Linux for real people

Ubuntu enthusiasts Rochelle Derilo, Frederick Bamm Gabriena, Dax Solomon Umaming (back turned), Allan Caeg, Juan Carlo Torres and John Sese Cuneta.

IT seemed like a perfectly geeky thing to do, so I braved rain and the Saturday night traffic to get to the Ubuntu Release Party at the Ortigas Center.

It’s been almost three years since I began using Ubuntu, a user-friendly Linux-based operating system, to replace Windows on my home PC, and I’ve been enjoying the benefits ever since: absolutely free, high-quality software; the absence of viruses and other malicious programs; and no intrusive anti-piracy measures that assumed I was a thief. In this time, I had gone through three operating system upgrades, yet I had never been to a release party.

Since Ubuntu was introduced in 2004, its commercial sponsor, Canonical, has pushed a new release out the door twice a year. This may seem strange in the world of commercial software, where new versions of Windows or Mac OS X are launched every few years, but it’s consistent with the underlying philosophy of Linux to release early and release often as a way of improving product quality.

Ubuntu, one of the most popular Linux distributions, takes its release number from the year and month of its release. Thus,the first version, 4.10, was released in October 2004. The newest version, 9.10, was released last week.

Like Mac OS X, Ubuntu also uses animal code names for its releases, though these tend to be funkier and alliterative to boot. So while the Mac has had Panther, Tiger and Leopard, Ubuntu has had Warty Warthog (4.10), Hoary Hedgehog (5.04), Breeze Badger (5.10), Dapper Drake (6.06), Edgy Eft (6.10), Feisty Fawn (7.04), Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), Hardy Heron (8.04), Intrepid Ibex (8.10) and Jaunty Jackalope (9.04). The next release, 9.10, will be called Karmic Koala.

When Microsoft and Apple launch new versions of their operating systems, they do so with much hype and fanfare—and a lot of marketing dollars. No wonder then, that these events are covered extensively by the wire services and mainstream press—which habitually ignore Ubuntu releases.

Instead of huge launch events, the Ubuntu community celebrates every new version with modest release parties all over the world, organized by ordinary folk who contribute in some way to the product—programming, designing or simply reporting bugs—or those who simply love to use it.

“At these parties everyone is welcome and we get together to celebrate, meet new friends and often introduce people new to Ubuntu to our community and our operating system,” the Ubuntu wiki reads. Another common feature of release parties are “burn fests” where copies of the new operating system are given away free—an idea that would no doubt appall Microsoft and Apple.

There were only about a dozen of us at the Philippine release party for Jaunty Jackalope, but it was a welcome opportunity to meet and exchange notes with fellow enthusiasts, who came from a wide variety of fields. Most of the group was young. Except for me and Dr. Pablo Manalastas, everyone else seemed to be in their 20s or 30s.

The host this year was Johann Tagle, who offered the use of his office at the Strata 2000 Building and provided the pizza (naturally). His company, Sagada Solutions Corp., develops Ruby on Rails applications on Ubuntu machines.

This year’s party was organized by Allan Caeg, a third year Psychology student from the De La Salle University, who is active in the local forum and contributes to Ubuntu by reporting bugs and handling some user support. He discovered Ubuntu quite by accident while using the StumbleUpon toolbar in Firefox.

A highlight for me was the opportunity to meet Professor. Manalastas, an icon at the Department of Information Systems and Computer Science at the Ateneo de Manila University for 30 years before his retirement in 2007. Doc Mana, as his students and colleagues call him, gladly showed me his MS Wind netbook, which triple boots to Windows XP, Ubuntu or Mac OS X.

Dr. Pablo Manalastas and release party host Johannn Tagle of Sagada Solutions Corp.

I also met Dax Solomon Umaming, who is the liaison between the Philippine Ubuntu community and Canonical. Dax, who works for a power company in Baguio City, came all the way to Manila for the release party.

“I got into Linux because of porn,” he said. “I got viruses from porn sites, and the last time, they sent out my personal notes to everyone in my address book, so I decided to stop using Windows.” A C++, Java and PHP-MySQL programmer, he finds Linux more suitable for developers because there are tons of tools available, and they’re all free.

Not everyone at the release party was a programmer, though.

Gener Luis Morada, country representative for G.ho.st, an Israeli company with Palestinian programmers, began using Ubuntu at home after his friend Troy Frederick Lim, a board member of the Internet Cafe Association of Imus in Cavite, showed him what he could do. Troy acknowledges that he still can’t use Ubuntu in his own cafe because customers still look for Windows.

Troy Frederick Lim and Gener Luis Morada from the Internnet Cafe Association of Imus, Cavite

John Sese Cuneta, a freelance Web designer after working for several large online gaming companies, also acknowledges that it is more difficult—often impossible—to play popular online games on Linux.

“That’s good, it cures your addiction!” blurted Juan Carlo Torres, who contributes to the KDE desktop environment.

Orlando Pasion, who works at the technical service department of Bayan Telecommunications, says he learned Ubuntu after his company began to get support calls from people who were using Linux to connect to the Internet. “Then I got addicted to Ubuntu,” he said.

Rochelle Derilo, a student at the UP Open University and a Windows user since 1995, began using Ubuntu after her friend, Frederick Bamm Gabriena, an instructor of astronomy at the Rizal Technological University, showed her that Linux was no longer limited to the command line interface.

Ubuntu is often described as Linux for human beings because it is easy to use. This weekend, it was great to meet and swap stories with some of these human beings.

Hi Chin!

I’m proud to say I learned Ubuntu from you. :D

Now I’m using KDE and Kubuntu. Thanks for encouraging all of us to try Linux.

