Is Linux finally ready for the Desktop takeover?

By attacking from the bottom, where Microsoft can no longer successfully compete, Linux will finally cut itself a large slice of the desktop

By Muhammad Fahd Waseem

Everyone with even a minor experience in computers knows what Linux is? It is a remarkably complete operating system and is one of the most prominent examples of free software and open source development. It has, in fact, more than one beautiful ëDesktop Environmentí (DE) available, that gives it the point and click capabilities that one expects from a graphical operating system. Actually, Linux is just a 'kernel' (a core base) around which the operating system (OS) is built. This means that, unlike the popular Microsoft Windows OS, there is no single distributor of Linux. Many companies and developers use it to build operating systems known as 'distros' (short for 'distributions'). Spearing a thrust that aims to make Linux available to the average end user are the major distros. So why would the common home user choose one of these distros over the much more common Microsoft Windows (and Mac OS, which is itself a close relative of Linux)? One of the major reasons would be that Linux is Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). This means that the full software is not only available for free, but the code used to make the OS is also openly available to everyone to view and modify. This translates into unbelievable stability and security: no more crashes, hang-ups, or viral threats. Linux is faster than Windows, more adaptable, and highly customisable.

It was always that much. These are the reasons large and powerful companies like Google, Yahoo, IBM and others adopted it. These are the reasons nearly all higher end network servers are run on Linux. But these reasons are not enough to entice the average user to start using Linux.

The clinching point now is the manner in which the Linux DEs and Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) have evolved. They are in no way lesser than their Windows or Mac cousins. They are fully functional, powerful, intuitive, and to top it all off, can be stunningly stylish. They can mimic the behaviour of the Windows OS, or work in absolutely unique ways. Gone are the days when the command line text was necessary to use. Even the installation procedure, once the most intimidating part of the Linux experience, is now so easy, that the Windows installation seems downright complex by comparison.

That would mean the Linux is finally ready to take over the average Desktop. A very recent adoption of Ubuntu by the French National Assembly is an indicator of how things are going. After the phase over, the politicians are unanimous in their opinion of how much better the new system is.

However, one is tempted to ask, "if I'm paying big money for something (Windows, Mac OS), there must be a reason." And there is. Unless you get a commercial version of Linux (which indeed is available), you do not get any official support, even though there is plenty of community support available. Moreover, everything ñ from Microsoft Office to professional development tools to graphical software to web browsers to media players ñ has its fully functional (and often even more powerful) equivalent in Linux, yet the fact remains that most of the Windows software you are familiar with will not run in Linux.

But the biggest obstacle in large scale common Linux adoption is the hesitation in getting used to an entirely new way of thinking. Not much in Linux works in the same way as Windows. You do not double-click an executable to install something, you use a package manager. You do not have a C: and a D: drive, you have a structured filing system. Softwares do not usually come on a CD or DVD, you usually download them from online 'repositories'. Window management is spread across 'workspaces'. Not that the Linux Desktop is difficult to use, it's just different.

In the end it comes to down to how ready the common user is to accept something new. Those who manage to get a Linux system up and running never look back. The now legendary unreliability and clumsiness of Windows is just a reason to change over. Also note that most distros can be easily installed alongside Windows in 'dual-boot' configuration ñ Linux is perfectly happy with that. You can get a 'LiveCD' and actually try out the OS without even touching your hard disk.

Linux is ready to take over the Desktop ñ of that, there is no doubt. The ever increasing number of users adopting Linux is testament to that. Whether it can complete the takeover, is something only time will tell.

The record effect

How technology has transformed the sound of music?

Music has achieved onrushing omnipresence in our world, millions of hours of its history are available on disk and rivers of digital melody flow on the internet but several years ago it was said that recordings would lead to the demise of music

Ninety nine years ago, John Philip Sousa, an American entertainer and composer predicted that recordings would lead to the demise of music. The phonograph, he warned, would erode the finer instincts of the ear, end amateur playing and singing, and put professional musicians out of work. ìThe time is coming when no one will be ready to submit himself to the ennobling discipline of learning music,î he wrote. ìEveryone will have their ready made or ready pirated music in their cupboards.î Something is irretrievably lost when we are no longer in the presence of bodies making music, John said.

Before you dismiss Sousa as a nutty old codger, you might ponder how much has changed in the past hundred years. Music has achieved onrushing omnipresence in our world, millions of hours of its history are available on disk and rivers of digital melody flow on the internet, MP3 players with ten thousand songs can be tucked in a back pocket or a purse as well. Yet, for most of us, music is no longer something we do ourselves, or even watch other people doing in front of us. It has become a radically virtual medium, an art without a face. In the future, Sousaís ghost might say, reproduction will replace production entirely. Ever since Edison introduced the wax cylinder, in 1877, people have been trying to figure out what recording has done for and to the art of music. Inevitably, the conversation has veered toward rhetorical extremes. Sousa was a pioneering spokesman for the party of doom, which was later filled out by various post Marxist theorists. In the opposite corner are the technological utopians, who said that recording has not imprisoned music but liberated it, brought the art of the elite to the masses and the art of the margins to the centre. Before Edison came along, the utopians used to say that, Beethovenís symphonies could be heard only in select concert halls. Now CDs carry the man from Bonn to the corners of the earth, summoning forth the million souls he hoped to embrace in his ìOde to Joy.î Conversely, recordings gave the likes of Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, and James Brown the chance to occupy a global platform that Sousaís idyllic old America, racist to the core, had denied them. The fact that their records played a crucial role in the advancement of African-American civil rights that put in proper perspective the aesthetic debate about whether or not technology has been ìgoodî for music.

