But don’t worry, we will have ‘something’ resembling people talking into microphones, just not entirely sure when yet!

Those enthusiasts within the Phoronix community even managed to get the unreleased Steam Linux client running up to a partially drawn UI and other modifications, but now that work can stop as Valve is preparing to officially release the Steam Linux client from where they will start to offer Linux native games available for sale. For all those doubting our reports that Source/Steam would be coming to Linux, you can find confirmation in the UK’s Telegraph and other news sites. An announcement from Valve itself is imminent.

And the last paragraph from the Telegraph:

Valve has also confirmed that it will make Steam available to Linux users in the coming months.

What can I say, it was just going to happen.

Read on to discover why I have posted this sugary, boiled, strawberry flavored sweet on this post...

We probably should be recording a episode of Ignition today, but thanks to a variety of circumstances, it’s not happening until Monday Night, but again, the nature of not having a permanent location to record sometimes means these things happen. In the mean time, it’s a relatively nice Saturday here, so, as per the rule book, I’ve been playing on a game console inside.

If only I was doing a Podcast, such a convenient excuse to leave the house. But, there is a very good reason why your not going be hearing us over the weekend. Matt is off “down South” to not take part in the Virgin London Marathon, however, his sister is and is raising money of St John’s Ambulance, who provide important first aid and medical assistance in the UK, everywhere from Football Matches to Theatre Performances (I was helped when I was younger after choking on a Campino in the middle of Doctor Dolittle, TRUE FACT). So if you want to donate (don’t forget if you’re in the UK, click the gift aid button), go to this website and do without that downloadable game. After doing that, read on to discover what I’m up to on this subdued sunny Saturday.

Much improved and probably the greatest throwback to the Ocarina of Time you could ask for

For some reason, I’ve got myself wrapped up the Legend of Zelda: The Twilight Princess again. I orignally played it on Gamecube (a lot closer to it’s original release date) and whilst it’s not my favourite, I understood why many critics were calling it the “greatest Zelda ever”. The scope of the game was far larger and detailed, yes the Wind Waker world was larger, but also more sparse, and the re-built Hyrule in Twilight Princess is probably the finest incarnation to date. Everything in the game is improved, from character detail and graphical quality, despite the odd muddy texture, typical of a Gamecube/Wii title, to the cutscenes being the best in the series.

Anyway, whilst I enjoyed it, I never finished it on Gamecube and since I’d borrowed it from someone, I never got chance to pick up it again until I got it on Wii last year. And what a mind f**k that was. Because of the ‘unique’ control scheme of waggling, which, to be fair, isn’t that bad once you acclimatize, it made sense to have Link use his sword in his right hand, whereas it had always traditionally been his left. Therefore Nintendo flipped the entire game world, so that it was all mirrored. Not a problem if you are like most people and playing on Wii for the first time, but my faint Gamecube version based memories occasionally came back.

The first village, Orden, was all wrong in my mind. I kept going the wrong way, when I knew where I wanted to go, but it was in grained in my head that the house I was looking for was in the East. It was in fact in the West. I’ve started to shake it off a little bit, but I find it amazing that a game managed to make me so used to the layout of it’s world that I could hardly function with the mirrored world. Imagine if you walked outside to find everything mirrored in your town or city. I’d walk to the wrong bus stop everyday, spent about double the time walking to the shop and basically, would really be messed up.

Therefore, perhaps it’s a testament to The Twilight Princess that the game world is unique and memorable enough to do that. Think about many games and it wouldn’t make a jot of difference if the game world was swapped around, because you very rarely stay around there long enough for it to imprint on your head. There will be games which people play so much that they can navigate round blindfolded (I embarrassingly got to that stage in GTA Vice City at one point), or can reel off the name of the first 151 Pokemon without a prompt.

