Page 5 of 12

Why I abandoned GNU/Linux on the desktop

27 September 2012

I have experimented with GNU/Linux in dual boot with Windows from 1997 to 2000, and I have had GNU/Linux only installed on any of my computers, both at home and at work, since 2001. I have changed distribution relatively often—3 years with Red Hat (now Fedora), 2 years with Mandrake (now Mandriva), few weeks with SuSE (now openSUSE), 1 year with Slackware (don’t ask…), 3 years with Gentoo, few weeks with Debian and 6 years with Kubuntu—but I have not changed desktop environment that much—1 year with FVWM ’95 (those were the days…), 1 year with Enlightenment, 1 year with GNOME 1, and 12 years with KDE.

I have been a loyal KDE user, contributor and advocate since the release of KDE 2.0. I have donated 100 EUR to the KDE e.V. organisation each year since the announcement of the “Join the Game” campaign. Last but not least, I acknowledged the KDE community in my PhD thesis (at the end of the Preface, page xi). This was just in case anybody wonders about my credentials as a GNU/Linux and KDE user…

Unfortunately, KDE does not satisfy my needs anymore, and I was forced to look into other solutions. This post attempts to explain why I came to this decision, and I hope that the GNU/Linux and KDE communities will perceive this as a constructive critic.

KDE 4.0 was released before it had reached feature parity with KDE 3.5. This is because KDE developers intended KDE 4.0 as a technological preview aimed at developers, testers and early adopters only. However, the majority of KDE users did not understand that, which is legitimate considering that .0 means at least feature complete in any other project. As a consequence, many KDE users (including Linus Torvalds) found themselves with a desktop environment which was just half-baked, and eventually ditched KDE.

I expected KDE developers to adopt a more conservative release strategy in future major (point) upgrades, but apparently, they did not learn any lesson. In fact, KDE 4.4 was released together with a new version of KAddressBook which was rewritten from scratch and based on the Akonadi storage service. The new version introduced several regressions compared to the previous version shipped with KDE 4.3. As a consequence, once again, many KDE users found themselves with a half-baked KDE PIM suite, and eventually ditched KDE.

This time also my frustration started to mount. I wrote two verbose posts on the KDE forum to question this release management and propose a system of bounties for bug fixing. These two initiatives triggered a lively discussion in the community, but in the end, nothing happened.

KDE 4.9 was released one month ago. There are still many small nuisances with it, especially with the KDE PIM suite. And do not blame me or the packagers, please. Try to access an IMAP e-mail account with an unstable Internet connection: in the best case, Akonadi will spam the KDE notification system with connection error messages, which will eventually crash KNotify; in the worst case, Akonadi itself will crash. Try also to synchronise contacts and calendars with Google or any other well known social network: if you manage to make it work, consider yourself lucky if you do not have any loss of information.

Despite these years-old bugs, KDE developers keep spending resources on applications the world could probably do without, like the Rekonq browser and the Calligra office suite. Sometimes I ask myself if KDE developers use these applications for real, and apparently, the answer is that some do not: as you can notice in the official screenshot for the KDE 4.9 release, some prefer Chrome and LibreOffice over Rekonq and Calligra, which is not surprising at all. I often read complaints about the lack of resources to maintain the KDE project. Why not focusing on fewer applications of higher quality rather than more applications of questionable quality then?

I tried to look into other distributions and desktop environments, but the situation seems to be even more tragic. Let us have a look at the top ten distributions on Distrowatch:

And these are just ten distributions out of hundreds, as well as just seven desktop environments out of tens—among which I cannot resist mentioning Trinity, which is a fork of KDE 3…

Am I the only one thinking that this fragmentation is beyond ridiculous? The developers of these distributions and desktop environments are spending massive amounts of resources to develop redundant software and compete on a mere 2% of market share. Why not focusing on fewer distributions and desktop environments of higher quality rather than more distributions and desktop environments of questionable quality then?

