Spotify Love Continues
I have been writing this post of a number of days, which is a collection of a few extra thoughts about Spotify on Linux. My other posts about Spotify can be found here and here 
Since using Spotify, my music habits have altered. Now that I have access to all the music known to man, I am listening to things which I don't usually listen to or would not be willing to buy. Due to the cost of music, I would only buy a track I really liked. Now, with Spotify, I am listening to everything I may or may not buy. Friends are able to listen to what they want, rather than my collection. The artists page is an excellent part of the Spotify service. It pulls in all the music by a certain artists, into a nice organised list. It has allowed me to discover new music by my favourite artist. Each page also has a detailed biography about the artist and related artists, which is one of my favourite aspects. Similar artists to the artists page you were looking at will be listed here. I am able to find other artists I like and find music I have forgotten about and new music.
The Spotify client in Linux works great, possible the best experience of Spotify. However, there are still major issues. The critical bug is the dreadful CPU usage, playing a song or sitting idle, the client will bounce between 30 to 85%. If you use the Windows client, on the Windows OS or via Wine, it will stay at 1 & 2%. There are also plenty of feature requests. Support for Notify OSD (via libnotify), support for Indicator Applets, support for D-Bus, moving the buttons to the left hand side instead of right. Still alot more work to make Spotify even better. All these bugs and features have been identified in Spotify's feedback page, which has been populated with Linux users. What is great about Linux users, is their knowledge and helpfulness when coding. Spotify developers are asking/working with Linux users to improve the experience. On the D-Bus request page, I was delighted to see a Spotify Developer asking for help to implement this API, with Linux users responding. No other community will offer this much help!
On the social side, I have been continuing my need to create plenty of playlists to show off to my friends. As well as browse through my friend's playlists for new music. I have been sending and receiving music, still a feature under-used.
Hoped you enjoyed my update on my music life with Spotify. I may do a few more of these posts about Spotify, people seem to like them and it might get featured on OMGUbuntu's twitter feed again!
Getting Gamers on Linux
Continuing on with my series of posts from my articles in Full Circle Magazine. The next article is about how we can get gamers on to Linux, this is taken from Issue 22.
Linux is great! We all know that, but there are two major things I believe need resolving before we can say Linux is ready for the mainstream. The first is video editing and the second is gaming. Gaming is a very important part of the success of Linux, so there is much work to do before we can safely say that Linux is the platform of choice for gaming. In order to achieve this, I believe there are three key areas that need addressing: games, distribution, and services. Each of these areas is important for gamers, especially PC gamers.
The number and quality of games available for Linux is probably the most important area. Although it has many great games, it needs more games from major developers, such as EA or Activision. The big PC games need to be ported to Linux, such as World of Warcraft, Counter Strike, Battlefield, and Call of Duty. These are the games that all the gamers are playing. There is no point in trying to move gamers to Linux if they can not play the games they love. Linux does have ways to make it easier for people to switch from Windows to Linux, thanks to great work from the Wine team. Games like Counter Strike do work in Linux. However, the support is not perfect. I much prefer native games to games played using Wine. It's important that we try to convince developers to develop games for Linux, and to port games to Linux. Hopefully, as OpenGL gets better, it will be easier for developers to do this. We may be able to help, by making the transfer from DirectX to OpenGL as easy as possible.
So, you may be thinking, now that we have these major games for Linux, how will we get our hands on them? The best solution for Linux is digital distribution. I do not see Linux games ever being in shops. It would be far better to have a website or online store from which we can download Linux games. I believe a service like Steam is the best solution to getting games onto Linux. This solution is looking likely to happen, since Steam is apparently coming to Linux!
The final area is the services. There are many services which PC gamers use on Windows. These mainly consist of communication methods. The two major services are the gaming networks and the VOIP services. The gaming network is heavily used by gamers for talking to friends, joining games with each other, and for clans/guilds. The biggest network is Xfire, with over twelve-million users. It is important that this service is accessible for gamers on Linux. Luckily, there is a plugin for Pidgin, called Gfire (gfire.sf.net). The second major network is fairly new: Steam. This online store now provides a social networking side for gaming, which is used in a similar way to Xfire. Sadly, there is no way to use the Steam community feature yet, unless you use Wine. The VOIP services are very important for clans/guilds to use during a match. The whole team needs to be in a VOIP channel to be able to talk about tactics during a match. The two main services are Teamspeak and Ventrilo. Teamspeak has a native Linux client, but Ventrilo does not. However, Ventrilo does work very well in Wine.
If we are able to achieve success in all these areas, then we'll have a platform for Windows gamers to move to. I believe it is possible to achieve the last two areas, because we can develop these services within the Linux community. The difficult part is getting the developers on board. Apple is having a hard time trying to get the developers on board with their platform, so it is likely that Linux will have a bigger challenge.
