2008-03-27

I’ve been working on Ubuntu Eee 8.04 beta as promised. It doesn’t build correctly yet though.

In Gutsy news: It’s been reported that wifi isn’t working on the Eee even after installing the Ubuntu Eee script. My guess it that Ubuntu Gutsy have gotten a kernel update and that it has broken the script. It would be great if anyone took it upon them selfs to fix this. I’m working on setting up a git server so that others can help out with the code more easily.

The contributions to Ubuntu Eee hasn’t been overwhelming, but almost 50 000 people have gotten help from us. To try to get more momentum into Ubuntu Eee, I will open four groups:

• Artists - responsible for how Ubuntu Eee looks
• Coders - responsible for the code for both Ubuntu Eee and the Ubuntu Eee script (which will merge)
• Editors - responsible for keeping the homepage / wiki up to date and looking good
• Maintainers - will keep everything running smoothly. That is upgrading the wiki system, fixing the git server, setting up new modoules etc.

Please feel free to join one of the groups!

2008-03-12

Work is being put into running Ubuntu 8.04 (hardy) on the Eee. The new Ubuntu version’s beta is released in 8 days. I will probably get an Ubuntu Eee 8.04 beta out based on that release. One problem is that the wifi adapter still isn’t supported by the drivers that comes with Ubuntu. It would be great if it was, but it seems we will have to compile our own driver. The ideas for Ubuntu Eee 8.04 are now:

• It’s based on Ubuntu 8.04
• It has the Ubuntu Eee scripts installed
• Every piece of hardware will be working
• Installed by default: Picasa (instead of F-spot), Skype (instead of Ekiga), Avant-window-navigator, Wine, Flash, Java and codecs
• Changes in default appearance: glossy theme (blue), glossy top panel, background, nuoveXT icons

In other news, I’ve written some Ubuntu tips and tricks on my blog http://blog.jonramvi.no

2008-02-10

I might wait for the Ubuntu 8.04 release to release a stable Ubuntu Eee. Meaning it’s two months left :)

2008-01-09

Change in plans. Ubuntu Eee will be the standard Ubuntu Gutsy livecd with two main changes:

• New custom made kernel and all that comes with it to make Ubuntu work on the Eee
• Changes in look, feel and applications. Some new, some lost.

I’ve made a “mockup” (it’s how I have it now):

2008-01-07

I’ve been working on making a Ubuntu distribution, instead of just a script. The goal is that it’s extremely easy and just works, so that people who got their first computer can get Ubuntu on it. This version will not focus on being open. It will focus on just working - in the best possible way. This means:

• The iso is minibuntu with additions, not a reduced ubuntu
• Google Picasa instead of F-spot for images
• Amarok instead of Rhytmbox for music
• Optimized Firefox 3 for the Celeron M processor (Swiftfox - made from Firefox 3 beta 2)
• Skype 2 instead of Ekiga
• Codecs, flash and java out of the box

March 27th, 2008 | Ubuntu Eee | No comments

One of the advantages Ubuntu /Linux has over OS X is that it’s possible to run Windows applications. (DMXell: ‘Ever heard of Darwine? … you look like a noob.’ To tell you the truth; no, I haven’t actually. And I don’t want to look like a noob now, do I?) With Wine, Linux users are able to run thousands of Windows games and applications.

Wine is one of the fastest developed open source applications. A new Wine version is released every two weeks. Not only can you run World of Warcraft, but new and heavy games like Call of Duty 4 are also supported. One application that users have been wanting to run on Linux for several years is Adobe Photoshop. We’ve been doomed to use version 8 until recently. Google is helping out with the development to have Photoshop CS3 supported. As for now, Photoshop CS2 runs without any problems.

Here I’m running Dreamweaver 8 and Photoshop CS2 on Ubuntu. No tweaking or hacking needed. Just double clicked the exe files

However, a couple of hours ago Louis Lenders managed to install and run Adobe Photoshop CS3. He used the latest available source of wine (from git) which will be released in under two weeks as wine version 0.9.57 0.9.58.

As you can see the GUI is not correctly rendered yet

Give it a couple of weeks, and you can run your precious Adobe applications on Ubuntu / Linux
UPDATE: I’m getting a lot of traffic from digg.com (G’day diggers!), so I’m glad Wordpress is hosting my blog.
To all you OS X fan boys: this isn’t a “Linux is better than Leopard and Vista combined and pwns the world!!1″-post. I know OS X can run Adobe applications. They were made for OS X in the first place. This is just a post with the latest status on running Photoshop CS3 using Wine.

March 11th, 2008 | Other | 72 comments