Why I don't like Unity [Ubuntu]

Well people have written pages long posts about the pros and cons of Unity, the Shuttleworth born Ubuntu GUI which replaced classic Gnome. People like it, I admit. People use it, love it but the case is that I do not like it. I was never comfortable with Unity and I, sorry to say, had to quit Ubuntu due to this Unity thing. I am an occasional user of Linux, but I used to have 1 Linux system standby with Windows one. For a long time, I've never tried to install Ubuntu. On every new version I download and write the CD, boot and see how desktop looks like and then reject it. Thanks to Linux Mint somehow I've a reasonable desktop. But I do not like it either, the hybrid nature of this distro, half Ubuntu half customisation often look distasteful to me. I DO NOT like Unity. Because: (a few points only :-) )

• It thinks that every person in the world is left handed.
• It changes the routine and standard desktop usage. I can't go every time on left to close or open a window. I've built a habit to have close, min, max button on right side for 10 years now. Its hard to break the habit.
• It thinks that everyone is a Mac user. By God I've never seed a Mac running system in my whole life (well, a iPad 2.0 is another thing I happened to see one ;-) )
• The launcher is pathetic when it comes to customization. For God sake give some room, give some choice, everyone does not want that God Damn launcher on left side.
• It was meant for netbooks and now Ubuntu is promoting this "thing" as Microsoft is promoting new version of Windows, the 8th one. These hours could be used to enhance kernel integration, driver development and for Gnome enhancements. Even if they had created customization options, perhaps it could be acceptable.

Well little bit emotional. :-/. But I really don't like Unity. I hope in next version there is an option to revert back to classical Gnome, or I am switching to KDE even if it is not well supported. :-(

Qt Gets Multitouch Support

Qt is one of the very first things I encountered in Linux and Open Source world. I was very fond of KDE 3.x.x and the mother of KDE was Qt, a GUI tool kit which was used to develop KDE and its applications. I always liked the light white and blue interface of KDE as compared to brownish one of Gnome. Then after the release of the adventurous KDE 4, I had to move to a stable desktop environment, Gnome. But KDE is still my love. I always try to use KDE whenever possible. Actually once I tried to develop for KDE as well, of course through Qt. I was looking for some way to develop C# applications using Qt, but since then I am unable to get it done. There is a way (Qyoto) to build applications using Qt and C# but this is not for beginners. A person like me would like to have a GUI designer as there is one in Mono Develop for GTK#, and a very good easy to use IDE to write the applications, and also the documentation to get help. But all these things are still not available in case of Qyoto. It is a good potential project, but still it is not usable for persons like me.
So that was the history of my love regarding Qt and KDE Qt was bought by Nokia a few years back and now it is being developed by Nokia in their own way, to make it fit for smarphones and other such devices. Qt was once dual licensed but now it is released under LGPL and code can be accessed more easily. The news which let me write this post was this one actually. Qt gets multitouch support, means it is now more easy to develop applications for hand held devices. Additionally Qt's software model would be changed to a more modular nature in coming days.

The Rise of Android against iPhone: Google, Apple and Adobe

Apple Mac is too much conservative regarding iPhone. There are pretty much sufficient restrictions on the development process of iPhone applications. And recently Apple has announced to restrict the developmental platform should base on Objective-C, C++, C and Java Script. This step blocked the development of other third party tools which several companies were offering to develop applications for iPhone in different languages and frameworks.
One of the third party frameworks was Adobe's development tools for iPhone, which were used to develop flash applications for iPhone. But after this move Adobe stops the development of these tools although the previous version would be shipped with Adobe CS5. A similar framework is Mono which provides a compact framework for iPhone named Mono Touch. It is very interesting to see that Mono Touch applications wont affect very much as this link says. I was expecting the same for Mono Touch also, but it looks that Mono is more integrated into the native APIs of Mac and iPhone that's why they will take the advantage of being on the platform.
This was the move from Apple, what from Adobe? This is the move from Adobe. Adobe and Google partner to bring Flash and AIR technology to Android. Android as you know is the famous and creating its market quickly, new smart phone OS which is based on Linux and Java. While iPhone OS is proving itself too much conservative, Android is proving its flexibility. The other advantage is that it is installed on multiple phones, devices while iPhone OS is used on iPhone only. Adobe and Google's partnership is not ignorable in the present scenario when Apple just has banned somehow the entrance of flash on iPhone. Although they have (at last) provided a framework for flash on Mac OS X.
The scenario is going to be very interesting in the coming days. Flash is something which was always a powerful RIA framework and multimedia format. Microsoft Silver Light is lacking behind somehow now and Java Flex is still in coma. We do not hear what is going on under the cover in Flex. So lets wait and watch, what's gonna happen.

Ubuntu Sources List Generator

Ubuntu Sources List Generator is a simple web page based GUI which helps you to generate a sources list for your Ubuntu installation. It includes official repositories, partner repositories and other 3rd party tools' repositories like Skype. If you are new to Linux, and wondering what is a repository? A repository is a software store for a Linux distribution which contains all the software packages you can use on that distribution. Thus you use reliable sources for software installation. This strategy increases the security and defense against badware.

Oracle: Death Eater or Lover for Open Source?

Sun Microsystems 'was' one of the biggest competitors of Microsoft in open source world. It is true they ruled the world with Java and its bi-products but when Microsoft challenged the rule of Java on internet by introducing .Net framework and a new Java like language C#, Sun became more open. Whether it was a business decision or it was really the love of open source world that Sun opened up regarding Java. Sun opened up Java round about 3 years ago. Sun was the biggest contributor to OpenOffice.org, the one and only open source office suit which can some how face MS Office. Sun was going well and every thing was going happily. But........ real world is not like the stories of princes and princesses who live happily always, so Sun had to face the challenge. A big fish Oracle proposed Sub to be eaten, and Sun agreed. And now Sun is gradually being eaten by Oracle.
That is the fate of small companies that they are eaten up or in more 'technical terms' acquired by bigger ones. First MySql was acquired by Sun and then Oracle acquired Sun. And the result was that the only open source and low cost competitor of Oracle Enterprise Database is no longer harmful for Oracle. Because they are now (step) brothers. Though Oracle is promising to run MySQL as it was run previously but they are in better ever position to keep MySQL 'on track' now.
Java is something for which Sun is known in the open source world, specially after the opensourcing of Java. Java introduced new competing technologies under the banner of Sun as JavaFX. But it is moving slowly since a year or so, obviously it is due to the replanning which is taking place in Sun after the acquisition by Oracle.
Open Solaris is a Unix like operating system and again it was open source. But the community governing the matters of Open Solaris is now being frustrated by the silence of Oracle regarding the future of the operating system. Would it be of worth for Oracle in the case that they already have a fork of Redhat Enterprise Linux names Oracle Unbreakable Linux. Well, people at Open Solaris community are even willing to fork the project and continue it independently. Whether it would be good or bad, or whether Open Solaris would continue its existence or die slowly, the time will tell about it.
Sun was a big contributor to open source OOo, Java, Open Solaris and MySQL are now looking at Oracle for the future. Out of all, I think OOo is somehow independent and is going well. MySQL is now more business oriented and no more free bits as yummy as they were some time in near past. Java is still in a state of coma, and Open Solaris: there looks something hot under the surface of calmness. Let us see what happens.