ìModern urban environments are often so chaotic, soulless, or ugly that Iím grateful for the humanising touch of electronics. But I want to be aware of technologyís effects, positive and negative. For music to remain vital, recordings have to exist in balance with live performance, and, these days, live performance is by far the smaller part of the equation. Perhaps we tell ourselves that we listen to CDs in order to get to know the music better, or to supplement what we get from concerts and shows. But, honestly, a lot of us donít go to hear live music that often. Work leaves us depleted, tickets are too expensive, concert halls are stultifying and rock clubs are full of kids who make us feel ancient. So itís just so much easier to curl up in the comfy chair with a Beethoven quartet or Billie Holiday. But would Beethoven or Billie ever have existed if people had always listened to music the way we listen now? The machine is neither a god nor a devil,î the German music critic Hans Stuckenschmidt wrote in 1926, in an essay on the mechanisation of music.

That eminently reasonable sentiment appears as an epigraph to Mark Katzís ìCapturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Musicî. Although Katz believes that machines have profoundly affected how music is played and heard, he discourages a monolithic, deterministic idea of their impact. Ultimately, he says, the technology reflects whatever musical culture is exploiting it. The machine is a mirror of our needs and fears.

The principal irony of phonograph history is that the machine was not invented with music in mind. Edison conceived of his cylinder as a tool for business communication. It would replace the costly, imperfect practice of stenography, and would have the added virtue of preserving in perpetuity the voices of the deceased. In an 1878 essay, Edison (or his ghost-writer) proclaimed portentously that his invention would ìannihilate time and space, and bottle up for posterity the mere utterance of man.î Annihilation is, of course, an ambiguous figure of speech. Recording broke down barriers between cultures, but it also placed more archaic musical forms in danger of extinction.

--www.newyorker.com

Ncomputing to revolutionise personal computing

Efforts have been made to introduce a technology that can help lower desktop computing costs, improves manageability, and reduces both energy consumption and e-waste. Ncomputing is redefining the business economics by revolutionising the public access to computer and as many as 600,000 systems are deployed by 15,000 organisations in 70 countries worldwide

By our correspondent

Ncomputing, a privately held virtualisation software and hardware company, is redefining the business economics by revolutionising the public access to computers. The company has introduced a technology that can help lower desktop computing costs, improves manageability, and reduces both energy consumption and e-waste.

The technology has brought a revolution in accessibility by providing maximum access in minimum cost. The unused capacity of the PC will be utilised in such a manner that it will be simultaneously used by the multiple users. Each user's monitor, keyboard, and mouse connect to the shared PC through a small and very durable N-Computing access device. As the access device has no CPU, memory or moving parts like a PC, itís rugged, durable, and easy to deploy and maintain.

The advantages of Ncomputing are numerous. It not only cut PC acquisition costs by 60 percent but also dramatically reduce IT complexity. The technology helps in lowering electrical consumption by 90 percent and minimizes risk of theft. It has ability to increase security from computer viruses. In schools, libraries, conference centres and Internet cafes, it is providing a unique opportunity of maximum access to the technological voyage at the minimum cost. As many as 600,000 Ncomputing systems are deployed by 15,000 organisations in 70 countries worldwide. This technology further announced special discounts and programmes to help NGOs in every continent to reach their goals for digital inclusion in emerging markets. The impact from NGO-NComputing projects is being felt throughout the world. NComputing and BRAC (the largest NGO in the world) recently collaborated with AMD in Bangladesh. Working together, the three organisations deployed learning labs to empower people all over the world. ìThe Computer for Every Studentî programme will have a profound effect on how lessons are being taught. All science, maths, biology, and chemistry classes will include some online component,

TECHNOTALK
Military use of robots increases

Robots in the military are no longer the stuff of science fiction. They have left the movie screen and entered the battlefield. Washington University in St. Louis's Doug Few and Bill Smart are on the cutting edge of this new wave of technology. Military wants to have army comprised of robotic forces by approximately 2020. Of course, they aren't envisioning robotic soldiers from movies like "Star Wars" and "I, Robot".

"When the military says 'robot' they mean everything from self-driving trucks up to what you would conventionally think of as a robot. You would more accurately call them autonomous systems rather than robots," says Smart, Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Engineering. While movies display robots as intelligent beings, Smart and his colleagues aren't necessarily looking for intelligent decision-making in their robots. Instead, they are working to develop an improved, "intelligent" functioning of the robot.

Superfluid-superconductor
relationship detailed

Scientists have studied superconductors and superfluids for decades. Now, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have drawn the first detailed picture of the way a superfluid influences the behaviour of a superconductor. In addition to describing previously unknown superconductor behaviour, these calculations could change scientists' understanding of the motion of neutron stars.

A neutron star, the high-density remnant of a former massive star, is thought to contain both a neutron superfluid and a proton superconductor at its core. Despite widespread agreement that neutron stars contain both materials, superfluid-superconductors have not been widely studied. "Not many people have thought seriously about the interactions between a superfluid and a superconductor that coexists like this," said Mark Alford, associate professor of physics, "they tended to treat the two components separately."