Ubuntu Dell Laptops Go on Sale in India

Dell computers pre-loaded with Ubuntu are being rolled out across 850 retail stores in India.

The move is the latest in a string of retail manoeuvres by Canonical and Dell, having arrived in 220 store across China late last year. That figure has now risen to 350.

And, much like the Chinese roll-out, in-store Ubuntu branding, training and support will be set up in stores to help relay the benefits of Ubuntu to the public.

To kick off the arrival Dell will be selling their Inspiron 14R and 15R laptops with Ubuntu from June 21st. Further models will go on sale later in the year.

This incursion into India matches up with Canonical’s expectation that Ubuntu will ship on 5% of all PCs worldwide next year.

‘Accessible’

Canonical's CEO, Jane Silber, who’s in New Delhi for  the Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event, said of the announcement:

"A founding principle of Ubuntu is to make computing more accessible. By working with Dell to bring these machines to market, we're providing millions of people with the opportunity of an affordable, high-quality computing experience – in some cases, for the first time."

It’s expected that Ubuntu retail availability will be extended to additional territories before the year is out.

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Mass-Market Games Engine ‘Unity3D’ To Support Linux

The viability of Linux as a gaming platform continues to grow, with today’s news that /unity3d.com/" target="_blank">Unity 3D (no, not that one), one of the most popular games engines used by developers of all calibres, will be supporting Linux.

The self-described ‘intuitive and flexible development platform’ allows games developers to “author once” but “deploy everywhere”. This move will allow gaming titles created using the development suite for Windows or iOS the option to be exported for use on Linux, too.

With Unity becoming a popular tool in the creation of “AAA gaming titles”, this introduction could pave the the release of mainstream gaming titles on Linux.

Linux = 10%

Interestingly, Unity Technologies say adding support for Linux will open up titles developed on the platform an estimated ’10% of the game-hungry PC market’.

Even the Linux share breakdowns from the Humble Bundle collections aren’t quite as generous as Unity Tech’s ’10%’ statistic, but as we’re in an unquestioning mood we’ll take it.

‘Smart User Base’

In an interview with GamesIndustry International, Unity co-founder and CEO David Helgason elaborated on the decision to add support for Linux further, saying:

“Linux is something we’ve had a lot of questions about from the indie community, and the Humble Indie Bundle has showed that there’s a business on Linux. So we’re trying to commercialise on something we’ve been working on for a long time internally – we actually had some of our engineers kind of doing it in their spare time and on weekends.

We’ll be the first mass market engine to support Linux, and it’s not the biggest user-base, but it’s a very passionate group of people that are willing to pay, they’re smart, and they really love the platform.”

Continuing:

“I actually think our move will be a huge boost to Linux on the desktop. The most important ecosystems of our lifetime such as Windows, OS/2, and later Facebook and iOS, have been made, or undone, by having games, or not. It’s too early to say just how big the impact will be, but I’m excited.”

Other Features

Unity 4 is set to ship with a wide range of new features, options and support, including:

• Shuriken particle system supports external forces, bent normals and automatic culling
• 3D texture support
• Navigation: dynamic obstacles and avoidance priority
• Major optimizations in UnityGUI performance and memory usage
• Remote Unity Web Player debugging
• New Project Window workflows
• Iterative lightmap baking
• Refined component-based workflows
• Extensible inspectors for custom classes
• Improved Cubemap import pipeline
• Geometry data improvements for huge memory and performance savings
• Meshes can be constructed from non-triangle geometry – render points & lines efficiently
• Search, live preview and buy Asset Store assets from the Project Window

Many of the above features will be demonstrated at the Unite event ion Amsterdam later this year (August 22nd – 25th).

The full press release for the Unity 4 update can be found behind the button below.

Unity 4 Press Release

Unity Technologies, provider of the Unity multi-platform engine and development tools, is excited to announce Unity 4, the next generation of the Unity development platform. The launch of Unity 4 demonstrates the platform’s AAA push that levels the playing field between the largest and the smallest studios, enabling anyone from the most indie game designer to the biggest multinational AAA studios to develop amazing groundbreaking games, and effortlessly deploy to multiple platforms. Customers who pre-order Unity 4 will be offered early access to the Unity 4 beta.

