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At the beginning of December I ordered a rather unique Android phone, the Kogan Agora. It should have made an appearance by post from Australia sometime in the next two weeks.

Unfortunately, an email from the manufacturer indicates that certain interoperability issues have been discovered. The press release also appears on their website. This means the Kogan Agora will not be shipping at all – at best, a modified model will be produced for sale in the not too distant future.

I’m disappointed not to get an Android device. I’m also wondering how much of this story is reality and how much hype was created to build an awareness of the Kogan brand. I won’t speculate, but would think that the interoperability issue mentioned, to wit

“One of the potential issues is the screen size and resolution. It seems developers will be creating applications that are a higher resolution than the Agora is currently capable of handling”

should have been picked up way earlier in the development and planning cycle.

Screen resolution is probably one of the items highest on the list of specifications for a mobile device. Surely the inclusion of a low resolution screen was a consideration from the beginning, including developer feedback and SDK specifications at hand from the word go. If the screen wasn’t capable, no initial prototype should received a stamp of approval.

Monies paid in advance for the now-defunct Agora will be refunded by the manufacturer.

I’ll have to wait for the G1…

The Intrepid Ibex has made its date of arrival, typical of the Ubuntu team’s ability to hold themselves to their promise of an announced release date. Ubuntu 8.10‘s changes are mostly under the skin, similar to the recent release of Mandriva 2009.0, for example.

The most significant update relates to the way in which wireless networks and HSDPA or 3G modems are recognized and managed. The new network management tools are able to pick up wireless network signals more reliably, and ease the connections to such networks considerably. The same can be said for 3G modem support, which has suffered from manual interventions and user frustration due to the lack of GUI interfaces for critical settings required by those devices.

GNOME fans will be happy to have access to release 2.24 which has been included. Unfortunately, the Ubuntu team has decided not to include OpenOffice 3.0 by default. That’s a pity. I recommend you download and install OpenOffice 3.0 as soon as your system is up and running – would have been great to have had this in the distribution already. The new GNOME brings with it improvements to file management and better support for multiple monitors and display adapters.

As with all other modern Linux releases, the provision of a safe harbour for guest accounts is also available in 8.10. That permits a guest to use your system without gaining access to your files and applications. Of course, system settings cannot be altered by the guest user.

An interesting addition is an application to create a copy of the operating system on a USB thumb drive. This mobile-version-on-a-stick can be used to take your existing desktop environment from one system to another, or to install a new copy of the OS on a friend’s system.

Get the Intrepid Ibex here.

I haven’t managed to install Mandriva 2009.0 PowerPack on katana. The 64-bit ISO is waiting to be deployed as soon as I’ve backed everything up and installed a different graphics adapter. In the meantime, I managed to get the 32-bit 2009.0 One image down last week to replace the existing Mandriva 2008 version on the Eee. The Mandriva team has once again done an excellent job of porting their distribution to the specific hardware platform the Eee represents.

Out of the box, everything works without any customization or configuration required. In particular, the setup of the E220 HSDPA modem consists of a few clicks and the new network manager has much-improved detection and management for wireless networking.

My preference is GNOME. On the Eee the usual problem of managing windows on the rather tiny screen persists.

It looks good, but simply isn’t great to work with. I was very excited by the prospect of trying the netbook-optimized window manager LXDE as soon as possible. A certain number of dead brain cells were once again responsible for my forgetting to install all required packages for the HSDPA modem while I had the external DVD-ROM connected. That left me with a few attempts at installing the LXDE package over the home wireless network. It should have been very simple: as root, execute urpmi task-lxde or start rpmdrake to add the package. For some or other reason, certain dependencies could not be met. I assume it had something to do with my haste – the entire development was probably not yet synchronized and deployed over all the necessary repositories. Since I had no access to 3G for a couple of days, FSpot on the Eee running GNOME served as my photo archiving solution over the weekend.

