FOSSwire

Adept is the graphical package management program included with Kubuntu, which is also available for Debian and other Linux distributions that use the apt package management system.

While Adept does the job for most software management tasks, it isn't exactly the quickest application when it comes to starting up.

KDE Software Installer is an alternative program for installation of applications from the Debian and Ubuntu repositories. I thought I would put it through its paces briefly.

I downloaded the .deb file for Kubuntu Hardy Heron, and double-clicked it to install. Once installed, it goes into the System category on your K menu, and is labelled as Add/Remove Applications (much like the GNOME version of Ubuntu's default package installer).

It does not replace the Add/Remove Programs entry, however, on the root of the K menu, which still launches the standard Adept installer. This could potentially be a little confusing as to which program is which.

Once you have got the new App Installer launched, the interface looks like the following screenshot.

Compared to the standard Adept installer, it is slightly simpler and more compact. Unlike with Adept, the categories on the left in the new program fit nice and neatly even at small window sizes, which makes the application feel less cluttered.

In addition, many of the more advanced options that Adept offers, including editing the Sources list are hidden, making it more suitable for newbies and people that don't want to have to think about the details of what they are doing.

The categories on the left instantly show their contents and the speed claims over Adept Installer seem to be founded in my experience. Launching the application is quick enough that you don't notice, and there is no long wait to load in software information and populate the interface.

To make it even quicker, this program also supports minimising to a tray icon. The little green arrow in the interface makes the application disappear, all but for a rocket tray icon, which you click to restore. I'm not entirely convinced that having this hiding functionality is really necessary or particularly useful, but it does work as advertised.

Enough about the interface - how well does it actually do the job of installing packages?

Ticking a program in the list to install makes its entry highlight in green.

Clicking the Apply Changes button then shows you a handy preview of all the changes you've queued before allowing you to kick off the download and installation.

Unfortunately, the application's handling of getting administrator rights to do the installation is poor at best currently. After you OK the download, the application window turns into a giant terminal with the standard sudo prompt in it. Users that have used sudo before will know what to do, but for newbies (which this application up until this point does a great job at catering for) may be a little intimidated by the geekiness of it all.

There's also no graphical progress beyond this point - you literally now watch the result of command-line apt.

Once the normal installation process is done, you are prompted to press Enter and then return back to the app. There's a distinct lack of positive visual confirmation here.

If the installation process were as simple and pretty as the selection of packages, this alternative software installer would be perfect for newbies who don't want or need to know the intricacies of Debian package management to install stuff.

Don't get me wrong - it's still a great program if you want a graphical interface to apt with less cruft and aren't scared by the scrolling text. If you currently use Adept, but are frustrated with its far-from-quick operating speed, it's great.

I just think that with some work, this could be a great program for making the process of installing software packages that little bit more friendly.

There are lots of different ways you can build software and the typical ways in which FOSS development and proprietary development are done are quite dramatically different.

In this article, I'm going to talk about what problems the typical FOSS method can face when open source products are integrated within enterprise environments. I will then go on to talk about two different companies, and how they address some of these issues.

Monolithic Releases

The trend in proprietary software development is to release relatively infrequently, but when you do, to provide a massive update. One of the most obvious examples here would be Microsoft and their development cycle with Windows.

It took them about 5 years to push out Vista following XP, and when they did, they had changed an awful lot between the releases. You could argue this example is a little extreme, but bear with me.

"Release early, release often"

Now contrast with the trend for free software/open source development. Ubuntu recently pushed out their Hardy Heron release. Ubuntu follows a 6-month release cycle, and apart from a minor blip pushing Dapper Drake back by two months a couple of years ago, they have kept to that well.

In contrast to the changes between XP and Vista, relatively little changes between Ubuntu releases.

This concept of 'release often, release early' that is so pervasive in the FOSS world has been written about in Eric S Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar (very interesting read, if you're in to that sort of thing by the way).

Potential Problems for Enterprise Adoption

These frequent release cycles and constant wave of small changes to open source products can cause issues in the business environment.

Most businesses don't care what technological solution they're using to tackle a problem. All they want is something that works well, is efficient, is easy to fix when it breaks and is cheap. In most cases picking proprietary or FOSS isn't an idealogical decision, it will be based purely on how well that product meets these criteria.

The problem with the bazaar model here - i.e. the releasing early and often, is that it can become difficult to support in an enterprise environment.

As a business, you don't want to have to be constantly updating the product and potentially dealing with new features or things that might change. Change could break something that depends on that product, and getting people to do software updates and deal with potential problems those updates can cause is expensive.

Equally, though, not updating could leave you vulnerable to known security issues, for example, and could cause businesses more harm in the long run.

You can see at this point why businesses might stick with traditional proprietary software. They know how it works, when the releases will be and they know that there is always a single entity to go to for support with that product.

So how are these issues addressed to make FOSS a more attractive prospect for businesses? I'll look at two ways in which frequency of updates, and support and accountability, are dealt with, in both Red Hat and Canonical (who sponsor Ubuntu development).

Solutions - Red Hat

How this is often tackled in many environments within the FOSS community (and to a certain extent outside it) is by having two strands of a product - the stable and supported version, and the one being worked on, the development version.

Take Red Hat, for example. Back in 2004, Red Hat split their single Red Hat Linux distribution into these two strands.

Fedora would become the 'development' version. While it's stable enough to use for almost all purposes, Red Hat sell no support for it. It sometimes is used as a bit of a 'testing ground' for technologies that will later be integrated into their enterprise product. Updates come thick and fast, and you have the latest and greatest versions of packages as they come out.

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is generally one or two releases behind Fedora. While it integrates all the latest security fixes, it doesn't necessarily include the latest and greatest versions of software components.