Maybe there is a question of ego, or maybe there is a problem with the bazaar itself. But the fact remains: GNU/Linux has missed all the chances to become a mainstream desktop operating system, and I do not want to use a niche operating system anymore. This was a difficult decision, and I am sorry for that, but I need something that just works, and I need it now.

So long GNU/Linux, so long KDE, you served me well.

My new desktop operating system? Mac OS X. Do I love it? No, I hate it at times, but I will come back to that another day.

The last four years of my life

8 December 2011

From the PhD thesis Diagram Predicate Framework meets Model Versioning and Deep Metamodelling, defended on the 7th December 2011:

Preface

The last four years of my life have been dedicated to writing this thesis and to making it as perfect as possible. These years have witnessed days and nights of hard work, discussion, stress, frustration, anguish, insomnia, as well as praise, relief, travelling and fun.

If you are going to read this thesis, I hope that you will find it interesting. If you are just going to browse through it quickly, I hope that you will find the models as beautiful as I do. If you are only interested in this preface, I hope it will leave you with a nice memory.

Bergen, 3rd October 2011

Acknowledgements

This thesis would not have been possible without the contribution of the outstanding individuals I have met during these four years.

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Uwe Wolter, for teaching me a lot of interesting knowledge which spans from mathematics to philosophy and history, as well as for giving me invaluable feedback about my research. He deserves much of the credit for this thesis, and I am indebted to him for all his help and inspiration, scientifically and otherwise. I would also like to thank my co-supervisor Khalid A. Mughal, for suggesting that I enrol in a PhD programme and for supporting all my choices when I finally followed his suggestion. With time I realised that his initiative saved me from becoming a frustrated software engineer.

A special thanks goes to Adrian Rutle, for helping me to get started with my research and for sharing many good times with me, both in Bergen and while travelling. He has been a brilliant colleague and a good friend, and I have many good memories from these years.

I am grateful to my parents Pompilio and Loretta, for all they have done for me, especially for setting my life on what I believe is the right path. I hope that this thesis will make them as proud of me as I am of them.

“Tusen takk” to Synnøve Solberg Tokerud, for her love and friendship, for teaching me about Norwegian and Norway, as well as for her beautiful smile which always helped me to stay positive.

The Department of Informatics at the University of Bergen has given me a private office, a good salary and great financial support, and I am thankful for that. I would like to thank the Programming Theory group, especially Marc Bezem, Torill Hamre, Anya Helene Bagge, Valentin David, Dag Hovland and Federico Mancini, for creating a stimulating environment to work in, for all the chats about informatics and teaching, for all the empirical studies on espresso and on chocolate spreads, as well as for all the feedback they gave me about my work. I am also grateful to the administration of the Department of Informatics, especially Ida Holen, for patiently listening to my rants every time I needed to vent my frustration, Petter Bjørstad and Torleiv Kløve, for supporting my stays abroad, and Steinar Heldal, for guiding me through the bureaucracy of the University.

My research was carried out in cooperation with fellow researchers from the Department of Computer Engineering at the Bergen University College. Thanks to Yngve Lamo, for his suggestions about how to deal with the Norwegian system, and Florian Mantz, for being an excellent flatmate and for preparing pancakes every Sunday.

Part of this thesis was written during my 4-month stay at the Department of Computer Engineering at the Autonomous University of Madrid. “Muchas gracias” to Juan de Lara and Esther Guerra, for taking care of me during my stay and for giving me plenty of insights which ended up being almost half of this thesis.

I would like to thank my opponents Reiko Heckel and Einar Broch Johnsen, for all the time they have spent reviewing this work, and Michal Walicki, for coordinating the committee. I am also grateful to all my fellow researchers and anonymous reviewers who pointed out flaws and suggested possible improvements in my research.