Funny thing about Persona 4, more I talk about it, more I want to play it again

I got thinking recently about the differences in the way games are being designed and the growing links between Western and Japanese design philosophies. My thoughts on this will probably be best waiting till I’m not cooped up on a Saturday afternoon, but if I think of the most recent Japanese games I’ve played, they have all had something in common. You have to ‘get’ them. I was chatting with my girlfriend, who didn’t like the Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on DS and thus, doesn’t understand my love of the series, but she would play any Pokemon game or Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (and perhaps 3) without prompt. It’s not that I don’t like those games, but there are a lot of Japanese games I’ve showed her which, in her view, look crap/boring/complex and unlikeable.

However, I show her a batch of Western games, and whilst Modern Warfare 2, Assassins Creed 2 etc may not exactly be in her “like” pile, she at least understands why I like them. There are exceptions to this of course and it’s a case by case basis, Dragon Age: Origins was one of those, but that was perhaps for the story as opposed to the gameplay. I think that the Japanese design,  more conservative and rigid than that of the West, may perhaps require a little more investment in a lot of games, but then, this is such a flawed argument, it could very easily swing the other way. Maybe I’ll have to work a bit harder convince her about this Zelda game…

Anyway, after that largely irrelevant digression, let’s get back on track. I’m probably going to be going outside soon, but being one of those people who want to be doing something all the time, I find the outdoors boring. My bike is not at this house, so I’ll end up doing that on either Wii Sports Resort or Wii Fit (oh the choice). It’s a bit too windy for badminton and I’ve probably got some web development work to be doing instead…

Either way, enjoy the weekend whatever you are all up to and we’ll be back on Monday!

Over the internet wire it has been announced that Ubuntu will be using Google as it’s default search provider in it’s newest version, 10.04, instead of Yahoo. This comes as a shock as Ubuntu and many other projects (Firefox being a prime example) are apparently ditching the April-Foolhardy Google and switching to Yahoo.

It is not clear from the announcement the reason behind the change although, from it’s wording, it seems they have chosen Google over merit and not laziness. This could mean Ubuntu will be continuing to use Google in future.

The question that comes from this announcement is if the Mozilla project will also make good on their decision to default to Yahoo or to keep with the Goog’. Only time will tell.

The logo for Quickly, a Ruby-on-Rails like application framework.

Well, I mentioned on Sunday that this week I would be (and hopefully you too) taking part in the Ubuntu Opportunistic Developers week. I thought it would be awfully bad form not to show some of my progress (and my overly embarrassing bugs).

A quick word of warning though: I haven’t been able to catch as many sessions as I would like because of school and Game-Engine commitments and the stuff I have knocked together is very buggy. That said, the underlying concept of the program works it’s just the PyGTK programming that’s annoying me.

My First App: FeedMe

The basic idea behind FeedMe is simple. It’s just a couchDB application that fetches all the links from a HTML or XML file and puts them into a nice list. It borrows heavily on concepts and code from Dive into Python, a book for programmers with loads of great source code, documentation and online tutorials for Python and Quickly.

Anyway, without further a due, here is the first screen-shot of my far from finished application (click on it for full preview):

Yes, it's the one on the right. Don't laugh, this is my first time!

As you may see it is missing some scroll bars and I am still at a loss at how to delete entries from couchDB when I close the application or press a reset button (if anybody knows, please impart your knowledge as it would be VERY helpful ). On the bright side though, the network code works and, apart from the GUI, everything is functioning!

QUICK EDIT: I really don’t know why I am using couchDB for something that I don’t want to store data for. Excuse my ignorance.

Happy hacking!

UPDATE: FeedMe 2

After rewriting the GUI from scratch (and tearing my hair out in the process), the new version of FeedMe contains a simple click and go interface and actually lists things in a useful way now.

The new and improved FeedMe showing the output from http://www.google.com

Despite the fact that, under Game-Engine law, it is illegal to post on a Sunday it would really defeat the point if I didn’t post now. The reasoning behind this is because the start of next week (1st March) marks the beginning of the Ubuntu Opportunistic Developers week.

Essentially, the motivation behind it is to teach and encourage new developers to make quick applications for the Ubuntu platform that fill a specific niche. Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s because starting to develop for the Linux platform is confusing and the sessions offered at the developers week will give you the skills to become a GUI developer. I am certainly taking part, I already have an idea for an application knocking around in the back of my head and, after playing with some of the development toys, I am really looking forward to it.

