This raises a few questions and concerns. First of all, isn’t Canonical scared of legal actions from Apple? Apple is not quite the worst software patent troll, and not always the most agressive, but its recent history shows that it takes threats seriously and will use it’s patent on “multitouch”. The patent itself is ridicoulous, of course. As Dana Bankenhorn of ZDNet points out, Ubuntu is trying to go further than Apple has gone regarding Mac’s multitouch integration.

Apple may claim a patent on its mousetrap, but can it claim to control all methods for catching mice?

Of course, that’s not how law works. However ridiculous software patents can be, they are real, and companies like HTC are sweating under their power.

The easy answer would be to point out that Canonical is not based in the US, and therefore not subject to Apple’s patents as long as they don’t sell these products over there. Ubuntu is free, so inclusion of multitouch should not be a problem.

But will Ubuntu’s multitouch framework, dubbed uTouch, actually go beyond previous implementations? The answer seems to be “yes”.

The design team has lead the way, developing a “touch language” which goes beyond the work that we’ve seen elsewhere. Rather than single, magic gestures, we’re making it possible for basic gestures to be chained, or composed, into more sophisticated “sentences”. The basic gestures, or primitives, are like individual verbs, and stringing them together allows for richer interactions.

–Mark Shuttleworth

Mark Shuttleworth admits that what they are doing isn’t a revolution in human-computer interaction, but it “feels like a good step in the right direction.” I believe he is being modest here. Apple has a way of picking the best innovations in the lot, rebranding and perfecting them, and then releasing the next great thing. It has taken what already existed, and then revolutionized the computer industry by making it theirs. They’ve done that with the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, all of which were commercal sucesses. But Apple has also been very strong in the laptop business these last years, and multitouch has been a part of that.

If Ubuntu could make their uTouch framework efficient on all machines and then deliver what they are promising, there would be a revolution. unfortunately, that’s not what’s going to happen.

You’ll need 4-finger touch or better to get the most out of it, and we’re currently targeting the Dell XT2 as a development environment so the lucky folks with that machine will get the best results today. By release, we expect you’ll be able to use it with a range of devices from major manufacturers, and with addons like Apple’s Magic Trackpad.[...]
Window management will be gesture-enabled in Unity, so 10.10 Netbook Edition users with touch screens or multi-touch pads will have sophisticated window management at their fingertips.

–Mark Shuttleworth

The problem here is inherent to Ubuntu’s nature. Ubuntu, as the free OS it is, has to be designed to work on the widest range of devices that it could possibly run on. These devices are the ones that most people own, as they will buy their computer (touchscreen/multitouch included or otherwise) before knowing that they could install Ubuntu.

This means that the progress the Ubuntu has done will not be available for all Ubuntu’s users, not only because Canonical can’t control what hardware their users own, but also because hardware vendors might all have different goals regarding hardware, goals that may be incompatible with Canonical’s vision.

If you already are a fan of Ubuntu, your first reaction may be to think that “choice”–one of the open-source community’s favorite words–is a good thing, and that it’s evil for any OS to be tied to one particular vendor. You’d be right of course, but that’s not the whole story. Innovations in terms of computer interaction need two things.

First, they need the will and talent of the software developers, interface designers and the OS team as a whole. These people think of new ways in which users could interact with their software stack, primarily through the graphical user interface. But the user cannot interact with the software without the use of hardware. This hardware must be adapted to the needs of both the interface and the user. That’s where hardware designers come into play.

Apple’s pioneering in terms of computer interaction these last years has come from the fact that the same company controlled both the hardware and the software. It is not an inherant superiority of the OS itself–or the fact that allmighty Steve Jobs runs the company–that makes Apple appear more innovative, it is their ability to innovate when both ends of the product need to evolve.

Microsoft understood this, and while they’re still not going to be selling their own hardware, they are already setting hardware requirements for Windows v.next. That means that Microsoft will have some say on how hardware should evolve to suit their software. Ubuntu, unfortunately, will not have this luxury.

The nature of opensource makes it free, but this freedom comes with a price. In some respects, Ubuntu is the most innovative OS out there, and Canonical’s uTouch guidelines shows us why. Canonical is willing to try new things, and the UI (user interface) team has had some great ideas, but they are limited by the scope of their company and the type of product that they are distributing.

