Questions for elementary OS | LAS 352

Two members of the elementary OS project join us to discuss the recent dust up around their blog post asking for more funding from their users. We’ll ask the hard questions you’ve been wondering, get the latest from the project & talk about the future.

Plus we look at the sales for the first BQ Ubuntu Touch edition, Linus’ personal choice award, some good news for OpenShot & more!

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— Show Notes: —

A Chat with elementary OS

Brought to you by: System76

Freya Beta 2 is here!

You thought the day would never come, but after 6 months and almost 600 fixes we’re bringing you the next step on our way to a final release of elementary OS 0.3!

elementary — Payments

We explicitly say you can download Luna for free, we include a pay-what-you-want (including $0) text entry with $10 pre-filled, and we also include an explicit “Download Luna for free” link that simply sets the text entry to $0 for you.

Next, you’re given the payment/download dialog:

The text entry matches whatever was on the first screen, but we again let you change it to anything you’d like, including $0.

Users have downloaded Luna over 2,000,000 times. Around 99.875% of those users download without paying. Of the tiny 0.125% who do, the most common payments are the default $10, followed by $1. But again, only a tiny fraction of one percent of users even decide to pay in the first place.

Furthermore, we’ve received feedback that this flow is deceiving. It doesn’t make it clear enough that there are multiple payment options and it includes a payments step even if you’ve chosen to enter $0.

elementary misses the point « Blog Fiasco

A recent post on the elementary blog about how they ask for payment on download created a bit of a stir this week. One particular sentence struck a nerve (it has since been removed from the post): “We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software.”

elementary — How big is elementary OS really?

— PICKS —

Runs Linux

The Lego Movie… Runs Linux!

Lego movie creation software screenshot

So I was watching the making of The Lego Movie with the only purpose of finding some Linux goodness. I was pretty upset when I saw Windows 7 and Photoshop at a close up, but then there is the animation (and the GNOME) stuff.

Desktop App Pick

Lets Make Music (LMMS)

Produce music with your computer
by creating melodies and beats, synthesizing and mixing sounds, arranging samples and much more.

LMMS

Weekly Spotlight

AutoKey

AutoKey is a desktop automation utility for Linux and X11. It allows you to manage collection of scripts and phrases, and assign abbreviations and hotkeys to these. This allows you to execute a script or insert text on demand in whatever program you are using.

AutoKey features a subset of the capabilities of the popular Windows-based AutoHotkey, but is not intended as a full replacement. For a Linux-based implementation of AutoHotkey, see IronAHK. AutoKey’s GUI features a number of concepts and features inspired by the Windows program PhraseExpress.

Features

Python scripting engine allows you to automate virtually any task that can be accomplished via the keyboard and/or mouse
Built-in code editor with autocomplete and calltips
Scripts are plain Python files that can be edited in any text editor
Similarly, phrases are stored as plain text files
Create collections of phrases/scripts in folders, and assign a hotkey or abbreviation to the folder to display a popup menu
Regular expressions can be used to filter windows by their title or class, to exclude hotkeys/abbreviations from triggering in certain applications
Scripts, phrases and folders can be attached to the notification icon menu, allowing you to select them without assigning a hotkey or abbreviation

Our Past Picks

These are the weekly picks provided by the Jupiter Broadcasting podcast, the Linux Action Show.

This site includes a separate picks lists for the “Runs Linux”, Desktop Apps, Spotlight Picks, Android Picks, and Distro Picks.

— NEWS —

Ubuntu Phone Sells Out During First Flash Sale

BQ Ubuntu Phone

Despite the technical issues the Bq Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition handset managed to sell out its debut run.

Ubuntu phones will be available to buy between 9-18 (CET) 2015.02.10

BQ: 12,000 orders per minute

@Baktus we experienced a huge demand this morning, receiving over 12,000 orders per minute

— BQ (@bqreaders) February 11, 2015

Ubuntu Phone: Is It Worth It? (Aquaris E4.5) – YouTube

I am back from London. I attended the Ubuntu Phone Insider event and have an Ubuntu Phone I took back with me. Here is what think about the device and the OS. Help support my channel and make it possible for me to obtain devices to review.

VLC Media Player 3.0

VLC 3 Screenshot

VLC Media Player 3.0.0 is one of the most anticipated applications of 2015, eagerly awaited by millions of computer users worldwide. Prominent features of VLC 3.0 include Wayland support, a Chromecast output module, several Android improvements, among which we can mention rotation, opaque, and subpicture blending, as well as batch convert support.

Linux Torvalds awarded Arch Linux as the most consumer friendly distrobution

Arch Screenshot

The purpose of a GNU distribution is to make it easy for users to use their system. It’s a stupid idea to force your users to compile everything from scratch,” said Linus Torvalds at the event. If you think your users are going to compile everything, only compilers will use your software.

OpenShot Video Editor for Windows, Mac, and Linux by Jonathan Thomas — Kickstarter

openshot 2.0 GIF support

There are many challenges that go along with building any software. Some are obvious and some are more subtle. However, some challenges, as I’ve recently realized, aren’t related to computers at all. Sometime in late October, my wife and I decided that it would be fun to put our house on the market, and “test the waters”. We have been talking about moving out of Arlington, TX (a relatively big city) for years, and heading towards a bit more land, and less city. As fate would have it, we had an offer on our house within 1 week, and all of a sudden needed to find a new house, make repairs, pack, rent a moving truck, etc… etc… Needless to say, this required a lot of time and energy.

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