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My thoughts about Apt URL

By Richard A. Johnson on Published: June 1, 2009 at 8:49 pm

Everything you need comes on one CD
Ubuntu is designed with security in mind

Both of the above lines were taken from the What is Ubuntu? page on the Ubuntu website. If this is still true, then we don’t need Apt URL do we? If it isn’t true, and we do in fact need something like Apt URL, shouldn’t these 2 lines be removed from the website?

The need for Apt URL simply tells us that Ubuntu doesn’t have everything you need on one CD. In the AptURL Policy Discussion blueprint on Launchpad, Rick Spencer states the following:

It should be much easier than it is for developers to get their apps to users, and it should be much easier for users to install such software. PPAs is potentially a good way to do this. Finding PPAs and exchanging keys should be much easier.

I couldn’t agree more, and can see how AptURL might actually work for this. But. Of course there is a but, otherwise this post would be more useless than it probably already is. The developers of the software that must be easier to get, should probably communicate with the distributions a bit, let us know they have a new release they would like to get into Ubuntu or they have new software. If we can’t get the software into the current release or the next release, then a PPA is perfect for this. But instead of me, Martin Owens, or anyone else for that matter, publishing software to a personal PPA, why not have the teams do it instead? The Kubuntu Team has a PPA, and I know a lot of the other teams do as well. Why don’t these teams publish it into their PPAs? This way here we don’t have to worry about the whole trust thing. With it going into a team PPA, the chance of more eyes seeing it before it is released to the masses is higher than it would be if I were to package and upload to my PPA. Using Launchpad, put a Apt URL button, similar to the One-Click buttons that openSUSE uses, on the team’s PPA page, if we really need Apt URL that bad.

The whole security minded thing was added because I can’t think of one way to really make this whole Apt URL thing secure, can you? GPG keys won’t do it, creating some network of trust won’t do it? Look at the sites that allow developers of Mac OS X and Windows software to distribute their stuff, do you see “This person is in our web of trust”? No, what you might see is a list of comments, and after a product has enough comments, it can get that whole “Preferred Developer” type of tag added to their name. Kind of like Pirate Bay does with people who distribute stuff there. They use a skull and a color to represent people of trust or good faith, which is kind of odd. At first I saw the skull and thought, oh stay away from that one. Security will always be a bitch with Apt URL. I was looking to see what kind of policy openSUSE had with One-Click stuff and I couldn’t find anything. Did they realize it was a “Use at your own risk” type of deal instead of spending the past 2 or 3 development cycles trying to figure out a policy that just isn’t there?

The fact that it is considered not easy to add a 3rd party repository should speak volumes in itself. We want to protect our users any way we can, and Apt URL will prevent us from doing so, from what I have seen thus far, you could of course prove me wrong and I hope that happens, soon! If a user doesn’t understand how to add another repository, should they really be trying to add it all? What is the reason for them trying to add another repository?

Is it because:

The package isn’t available in Ubuntu?
The package is outdated in Ubuntu?
The package is broken in Ubuntu?

If you answered yes to any of these, then your excuse of using Apt URL is nothing more than a band aid for problems in Ubuntu. But the package isn’t available in Ubuntu. Did you or anyone else file a bug to get the package in Ubuntu? No? That is definitely a reason why it isn’t in there, but I can understand this. Maybe you don’t know how to file a bug, and if this is the case, then maybe we should spend time somewhere else instead of Apt URL so we can make that process even easier, because the ability to file a bug is far more important than the ability to add a 3rd party repository that is loaded with candy from a stranger. How about the bug is filed, but nobody is looking at it? That is a problem with Ubuntu, so maybe we should spend time on figuring out how to fix this? How about it is packaged and sitting in REVU which nobody has looked it since September or something? Yet another problem with Ubuntu, and something we need to spend time on. The list can continue and cover an outdated and/or broken package as well.

Are people pushing Apt URL as a band aid for Ubuntu? Will Apt URL really make it easier for software developers to push their products to the public? Fill me in, what am I missing? Why is Apt URL so important?