The week will teach you how to use Quickly, PyGTK and the Python programming language to build your apps with elements such as persistent databases and graphics with PyGame.

Here is the table of events (click to get higher resolution):

If you feel like getting involved, read up on some of the basics of Python 2.6. It is a really easy language and all you need to do really is make sure you can read it and get some sense out of it. I am really looking forward to seeing some of the great apps that come out of the developers week and really do hope you let us know if you are planning anything .

To get involved, make sure you have an IRC client connected to irc.freenode.net and enter the room #ubuntu-classroom. To install a good IRC client in ubuntu:

sudo apt-get install xchat

Or if you want to integrate everything together and have a nice gooey tool to bring you into the classroom, install Lernid:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lernid-devs/lernid-releases

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install lernid

Here are a few links you might find useful:

Python Book: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Non-Programmer’s_Tutorial_for_Python_2.0

Wiki Entry: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuOpportunisticDeveloperWeek

Lernid Homepage: http://www.jonobacon.org/2010/02/25/brand-new-lernid-released/

For the sake of irony, I'm really hoping this image doesn't 404.

There are some words today that are synonymous with the history of computing. These words may include Linux, GNU, BSD, Mac OS X, Darwin, Solaris, System V, etc. However, what these words have got in common is that they all include, or are related to in some way, the word UNIX. Linux is word play for ‘Linus’, the Linux kernels father, and UNIX; GNU is an acronym for ‘GNU is not UNIX’; BSD and System V were the first UNIX systems; Darwin and Mac OS X are UNIX system-like operating systems and the same is so for Solaris.

Unfortunately, people may know that the words are related to but what they don’t know is how the words are related. The current standard of the UNIX naming system are almost as confusing as the court battles that have been fought over it. The lines between what is and what is not UNIX is no longer over who made the system or what the system performs like but by certification.

The History of UNIX

In order to understand UNIX, we need to know a little history about it. The operating system called UNIX was released in 1969 by employees working at AT&T’s (yes, the cell phone company) Bell Labs. The system was born after frustration with another operating system project called Multics. Ken Thompson, the guy mainly responsible for UNIX, began writing the file and paging systems on the Multics systems while they had access to them. Soon, the team Ken assembled had completed a hierarchical file system, the process infrastructure, a command interpreter and some simple utility applications.

When the system was ready, Thompson coined the name, ‘Unics’, which meant Uniplexed Information and Computing Service – a wordplay on Multics, which meant Multiplexed Information and Computing Service (the name simply meant how many users can be logged on at the same time: uni- equals one and multi- equals two or more). Once the operating system known as Unics could support more than one user it was renamed to the, now known, ‘UNIX’, operating system.

Once UNIX started to gain interest, it was re-written in C which allowed the team to port the system to much bigger machines than the PDP-7 that they had been using so far. It was at this point that the world’s first example of free software was observed, although not through charity. Because of an anti-trust case against AT&T forbade them from turning any non-telephonic system into a product, AT&T was forced to license UNIX out to anyone that asked. (Mundane) Legend has it that Thompson sent tapes and disks out to people who asked for the system with a note saying, ‘love, Ken’.

Soon, because the source code was licensed out as well, it became highly used in universities as educational examples, a factor that proves important later. After a second anti-trust case against AT&T, the Bell System was broken up which relieved the prior licensing constraint. AT&T leaped upon the chance to begin selling UNIX. This move nearly killed the operating system as the proprietary licensing made it less desirable to academic centres. Luckily, however, another version of UNIX , other than the newly named System V by AT&T, was in development at Berkeley University and was derived from the same code-base.

The Berkeley Software Distribution (or BSD) saw heavy development by others who saw the need for a freely licensed UNIX system. Because of this heavy investment, BSD is still (in different forms) running today and it’s networking technology is found everywhere. Microsoft Windows used to (and still does) use the BSD networking stack and the Berkeley Sockets API is the de facto socket technology today.