Despite all the time spent preparing this thesis rather than hanging out, I still have many friends left, and they should all be awarded for their patience. In Bergen, Mikal Carlsen Østensen helped me with practically everything before and after my move to Norway. Diego Fiore has been one of my closest friends, who shared countless discussions about the grotesque society we live in with me and was a perfect companion on many suffocating trips around the world. Paolo Angelelli has also been a very good friend, who contributed a lot to the discussion about how to develop an ideal society. My stay in Madrid would not have been the same without Lucia Cammalleri, Teresa Terrana and Daniele Sidoti, who treated me like a close friend since the first day we met. In Italy, my good, old friends Maura Brandimarte, Albert Marsili, Marino Di Carlo, Graziano Liberati and Angelo Di Saverio have been there every time I was back home, and I really appreciate it.

Finally, this thesis would not have reached this level of art without the free and open source software I use and enjoy. A special thanks goes to the communities behind GNU, Linux, KDE, Firefox, Kile, Inkscape, Subversion and Git.

Four months in Madrid

26 May 2011

Shipol Airport, Asterdam. Two hours left before my connection to Bergen. I am not coming back home from a business or leisure trip this time, but from a four-month exchange stay in Madrid.

Research fellows at the University of Bergen are encouraged to spend from three to six months abroad to get in touch with another research group and work in a different environment. During the MoDELS 2010 conference in Oslo, my supervisor and I discussed the possibility of my exchange stay with Juan de Lara and Eshter Guerra from the Autonomous University of Madrid. The idea of staying some months in the south of Europe after three years in the North was appealing to me, and Juan and Esther seemed positive as well. Eventually, the idea became a plan, and I came to Madrid in February.

I lived in the centre of Madrid, which happens to be the centre of Spain as well, historically speaking. My flat was located 200 meters away from the so-called Kilometre zero, the ancient starting point of all the measurements in Spain. I loved the atmosphere of the city centre, incredibly lively and dynamic. I even loved the noise that you hear in the bars… Yes, the noise of people speaking and toasting and laughing and enjoying life, something that reminded me a bit of Italy and that I missed so much in Norway, where people are usually scared of speaking too loud or too much.

Juan and Esther have been very kind to me. They helped me with the accommodation and the transportation, provided me with an office and a workstation, introduced me to the campus and the city. It has been a rewarding experience to work with them, both scientifically and personally, and I sincerely hope that we will continue the cooperation in the future.

But my stay in Madrid would not have been the same without the people I met there. Thanks to Serena, I got in touch with a group of people from Italy, France and Spain. It was a pleasure to meet Federica, Antonino, Mathilde, Vani, Ysa, Clara and Jose. But above all, it was fantastic to meet Lucia, Teresa and Daniele; lovely people, who treated me like a close friend since the first day we met. I wish most of Italians were people like them; I would consider moving back to Italy.

How to blow 1.6 million EUR

14 January 2011

The University of Smallville needs to build a new student centre. The centre will offer services to students such as programme enrollment and exam registration and will provide a new auditorium, library, swimming pool, gym, etc.

On the 14th of September 2006, the University Board decides to initiate a project called MegaCentre for the new student centre, to which it allocates half a million EUR. The University has, among others, a Department of Architecture, a Department of Engineering and a Department of Facility Management. One might expect that the University Board would assign the management of MegaCentre to one of these Departments. On the contrary, however, the University Board assigns the management of MegaCentre to the Student Affairs Centre. The Student Affairs Centre forms a working group composed of a project leader, a project co-leader, a technical leader and two co-workers. Again, one might expect that someone from the Department of Architecture, Engineering or Facility Management would cover one of these roles. On the contrary, however, all members of the working group, except for the technical leader, belong to the Student Affairs Centre. The project leader and co-leader do not have specialist educations in architecture or engineering. The technical leader of the working group has an education in engineering but does not belong to the University. The working group spends more than one year and half a million EUR planning MegaCentre.

