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Software Ubuntu Linux

Canonical Announces Ubuntu App Showdown 56

Posted by Soulskill from the pistol-based-apps-not-welcome dept.
alphadogg writes "Linux developers will soon have a chance to compete for prizes of laptops and smartphones, thanks to Canonical's announcement this week of the Ubuntu App Showdown contest. Developers will have from June 18 until July 9 — a total of three weeks — to create an app using Canonical's Quickly development tool, which combines Python and GTK into a single Ubuntu-centric package. The resulting apps will be judged by a five-member panel, with the developers of the top three receiving new Nokia N9 smartphones."
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Canonical Announces Ubuntu App Showdown More

Canonical Announces Ubuntu App Showdown

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    • Re:They have dropped the Quickly requirement (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Pecisk ( 688001 ) on Friday June 15, 2012 @02:50PM (#40338557)

      Yep, because while Quickly is nice, it's "one size fits all" thingy (if there ever is), and easiest way is to use Glade + Gedit/Geany/Anjuta (or Notepad++, if Windows is your thing).

      Anyway, this is good contest. Python with GTK+ is something really nice, and while it has some shortcomings, beginners can very easy start to hack nice looking apps using them.

  • Thanks Canonical (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    to create an app using Canonical's Quickly development tool, which combines Python and GTK into a single Ubuntu-centric package.

    Thanks. Linux needs distro specific app development tools. Please, fragment Linux, that'll really help the Linux-on-the-desktop cause...

    • Thanks. Linux needs distro specific app development tools. Please, fragment Linux, that'll really help the Linux-on-the-desktop cause...

      Or maybe it might be a good move to declare some distro (which, for practical reasons could be Ubuntu) the one mainline Linux distro. Then try to make that as compatible, supported and polished as possible. Sure, everybody wouldn't like every aspect of it, but we would just draw strict lines. This would be much more practical than the current unfocused pool of various desktops and development environments. Even in this scenario the other choices could still flourish (so that you can have the choice if you r

      • ADBU (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Any Distro but Ubuntu thanks.
        There is far too much press whoring/fawning over the increasingly problematic releases that Canonical put out.

        IMHO Unity set the UI bar very low. Its only saving grace is that Metro easily passed underneath.

        I was a very early adopter of Ubuntu but frankly since 10.04 it has sucked big time. I keep trying the new releases but I've wiped from all my systems now. I have also stopped recommending it to others.
        I've gone back to the first two distros I ever used. Slackware and RedHat

        • Any Distro but Ubuntu thanks. There is far too much press whoring/fawning over the increasingly problematic releases that Canonical put out.

          IMHO Unity set the UI bar very low. Its only saving grace is that Metro easily passed underneath.

          Hey, even I think Unity sucks (my gripe is that it runs damn slow). But still, we could be forever arguing about which one is the best, and the situation wouldn't improve. I'll rather take a solid de facto Ubuntu rather than 10 distros broken in different ways. You could still use Slackware or CentOS, but Ubuntu would be the benchmark.

    • Well, I would be glad for once to use some UI tools that are specific to my distro instead of being so generic that they are basically useless, requiring me to handle everything from command line. We're in 2012, and yet I've had to manually edit xorg.conf to use an external projector and change its resolution.

      Yeah, I know, the abundance of options and choices and distros should be considered a bless.

      But for once I would like something just tailored for basic usage on a desktop environment, instead of messin

      • I had the same attitude as you 2.5 years ago as I'd fallen for all of the hype, and almost went back to Windows when fed up with Ubuntu's flaws rather than give the other distros a try. I finally decided to at least try a few, and found they were just as easy to use as Ubuntu -- but a lot more stable and usually far more likely to listen to lowly users like me. Don't believe the FUD, Ubuntu isn't any more user friendly than other distros, and in many ways it's less so...

  • It would be better if developers could sell the apps as well. I paid for Corel AfterShot Pro because it ran on Ubuntu and it rocks. Hopefully Canonical will adopt app store type pricing. It would be a whole new market for app developers.

    Lost the mobo on my Ubuntu machine and have been limping along on Windows 7 lately. Swearing the whole time because nothing is in the right place, everything is clunky and lacks the polish of Ubuntu. Windows is at least tolerable with Chrome, but it's still second pla

    • