Ubuntu Netbook Remix Drops Open Office

Okay, first there was the deal to make Yahoo the default search engine on Firefox browsers that come pre-installed on Ubuntu Systems. It is well known that an agreement was fleshed out between Cannonical and Yahoo, with Cannonical receiving a sort of gratuity for the move.

Now, Open Office is going to be dropped from Ubuntu Netbook Remix in favor of Google Docs. This is supposed to be so that that Ubuntu Netbook Remix will be more streamlined and efficient for netbooks. Last I checked, you can buy netbooks that have well over 100GB if disk space. And Open Office is still an efficient program--way faster then Microsoft Word, even with the Java platform.

If you are looking to save disk space, why not just make AbiWord the default word processor in Ubuntu Netbook Remix. It is more powerful than Google Docs, and users are not required to get Google accounts. Don't get me wrong, I use Google Docs, but it still has a long way to go. Plus, you still need a Internet connection to make it work. Google has dumped Google Gears, and still is a pain to get to work on Ubuntu. Has anyone got Google Gears to work on Ubuntu?

Of course the option is always there to go ahead and download and install Open Office...

EDIT - 3/01/10 -- OK looks like Open Office is baaaaack! ;)

Default Search for Ubuntu Will Set to Yahoo

According to a report out of The Register, the next version of Ubuntu, Lucid Lynx, will have the default search setting for the Firefox Browser, set to Yahoo Search.

Is this a big deal? Not really. It is easy enough to change the search settings on Firefox. Just click on the tab just to the left of the search bar and select which engine you wish to use. It is the little search engine icon. Then the default is set. Even if you quit and restart your browser.

The funny thing is that Yahoo is actually paying Cannonical to have their engine set as a default. Since Microsoft is now in partnership with Yahoo, in a sort of weird way, Microsoft is paying a share to build and distribute Ubuntu. Still, not quite as overt as the Novell deal, but the link is there.

Will there be a backlash against Ubuntu in the Linux world? Who knows. Let the griping begin!

I have been using Chrome a lot anyways. It seems to work quite well.

An alternative Desktop for Linux: LXDE

LXDE is a fairly new desktop for Ubuntu and other flavors of Linux that has been around since 2006. It uses less memory than Gnome or KDE. According to some reviewers, LXDE even trounces Xubuntu in memory tests. I have and old laptop and I gave LXDE a spin, and yes it is lighting quick. It sports a usable, and intuitive interface as well. I can foresee something like LXDE running on a netbook or some other lightweight computer.

For more information about LXDE, here is a nice review: A Review of the LXDE Desktop for Linux

To install LXDE on an Intrepid Ibex Ubuntu or newer run:

sudo aptitude install lxde

I run this Ubuntu 9.10 with no problems.

Chrome Used more than Safari

In the browser wars, Google Chrome has established itself by skipping ahead of Apple's Safari browser in terms of usage. In comparing the two, Chrome seems to offer very similar features. What makes Chrome stand out is speed. Safari is nearly as slow as Firefox and Explorer on my rarely used Windows PC. But as in my Ubuntu PCs, Chrome is very fast, especially on start-up. I doubt there will ever be a Linux version of Safari, but it would be nice to do a comparison.

There seems to be ways of getting Safari with Wine on Linux, but that would not quite be the same. In either case, I'll stick with Chrome for now. The beta version has been running very well. It will be interesting to see if Chrome catches up with Firefox. My guess is that it probably will!

Download and Save Youtube Videos in Ubuntu

Here is an easy way to download and save Youtube videos using Chrome and Ubuntu. I suspect that this will work with Firefox as well.

Here are the steps:

1. Visit the Youtube and select the video that you want. Start watching the video and wait for it to complete loading. Keep the web page up. Once you navigate away, the file found in step 2 will be removed.

2. Open up Nautilus and navigate to the /tmp directory.

3. In that directory is a file called "FlashBkJpeo" or something like that. Simply drag it onto your desktop and rename it!

4. Once it is on your desktop, you can play it by double clicking on the video.

Voila! You have downloaded a Youtube video.

Empathy Gets No Sympathy

Pidgin used to be a default install in Ubuntu, but was recently dropped in the most recent release of Ubuntu Karmic Koala. I occasionally used Pidgin on private chat server that was used a part of my regular employment. It is something that was not used all that often, maybe a couple of times of year.

This past week I needed to connect up to the chat server and gave Empathy a try. After a few minutes of fiddling around with the settings, I could not get it to work. Part of the problem was that I was not familiar with the set-up in Empathy, and the set up screens did not match-up at all with the generic set of instructions that are provided by my employer.

I am not sure why there was a change in applications in this latest release of Ubuntu. Pidgin seemed to work just fine. I found it in the Software Center and installed Pidgin. The nice thing I found was that you are able to remove Empathy as well. In the past, some applications in Ubuntu were tied to the ubuntu-gnome-desktop package, and individual packages were not able to be removed.

I am back to using Pidgin. In this case, I am just to lazy to track down how to set up Empathy and Pidgin properly. But Empathy, you'll still get no sympathy from me!