eyeOS: A Web Operating System

I was reminded today of an article I had read a while back about a browser-based operating system called eyeOS. The basic idea is that you can log into your eyeOS account and have access to your files from wherever you are. At first thought, it sounds like a file host , but it's so much more. It's actually an operating system, complete with programs, folders, a desktop, etc. You can either use the international server, or host your own. I installed it (with a quick install of Apache and PHP) on my laptop and I'm up and running. What I haven't figured out yet is how to use my documents, music, pictures, etc on my hard drive without copying all those files into the eyeOS directory structure. But once I have that nailed down, I will be able to log into my laptop from wherever I am and have access to all my files.

The idea is not necessarily new; all these functions can be done using various other gateways. There are plenty of remote desktop solutions, but this being browser-based (and Flash-based inside of that), it's fast, uses no more processor or memory than a web page, and doesn't require any kind of installation for a client. Even the server install only took about 10 minutes (and that's because I had to install Apache and PHP and forward port 80) and a tiny amount of space (the install file is less than 7 megabytes). To top it off, it's free and open source. There is huge potential in this, especially in the world of Web 2.0.

The Wonderful World of Windows...

So, for various reasons, I've been living in Windows for the past week. It's a dog to start up and shut down, but once in, it runs okay. It's nothing compared to Ubuntu, but for the previous stated various reasons, I've needed some Windows only programs to work with. WINE can run a few of them in Linux, but not all, so I just booted into my Windows partition. It's been nice to kill some time playing games too. It made me realize that as much as I'd like to kill Windows for good, I really can't. GIMP is great, but it really doesn't compare with Photoshop CS3 for the really advanced stuff, and OpenOffice just doesn't cut it compared to Office 2007. I wish wholeheartedly that I could get these to run in Linux, but, alas, they can't (yet). Until someone works enough with WINE, I'm effectively stuck with Windows. And having a 40 GB hard drive split into two 20 GB partitions just plain hurts. I'm almost out of room on both; for gaming, I have to finish a game and uninstall it before I can install another one. I talked in an earlier post of just virtualizing Windows, but with a 4 year old, mediocre-at-the-time, single core processor, it's not a good option. And it'd still eat a big chunk of the hard drive. The only advantage would be not having to reboot continually. So for now, Microsoft has me by the proverbial e-balls.

Raising Davy Jones' Locker

My replacement hard drive finally came two days ago. I pulled all of my music off of Omoikane and I'm pleased with the results overall. I'm not in as bad of shape as I thought, musicwise. The headache now has been eliminating duplicates, renaming and retagging wrong files, figuring out what I'm missing, etc. Sounds like fun, huh?

Dude, Where's My Warranty Replacement?

Yeah, definitely going to virtualize XP for the few programs I need once my replacement hard drive gets here. I logged into XP (for the first time in a couple of weeks) and I was disgusted by its "speed". My god, it took literally 15 minutes to finish booting, logging in, and starting up! Then OneCare wanted to run a tune up (canceled that), wanted to start a back up (canceled that), and then show me a log (which took even more time). I love OneCare, don't get me wrong. It's a great all-in-one suite for protecting the computer, but it hit me with all of that at once! And honestly, that was only because I hadn't logged in in so long. Regardless, in comparison with Ubuntu, it drags. Once I get the drive, I'll pull what I need off of the Mac and then back up what I need out of Windows. Wipe that partition, expand my Linux partition to fill it, then install XP and the few programs I need through VirtualBox. Yes, it will be slower, but I won't have to restart the computer and wait for it to boot.

Back on the hard drive front, I put in my order for my warranty replacement not last Thursday, but the Thursday night before that; yeah, almost two weeks ago. Not only that, I paid for two day shipping. Let me run that down for you again: I ordered it over a week and a half ago, paid for two day shipping, and I'm still waiting for it. They took until last Friday (that's a week from the time of order) to send it out, so two day with UPS doesn't cover the weekend. So it should have shown up yesterday. It was on the truck for delivery at 6:53 AM yesterday. Yeah, still not here. Seagate is getting a nasty e-mail about all this. The UPS issue isn't their fault, but it shouldn't take a week to send out a paid, rushed order for something they have to replace anyway. This is ridiculous.

iTunes for Linux?

I read tonight that someone was having an issue with iTunes (as I've read many times), but I figured I'd give it a go. So I installed the Windows version through WINE and PRESTO it worked! Well, not flawlessly. I get two errors on startup (one about iPod connectivity, the other about burning CDs) along with a very temporary black screen. And no CoverFlow, and, the killer for me, no iTMS connection at all. I can't authorize my computer for the tracks I already have from iTMS. BUT, this is a step in the right direction, and this is with no tweaking. This suggests two things to me:

1) Perhaps with the availability of iTunes Plus tracks (with no DRM), perhaps Apple is loosening the reigns on iTunes a bit?

2) With some tweaking, iTMS connectivity doesn't seem outside of the realm of possibility.

But this again begs me to ask, "Apple, why not make a Linux compatible version of iTunes?" What bad could come from expanding compatibility and opening up to a small, but growing, group of users? With Dell and others shipping computers with Ubuntu preinstalled, usage of Linux is rising. Certainly it would not be bad in the PR department. It might even atone a bit for the whole locking-iPods-from-working-with-anything-other-than-iTunes (read: Linux users) fiasco. Showing some support for the open source community might even make up a bit for locking down the iPhone and iPod touch.