Nice to reply here again (but with my real name now :D).

Thanks for spreading the word, sir. Feel free to post on http://ph.ubuntuforums.org if you have issues with Ubuntu.

Glad to see that Chin was able to join the party!

hello! thanks for the news!
my friend is a new linux user. she is asking if
we need to install or download anti-virus software so she can scan her usb drive before using it.

Too bad for me as I wasn’t able to come.

Perhaps next time.  Hey Chin, I took the plunge!  I’m on Kubuntu 9.04 na!

Keep it up!

Keep spreading the Ubuntu love bug Wonderful release I might say

very good my friend !!!!
linux ubuntu I’am used in my laptop here at Brazil
see you my friend

Márcio
Brazil

@ myrna… Yes she can. I installed Avast anti-virus for linux. registration key will send to your email when u register.

I really wanted to go to that event. But I have to stay home and finish a month-long project due this month, so I ended up celebrating on my own. xD

Next time, I’ll make sure I’ll be joining the party.

Ubuntu - “easy to use”! Are you kidding? Yes, “easy” for geeks. My wife is a human, so I tested 9.04 on her. When her efforts to play an mp3, and then a mpg file resulted in the dead-end error msg, that was the end of Ubuntu for her. V9.04 does not even help with the problem; at least V8.10 stated which add-on’s were needed and a clue for installing them. And, of course, using wifi is very complicated (modprobe??).

I do not like M$ and would deflect to Linux if any of the distro’s could match Windows XP. At this time, they DO NOT.  If I was forced to use Linux, I would use (1) Mepis or (2) Puppy.

@a.wong

I believe its automatic that after installing Ubuntu and you want to play video and mp3… you add medibuntu repository and install ubuntu-restricted-extras.

Any Ubuntu problem, pls feel free to ask the community. http://ph.ubuntuforums.org

Thanks Jeff, thanks Christopher!
It was great to meet you in person, Allan, Orlando. Creek, maybe we will see you in the next one.
Jerome and Dave, you were missed.
Hi Myrna. As Orlando says, yes, your friend can install anti-virus software, but she doesn’t really need to. I’ve been running Ubuntu all this time without having to use an anti-virus program. Aside from Avast, you could also try Clam.
Greetings Marcio!
Hi A. Sorry your wife’s first experience was so poor. The problem you mention is a result of the decision not to ship Ubuntu with proprietary codecs needed to play MP3 and MPEG files. It is actually very easily remedied by going to Add/Remove Software and checking all the GStreamer plug-ins. Mint, a version of Ubuntu, comes with all these goodies already installed, so that would probably be a better fit for your needs.

Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com) is a great Linux distro built on top Ubuntu.

I haven’t tried using it again

Hi A. Wong.

Aside from LinuxMint, you may also want your wife to use PCLinuxOS 2009.1.  I have this article on my blog for your reference: http://teqnix.blogspot.com/2009/04/faceoff-pclos-20091-vs-linuxmint-kde-ce.html

So why am I in Kubuntu 9.04?  I love KDE 4.2.2 despite the random bugs I get. But perhaps if PCLOS will use KDE 4, then its inevitable that I will go back to PCLOS.

And btw, I think *Buntu has some regression on Intel graphics card.. and to my dismay, most of our PCs have those cards so I have to PCLOS on them.

Doc Mana has some more pictures here:

http://pmana.multiply.com/photos/album/6/Ubuntu-PH_Jaunty_Launch_Party

Nice little coverage here about Ubuntu

proud user as well
It’s a good OS - has the basic stuff bloggers need

I like Ubuntu and Linux in general.  Its what I use in my PC to browse the net, create documents, rip, convert and burn videos/DVDs and music.

I have upgraded from Ubuntu (8.10) to Ubuntu (9.04) and still I cannot connect wirelessly through wifi. Is there anything to download (driver) so that it will work.

@alfred:  May I know what’s your wifi card?

Sir, My wifi card is:

Atheros AR5007EG wireless network adapter

Guys, Bayanihan Linux 5 (BL5) is out already.  I tried their live CD and it looks pretty good.  I like the menu button.  About Ubuntu 9.04, yeah, it has regression on the Intel video chipsets.  You can do a downgrade of the Linux-headers.  For now that is the only solution at this time if you are going to stick with the Intel video chipsets. I am going to install BL5 and see what happens.  I’ve heard that their Linux Kernel is based on Debian Lenny.  Well see what happens.

By the way Chin, it would be nice if you make a full review of our local Linux distro on BL5.  I love Linux Distros a lot.

@Alfred:  I think your card is supported in PCLOS 2009.1 using their easy ndiswrapper setup.  The driver is already there too.

They also have the madwifi option.

What’s with Bayanihan for Government?

Where is their ‘generic’ release?

They do have a “generic” live version.  Look for it at http://apt.bayanihan.gov.ph.

I am giving it a spin today.

I’ve already tried Bayanihan Linux version 5 installed my PC.  Its wonderful!  It’s a good distro.  It already has restrictive codecs installed by defaut, openoffice.org 3, etc.  It is based on the Debian Lenny.  This is one good distro I would recommend.  It works on my PC (Intel Pentium Dual Core E2140, 1GB PC667 RAM, 80GB HDD, ECS GCT945m 1333, LG DVD RW 20X, LG CRT Flat monitor).  Its pretty stable on my system.

The only thing I got little confused is during the installation process and getting to know the KDE desktop since I am already acustomed to GNOME.  But all the rest is good.  It has MPlayer installed by default but I installed it with SMPlayer since i like the UI of the smplayer.  It has nice wallpaper and menu button in it.