Shane Fagan » Banshee

Software that I use that are not in the default install of ubuntu

Shane — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:33:41 +0000

Here is a load of software that I use a lot but that are not in the default install of ubuntu.

gwibber
I love gwibber I post to twitter, identica and facebook all at once which is nice.

gnome-blog
Ok this isnt the greatest program but it posts to wordpress with no trouble. Id love a save draft feature but other than that its nice and simple.

banshee
I use banshee for my music because it looks good and the iPod sync is really handy. Needs more features but its good all around.

icecast
Its nice to not have to carry around your music library around. A nice private internet radio station.

wine
Its kind of a dependency if you want to play mainstream games.

What software do you guys use that isn’t included by default?

YAMP (Yet another Mono post) please end the debate

Shane — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:36:48 +0000

I just want to throw my size 10 and a half boot in on the whole Mono controversy.
First one link that some may have not seen
http://www.microsoft.com/interop/cp/default.mspx.
The community promise is legally binding. All that it contains is a promise that you can do whatever the hell you like with anything under it. If you sue Microsoft for anything you wont have a leg to stand on because they own the patent and they dont “sudo apt-get autoremove mono-common” claim anything for use of the patent. Its quite simple, use mono if you want if you don’t “sudo apt-get autoremove mono-common”.
F-Spot and Tomboy are already in Ubuntu and there isnt too many programs like them. F-Spot is just a simple picture editing, an import program and its good apart from a few bugs but nothings perfect. I dont really use Tomboy. I use Banshee as my default media player and I find it quite good too because I hate having to use two different programs simply. Its not a bad media player though missing some functionality but its new enough so that will come with time. Its a step towards having something along the same lines as ITunes or Windows Media player.
We should judge programs on how good they are and not what technology they are built using. So no more of this mono hating its been beaten to death. If there was a patent question I would be against it but its not so I say why not?
The main argument against it is that its Microsoft technology so its bad, well Mono is free software it just is a compatibility thing. Businesses find it hard if they have in house software written using C# or other Microsoft technologies and Mono allows them to switch. Argument 2 is that its helping promote Microsoft technology and it kinda does but silverlight isnt used too much outside of the Microsoft sites and there is no real reason to use it with all the other technologies available. So adding moonlight functionality is similar to supporting MP3s and WMA media formats in my opinion but we can enable it by default if we wish. It just allows us to access the sites and that is a good thing. I dont see the patent question as an issue any more so I dont accept it as an argument.
So its controversial but we have to accept it end the debate and if you have a problem make a better program to replace the Mono ones and ask for it to be included instead if you want.
We should be embracing good software because Free Software is about FREEDOM so we shouldnt have such a barrier to anything free and Mono is (Its under GPL).
Barriers are what the proprietary world uses.

Regards
Shane_Fagan

My views on KDE and Gnome

Shane — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:32:39 +0000

I am a Gnome guy I have always been but I have to say I recently started being annoyed by a few little things. I looked at KDE the one in the karmic repo I dont have a clue what version they are on now and im quite surprised. I had tried out KDE back in ubuntu 8.04 and I was very disappointed but everything that I hated has been changed since then more or less. The fact of the matter is that KDE has what Gnome doesnt which is good applications all around and a good looking UI. Gnome-panel looks bad but they are doing something about it.

There is no excuse for the bad choice of media players Rhythmbox and Totem are ugly and dont hold a candle to any other program that competes with them. Banshee, Songbird, Amarok, etc and the proprietary ones in other operating systems Windows media player and itunes all put Rhythmbox and Totem to shame. The one thing that Totem has is the browser plugin but that will be not needed when the tag comes into Firefox (3.5 which is going to be included in ubuntu 9.10 I hear). Evolution is also very bad too.

Then for Ubuntu and Debian related nonsense you have two ways to install programs add/remove and synaptic, as well as an update manager and software sources managers couldnt we integrate all them into one big program? KDE has this cool thing also that notifies of tasks to do and suggests installing of packages etc which is very nice. The KDE desktop is very tidy and has nice applications (Widgets) running for your convenience that are very flexible so they can be used by a wide array of people in different ways Gnome doesnt have anything to this effect and thats a real shame. Of course KDE looks better than Gnome but again with Gnome 3.0 that will be about even.

It weird because gnome is the default for many distros probably more than KDE but still it seems like many UI problems and inconsistencies are still in Gnome. We need to be creative and collaborative and revamp the lot. Some days the Free software community seems to be too big for its own good, too much talk (or too little in a lot of cases) not enough definitive decisions. Gnome needs a direction, KDE has one and they have the strength to push towards that and that is the main difference between KDE and Gnome in my opinion. Canonical, Red Hat, Novell etc anyone who has an interest in Gnome seems to have a direction that they want it to go and thats good but it seems like they are all going in different directions (and interestingly all use different programming languages). Its good to see such interesting developments but each cook makes his or her chicken soup differently and that is a problem that leads to inconsistency.

So in short KDE is number 1 I think at the moment in terms of UI and consistency, but I am still exited about the future of Gnome as long as they make a consistent user experience and put in the best applications for the users sake.

Follow up on my gnome 3.0 post

Shane — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:36:28 +0000

I can mark a few of my points as done or at least being done as we speak.
If they replace rhythmbox and totem with banshee it would fix my point about having a unified media player like itunes or windows media player.
Gnome-Zeitgeist has file tags and makes it easier to access applications etc.
Shaking up the desktop look and feel is being tackled on a few fronts by gnome-shell and by ubuntu in recent releases.
Gnome-shell also uses multiple desktops to good effect.
My two other points aren’t being done. Id say that maybe my point about web services integration is a little ahead of its time but I think it would be good to look into. Evolution on the other hand is a nightmare in UI terms and we really should make an effort to make it better.