Beryl: an awesome window manager for Linux

I was experimenting with Beryl the past week. And I really like this cutting-edge Window manager for Linux. It's got everything, e.g. transparent menus, 3D cubes, animations when performing actions such as minimizing a window, closing a window, etc., and effects meant purely for show, including a scale effect for open windows, and "raining" patterns on the desktop. For more info on Beryl, head on over to beryl-project.org.

The sample screenshots will give you an idea of what I'm talking about.


Technorati Tags: window managers, linux, beryl window manager

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Updates on the Novell-Microsoft partnership

In a November post on the Novell-Microsoft partnership agreement signed last November 2006, I asked if we will see a slew of court cases from Microsoft against various Linux vendors. So far, that hasn't happened yet. I hope it will never come to pass. So, as of this time, nothing negative has arisen from the Novell-Microsoft pact.

On the positive side, the unlikely partners are working on making virtualization of Windows and SLES on each other's platforms a reality. In a Jan. 31 post on Port 25, Microsoft's Sam Ramji wrote that the companies are looking for technical people to work on a Joint Interoperability Lab focusing on "interoperable virtualization between Windows and SLES (Suse Linux Enterprise Server)."

Just this past week, the two companies announced more details of their technical collaboration plans. Aside from virtualization, web services-based management tools for Linux and Windows, directory and identity interoperability between Novell's eDirectory and Microsoft's Active Directory, and compatibility between OpenOffice.org's OpenDocument and Microsoft's Open XML document formats were identified as the areas where the two companies will focus on.

Since November, Novell's stock price has been up 8.13% and Microsoft down 2.7. Although we can't attribute the behavior of the stocks to the pact alone, it would seem that Novell has benefited more from it than Microsoft, if we go by stock price alone.

On the other hand, Novell competitor RedHat's stock has been up 36.82% for the same period. Again, although it seems that Novell may have benefited from the pact, negative impact on the stock price of RedHat, still the leading supplier of Linux servers, has been virtually nonexistent.

In December 2006, eweek reported that some 16,000 of the 70,000 SUSE licenses that Novell gave Microsoft for distribution to the latter's customers under the pact have been scooped up by clients such as Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG. This is the main reason for the Buy recommendation issued by independent institutional investment bank First Albany Corp. on Novell shares. A Buy recommendation means that the stock may have a potential return of 10-20 percent.

From the above, and true to prediction, Novell is benefiting from the deal. If positive things keep happening, the protests over the pact might eventually go away. It will be the customers, whether Microsoft's or Novell's, that will ultimately benefit. Whether the rest of the Linux and the open source community will also benefit is doubtful. But so long as it doesn't set back the open source movement, the pact might eventually be accepted, albeit grudgingly.

Technorati Tags: Novell, Microsoft, Linux, Windows

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Linux: What's not to like?

It's been a while since my last post. With my busy schedule, the last months of 2006 were a blur. Christmas came and the New Year passed. Feeling burnt out, I found myself quitting my job right at the beginning of the year.

As part of the changes in my life, I also decided to end my dual-booting days, and to start using solely Linux on one of my home PCs. I reformatted the old HD, had Ubuntu up and running in a day (or night, as I have to work in the wee hours of the morning, when the kids are asleep. My two sons can be quite a handful at times).

Again, I found it a breeze to install Ubuntu. I didn't encounter any problems related to the OS not recognizing my hardware. Upgrading from the 6.6 Dapper Drake version to the current 6.10 Edgy Eft was also straightforward, requiring just a few line changes in the apt source list before I could download the 500+MB needed for the version upgrade. With EasyUbuntu and Automatix, installing other applications in Ubuntu even became easier than I could remember.

With Windows XP, I remember that I had to shut down after installation, open up the case, physically remove my sound card, restart the box, shut down, insert the sound card again into the slot, then restart again, before I could get any sound from my speakers.

Before I went Linux's way, I mulled over in my mind the benefits of upgrading to Windows Vista, which officially became available last Jan. 31, but common sense (money, or the lack of it) dictated that I take the more practical route. Moreover, Vista will require an upgrade to the PC I just acquired last year, never mind my other older, but recently upgraded, desktop. Being the tightwad that I am, I won't spend anything on hardware, even if I had the money. Reading a recent eweek article comparing Ubuntu (and OpenSuse) with Vista was the clincher, and I decided not to dally anymore.

I could've chosen to dual-boot again, but I'm just so tired of dodging the Microsoft bullet that I decided not to go that way again. I'm glad I did. In the week since, I've never seen a crash, I've installed Netbeans and MonoDevelop, and have experimented with the GIMP and Scribus. Whether I can live in a Windows-less world, I've yet to see, but from the looks of it, I think I can. As for my other PC, it will be on Ubuntu in a week or two, once I find the time.

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