Windows 8 has been unveiled, OSx is Roaring, and Ubuntu is trying to create a Unity. These new OS’s give us a peek at the future, but what does it really say?

Over on ZDNet Ed Bott wrote a nice article on Windows 8. I’m not going to go into it in detail, but the Article and the screen shots got me to thinking, what is the future of the Operating Systems in general? Ubuntu and Windows have come up with new GUIs, and they are different. Geared toward simplifying navigation, are these becoming too simple? Are we getting to the point of making something that a fool can use, and only a fool will use it?

I am not against change, as long as there is a good reason for it. Making a GUI more user friendly is not a bad thing. The big problems I have with the way Ubuntu, and now Windows are going about it though worries me from a support standpoint. How much more difficult is it becoming to find the deep areas that those of us who do troubleshoot machines use? How much more training will we need? How will this affect how people use the OS in a business environment?

The OS that has changed the least in GUI appearance over the years is Macintosh. The basic layout, and where you find things has been essentially the same going back to its beginning, with just some upgrades to that classic look and feel. Apple boasts about how easy it is to use a Mac, and from an OS standpoint, they are right. You don’t have to learn a new GUI with every update. You have your bar up top which allows for the classic drop down menus. They added the dock at the bottom, but you don’t have to use it.

Unity, the new look kills off the classic menu structures to get at your programs. It takes more clicks to find something that is not docked. The more elegant look actually becomes more complex. When you log into the OS, you can choose to go back to the Classic look, but it is not prevalent on how to, although it is simple if you know where to look. Still, the more complex sets of clicks to find an installed program can be a big hindrance to acceptance. Also realize the look doesn’t add anything to security.

Windows 8 poses a bigger question. With it being meant for touch screen, although you can use a mouse and keyboard, and the look and feel being more toward Microsoft’s phone OS, how is this going to complicate finding files, finding software you install? The desktop space is a premium but, as we all know, you put too much there it becomes hard to find what you are looking for. Also what about software that is not on the desktop? How about file exploring especially if you are on a network where items are kept on multiple network drives?

These questions, and where the companies want to steer the computing world are really what will shape the future, and also cause problems. Too much change at once is not good, and change for its own sake usually causes more problems than its worth. Only time will tell what the answers are but, from first glance, it seems as if making the look the same across all platforms is happening, and from there, maybe you get into a situation like Chrome OS, where it is basically a browser, and nothing is kept locally. If that is the case, you can port your GUI look across multiple devices easy, but then who owns your information since it will not be stored locally? Its something to think about.

I’ve been a fan of Ubuntu for a number of years. Over the last month I’ve been playing with version 11.04 which has unity. So here is my take on it.

Being one of those who is a tech person, and always wants to find a way to hook new users onto Linux, I was really curious as to the new Unity interface that Ubuntu was putting out. Could it be something that brings Linux to more people? The answer I found is no. At least not yet.

Unity is a slick looking GUI. It is lacking though. First, there is no menu scheme, access to any software is done off the new launcher bar. This wouldn’t be so bad, except to find any software not tacked to the bar, you need to really go digging. the applications window that you get to can get confusing, and won’t show you everything without at least 3 mouse clicks, and even then things can get missed. Yes, as you get used to a new layout, it becomes more natural, but this is a big deviation from what most people know. Its not intuitive, and really needs a lot of refining. While on the login screen you can switch to a classic mode, for someone new to Ubuntu and Linux, it again isn’t intuitive.

The other issue I’ve run into is with a customized dual monitor setup. Unity doesn’t seem to like it too much. I’ve had nothing but problems with that setup.

The underpinnings are fine, and yes if you know how to replace the GUI with Gnome or KDE, 11.04 is a solid system. Unfortunately for a version that is supposed to be for the everyday person, the Unity interface has a long way to go.

Windows 7 is coming later this year. Ubuntu is on 9.04 with the next version due out later this year. Mac has Snow Leopard coming out later this year. Then there is Red Hat, SUSE, and many other Linux flavors around. Has the day of the OS come to an end? The obvious answer is no, due to software that is written specifically for certain OSes. The answer is also yes because so much of what people do is done through Web Browsers and e-mail clients.

The OS is always going to have some relevance to the world, especially in the business world, where apps have to be created to run on the OS. Windows has different API calls than Linux or Mac. Most software companies will only write a piece of software for Windows, which limits peoples choices on what OS to use. Of Course, Linux has WINE and Mac you can load Windows in a virtual machine (same on Linux). So, unless the OSes all start using the same API (Which Mac and Linux are getting closer on cause of Mac’s Unix underpinning) calls, there will always be fragmentation and less choice.

The answer is more toward a yes on the home front though. Most home users are basically doing e-mail (Webmail can be used), Surfing the Web, and doing Word Processing (There are web things such as Google’s word processor). Course the gamers will have to watch out on what OS they use, but overall, all of the above items can be done on any OS rather easily.

So the real answer is that the OS choices will still be around, but for those who don’t need a lot, you can get a free OS that will do what you want. For the corporate world though, the OS still does matter, at least until all the apps become web based. Then all bets will be off.

