NASA Nebula - Obama's own private cloud?

The open-source Amazon-like compute cloud under development at NASA's Ames Research Center could become a means of hosting websites across the US government. Ames chief information officer Chris Kemp tells The Reg that the engineers building NASA's Nebula infrastructure cloud have been working with the team put together by …

[Steve Roper]

Ubuntu version names

Karmic Koala... now that one they had to scrape around for. So far we've had: Warty Warthog, Hoary Hedgehog, Breezy Badger, Dapper Drake, Edgy Eft, Feisty Fawn, Gutsy Gibbon, Hardy Heron, Intrepid Ibex, Jaunty Jackalope, and Karmic Koala.

Next off the rank is Lucid Lynx.

In the spirit of open source and just because I don't want to wait to see what else they come out with for the rest of the alphabet, here are my predictions (and suggestions!) for future releases of Ubuntu:

Moody Moose, Nifty Newt, Ornery Ostrich, Pesky Pigeon, Quizzical Quail, Raunchy Rhino, Saucy Seagull, Trendy Tiger, Uppity Urchin, Valiant Viper, Weighty Walrus, Xanthic Xenurine (ok, that one really is reaching!), Yappy Yeti, and Zesty Zebra.

As to what they do when they reach the end of the alphabet... remains to be seen. Oh, and they forgot A and C, so here's some tips for next time round: Active Antelope and Crafty Camel!

[Steve Davies 3]

As long as they

Get rid of that awful Brown colour scheme. We all know how well the Brown Zune sold!

I sometimes demo Ubuntu in a live form .I get many comments about the awful colours. I quickly reboot with Fedora. People seem to like the blue better. And no, I prefer Gnome to KDE so I bypass kubuntu.

There are a number of important bugs in the current release. IMHO, it is not up to the standard of previous ones. I hope that it is a blip in pan just like FC4 was for Fedora.

[Andus McCoatover]

Lucid Lynx, indeed...

Odd that. I was researching today getting one. As a 'cat-person' I wanted to buy a lynx (Finnish: ilves) as a pet (smaller than a tiger*, but just as vicious. They can give you a nasty nip on the ankle. Or throat) as they're becoming more easy to obtain here.

http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2010/01/lynxes_seeking_prey_closer_to_human_habitation_1373011.html

Bit more research suggests otherwise....Think I'll just download some more Karmic 'brownware' instead....

* Bit like if you can't get a Pit-bull, go for a Jack Russell. Same bloodied effect, but the latter's legal.

[heyrick]

What, not a Pesky Penguin?

(title says it all)

[Steve Roper]

Pesky Penguin

How the HELL did I miss that!?! <slaps self around head> ... <many times> ... I don't even have the excuse of being tired or drunk or... I was at work, awake and sober when I came up with that list. Yes sir, Pesky Penguin it is!

[Andus McCoatover]

@ Steve (interesting?) Davies

"I sometimes demo Ubuntu in a live form. I get many comments about the awful colours"

Hey, if you don't know how to change the screen scenery in a heartbeat, then pleeeese don't 'demo' Ubuntu. Godalmighty, next you'll be demo-ing Windows XP with the default Teletubbies hill as background, worrying why "Tinky-Winky*" isn't there with his handbag.

(<CTRL-ALT-DEL> fixes it. Honest.)

* Funnily enough, a (diminutive) old schoolfriend of mine was the actor for awhile. Small world. Scenery (for teletubbies) was near Gaydon motor test track, opposite Burton Dasset Hill, Warwickshire.

I'm sure I've bored you enough. 'Night, 'night. Don't let the bedbugs bite.

[The Original Steve]

Think your post...

... Is the perfect example of what is wrong with the Linux community.

He makes a point about how the average Joe doesn't like the default colour scheme shipped with Ubuntu compared to Fedora - yet your response is to slate a guy who is trying to push the platform forward.

And to cap it off you didn't even tell him how to change the colour scheme! How useful.

(FYI: System → Preferences → Appearance)

Speaks volumes really...

[Andus McCoatover]

I din't 'slate' him..

I just took the piss a bit. Hence, the ref. to T(w)inky-Winky and his handbag.