The Spotify Effect
I have been using Spotify on Linux for 24 hours now. It has reminded me how great the service is, in the past I have only used it on and off to try out. Since the release onto Ubuntu, it has made want to try it out again. The price of entry for me was £5, the basic subscription charge. Its nice to have no ads, which became annoying after every couple of songs. The subscription is still very low, as much music as you want for £5, with no limits! Though, I still had my doubts. Spotify is using DRM, your £5/10 is only paying for access, not ownership. If you stop using Spotify or Spotify go bust (reports suggest so), you have no music from your subscription. However, the ease of the service and the limitless amounts of music, in the long run it will save me alot of money, from buying individual songs at 69p or Albums at £6 on Amazon.
Fairly quickly after starting my subscription I knew Spotify was my new way to listen to music. Music removed from both of my computers, and archived onto external Hard Drives. I was going Spotify all the way!
Discovering the social feature to Spotify added another level to this service. Linking your Spotify account with your Facebook account, pulled in all your friends who use Spotify. Very quickly I was checking out songs my friends listened too, and adding the songs to my favourites. It has a nice feature to 'send' songs to each other. This started conversations with friends about music, which I have never done. I dont usually talk about music with friends, but since Spotify makes it so easy to share songs with each other, it just sort of happens.
I am loving Spotify every time I start listening and looking for music. Its nice to pay one flat fee and have as much as I want. Its likely that I will carry on paying for the unlimited service, don't like ads! I will be hunting, sharing and talking about the music on Spotify from now on!
Full Circle Magazine Podcast Episode 10
Our 10th episode of Full Circle Magazine Podcast is now online! Special Guest, Editor of Full Circle, Ronnie Tucker! Ubuntu news covered, interview with Amber Graner on Ubuntu Women.
First look at Spotify on Linux
Spotify is a music streaming service, which currently operates in Europe. Spotify has been around since 2008, and I was part of first wave of beta invites to try the service. The client, which is used to stream and listen to music has been Windows and Mac OS X only, though the client has worked very well in Wine and Spotify has even provided instructions to get the client working in Wine. In the past few months, Spotify has been available on the iPhone OS and other mobile devices. Finally, a few days ago, Spotify comes to Linux!
Currently, to use the preview of Spotify on Linux, you need a Premium or Unlimited account, because Ads don't work yet. I decided to upgrade my account to Unlimited, to try the client and support the efforts of Spotify!
Essitially, if you have tried Spotify on Windows or Mac, its the same. This was the aim of the developers, to get the same experience cross-platform. Spotify is very easy to navigate, find the songs you want to listen to, whole albums, create playlists, see the top played songs. It has great social features to share the music your listening to with your friends.
The general look of the client is very much the Mac-look, it is more suited on a Mac desktop. I wasn't expecting the theme to be changed on Linux, this is made harder by using QT instead of GTK, which means us Gnome users will have to install the QT library. Luckly, Spotify uses Alsa, no Pulse Audio here! This may sound really small, but stood out for me, the font. Its a nice look font, which is very easy to read, and gives the whole client a great look. The client is quick and songs stream instantly. My only compliant is that the client uses high number of cpu cycles, compared to other platforms. I am using a dual core Intel Atom, while songs are playing, it hits 52%, when idle hits as high as 78%. Some serious optimisations will need doing before this client comes out of beta.
The whole Linux community are pleased we finally get a native Spotify client. It works and looks exactly what we wanted. A few minor issues at the moment, which I am sure will be fixed before release. You will have to pay a monthly fee at the moment, which is the first time I have done with Spotify, one thing I will say, its nice not having Ads!
EDIT: Just realised, the buttons are on the right hand side 
, hopefully they will switch it to the left hand side, like they have on Mac OS.
Spotify on Linux....finally!
Firefox Crashing No-more!
Mozilla Firefox is my browser of choice. It has been the best browser for years, until new and old competitors court up. Google and Opera have been hot on the heals of Mozilla, with lighting fast and feature packed browsers. I will hopefully be doing a article about why I use Firefox over the rest shortly. Mozilla is now having to play catch up.
There is only one feature I like about the nearest competitor, Chrome, and that is 'Every tab is it's own process'. If a tab crashes, it doesn't crash the browser. Mozilla is hoping to solve this issue in Firefox 4. In the meantime, they have gone
Adobe Flash has crashed again! (click to enlarge)
half way with plugin crash protection. Plugins such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight is run in its own process, separate from Firefox. If the plugin crashes, it wont crash Firefox. You just need to reload the page to try again. Apparently, 90% of Firefox's crashes is down to the plugin. This new feature was added in a small update, 3.6.4, which is usually reserved for security and stability updates, rather than new features. Find more info here.
Full Circle Magazine Podcast Episode 9
Our 9th episode of Full Circle Magazine Podcast is now online! Ubuntu news covered, Linux gaming, interview with Lubuntu Lead, and opinion section; Gnome Shell vs Unity!
Quick Look at Ubuntu Light
Since it is highly unlikely I will get a chance to try Ubuntu Light out in the near future, mainly because its only available to OEMs, I thought I will do a quick review of what I have seen of this latest version of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu Light was announced a few months go in Belgium, at UDS for Maverick. The initial idea purposed by Mark Shuttleworth was a version of Ubuntu, stripped down, which will be installed along side Windows. Marketed at a very fast way to get to the Internet. I was a bit reserved at the idea, for two reasons. Why do we need another version of Ubuntu, we are going to turn into the Windows way of having too many versions which confuses the user. Secondly, is it a good idea marketing a stripped down version of Ubuntu, when we should be promoting the full Desktop edition.