Another attempt at getting LXDE installed worked yesterday: all the necessary packages could be found and the whole thing installed in a very short time.

Log out, change the default window manager from GNOME to LXDE and log back in again. LXDE is a very attractive environment with KDE-style menus and panels along the bottom edge of the screen.

LXDE feels snappier than GNOME and most windows fit onto the screen in a more manageable fashion. Of course, only certain applications have been tailored to fit properly and to show all buttons. Firefox has been modified somewhat to perform thus, but the GIMP never will It’s a very clean and well-organized environment. For rudimentary tasks, there is no reason to run GNOME or KDE and the performance gains are well worth the effort of installing this small software component.

If you’re interested in running Linux on an underpowered notebook or desktop computer or want to breath new life into your Eee PC, give LXDE a try.

Just one last comment on running Mandriva 2009.0 on the Eee: for some or other reason, the machine does not shut down when that option is selected from the quit menu in the operating system. Instead, the Eee seems to go into a sleep or suspend mode with the power still on. On two occasions, I have simply set it down only to find the battery drained when I next want to use it. The unit is very hot and was obviously still powered on. To really switch it off, remember to hold down the silver power button for a few seconds after the shutdown. This did not occur with 2008.1, so there’ll be a fix out there somewhere.

Release candidate 1 of Mandriva 2009.0 is available for testing. The consumer-ready version should be made available during the second week of October.

The obvious reason to upgrade or install this release is the inclusion of the latest software, such as the latest version of OpenOffice. There are numerous improvements under hood, too. A new wireless network driver for Atheros cards should make connection to WLANs a lot easier and more stable and a new kernel will introduce better device support and various optimizations.

More details available at the official wiki.

The Fedora team has readied the alpha version of the follow-up to Fedora 9. It seems the lycanthropy theme has been ousted and something intellectual chosen for the codename: Fedora 10 has been christened Cambridge.

The final version should be available in a general release by the end of October. Look forward to a rewritten PulseAudio component, an upgrade to RPM 4.6, improvements to the printing subsystem and streamlined system startups. Of particular interest to me is the inclusion of OpenChange to enable seamless connection to Microsoft Exchange and the commitment to improve support for webcams. A better integration to Exchange would be highly beneficial for the adoption of Linux as a desktop operating system for office staff. The improvements to webcam handling would simply reduce the fiddling and hassle one has with trying to get those peripherals to work. Of all USB devices I’ve ever attached to a Linux system, nothing has proven more difficult to get going than my collection of Logitech QuickCams! The new KDE and GNOME will also find their way into Fedora 10.

If you have a virtual machine environment or a spare system, try out Fedora 10. Download it here.

There are many media players to choose from on Linux. Traditionally, I’ve relied on Amarok and have rarely given any one of the others much attention. The 1.0 release of Banshee does offer a fair number of improvements over older versions and is well worth checking out.

Not only does Banshee play music files, but now supports a variety of video content, too. There’s enhanced support for music players with an added twist: connect your iPod and drag an OGG file to it, for example, and Banshee will automatically recode the unsupported file to one appropriate for the target device. Of course there may be some loss of quality, but at least there’s no intervention and manual transcoding necessary.

The interface is clean and easy to navigate. I allowed Banshee to crawl my /home directory to find whatever media it could. The result: 16339 items, all neatly ordered and album art downloads started automatically.

There’s support for managing your collection of podcasts and Last.FM integration. The search function is speedy considering the large number of files I have in this collection and overall, Banshee is a robust music player.

Read more about Banshee here, or download it. Else, installation is easy with a modern distribution: you should find Banshee in the Install & Remove Software menu.

This weekend saw me trash my long-running Fedora system for something new. Followers of these pages will know that I’ve had no end of issue with the recent spate of upgrades and new releases of various Linux distributions. The main cause of my frustrations? The lack of integration and quality testing whenever new kernels are released with specific regard to the operation of proprietary graphics drivers.