Oh, mine's brown. So is the background in my Ubuntu installations. I can stll write letters, read e-mail, write this drivel, etc. I couldn't give a flying fuc*k what colour the wallpaper is.

Pub 'puter is now running Ubuntu. Bet you can't guess the background colour? Mr. Brown, take a bow.

We got sick of some perv. watching porn on the machine, and going to the toilet for a quick '5-knuckle-shuffle' with it still running. The sound really upset some folks. Those folks who really upset me by singing Karaoke, when I'm trying to watch...er, er...-So, we 'hosed' windows and stuck Jaunty (9.04) on it. Said perv hasn't been back. (Keyboard disinfected, natch)

[Andus McCoatover]

Little bit more....

When I lived alone, I had several computers linked up. One as a webserver, one as a MySql machine, PHP , and one for 'normal' use, etc.

One day, after my therapist had been to see me, I began to see the light.

First cathartic moment was when I discovered a strange metal object on my bedside table. On investigation it turned out to be a thing you might know as a "key".

To my utter delight I discovered that it fitted a small hole in my door perfectly. Suddenly, I became free.

I took a walk (legs still, amazingly functional) and found one of those places called a "nightclub".

In there, I met a she-human, which - to cut a long story short - taught me the REAL meaning of a "Goblin Teas-maid".

At which point, I switched the home network off, and chucked them in a skip.

(Long version of "get a life" ;-)

(Steve Original - If he's demo'ing Ubuntu, why should I need to tell him how to change it? He should know it!)

[OffBeatMammal]

well said

thanks Original Steve. Well said indeed

Every time I've stuck a toe into the Linux waters and asked newbie questions on places like the Ubuntu forums I've been shot down and insulted (and don't even mention that you need to keep Windows around or they try to come round your house to burn it down!)

My general impression of desktop Linux formed by these interactions is that it's not ready for prime-time and it's defended by very insecure social inadequates ... which I know is a long way from the truth but as they take it upon themselves to represent the otherwise silent community they're not actually doing Linux adoption any good.

As Windows 7 just gets better, and OSX goes from leaps to bounds the competing desktop Linux flavours really do need to align themselves better and focus on out-of-the-box user friendliness and some good community leaders or it'll never get past the LiveCD stage to actually live on a real partition

[Arthur 1]

Defaults matter

The default look and feel is how the OS presents itself to the world. Not saying it's the way it should be, but it's the way it is. Looking nice out of the box leaves a big impression on the tech illiterate and semi-literate. As does packaging, ease of configuration, etc. Saying 'you can change it' is nice, but it doesn't go back in time and fix their first impression.

And try not to forget that there are many people for whom going a few levels deep into menus to find new themes might as well be necromancy (no doubt you have a parent, uncle or somesuch that qualifies here). It's easy for you and you tend to lose sight of how much other people would rather not fiddle, but letting yourself get out of touch like that is just making whatever you're trying to present seem that much more arcane by association. It's a big disservice to yourself. Try and put yourself in the shoes of the truly average user and see their experience before making just snide comments.

[Michael Dunn]

@Arthur 1

Arthur wrote:

(no doubt you have a parent, uncle or somesuch that qualifies here)

Now just a minute! I'm a grandfather, spent much of the '70's working with George II and George III (ICL's job control language), graduated with a computing degree at the age of 50 and have been using Linux ever since the first Slackware version on its 50 odd floppies. Never heard of "Silver Surfers"?

It's got the latest Solaris 10 DVD's in the pocket, for entertainment during slack periods.

[Arthur 1]

And...

I bet you have a friend or same-generation relative who fits nicely into that category. What's your point?

[Anonymous Coward]

How to change colour scheme in ubuntu

sudo rm -rf /

works a charm

[Brand]

Put Your Desktop in the Cloud to Support the Open Government Directive and Data.gov/semantic

With regard to "One can only wonder what Amazon thinks, as it continues to push its own cloud as a federal-government saver", Amazon and others already like our Semantic Cloud Computing Desktop / Mobile Apps with Linked Open Data at http://semanticommunity.net/ that uses the Amazon cloud.