The answer, of course, would be for canonical to sign deals with PC OEM’s for some Ubuntu-approved computers that would provide the users the “full Ubuntu experience.” That would be if Canonical’s relations with the said OEM’s was easy, but the recent news about Dell’s offerings shows that it isn’t.

If Ubuntu were the future of computing, we’d see some real innovation. Canonical seems to be a company that’s ready to shake things up a little, and innovate in ways that prove they think far beyond just the next product, but they need to have a say on the hardware that their OS is installed on if they really want to make a splash. If they don’t, they’ll always be lagging behind Apple and Microsoft.

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One of the mottos the Linux community has is “if you don’t like it – then fork”. While this is interesting idea it has created as many Ubuntu derivatives as the day is long. Don’t believe me? Check Distrowatch – as I am posting this four of the eight “new releases” listed on the front page are Ubuntu derivatives. Now personally – I do not think this is a bad thing. Not the same thing works for everyone and when you are new to the world of Linux it is easier to try a different “spin” than it is to learn to configure everything yourself. The only problem with all these spins (and something I’ve often heard complaints about) is that there is too much choice when selecting what flavor of Ubuntu to install.

I make a point of trying as many different variations of Ubuntu as I can, this way I can be informed when I recommend one version over another to friends and family. The following is a round up of my favorites I have found over my last three years in the world of Linux.

Best Full Featured DVD - Pinguy OS

This is a spin just recently released and it has become the main OS on my Sager laptop for a number of reasons. Overall Pinguy OS has a very elegant, unified feel to it and careful work has been put into the visual aspects of the operating system with a close attention to detail. The current release is based on Ubuntu 10.04 and Pinguy has says he plans to release a new version with each new Ubuntu release.

Best Full Featured CD - Linux Mint

Linux Mint is one of the older Ubuntu spins and it is still one of the best. It is where the fantastic menu and update manager Pinguy OS also uses were developed and it set the standard many derivatives have followed of including codecs, flash, and java in their releases (although the latter of these three is not include on the CD version of Mint). Where is Ubuntu has begun changing their default application set, Mint sticks to it’s roots – still including the Gimp and Pidgin instead of Empathy. The latest release of Mint is version 9 and it is based on Ubuntu 10.04 – Mint follows a release cycle the is typically a month or so behind Ubuntu releases.

Best Windows-Like - Zorin

Zorin is designed with the intention of making a recent Windows convert feel at home. The default skinning and applets look decently close to Windows 7 and this can easily be changed to look like Windows Xp. Zorin includes flash and media codecs by default and the most recent version is based on 10.04

Best Lightweight - Lubuntu

Lubuntu leaves a memory footprint right around 100megs on a fully booted system. It uses LXDE and is designed to be quick. The latest release of Lubuntu is based on 10.04 and Lubuntu follows a very close release cycle to Ubuntu. Before anyone leaves a “what about Crunchbag” comment – sorry, I prefer Lubuntu.

Best Netbook Remix - Jolicloud

Jolicloud is designed to work with as many different netbooks as possible. In fact it is one of the only distros to support the GMA500 out of the box. It is based on 9.04 – but don’t worry about this older version number, Jolicloud has some of it’s own repositories to provide more up to date packages to it’s users.

Best KDE - Netrunner

I really like a lot of the features KDE has to offer – however many of the applications most KDE distros ship do not feel as “complete” as their Gnome counter parts. So while Netrunner uses KDE it still uses nautilus as it’s file manager, Firefox for it’s webrowser, and VLC for it’s media player. It also includes media codecs, java, and flash. One thing I dislike about Net runner though is that it uses Knetwork manager – which I feel is horrid compared to nm-applet. The latest release of Netrunner is based on 10.04

Best E17 - Moon OS

Moon OS is an E17 distro that is based on 9.04 It looks elegant, is fast, and is decently stable. The only real draw back to it is the fact that being based off of 9.04 is contains mostly older packages.

If you want an update to date version of Ubuntu with E17 you might want to try compiling from SVN.