Soon, other companies began making their own spins of UNIX from the System V code-base. Sun brought out it’s SunOS system for workstations and even Microsoft brought out their own UNIX system for 16-bit systems named Xenix.

This turn of events saw the humble beginnings of the ‘UNIX Wars’. Way before MS-DOS based computers became the standard critics slated UNIX as the system of the future. The two factions of System V and BSD soon began fighting over standardisation on what defined a UNIX system. Eventually, the X/Open consortium (the consortium in which different companies with UNIX interests formed to develop a standard) decided on the POSIX API specification after the US Government mandated it for use with their own systems.

Sun Microsystems then worked with AT&T to merge all the good stuff from the UNIX flavours back into the System V code-base. After a period of relative quietness, Novell bought the rights to System V from AT&T hoping to create a UnixWare product by merging System V with its NetWare system to turn the market against Microsoft’s Windows NT system. This failed and spelled death for UNIX on the personal computer. Novell sold the trademark of UNIX to the X/Open Group Consortium and sold the code-base and rights to the Santa Crux Operation (SCO).

Today, UNIX exists in a much more diluted format and any rising of actual UNIX code makes SCO have a little bit of a fit. When Novell started distributing Linux in 2003, SCO filed court proceedings against them saying Linux was too similar to UNIX and selling it was a breech of intellectual property. This was only really settled in 2009 and, if you were wondering, Novell is still selling Linux under the name of SUsE.

Novell is still running today.

How UNIX Exists Today

Today it is more of a concept that defines a UNIX system. Since the original code-base is pretty much lost to the aeons of time (except in a few cases), what defines a UNIX system is its compliance to the Single Unix Specification (SUS), which is a product of The Open Group. How a system operates and if it is certified allows a system to call itself UNIX-system like.

This is the confusing part, because systems like Linux are called UNIX-like and systems such as Darwin are called UNIX. The reality is, because Darwin has had certification it is a UNIX-system like system and Linux isn’t UNIX at all. A note of irony, however, is that even though BSD is one of the oldest and purest form of UNIX available, modern incarnations such as FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD are not UNIX-system like systems at all.

For comparison, here are some common operating systems and how ‘UNIX’ they are:

GNU/Linux: GNU/Linux are systems that are based in operating to UNIX, but are not certified as being so. They are generally referred to as UNIX-like because of the strong similarities.

BSD: The old forms of BSD (386BSD etc) are forms of UNIX since they are based off the original code-base. However, newer BSD systems based off the old BSD code are not UNIX-system like because they are not certified.

Solaris/OpenSolaris: These operating systems are both UNIX as in it is directly descended from SunOS and System V and in that it has been certified SUS compliant and as such is UNIX-system like.

HP-UX: Hewlett Packard’s UNIX operating system has been certified as a UNIX-system like operating system and, like Solaris, is based of the original System V code.

IBM-AIX: IBM-AIX is SUS certified and was based of System V. It is also compatible with 4.3BSD’s command and programming interface extensions.

Microsoft Windows: Microsoft Windows is not based on UNIX nor is it certified to be UNIX. Therefore it is just ‘Microsoft Windows’.

Mac OS X/Darwin: Darwin was certified by the SUS as it is based on 386BSD and FreeBSD. Mac OS X is essentially Darwin with a cuddly graphical layer and programming extensions on top, so we can say with conviction that Mac OS X is UNIX-system like.

Hexley is the mascot of Darwin, a SUS certified UNIX-system like system.

Why aren’t BSD projects and GNU/Linux projects UNIX?

The simple fact in the matter is there is no real need to be. UNIX is so contrived now it is simply just an idea and an expensive one at that. Certification by The Open Group is very costly and all it really entitles you to do is have access to the UNIX trademark and to advertise as a UNIX system. For groups that develop altruistically, the need for conventional advertisement is practically non-existent and such badges of heritage just aren’t seen as needed.