It's actually a suspicion that I've felt ever since the locking of the newer iPods; locking them to iTunes, Steve obviously knew that Linux users would be left in the dark. This made no sense to me unless there was a Linux version of iTunes in development. And lets be frank here; with the surprise move to Intel, Steve showed us that Apple is constantly playing with alternate technologies in development. So is it farfetched that Apple would be considering, or even developing, something that would increase its market reach? I don't think so, and to me, the signs point toward this, not away. I don't feel that Apple is shunning Linux users the way people initially thought. And yeah, I could be wrong (God knows I am all the time!), but why not?

My Ubuntu Experience Recap

I have to say, in all my years of working with computers (got my first one at age 5, built my first at 12, several computer related jobs, so on and so forth), I have never come across a community such as the Ubuntu one. Even when I forayed into Red Hat and SUSE, the support wasn't like this. Perhaps it's because this is a more "consumer oriented" Linux distro, perhaps it's due to the rise in use of Linux in general. Perhaps it's just a sign of the times.

I've become a fairly active member on the official Ubuntu forums now through my modding of my system to be as close to a Mac as possible (and it's pretty damn close). I found ways that worked for me that weren't necessarily posted and posted my bits to help people. You know, pretty much the way a message board is supposed to work. But these people have helped learn more about the terminal than I ever expected to learn, and I found out it's fun. I have yet to screw anything up because there's so much information out there if I just look hard enough. I've hacked the GTK+ system to put my application menus in the top menu bar via a Gnome panel applet (just like a Mac), and then I further hacked that to add to the effect (removed the underlines from the first letter of each menu, removed the drop down arrow, etc). I've changed transparencies of individual things. I've reworked the AWN dock to look as identical to the Leopard dock as possible. Inserted icons, modified fonts, the list goes on and on. And you'd think that somewhere down the line, I'd screw something up. But I haven't. Ubuntu runs flawlessly; much, MUCH faster than XP, and I'm finding new functionalities every day.

I've got Internet Explorer installed for school (though Opera has worked fine so far), and I can install Photoshop CS2 if I need to (though GIMP is pretty good). Can I game? Theoretically, I can. Half-Life 2 (and any game based off of it's engine) can run if installed right through WINE, and multimedia is actually better through Ubuntu. There's no iTunes (yet), but for the albums that I have paid for through iTunes, I can either burn out to CD and reimport as MP3, or I can pull the torrent file for (technically, as I've paid for it already, I can do that legally). I've learned all of this through a combination of playing around and through easy research. I've become a contributor to the Mac4Lin transformation pack and the MacMenu applet. I'm helping debug minor things on LaunchPad. And best of all, my 4 year old laptop, which was mediocre at that time, runs Ubuntu, Compiz Fusion, AWN, and anything that I've thrown at it fast and flawlessly. I don't find myself yearning for an upgrade (other than a monitor) so I can do the latest thing like I always feel with Windows. I don't feel like I'm left behind because of crappy support for my old integrated graphics, or my less-than-par processor.

I only wish for 3 points of compatibility: IE7 for school (I HATE 6's interface), Office 2007 (I really got used to the interface and find the "older" style of OpenOffice annoying now), and iTunes (I've always liked the simpler interface for organizing my music). At some point, someone will figure out the first two, and I really think Apple could do a lot of great PR for itself by supporting at least Ubuntu (as it's now being packaged OEM with computers), if not all of Linux. But then you get into the whole cracking their DRM thing. Granted, with the rising availability of iTunes Plus tracks (with no DRM at all), that may eventually be a non issue. At any rate, I find myself not even thinking of logging into XP at all. I probably won't ever get rid of XP completely; I'm sure the second I wipe it from my system, I'll need it for something. lol But I have scaled back it's partition to a minimum so Ubuntu has more room to breathe.

Were it not for the support of other users and developers on a personal level (I've only read maybe one or two FAQs rather than actually asking someone), I probably wouldn't feel this way. Windows XP is by far more compatible with comercial software, but in almost every instance, there is an open source analogue that I can use to replace it. There's a few programs that are just better commercial (that is the power of a large budget and dev team), but nothing that is a complete deal-breaker. Ever since I started using Ubuntu a few months ago (and that was really just to curiously play around), I've used Windows less and less. In fact, I'm toying with the idea of wiping XP, using the entire hard drive for Ubuntu, and virtualizing XP back in through VMWare for the couple of programs I might need. It's not difficult, so we'll see.

So what's my point? That I like the people and support that come along with Ubuntu? Yes, very much so. But there's also a plug: Give it a try. Got a CD burner? Who doesn't? Download it and burn it to CD. You don't even have to install it to try it! Just reboot with it in your CD-ROM and play around a bit. It can run off the CD so you can "try before you buy" (although, it's free, so there is no "buy", just install). Got extra hard drive space? Create another partition (way easier than it sounds) and install it to dual boot. You might just find out that you like it. To try Mac OS X, you gotta buy an Apple. To try Vista, you gotta buy the upgrade (and then deal with all the headaches that come with it). To try Ubuntu, you have to burn a CD. If you don't like it, you're out the pocket change the CD cost. No biggie. ~_^