On the 13th of September 2007, the working group presents the plans for MegaCentre to the University Board. According to these plans, the construction of the building will be assigned to the external construction company Nonchalant, which guarantees the use of state-of-the-art construction techniques. Moreover, once the building comes into service, the maintenance will be assigned to the Department of Facility Management. The University Board accepts the plans and allocates an additional 0.9 million EUR to the project. Nonchalant spends more than one year on construction of the building, on completion of which it presents a bill of 1.1 million EUR.

On the 4th of February 2009, the building is inaugurated with due ceremony, after which it enters into service. Unfortunately, faults in the building’s design immediately become evident, with problems such as poor insulation, a leaky roof, an unreliable alarm system and poor handicap access, to name but a few. Both employees and students soon become frustrated. Again, one might expect that the working group of MegaCentre would demand Nonchalant to honour its contractual agreement, repair all faults and pay any necessary fines for damage caused. On the contrary, however, the working group simply allows the Department of Facility Management to deal with the faults as they see fit. The Department of Facility Management hires construction workers and assigns them to the repairs and alterations. The construction workers do what they can, but after one year many design issues remain unresolved. The head of the Department of Facility Management, who has an education in engineering, decides to perform a thorough evaluation of the building. On doing so, he discovers that the building is constructed with obsolete rather than state-of-the-art techniques, and that these would not guarantee minimal safety in the event of a natural disaster. Finally, he concludes that it will be necessary to reconstruct the building from scratch using appropriate techniques.

On the 29th of April 2010, the head of the Department of Facility Management presents the evaluation to the University Board. At this point, the University Board finally acknowledges that severe action must be taken and sues Nonchalant for damages, excludes the Student Affairs Centre from the project, hands the management of MegaCentre to the Department of Facility Management and fires the employees responsible for public money wasted hitherto.

Do you find this story unbelievable? Well, now replace the name Smallville with Bergen, MegaCentre with EksternWeb and Nonchalant with Bouvet, and reread it here.

The big 3-0

22 December 2010

Yesterday the universe had plenty of happenings: a winter solstice, a total lunar eclipse, the darkest night in 400 years, and, last but not least, the last day of my twenties. Yes, it had to happen: I turned 30 today. “What is important is to be young at heart”, some might say… Bullshit! I honestly hate this big 3-0 and all the social expectations that it implies. Anyway, entering a new decade always triggers some self-reflection. I have looked back at the last ten years of my life, and, inspired by the novel Caos calmo, I have written down some of the things I have done during these years:

Countries visited

Italy
France
Norway
Spain
Russia
Germany
Estonia
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Hungary
Denmark
Latvia
Moldova
Cyprus
Ukraine
Finland

Mountains climbed

Fløyen (400m)
Ulriken (640m)
Rundemanen (560m)
Sandviksfjellet (417m)
Lyderhorn (396m)
Damsgårdsfjellet (350m)
Løvstakken (477m)
Corno grande (2912m)
Preikestolen (604m)
Kjerag (1110m)

Airlines taken

KLM
SAS
Iberia
Ryanair
Sterling
S7
Aeroflot
Lufthansa
Estonian Air
Alitalia
Norwegian
Vueling
AirBaltic

Laptops owned

Sony Vaio PCG-FX801
Toshiba Satellite A100-703
ASUS Eee PC 1101HA
Dell Latitude E6500

Mobiles owned

Nokia 5110
Nokia 6110
Nokia 7110
SonyEriccsson Z1010
Siemens MT50
Siemens C55
SonyEricsson K610i
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Camera owned

Sony Cyber-shot DSC-P72
Canon EOS 350D
Olympus μ 1030 SW

Cars owned

Škoda Fabia 1.9TDI (2001 ed.)

Motorcycles owned

Yamaha FZR600 (1994 ed.)

There are many other things I could write down. All in all, I have been lucky to have had so many opportunities. I am curious to see how these lists will look like in ten years time…