Addition: Wanted to also note, that I don’t think apt-url will fix the issue of getting the latest software out there or fixed software much better than it already is. If Ubuntu is experiencing problems that are causing this band aid to be created, then what are we doing to do in order to provide another band aid when the people running these “whitelisted” repositories start to dry up? If these people running these “whitelisted” repos can contribute to their own repo, why can’t they contribute to ours? Shouldn’t we be trying to recruit these people? Shouldn’t we be trying to hold on to the ones we have now?

Posted in Application, Linux | Tagged Ubuntu | 33 Comments

Konsole Fonts

By Richard A. Johnson on Published: May 15, 2009 at 11:40 am

I have been using urxvt forever, and I have always loved using my Artwiz fonts with it. In Jaunty for some reason, getting the Artwiz fonts working correctly and without hogging resources was a bit of a pain. So I have decided to go back to the KDE terminal, Konsole, and actually found a really great font in the Ubuntu repositories. The name of the font is ttf-inconsolata. It is a really nice small font in Konsole and if you are editing code in Vim or Emacs, it is really nice. It is actually nice small and nice to the point where you don’t have to squint to see it, it is still legible at a decent distance. Here are a couple of screenshots to show it off:

Here it is with Irssi.

Here it is displaying some C++ code.

If you have a groovy TTF font, or any other font that you use in your terminals, tell me what it is, and link me to a screenshot.

Edit: superm1′s response, which you can’t see in the screenshot was:

10:59:57 [   superm1] yeah it does look better there, but i think it's because of the grey/white on black
11:00:06 [   superm1] i'll switch gnome over and compare

Posted in Application | Tagged FYI, KDE | 19 Comments

Ubuntu Ichiban

By Richard A. Johnson on Published: May 14, 2009 at 7:35 pm

I guess I should start off with some sort of disclaimer. What you are about to read is probably useless, my opinion, not the opinions of Ubuntu and Canonical, and probably not even worth 2 cents.

Who cares? Really? All of this complaining is destructive, interruptive, and really annoying. So now that I have said my 2 cents, let me be destructive, interruptive,a nd really annoying as well as elaborate a bit.

Everyone keeps quoting the Ubuntu Philosophy. That’s great, however there is a flaw to that.

1. Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees.

You have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve the software that is provided to you by Ubuntu One. Last I heard the client was open source, has that recently changed? You aren’t getting the backend to the entire thing are you? No. Have you been asked to pay a licensing fee? Besides the insanely amount of $10/month for 10GB of storage, you haven’t been asked to pay a licensing fee. Heck you haven’t even been asked to agree to a EULA!

Our philosophy is reflected in the software we produce and included in our distribution. As a result, the licensing terms of the software we distribute are measured against our philosophy, using the Ubuntu License Policy

Dean this is not a pot shot at you the least bit, as you didn’t start this or weren’t the first to quote this, however you were right up top in the Planet when I started writing this post. This doesn’t pertain to Ubuntu One either, because a) it isn’t being distributed with Ubuntu, and if they do distribute it with Ubuntu in the future, the client that is, this is perfectly valid.

I really like what Dave Morley said about voting with your feet. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, plain and simple. Also, most of the people seem to complain as well that it is a DropBox knock off, and in its current state, you are absolutely correct. But also in its current state it isn’t complete. There will be more offerings from my understanding in the future.

Now here is where I do have a problem, actually it isn’t a problem at all to me, just something I do not understand. The entry price point, it makes absolutely no sense to me. If you release something that is a direct competitor to another product out there already, why do you offer less for more? I always thought the motto should be more for less. In this day in age storage is very important, and remote storage is just as important. The price per petabyte is very important, or in this case the price per gigabyte. If I used Ubuntu One month on a paid plan, I am looking at $1 per gigabyte, if I use it for a year, I am looking at $12 per gigabyte. This is a bit much in my opinion, but I do have a bit of experience when it comes to storage and pricing. Spending the last year of my life working on a distributed storage solution, I had the opportunity to learn the market and the business quite well.

Ok, that’s it, now can we all quit complaining about it and get to work? We are wasting to many cycles, me included, talking about this until we are blue in the face. If you want to be constructive, check out the following: