were going to feel comfortable with Linux.

Ubuntu Breezy was like the promised land but it fell short of being it. The RootSudo thing (rightfully praised as wonderful and intuitive) never worked for me, don't ask me why. But the rest of it seemed tasty and I expected the next release with anxiety.

And waiting gave the expected results

Ubuntu Dapper Drake 6.06 LTS answered many questions and covered nearly every expectation I had. Everything worked seamlessly and I can even recommend it without having to bring myself to ease the installation process, because installation is the easiest and seamlessly I've ever tasted ever, not only with Linux. Who said Windows was an easy install?

Ubuntu starts as a Live CD, so you can taste it before you embrace it. Once on the desktop and you'll love it. Gnome 2.14 comes out shining from end to end. The Human theme makes XP's Luna and KDE's Plastik look like amateur.

The initial and reduced set of applications pre-installed is very well chosen and covers a great spectrum of most common tasks. Gimp for graphics manipulation; OpenOffice.org as the office suite; gedit for simple text editing; Rythmbox, Serpentine and the Sound Juicer on the media side, Firefox for web browsing and Evolution as the mail client, are all excellent choices.

And a simple icon on the Live CD desktop triggers the installation process. You may need to make room for Ubuntu in your hard drive, and this might be the hardest part, but not that hard. Gparted is also available at this stage so you can comfortably resize some windows partition graphically without loosing your data (although backing up some data is not a bad idea though). I expect them to incorporate the partitioning stage of installation into the wizard for the next Ubuntu release.

Up and running!


Once installed, the RootSudo thing work and the available set of applications is enormous, provided you enable the proper software repositories. The documentation in this respect is wonderful, so an in-depth coverage of the details here is not necessary.

(Here you have another great source of information about Dapper Drake.)

I just have to say that Ubuntu 6.06 is amazing and you should give it a try. In the true Linux and Debian spirit, Ubuntu is freely available (both as in beer and as in speech), downloadable directly from the web or obtainable by ordering free installation CDs.

I was coincidentally writing yesterday about my expectations on the Opera Web Browser and particularly on its next version yet to come. And today Opera Software has started a very original and promising initiative called Opera Labs. There are no better words to describe it than Opera's own words.

[...]a behind-the-scenes look at the latest technology and products from Opera Software.

And guess what's the first look that we get from behind-the-scenes: the latest tech preview of the upcoming Opera 9. It offers some new features, such as Bittorent support, Widgets and minor UI improvements.

Among other highlights from this new site is the web standards page, which gives a brief but useful speech about what are web standards, why are they so important today and how can they help us in the future.

Opera Software is committed to a standards-based web. This is important because it allows tools to be developed to work with the web in new contexts, something Opera does often. Working with other browser developers, content producers, user groups, researchers, and others allows everyone to look at the new ideas coming up, make sure that they will work across the entire web, and produce a specification that anyone can implement. This is the fundamental reason Opera is a member of W3C, and further sponsors W3C activity in important areas.

In spite of everything being said on the web, about Firefox, IE or whatever, Opera is still the most innovative web browser, and the most innovative web product available.

This is of course, my humble opinion. You may freely and respectfully disagree.



PS: I haven't verified it yet, but I swear that Opera 8.5 was worse in the Acid2 Test. Opera 9 renders it almost like the reference rendering.

I always wondered what is really better for the user. On one hand, Apple computers have always managed to provide a great user experience (as most Apple users say) with just a single mouse button. I am too tied to the concept of a right-click that I don't know what to think (not to mention the mouse wheel).

But can you imagine a computer user interface without mouse clicks at all? Well some guys were dare enough to even think of it, but not just think. They have a complete web site devoted to the idea of eliminating the need for mouse clicks from computer interfaces (or at least from web interfaces). And of course, if you do click on that link and visit the site, you will only have to click only once more to confirm your entrance. So after that, keep your fingers out of those buttons, and discover for your self what is this about.

I borrowed the title of this post from Frederico Oliveira's WeBreakStuff weblog. He recently posted a great and concise piece of text about user-centered designs (the main subject of his blog).

Users have little time on their hands. That’s why there’s news aggregators and we’re beyond clicking bookmarks and browsing sites for news. That’s why there’s search and not content directories. That’s why there’s projects being successful, and projects failing.

That's only an excerpt. Go on and read it yourself, and take a look at the first comment, which is the real body of this post.