So, its been around a week that I have had the latest version of Ubuntu installed on my lappy and I have more thoughts and a couple of gripes on it.

The new version of Gnome that comes with it is slick. Doesn’t look all that different, but some of the small changes are nice, plus it is definitely more stable. I”m still playing a bit with the package manager and installing and removing software to see how that works and what is available. I did notice that Postgres is not available through the add/remove software feature, which did disappoint me a little, but not as bad as the following problems, which show it is not really ready for prime time yet.

First issue is the automatic search for updates when you log in. At one point in time on 8.10 it worked, and was done with its check rather quickly after logging in. Then some update came down and all that changed for the worse, and it is still that way. When I log into the machine it takes 10+ minutes for it to finish the update search and during this time frame the machine works like a slug. Yes, its a 4 year old laptop, but considering that the updater is the only thing that consistently slows my machine down, I have to say that there has to be some issue with it.

The biggest issue I’ve found so far has to do with Wireless Networking. Oh, don’t worry, it will find your card, and you can connect to a network, provided it is not using WPA for security. I did try to set the machine up to connect to my WPA Secured wireless network, and it will not connect to it. Of course the fact that the built in wireless software for Ubuntu does not show you a list of available wireless networks is a big drawback in its own right. Yes I can get a 3rd party scanner, but if Ubuntu wants to compete with the big boy’s (Microsoft and Apple) Then it needs to have that scan functionality out of the box and enabled by default. Even if they only gear it for businesses, or netbooks, when you travel you need the simplicity for the average Joe.

Of course that brings us back to the problem with the Average Joe and the Linux community. One day maybe those geeks on the Linux board will realize that the only way for them to be accepted is if they stop putting down non-tech people. Only then will Linuxx truly be ready for the Desktop.

Yesterday was the release of the latest version of Ubuntu Linux. I had been running 8.10 on my laptop for a while and felt that I really needed to do a fresh install of it, since the last few releases I used the upgrade option. I had prepped the night before by transferring all my documents and any files I didn’t want to loose to one of my desktops. Then, once I got home, I started the install.

Now mind you my laptop has some overheating issues at times, is on its second hard drive, and can be a pain, which is why I don’t keep important items on it for very long. Upon starting the installation I found the initial screens to be simple, and informative, allowing for you to breeze through this portion of the setup. Then comes the first of the cosmetic changes, the loading screen, which instead of just dots going across, now reminds me more of a Cylon eye bouncing back and forth.

Considering I did not choose the advance install, the next thing to deal with is the 7 questions. This is the area that I either was impatient on time, or my machine really did lock up(and I could not tell you if it was my machine or the installer that caused the problems) but it took me 3 times of going through the install to be able to get through all the questions to do the setup.

Simple items such as time zone, how do you want your partitions, do you wish to keep your prior version, all nice simple and easy. So far things were going overall smooth, and the experience was one that most any user could deal with, even the nontechnical. Total time with the small issues I had to get the system loaded up was about an hour, but if I hadn’t had the locking issues it should have only taken around 30-45 minutes. Once loaded, there were a set of initial security patches, but again it was nothing compare to what we deal with in the Windows world.

I’ll go into software, installing, networking (including Wi-fi), and other things I find out about it in a later post.

Ubuntu, and Linux in general, have come a long way in ease of use, ease of install, availability, and whether or not a normal end user can use it. Desktop Linux’s biggest drawback to becoming mainstream is honestly the community. They do a great job in maintaining the OS, but seem to be overzealous when it comes to helping out end users, which I might add is one of the low to no cost things they brag about. This sort of intimidation is one of the biggest reasons why Linux as a whole is not accepted in the mainstream. The easier experience we can give the nontechnical with Linux, the more of them that will consider using it, and thereby the more chance that the software companies will write more software for it. Course more mainstream brings other problems, which I’ll cover again at a later time.

So Linux mavens, start flaming me if you wish. I’m just giving an honest opinion.

Ok, with all the security blogging I’ve done this week, I figure its time to do a post about something a little different.

There is a bunch of Beta software out there, and more coming soon. Currently Windows 7, Exchange 2010, Firefox 3.5 and Ubuntu 9.04 are all out in beta form. Exchange, unfortunately, I don’t have a real way of doing proper beta testing on or reviewing.

Windows 7 I will be getting with the RC1 on May 5. I want to test the heck out of it and post a review as I do test it. I figure while I’m working with Windows 78, I can check out the new beta of Firefox and see what is up on that.

Finally, Ubuntu 9.04. Yes I run Ubuntu on one laptop and an old Celeron machine. The old desktop won’t be getting 9.04, but the lappy definitely will. I’ve been wanting to do a wipe and reinstall of the laptop for a while now, and this looks like the perfect chance. Mind you sometime today 9.04 is officially released, or so it was announced earlier this week. If it takes another day or two before I get my hands on it, then oh well.

So much going on, and while I do all of that, I am waiting to see which way the wind blows for the next version of office this week. Its been announced that the beta for it later this year will be open to the public, then announced that it woun’t be, then announced that it will be. I think someone at Microsoft needs to get on the ball with a decision on that one.