Unity 4 includes an overhaul of the Unity engine and tools suite to accommodate critical new features such as the highly anticipated all-new Mecanim character animation system, DirectX 11 support, hypermodern mobile graphics, and the addition of Adobe® Flash® and Linux as new publishing platforms. These new features and improvements comprise the first in a series of Unity 4 releases that will empower developers with the first truly democratic AAA game engine.

“We’ve been working on Unity 4 for a long, long time and are happy to finally be able to unveil its imminent arrival and outline its core features that will change the industry,” said David Helgason, CEO, Unity Technologies. “The revolutionary animation system and add-on deployments to Adobe Flash and Linux are some of the critical features introduced in Unity 4, which together maintain Unity as the strongest, fastest evolving modern games development platform available.”

Unity 4 includes a host of new features, updates, and improvements:

Mecanim – Groundbreaking character animation technology

Mecanim, Unity’s powerful and innovative animation technology, brings your characters to life in a few mouse clicks with incredibly fluid and natural motion. Mecanim combines a slick interface with powerful tools for creating state machines, blend trees, IK rigging, and auto retargeting of animations all inside of the Unity editor.

“The introduction of the Mecanim suite of animation tools into Unity will completely change how developers integrate interactive animations and will result in awesome new gameplay experiences from the Unity community,” said Robert Lanciault, Lead Animation Developer, Unity Technologies. “These tools will allow animators to work directly in Unity to create advanced and detailed animation blend trees and state machines for incredible and natural character animation.”

An impressive array of retargetable animation will be available in the Unity Asset Store. Developers will have access to a wide range of options that will help bring their characters to life with fluidity and grace.

Visual Fidelity and AAA Rendering

Unity 4 fully supports Microsoft’s DirectX 11. This offers developers the ability to take advantage of the GPU in new and exciting ways: increased shader capabilities with shader model 5, tessellation for smoother models and environments in game worlds, and compute shaders for advanced GPU computation.

Mobile platforms have also received a boost in visual fidelity with optimizations and new features. Unity 4 features real-time shadows on mobile, skinned mesh instancing, the ability to use normal maps when baking lightmaps, and a refined GPU profiler. It’s easy to make extremely high-end visuals that scale across the best of what’s available on modern PCs and the most advanced mobile graphics chips.

Extend multiplatform publishing with Unity add-on for Adobe Flash Player

With Unity 4, developers can create a new game, or take existing Unity 3D content — for iOS, Android, desktop, or the Web — and publish it to the Adobe Flash Player, installed on more than a billion PCs worldwide. Leveraging its industry leading Editor productivity tools, Lightmap and Lightprobe baking, and Occlusion Culling tools, Unity 4 is the powerhouse development tool for creating 3D content for the Adobe Flash Player.

Linux Publishing Preview

Unity 4 will include a preview of a new deployment option to publish games to Desktop Linux, clearing a path for the Unity community to bring exciting new content to the estimated 10% of the game-hungry PC market. Desktop Linux standalone publishing will be available for all Unity 4 users at no additional cost.

Furthermore, Unity 4 introduces a great many additions and improvements such as:

• Shuriken particle system supports external forces, bent normals and automatic culling
• 3D texture support
• Navigation: dynamic obstacles and avoidance priority
• Major optimizations in UnityGUI performance and memory usage
• Dynamic fonts on all platforms with HTML-like markup
• Remote Unity Web Player debugging
• New Project Window workflows
• Iterative lightmap baking
• Refined component-based workflows
• Extensible inspectors for custom classes
• Improved Cubemap import pipeline
• Geometry data improvements for huge memory and performance savings
• Meshes can be constructed from non-triangle geometry — render points & lines efficiently
• Search, live preview and buy Asset Store assets from the Project Window

Unity 4 is available now for pre-order from the Unity store (https://store.unity3d.com/).

Unity 4 will be demonstrated and discussed in further detail at the Unite 2012 developer conference that takes place August 22nd – 25th in Amsterdam. For tickets and more information about Unite, visit http://www.unity3d.com/unite/.