However, after a chat with Popey on the podcast, and watching the video above, I think I understand the idea. Its hard to get Ubuntu on OEM computers as the default, everyone (at the moment) wants Windows. However, in recent years, as our need for quick Internet access has grown, people want to be online as quick as possible, Windows does not cut it. By creating a version of Ubuntu to be installed along side Windows, for super quick access to the web, more people may choose to boot into Ubuntu Light more than Windows. Ubuntu Light, when finally released, should offer 5-10 second boot straight to the web. Advancements in boot speed, since Jaunty (9.04), stripping down Ubuntu to the bare basics for the web, creating a fast slick new UI, and choosing to use the super quick Chromium (Google Chrome). All this has allowed for fast access to the web, which seems to be what most users want these days. Why wait to boot into Windows 7 to use Internet Explorer, which could take 2minutes, when you could boot into Ubuntu which takes 10seconds!
The overall aim is to get Ubuntu into more users hands, and maybe one day, will encourage more users to make the switch!
Defcon Review
Struggling to find anything to write about, so I will continue with my series of posts from my articles in Full Circle Magazine. The next article is a review of Defcon taken from Issue 21. Also, just updated to WordPress 3.0! First post written with the landmark release of WordPress.
This month, I am reviewing one of my favourite PC games. Defcon is a cross platform RTS from UK developers, Introversion Software. The game is based around nuclear warfare. You select a nation, and fight in a nuclear war with up to 6 nations. The game is based on the film War Games. The game features both single players and multiplayers, but they are the same - except you will face AI-controlled nations, or real people controlling the nations. The game is not free: the full game costs £10/$19.50. However, the demo gives you a good idea what the game is about.
As soon as you start the game, you get a sense of bad times. The vector graphics represent a 1980's military computer, and the music of people slowly dying. As I have already said you have the choice of a single or multiplayer match. They are both the same, but in single player you can have from 2 to 5 bots in your match, whereas in multiplayer you can have up to 6 players. You select a "nation", which includes Europe, North America, South America, USSR, Asia, and Africa. A match takes about 45 minutes to 1 hour to complete, but there are also several game types, such as Speed Defcon (15 min. match), Office mode (6 hour match) and Diplomacy mode (everyone is in the same alliance, until someone attacks). However, in the demo you can play only standard Defcon.
In a match, you are presented with a world map showing all the nations and cities within. The match is separated into 5 parts. In Defcon 5 & 4, you begin by placing your units. You have 3 types of buildings, and 3 types of units to place, during this time. The buildings are Radar (to see where missiles and other units are), Silos (to defend and attack nations), and Airfield (for launching fighters and bombers). The units are Submarines (for launching missiles), battleships (for destroying other ships), and Aircraft carriers (for launching fighters and bombers). Once all your units are placed, you can move your units into position. When you reach Defcon 3 & 2 you can now start naval and air attacks. Finally, you will reach the best part of the game, Defcon 1, Nuclear warfare. Select your silos for attack, move subs into position, and launch your nukes at the cities in the enemy's nation.
It may seem simple enough, but it's all about chance, and where and when your enemies will launch their nukes. You may lose your entire fleet before Defcon 1, which can have a bad effect during Defcon 1. You may launch your nukes too soon, then you're wide open for attacks. When your silos are launching their nukes, they can not defend at the same time. You may launch your nukes too late, when your enemy's defences are strong, or you may run out of time. You may even be attacked by people in your own alliance. Anything could happen. No game is the same. This means there is no winning strategy which works every time. There are no winners in nuclear warfare; Defcon follows this belief. In order to "win", it's not about how many people you killed, it's about losing the least.
Defcon is an excellent RTS, best played online. It is simple and easy to pick up, but can be hard to find ways to win. Once you think you have cracked it, you probably haven't. The style and look of the game is everything, but it is worth trying the demo. The demo is a good way to experience both offline and online matches. The game is for Linux, but also Windows and Mac. All three operating systems can play together, so get your Windows and Mac friends to play. You can download Defcon from www.introversion.co.uk/defcon. The file is a .tar.gz file, but it's just a few lib files and a shell script which you run in the terminal -- no need to install. Defcon works perfectly on Ubuntu 7.10, 8.04 and 8.10 (haven't tried it on any other Ubuntu versions).
Full Circle Magazine Podcast Episode 8
Our 8th episode of Full Circle Magazine Podcast is now online! Ubuntu news covered, Linux gaming, interview with Lubuntu Lead, and two opinion sections; Ubuntu One and Lubuntu
Me!
Ed Hewitt, 19, Studying @ Derby Uni, Blogger, Ubuntu user, Columnist & Podcaster for FCM, Gamer, Admin on Gfire.- Spotify is saved. Usa by the end of the year!
- Back home from work. 2:30am, time for IT crowd!
- Half way through my shift. Time for a double expesso.
