Xubuntu Blog

When I found out you could pre-order Ubuntu Feisty Fawn CD’s via ShipIt (Ubuntu’s free-of-charge CD shipping service) I immediately did so. This week they arrived and I took some pictures.

The package immediately reminds me about what an oudsider Xubuntu is:

There is some information on the back about Canonical, and how its projects include the free and open source Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Edubuntu. Not a word on Xubuntu

Ubuntu CD Hosted on Zooomr

That aside, the CD looks very slick:

Ubuntu CD Hosted on Zooomr

There are some instructions on how to use this CD and a block describing “The Ubuntu Promise”.

Ubuntu CD Hosted on Zooomr

Oh, and there’s some info on Ubuntu on the back too:

Ubuntu CD Hosted on Zooomr

But this is what I consider the best part: stickers!

Ubuntu CD Hosted on Zooomr

Those stickers will look really nice on my pc

Anyway, the reason Xubuntu is not available for free shipping is, according to Mark Shuttleworth:

i don’t think so. xubuntu, as i understand it, is a more specialist environment, so we probably would not fund cd shipments for it. it’s hard to justify on either philanthropic or business grounds. though it would be nice at least if you could order xubuntu

Well… I don’t know what exactly Mark means by specialist environment, I might ask him some time, but ordering at least would be cool. However, I do hope Xubuntu once becomes available for ShipIt because I use it not because my computer is so slow (it could run Ubuntu), but because it is extremely responsive and has some really nifty features Ubuntu doesn’t have. Let’s hope the folks over at Canonical will also come to realize that I’m not the only one. I’m not, am I?

You can now request your CD’s of Ubuntu 7.07 7.04 (Feisty Fawn), to be delivered free of charge, via ShipIt.

With the previous version of Ubuntu, Edgy Eft, you could only request CD’s of Dapper Drake, an earlier release of Ubuntu that came with Long Term Support.

When, a few days ago, the ShipIt website announced they were preparing to ship Ubuntu Feisty, I had already half expected this: you cannot request free CD’s of Xubuntu.

Too bad, but if you have a slow internet connection, apparently you can’t have your share of fun with Feisty.

Oh, and if you prefer the “Long Term Support” version of Ubuntu, you’re out of luck, because apparently, it no longer is available for shipping.

Ah well, fingers crossed for Feisty+1… (the Gutsy Gibbon)

First a video:

This is the demonstration video of Photo Tourism which was later transformed into Microsoft Photosynth (Wikipedia). Now, you’ll find it difficult to disagree with me when I say this is a great product. It just has that “cool factor”.

However, the Photosynth website says at the system requirements: Only Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista RC1 or later are supported at this time. However, the video I showed above clearly shows it running on Linux (take a look at the titlebar of the web browser or the “add annotation dialog”). This could mean two things:

1. Microsoft deliberately decided not to support Linux
2. Microsoft may still want to make this available for Linux

I of course hope it is the latter, however, I am inclined to think the former is more likely. Four of the five members of the team worked at the University of Washington and might have worked on this project on Linux. However, now that the project website is at Microsoft’s website and it has been renamed to Microsoft Photosynth, I fear Microsoft did not want it to run on Linux. And obviously, the new demo videos do not show it running on Linux… What a terrible waste And if you go a little further, imagine how great it would’ve been if this was an open source project!

On the other hand, I have no knowledge at all about the project’s history or Microsoft’s decision, so this post might be completely ridiculous. In that case, I’m terribly sorry to ruin this blog’s reputation at the third post already…. If you know the details, please tell me in the comments to this post. Thanks!