Red Hat make their money by selling support contracts for RHEL. All their work for Fedora earns them very little if anything at all.

Businesses want support, though, if they are going to use a product. Its open source nature means that RHEL can be competitively priced and Red Hat's support packages mean businesses have the confidence to use their software.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu works a little differently.

Instead of two separate distributions, Ubuntu keeps a single strand which sort of goes half way between Fedora and RHEL. Security updates are delivered as soon as they are available, and quite a lot of software is the most recent version with the latest features.

After a release of Ubuntu, however, that package might not be upgraded with new features until the next release of the whole distro. This gives Ubuntu a greater level of stability and predictability than Fedora at times, but consequently can be less attractive to hardcore hobbyists who want the bleeding edge experience.

Commercial support is offered by Canonical, the parent company behind Ubuntu. Support timescales are limited, however, for each release of the distro.

Certain releases are designated with the Long Term Support (LTS) badge. LTS means that Canonical will provide support for that release for much longer, which makes the releases marked as LTS much more suitable for enterprise usage. They are also architected to focus more on stable, known versions of software than to be bleeding edge.

There is less of a visible marketing push towards getting Ubuntu in the enterprise, because of Canonical's differing commercial focus. However, the LTS releases combined with a suitable support package make for a good enterprise solution.

Red Hat vs Canonical - Support Approach Shootout

So what works best?

First of all, it is worth pointing out that Red Hat and Canonical are very different companies. Red Hat are very focused on the enterprise, while Canonical aims more towards the home desktop market (who are much less likely to be willing to buy support), so they make less of a push of their support services.

Having said that, personally I think Red Hat's approach works best. Hobbyists get to use Fedora, which gives them what they want - bleeding edge new technology, which they get to play with. The feedback from this group of users feeds into RHEL, which (hopefully) becomes a good product.

RHEL is now stable, tried and tested, and Red Hat can convince businesses that it is good, and that RH can provide that support backing for it.

With Ubuntu, I personally think that support feels like more of an afterthought than something built in to the core like with Red Hat. LTS releases perhaps don't feel distinct enough, and there is still quite a lot of stigma in the business world about using something that feels too 'free'; the belief that because you get what you pay for, free code must be rubbish.

Perhaps this lack of special branding and having a more visible 'price tag' hurts its perception by businesses from a marketing point of view.

Both ways do work, though, and these strategies do help Linux and open source products be more enterprise ready. All this clearly demonstrates how far the free software model has come since the early Unix hacker days. While as a methodology it does present its own unique challenges, it also brings rewards and allows for undercutting the competition.

So Ubuntu Hardy Heron has now arrived, and you can download the new release from the Ubuntu site.

The main desktop release tends to overshadow the other projects that are official variants of Ubuntu. If you're new to the distro, new to Linux in general, or just want a refresher, here's what is available as well as the standard desktop product.

Ubuntu Server Edition

Server Edition, is, quite obviously, the version of Ubuntu tailored for running servers. Instead of being a graphical live CD, the Server version boots straight into a text-based installer, then sets up a system optimised for common server tasks.

You do have full access to the Ubuntu software repositories, so it is easy to then customise it to do whatever you need it to do.

Hardy Heron Server Edition is a Long Term Support (LTS) release, and it will be supported until 2013.

Kubuntu

Kubuntu is the official Ubuntu derivative which ships with the KDE desktop environment, rather than the GNOME desktop which comes with the standard version. I personally run this KDE variant on my desktop, although I also work with GNOME a fair bit too.

Hardy Heron actually brings two different Kubuntu releases to the table. The standard desktop PC version features KDE 3.5.9 which is less bleeding edge and is more tried-and-tested technology. There is also a 'KDE 4 Remix' disc available which features the same Ubuntu base with the newer, but less stable KDE 4 desktop. I plan to be looking at this KDE 4 Remix disc in more detail in an upcoming post.

Unlike its GNOME counterpart, the Kubuntu distro does not have the LTS tag, meaning it will only be supported for 18 months.

Xubuntu

Xubuntu uses the more lightweight Xfce desktop environment, which makes it ideally suited to lower-spec computers that might be sluggish running the main edition, or the KDE variant.

Xubuntu does have Long Term Support, and because it is a desktop release, Hardy Heron Xubuntu will be supported until 2011.

Edubuntu

Edubuntu is a derivative specially designed for use in education and schools. It is preinstalled with many educational applications and other specialised software such as the iTalc classroom management system.

Edubuntu does not have Long Term Support at this release, so it only has the standard 18 month support cycle.

Gobuntu

There are some elements of Ubuntu that aren't 100% free software/open source. Mostly these are 'restricted' drivers that are used in certain hardware configurations, that make Ubuntu able to support hardware for which there isn't a free driver available.

However, some people prefer to run an operating system that is 100% free software and open source, and Gobuntu is the official Ubuntu derivative that offers that.

Right now it is still quite early days for Gobuntu, and there is only a text-based installer. "Please note that because running Gobuntu on most laptops and many desktops will be difficult, Gobuntu is intended for experienced Linux enthusiasts at this time."

Still, if going pure is your thing, Gobuntu is worth a try.

Others

This list only encompasses the official derivatives that are part of the Ubuntu project. In reality, there are many more distros that have used Ubuntu as a base and built on top of them, but which have diverged from the Ubuntu project itself.

There is also one more that I haven't mentioned in this list - Ubuntu Mobile Edition. Its focus is more towards specific mobile devices and so I didn't include it directly here.

Hopefully this clears up the inevitable confusion as to which 'buntu is which. Most people will probably just want to try the standard desktop version, which you can always grab a copy of at this page. For the more adventurous, and those with specific requirements, however, some of these versions could be a perfect fit.