About Unity Technologies
Unity Technologies is the creator of Unity, an intuitive and flexible development platform used to make wildly creative and intelligently interactive 3D and 2D content. The “author once, deploy everywhere” capability ensures developers can publish to all of the most popular platforms. Unity Technologies boasts a thriving community of 1,000,000 registered developers including large publishers, indie studios, students and hobbyists. Unity Technologies aggressively re-invests in its award-winning 3D development tools and democratization initiatives, such as the Asset Store digital content marketplace and Union game distribution service, in order to remain at the forefront of innovation. Unity Technologies is headquartered in San Francisco and has offices in Canada, China, Denmark, Lithuania, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Japan and Korea. For more information, visit:http://unity3d.com.

Unity and all other product names are trademarks of Unity Technologies or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Adobe and Flash are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All other product names and trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Marketwire, Via John Pugh

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‘Qreator’ Offers Fast Creation of Qr Codes in Ubuntu

If you ever need to quickly create your own Qr codes – those small scannable black and white squares often found in print advertising  - then Qreator is just the tool you need.

As a recent addition to the shelves of the Ubuntu Software you might not have heard of it before.

But the simple interface and tight Unity integration mean that it is just as capable, if not more so, than similar offerings we have looked at in the past – like as QtQr.

Features of Qreator

The usefulnesss of Qreator is in its feature set. It is able to quickly make Qrcodes for four different types of data – not just hyperlinks.

These are:

• URL
• Text
• Location
• Wifi Network

QrCodes based on the data chosen above are generated instantly, and can be saved straight to your desktop or copied to the system clipboard to paste in a graphics editing app, such as GIMP or Pinta.

A handy Unity quicklist is also in tow, giving you right-click access to all of the above features.



Qreator is a free download and available for Ubuntu 12.04 via the Ubuntu Software Center – just hit the button below to get it.

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Ubuntu 12.04 Firmware Released for SmartQ T20 Tablet

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Use One of These Simple Wallpapers for a Distraction Free Desktop

Finding a new desktop wallpaper is not hard, is it? All it takes is a quick Google. 

But sometimes we’re our own worst enemy. The wallpapers we choose, for all of their allure, can be distracting – from blinding bokeh backdrops, nature scenes that we can’t resist daydreaming over, to the bright lights of an urban city-scape continually drawing the eye.

To use a clichéd motto: it sometimes pays to keep things simple.

Simple Desktop = Your One Stop Shop

That’s where the curated collection of wallpapers from SimpleDesktop come in. If clean, distraction-free wallpapers are what you’re after you need never go anywhere else.

The site itself is as simple to navigate as the wallpapers it presents; you just need to hit the navigation buttons to start looking.

I cannot stress enough how much it’s worth spending some time to dig through the (seemingly) thousands of wallpapers on offer; there are some real gems to be found.

And the best bit is that these wallpapers look awesome in Unity. 



Visit SimpleDesktops

 

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[How To] Add RuneScape Wikia Lens to Ubuntu 12.04

If you still play RuneScape – one of the worlds most popular free MMORPGs – then you may find yourself referring to the dedicated RuneScape ‘Wikia’ site from time to time.

A new Unity lens, created by Runescaper Ryan McClure, brings that Wikia to the Ubuntu desktop.



Ryan told us more:

Essentially, it is a search Lens for the site: www.runescape.wikia.com, which is a Wiki site devoted to the Jagex game, RuneScape.

It is a slightly popular java-based game, and this site is used by many of its users. I created this lens to make searching even quicker for a player–instead of having to search for a page after opening a new tab, simply typing in the lens will display the page instantly!

Sounds niche, but handy.

Install Runescape Wikia Lens

To install the Lens in Ubuntu you will need to first add Ryan’s PPA to your Software Sources, then proceed to update and install the ‘unity-lens-runescapewikia‘ package using the Ubuntu Software Center.

Alternatively, for an easy life, you can complete both steps by running the two commands below in a new Terminal window:

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ryanmichaelmcclure/ppa
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install unity-lens-runescapewikia

After installing you will need to log out and back into Ubuntu before the lens becomes ‘active’.

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Puducherry Linux Group Bring Ubuntu to Internet Center

When I say that readers of this site are awesome I really do mean it.

Prasanna Venkadesh, and the PuduvaiLUG (Puducherry Linux Users Group), are shining examples.