The upgrade on katana from Fedora 8 to the new Fedora 9 release was a spur of the moment mistake. I traded a perfectly functional system for something that misbehaved with aplomb. A late burst of hope on Thursday given the release of a new nVIDIA driver saw me update the system with almost 420MB of patches. Sadly, the interdependencies and rpm confusion of the various packages to integrate the new nVIDIA driver into the kernel were just too great. A typical case of kernel version x and kernel development or source version y, with no means of aligning the two. It led to the simple task of inserting the Mandriva Powerpack 2008 Spring DVD and emerging half-an-hour later with a brand new functioning system.

Overall, the Powerpack releases by Mandriva have impressed me greatly. Note that these are not free. They are based on the free distribution but include a variety of proprietary drivers and components not offered in the free version. Of course, the components may be downloaded and added to the free version. The primary difference is that the downloadable ISO of the Powerpack costs roughly USD 50 and comes bundled with support.

So, the real deal is that you get what you pay for. My experience with the free 2008.1 or Spring release contrasts with the Powerpack. Getting the nVIDIA driver to work on the free version was not without its difficulty. Similar issues to the Fedora 9 experience: conflicting releases of the kernel and its source versions. That means no compilation and basically no proprietary graphics support. Why do I harp on proprietary graphics driver support? Without that, there’s no decent hardware acceleration and no decent eye candy. I’ve grown accustomed to it. I want it. Hence, it’s a very important thing to me. I constantly see and interact with the desktop. Hence, it’s constantly in my face if it doesn’t work. Powerpack does one thing and it does it very, very well: a full installation of a decently configured operating system together with the optional installation and configuration of a proprietary graphics driver. I’ve seen it work flawlessly on ATI and nVIDIA systems. Of course there are various other bundled applications. But the most important aspect for me is the satisfactory installation of a working system.

Some may consider the inclusion of proprietary drivers sacrilege. Open source and free software pundits may consider it a no-no. Let’s be honest: the Linux desktop is trying to compete with Mac OS and Windows. Would a Windows or Apple user stand for crappy graphics performance or an unpleasing desktop? Certainly not. Eye candy sells. Eye candy doesn’t necessarily improve productivity, but it’s what everyone talks about. That markets the platform. If it takes a proprietary driver to make it thus, so be it.

Powerpack is USD 50 more expensive than any other distro you may consider installing. In my opinion, it’s worth every cent. In the end, you get what you pay for. Especially in the FOSS world…

Great is the excitement for those of us who run Fedora: today is the release of the anticipated six-monthly update to the core of that Linux distribution. I won’t bore you again with the details of what’s new and what’s hot. Expect pretty much the same as the other distros have provided, except with a blue tinge

Download the new version here.

I fear the Firefox beta is in this one too…

Nine days, to be precise. Since we’ve had the Hardy Heron, zillions of beta versions including the latest OpenSuse, it’s only fitting I get excited about the new Fedora release.

Like most new releases in this cycle, Fedora 9 will include many of the typical features and programs found in other distributions. The list of features in Fedora 9 may be viewed here. I do hope that the next 9 days will see the inclusion of the final release of Firefox. Would be a real pity to be stuck with the beta version as shipped for Hardy users…

The Fedora team is not sitting still and has released the Fedora 9 Beta. It follows scarcely three weeks after the general availability of the Alpha release. With the planned release of Sulphur scheduled for the beginning of May, the beta should be very stable, though I would recommend installing it in a virtual machine rather than overwriting a productive system.

Of the new features Fedora 9 includes, the replacement of gnome-vfs by Gvfs is interesting. Gvfs is a user-space virtual filesystem that enhances the interoperability of GTK+ applications without placing a strict requirement on software dependencies. It also means that GNOME and KDE may coexist more peacefully with certain commonalities being provided by Gvfs. It seems that Gvfs provides right-click mounting of ISO images. That’s very handy!

Download the beta here.