Ubuntu Tutorials

Those of you that follow the Ubuntu development mailing lists may have already come across this news, but it has been announced that Ubuntu will change the default search provider in Firefox from Google to Yahoo!. This is based on a revenue sharing agreement between Canonical and Yahoo!, allowing Canonical to continue to support the infrastructure required to continue to develop the distribution.

With this change, whatever your search bar default is will also match your default start page. If your search default is Google, your start page will be Google. If it is set to Yahoo!, your start page will also be Yahoo!.

Personally, I like the idea of Canonical continuing in its goal of becoming a profitable, successful business. More money for Canonical means more developers, which means continued improvements and stability.

On the other hand, it has been years since I’ve used anything other than Google for web searches. It think it would feel very foreign to use something else.

Perhaps I’ll change my default search to Yahoo! for the rest of the week, just to see what the change will be like.

What do you think about this change? Will you change your default search back to Google? Stick with Yahoo! and help support Canonical? Use a different browser altogether?

I don’t think I’ve blogged much about it here, but I have become a huge fan of Google Chrome (or Chromium) on Linux. Anytime I’ve found the need to use Firefox of late it feels *dog* slow and clunky. Chrome is absolutely faster and I have really enjoyed using it.

You’ve probably heard by now that Google has released a Beta version for Linux as well as Mac, both of which are available on the download site. For the longest time I had been using the PPA or manual builds of Chromium, but now I’m using the Beta and life has become simpler.

Installing Chrome Beta

For those that haven’t tried Chrome yet, I’d invite you to give the Beta a shot. This version has support for user scripts (such as Adblock) as well as bookmark sync. To install the Beta version, visit http://google.com/chrome.

Click on the “Get Google Chrome (Beta)” in the upper-right.

Select the 32bit or 64bit .deb (For Debian/Ubuntu)

Click “Accept and Install”

This will download the .deb package, which you should be able to install without requiring any additional dependencies, using the GtkDebi installer (this should be the default “Open With…” application.

Keeping Updated

In doing some research the other day I found that installing the package above automagically installs the Google repository as well. This will ensure that your package stays updated as Google releases new version of the Beta, and eventually final browser. You don’t need to do anything else to remain updated, simply apply updates as you are prompted and this will also include the Google Chrome Beta browser!

I just got word that Google has released a Developer Preview for their browser, Google Chrome. I have not had time to test it on my Linux machine yet, but I have installed in on OS X and it is working great so far! There are bugs, of course. The limitations are mentioned at the download page, but overall it has been working like a champ.

I love that Google released a browser, and not just any browser, but a browser that redefines how browsers should work from the bottom up. I also love that Google doesn’t limit this offering to a single operating system, but shares it with everyone. Granted it has been a while since the Windows-only release, but this really shows that they *have* been working on it, and now have something to offer us.

If you’d like to see some basic screenshots (again, I have not tested this on my Linux machine, only OS X) you can visit my other blog. In the meantime, here is a link to the dirty details and downloads.

Early Access Release Channels: Chromium (Google Chrome Downloads)

Enjoy!

I know this isn’t particularly new, but seeing some news this morning about potentially more Google Apps coming to the Linux Desktop I thought I’d throw this together.

How to install Google Apps on your Ubuntu Desktop.

Currently the list of applications within the Google repository is Google Desktop and Picasa.  We could be seeing some more soon, but we’ll have to wait and see on more details.

Set up the repository

You’ll want to add the following to your sources.list. This can be done graphically via the System > Admin > Software Sources menu, or via manually editing your /etc/apt/sources.list file.

deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb stable non-free

Once you’ve got that you’ll also need Googles package signing key.  This can also be done via the GUI or the command line.  Try this command to pull down the key file and then we’ll import it to the apt system:

wget -c https://dl-ssl.google.com/linux/linux_signing_key.pub

If you still have the Software Sources window open switch tabs to  Authentication and click Import Key File…   Look for the file you just pulled down (probably in your home folder) and click OK.

Installing Google Desktop

We’re now ready to install the Google Desktop or Picasa tool.  From the command line enter:

sudo aptitude update

sudo aptitude install google-desktop-linux  picasa

You can also install these via your favorite package manager front-end like Synaptic or Adept if you prefer.  Simply search for the package name.

I should mention that just because these are available for Linux does not mean they are now Free Software or Open Source.  They are to be considered non-free so the choice is yours.  If you don’t like the non-free cooties on your system, don’t bother installing this.

Quick Tips

If you do install the Google Desktop there are a few things that you might want to be aware of.

1. ctrl-ctrl will open a desktop search applet allowing you to quick-search the web, your gmail or your desktop.
2. you can set your preferences by right-clicking on the Google Desktop icon in your notification tray.  This allows you to customize what is indexed and what is not.

Notes

More resources for configuring or installing the Google Desktop tools available here.