Like many Linux Users Groups around the world, they spend a lot of their time working on ways to spread awareness of GNU/Linux in and around their home territory of Puducherry, India.

Seeing an opportunity where Linux could benefit a local business (and in turn help locals encounter Linux, many for the first time) they approached the owner of a local Internet center to see whether he would be interested in switching his computers over from Windows to Linux.

The switch would give his computers a more responsive, less taxing OS, but also provided an unparalleled level of security for both his machines and the users using them.

The good news is that he was keen, Prasanna tells me, and they settled on using ’the Ubuntu flavour of GNU/Linux’.

‘Surprises’

Keen to make a good impression on their boss willing to give Linux a go, the PuduvaiLUG have come up with a few surprises. One of which is a handmade spray-painting of the OMG! Ubuntu! logo to be hung on the wall of the internet center itself.

Not only does the internet cafe get Ubuntu, it gets some OMG! Ubuntu! love too!

Prasanna sent in some photos of the artwork (which has yet to be boxed and hung) and it looks brilliant.

But what’s even more brilliant is knowing that, thanks to these guys, a whole new group of people are about to be introduced to Ubuntu.

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Can a System76 Ubuntu Laptop Meet One Photographer’s Needs?

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Canonical Clarify Ubuntu SecureBoot Plans

The drama surrounding Microsoft’s decision to make ’locked down’ bootloaders a requirement for computer makers wishing to ship Windows 8 has been rumbling on for a while.

The devices will use the UEFI-based SecureBoot specification to “prevent unauthorized firmware, operating systems, or UEFI drivers from running at boot time”.

Put simply: only operating systems that have a verified digital key/signature will be able to boot.

UEFI, SecureBoot and Ubuntu

Ever since the Windows 8 SecureBoot dilemma reared its the big question has been: “Can I still use Ubuntu?” .

Canonical have today responded with plans on how they intend to approach the SecureBoot situation to ensure that Ubuntu ‘works smoothly’ for users of devices enabled with it.

Firstly, Canonical has generated an Ubuntu key that, once manually added to affected systems, will allows users to boot Ubuntu.

‘Simple ways for enterprises and consumers to use this key‘ will be announced in due course.

Ubuntu will also use a different kind of boot-loader for Ubuntu on SecureBoot hardware – one not based on the traditional GRUB2.

The reason for this is legal rather than technical, as Steve Langasek explained on the Ubuntu Development mailing list:

“The reason we’ve arrived at a different plan is that Ubuntu has a rather extensive base of preinstalled systems. Microsoft’s Windows 8 logo requirements do say that there must be a way for users to disable secure boot or to install their own keys, and we strongly support this in our own firmware guidelines; but in the event that a manufacturer makes a mistake and delivers a locked-down system with a GRUB 2 image signed by the Ubuntu key, we have not been able to find legal guidance that we wouldn’t then be required by the terms of the GPLv3 to disclose our private key in order that users can install a modified boot loader. At that point our certificates would of course be revoked and everyone would end up worse off.”

To remedy this Canonical have decided to use Intel’s efilinux loader (code which will be familiar to with Intel Mac dual-booters), to which they will apply a few tweaks and add a ‘simple menu’ for OS switching.

Ubuntu CDs

Secondly, Ubuntu CDs will make use of a loader image signed by Microsoft’s ‘WinQual‘ key. This will allow Ubuntu to boot on ‘more or less every off-the-shelf [Windows 8] system’.

Steve Langasek explains this particular part further in a mail to the Ubuntu Development mailing list:

“This will then chain to efilinux signed by our own key (so we don’t have to go through the WinQual signing process every time we want to make a minor change there).

We hope that we’ll also be able to make the first stage loader detect whether Secure Boot is enabled and otherwise chain to GRUB 2, to ensure that we don’t regress behaviour for those with UEFI systems that do not implement Secure Boot or that have it disabled.” 

Calm Before The Storm?

None of the above is set in stone, and things may yet change.

With the first Windows 8 UEFI/SecureBoot devices not out of the gate yet, Canonical do have a bit more breathing time in which to evaluate and implement solutions.

But they’ll be keenly aware that they need to do it before the flood of devices arrives. 