These are what I feel are seven of the best Ubuntu derivatives and the area in which I feel they shine. Is there another type of Ubuntu spin you think I missed on my list? Or maybe you feel one of my picks should have been something else – if so let me know by dropping a comment below.

You can contact the author via email and visit his personal blog

Redshift is a small app for your Linux machine that will change the color of your screen as the night falls. This is supposed to have several positive consequences: First of all, it removes the strain for your eyes, eliminating the outlandish white/blue glow from you screen to a light that your eyes can actually bear. Secondly, it will help you sleep at night, preparing your biological clock for nighttime if you ever decide to go to bed.

App and features

What does Redshift actually do? To put simply, Redshift adjusts your screen color temperature to something that is much more acceptable to your eyes. This color changes according to your surroundings so Redshift tweaks the color of your screen according to the position of the sun.

Here’s the explanation from Redshift’s site:

A different color temperature is set during night and daytime. During twilight and early morning, the color temperature transitions smoothly from night to daytime temperature to allow your eyes to slowly adapt. At night the color temperature should be set to match the lamps in your room. This is typically a low temperature at around 3000K-4000K (default is 3700K). During the day, the color temperature should match the light from outside, typically around 5500K-6500K (default is 5500K). The light has a higher temperature on an overcast day.

To know the sun’s position in your location, Redshift uses Gnome Panel’s Clock applet settings, which means it will be able to calculate the change in day lengths, daylight saving times, etc. or any other location that you have specified manually when launching the app.

When used in graphical mode, redshift has an icon that sits in the indicator applet on GNOME. Ubuntu users will be pleased to see that Redshift now used a “mono” icon that integrates well in the new Ubuntu theme.

Features

The feature list for Redshift is small. It’s well integrated to the GNOME (and Ubuntu) desktop, making good use of the new indicator as well as the clock applet, but it does not have many independent features. That’s positive in the sense that it never gets in your way, has a simple on/off switch and that’s it. nonetheless, it would be great to have more control on the app. Redshift’s default setting look a bit extreme. After a while, one gets used to it and it actually helps, but if you’ve just launched it everything seems a tad too red for a while. I recommend you to go on with your daily work untill you forget, but you may want to change the settings. Unfortunately, there’s no graphical tool to do this, and one’s only option is the command line.

Does it work?

Redshift is very efficient. I actually notice sleeping more easily after spending hours in front of my screen. That may be partly due to a psychological effect. What’s for certain is that it does relieve some strain from your eyes. I often got teary eyes when browsing the net for hours on end. Now I find that I can concentrate more on what I’m doing without my eyes feel as if they were burning. Redshift is efficient, and I’m not separating myself from it soon.

Installing and running Redshift

To install Redshift, you need to add the PPA first need to install the PPA to your system then to download the app. Simply copy and paste the two lines below in your terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonls/redshift-ppa

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install redshift

Now that the application is installed, you can launch the it by hitting F2 and typing “redshift.” to add your location manually, type “redshift -l” followed by your latitude and longitude (separated by a colon).

For example, if you live in New York*, type:

redshift -l 40.7:-73.9

There’s also a graphical mode that will add an indicator in your panel. All you need to do is type “gtk-”before the command, like this:

gtk-redshift -l #:#

If you travel a lot or if you just want to change your location without going to the command line, you can ignore the location setting while typing the command. Then, you should set your location the clock applet that’s located on the right of your top panel.

I recommend you to make redshift load on login so you won’t need to think about setting it up anymore. To do this, simply go to System > Preferences > Startup Applications and Add a new app with the same command that you used to launch it. Redshift will launch at next login.

For those who find Redshift a bit extreme, there’s a way to change the screen color temperature easily. The command-line is necessary, but it’s as simple as it can be and works right away. Just copy the code below and replace #night by your desired night-time temperature and #day for the daytime setting:

redshift -l [location] -t #night:#day

By default, the night temperature is set to 3700. You might try to start at 4200 and move up or down depending on what you feel about it. The higher you set it, the cooler it will become (and closer to your normal screen color). You can also adjust the gamma by adding -g #R:#G:#B where #R, #G and #B are the values for red, green and blue respectively. To view all your options, type redshift -h. Don’t forget to tell us what settings you use in the comments!

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*you can find your local coordinates at getlatlon.com