In popular culture, however, it is generally accepted that BSD and GNU/Linux systems are UNIX-like simply because of the design similarities (after all, Linux was based on Minix which was based on UNIX).

Tux is the mascot of the Linux kernel, which is not SUS registered.

The OpenSolaris Paradigm

OpenSolaris is the project from Sun Microsystems that open-sources it’s Solaris operating system. This system is a milestone because this is the first System V code to be freely available under an open source license (CDDL and GPL). OpenSolaris is the only operating system in the world to be open source, contain actual System V heritage and be certified as UNIX under the SUS.

It is under some debate if OpenSolaris is a “free” operating system. The majority of OpenSolaris, including the kernel, are licensed under the CDDL which is a license that the Free Software Foundation say is not a free license, despite the Open Source Initiatives claims that the CDDL is a suitable open source license. Also, Danese Cooper (who wrote the language and is an ex-Sun legal employee) has claimed that the license was meant to be in direct competition with the GPL license to try and grasp market dominance for Solaris based systems.

The future of OpenSolaris is uncertain though. As with anything that involves System V nowadays, SCO had a bit of a fit and was ultimately turned down and with the recent acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle (who have investments in their own Linux based operating system) it is uncertain if OpenSolaris will keep running with Sun’s investment.

The future of OpenSolaris looks uncertain.

To Round Off

Despite UNIX’s coloured history, the only real modern form of UNIX now is a concept. As more and more people turn to open source projects that don’t invest in the trademark of UNIX, the concept and market place-hold of UNIX is slipping. For over forty years UNIX has been silently doing our processing tasks and, even though we are likely to forget it, the concept and practices of UNIX are propelling us into the future. Linux, BSD and others can be found on phones, servers, data-centres, small devices and someday your desktop.

I hope this has cleared up some of the confusion on what qualifies as UNIX , UNIX’s chequered history and it’s potential future.

So, like the self-proclaimed genius that I am, my mind started thinking of how I can factor in my extreme talent for procrastination into a fully blown blog entry. So, after a long (short) deductive process that I have named 2and2 syndrome, I came up with an idea that even rivals the concept of putting ninety-nine red balloons in the same space: write a blog about laziness. More precisely, how it benefits society.

So industry leaders and business captains listen up, because I am going to lay down three facts* up-in-this-bitch.

*You see what I did there?

Efficiency

Efficiency: skilfulness in avoiding wasted time and effort; “she did the work with great efficiency”

As we can see from the above definition, the two factors we can extract from the term efficiency are time and effort. Therefore, if we are prepared to accept a lazy, procrastination inspired, desired outcome, no effort is wasted and ANY time contributed is a massive over-performance on original estimations. What we in the management profession refer to as a “win-win” (or whatever the kids say these days. My guess would be “victory-victory”, but I could be wrong).

Yes sir, you win too.

Profit

As silly as it might sound, it is possible to experience and increase in fiscal performance while adopting the “ignore it and it goes away” approach. For any high-flying doctors out there, leaving a patient to fend for themselves not only guarantees that the health insurance will keep paying (because actually healing them IS a little financially backwards. Ethics be damned, you’re after a return investment) but also means that if a patient drops off the metaphorical cliff (or the actual cliff if you live in a rugged area) you liberate that persons assets in the form of their will. The family win, the insurance company win, the hospital win and you may just too! And the best part of the plan is you hurt no-one, that’s the truck’s job.

Another suitable job the amateur procrastinator is the exciting, high-flying, job as a rent-boy/girl of the night. Seriously, the client even take the shirt of their own back just for your services while you just lie there rak(/p)ing it in.

SHAGGER

Fun

Let’s face it, not doing anything at all is better than doing someone else’s work for them. And, let’s face it, clients are like children. You could go and do something stupid like feeding them, but it’s so much easier just to drink whiskey and casually beat them if they make a sound. I mean, who’s going to help them? The government? Pah, I don’t think so. Also, they can scream all they want, the only one who’s going to come is you (if you are a “caring” parent).

"Don't say such sweet things, Timmy. You are tickling me pink" *wink*