 

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Ubuntu App Showdown Progress

Ubuntu’s App Showdown contest, in which users are tasked with making an application from scratch in just three weeks, is barely been running  a week yet there are already some notable app projects in development…. 

Below is just a small selection of applications that I know about.

There are plenty more out there, many of which are being worked on in secret. But if you’re not shy about your work we’d love to track its progress – so get get in touch via the usual methods.

DayJournal

Zach Burnham is working on a daily journalling application called ‘DayJournal‘ (below left).

It’s purpose is simple: make keeping a digital journal as simple and straightforward as a physical one.

But what happens when a slick journaling web app goes away? What happens when the desktop app that stores your journal entries in a password-protected cryptic file format becomes outdated? You'll start to lose confidence in keeping a digital journal and try to keep on with pen and paper. And that just won't work. Because you want to type it.

Progress can be tracked via Zach’s PPA.

Imgur Browser

Discuvr (above, right) is a desktop-based browser for the Imgur photo sharing website.

So far Discuvr doesn’t let you comment or vote (key features on the Imgur site itself) but it does let you see the latest popular (and usually very funny) images without needing to open up your browser.

LibreEdit

E-books fans should keep an ear out for LibreEdit. Developed by Neil Munro, it aims to make the ‘import, edit and export ePub books’ easy.

“It will do this graphically and not having to break open the epub files manually, everything from changing the author information to the actual chapter content should be handled inside the application,” Munro writes on his blog.

And from the initial screengrabs of his work thus far, it’s looking good:

RSS Readers

RSS Readers appear to be the idea de jour of the contest. I know of a least 4 such applications being worked on.

Two of these are ‘publicly known’, including one from the development team behind task management app NitroTasks. From the peek i’ve been given I looks very slick.

Also in the works is a ‘Pandora style’ client by ‘jjed’: -

Manga Reader

Like Manga? The developer of this app aims to create a desktop app for reading your faovurite Manga without needing to open a browser.

‘You can choose through a list of 40 mangas,’ he writes on Reddit, ‘And you can save any manga’s page into your disk or create a Pdf file with the episode you choose.’

Houston

I like the sound of this one: a cloud management application that aims to provide a GUI for ‘configuring and starting instances, applying DNS settings, running  provisioning scripts, provides server status’.

Reddit App

This one doesn’t need much explaining, and from the WIP screenshot already available it looks like it has some super handy features already:

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NitroTasks Update Adds Theme, Feature Improvements

The slick task management application Nitrotasks has been updated with a raft of new features and improvements. 

Alongside a new ‘Linux’ theme that respect a users GTK theme comes additional integration with Ubuntu’s Unity desktop.

Other new features include: -

• Resizable sidebar
• Customisable background/headings
• Tag support
• Sorting options
• Ability to select multiple tasks using the CTRL + click

New Stuff In Pictures

The new Linux theme better matches a users GTK theme, and makes use fo system icons where possible.



The Nitro Unity item displays a count badge for all unfinished tasks under ‘Today’:



The ‘Sync’ panel has a refined, consistent look: -



Sorting your tasks by date, priority or other means is now easy:

Installing Nitro 1.4 in Ubuntu 12.04

As Nitro is not available to directly install from the Ubuntu Software Center you will need to add and install from the following PPA: -

• sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cooperjona/nitrotasks
• sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install nitrotasks

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Chrome Web Apps No Longer Merge in Unity

Michael Quinlan wrote in to let us know that Chrome and Chromium web apps no longer merge in Unity’s launcher.

I don’t what what got updated, but I’m using Chrome 19.0.1084.56 on Ubuntu 12.04 and just noticed that my Google Reader (Chrome Application), Google Drive (Chrome Application), and Chrome itself all have arrows indicating that the “app” is active, and I can use the Unity launcher to switch between them.

Prior to Ubuntu 12.04 I was using the classic interface specifically due to the merging icon issue, but have been giving Unity another go since updating to 12.04. I’m glad I did!

To be honest it may have been like this for a while; I stopped using Chrome web apps in Ubuntu a while back because of this issue. Trying to manage 3/4 open web-apps at once was harder when they all hid behind one icon.

But that has now changed, so if you were put off previously it might be time to give it another whirl.

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