Google just announced their Chromium OS project.  This will act as the open source precursor to Chrome OS.  And the folks at Canonical are helping Google build it.  Exciting times ahead, especially for netbooks users and cloud computing advocates.  Thanks to the 451 Group‘s Matthew Aslett team for posting about this.

Matthias Ettrich Awarded the German Medal of Merit

Matthias Ettrich, founder of the KDE project, received the German Medal of Merit for his contributions for the common welfare.  Specifically for his founding of the KDE project.

Dorian’s thoughts: As a rabid KDE user, thank you for starting this awesome desktop project.  Thank you for kickstarting the project that is pushing the Linux desktop computing experience forward in ever increasing terms of usability, aesthetics, flexibility and freedom.  Thank you, and thanks to all the contributers of KDE and the wider libre software community.

An In-Depth Review of the N900

Still wondering whether or not to get the Nokia N900?  Well take a look at this in-depth review of the pre-production N900 from The Nokia Blog.

Dorian’s thoughts: I’m still thinking of getting it.  I wonder how it compares to my current 5800 XM in terms of hardware, but I think it is much, much better… Still waiting for availability of the unit in Canada, and for a review of a production variant too.

The Linux Desktop Sucks

First the Linux hater, and now some developers and power users state what they REALLY feel about Linux on the desktop.  vanRijn experienced the beauty of sweet candy land that is the Mac OSX world and laments why we can’t see the same in Linux-o-landia.  dkite proofs more an optimist, saying yes its broken and but will get better… someday.  Also some finger-pointing to the manufacturers for not getting their act together, and states some heroic community coding is needed.  Funny how Dell engineers are helping to make Dell machines running Linux able to recover themselves, just like under the most common desktop OS.

Dorian’s thoughts: The Linux desktop worked for me, on a laptop in 2002, so stop your bitching guys.  I’ll agree the legendary saga that is fixing X and sound, etc. is reaching epic proportions.  And yes devs from vendors are leading the way in many cases.  But in some cases it seems easier to start from scratch as with Wayfarer or Moblin or PulseAudio.  Still building a solid and expandable underlying architecture is hard, so everyone does so in a piecemeal fashion.  And in traditional UNIX fashion, we argue and argue over what we want to build and how to do it.  Instead of wringing hands, help fix the problem.

Android is Not Linux

Sounds like another bad recursive hacker pun, no?  Looks like the guys at Google, took a Linux, through out the parts that worked-yes, shocking some parts of Linux actually work quite well thank you very much-and replaced them with their own jerry-rigged replacements.

Dorian’s thoughts: Why guys, why?  Just learn to use the tools, and I’m sure the standard Linux stuff works pretty darn well on a mobile device.  At least one real handset maker seems able to use the existing Linux stack, and run with it.  Sure the UI needed a replacement and some optimizations are required, but rip and replace with crappier renditions?  Not cool guys.  Google needs to learn to work with the FOSS community, and not around it.

Nokia N900s Dropping Out of Orbit

So the N900 already launched… but Nokia started pumping out, shipping out their amazing N900s and stocking retailers with these pieces of mobile computing paradise.  And unlike Google, Nokia knows how to build on top of existing Linux stacks and without stomping on existing FOSS communities.  Not like a giant robot ravaging a city… Google.

Dorian’s thoughts: Remember about us Canadians!  We’re that country above the US, and we’d like some N900s too, pretty please.

In Other News:

• A documentary on LugRadio?  Kewl!
• The Khronos guys who brought you OpenGL, OpenCL and OpenSL E, want to bring you a standard windowing framework for Linux mobile devices: OpenWF.
• Big multinationals and big government want to fix copyright to work for YOU.  YOU being a big multinational or a big government, of course.  Cause  another global over-arching treaties is a good idea.  <smirk /> And this treaty will solve one of the world’s problems: the publishing industry’s losing their profit margin, which was the highest of any industry to being with. <smirk  />  World hunger and peace can wait until next week’s meeting of “elites”.

OK, Dorian must end his newcast here and scurry back to his other work.

I regret that the first two pieces of news I heard of today is that of the anniversary of Tiananmen Square and the finding of debris of the recently disappeared jetliner.  I rejoice that the Chinese enjoy more freedom today than before.  I regret that the Chinese government still does evil to its society.  I rejoice that in the West, we can talk freely about and remember the massacre.  I regret that in China, no one seems to remember or care.  I rejoice that parts of the plane were found in the ocean today.  I regret that this story happened, I’d rather hear no such story and have all the parts of the plane and its passenger landed safely in their intended destination.

I rejoice that I can end this silly post now, and now will finally catch up on work yet not done.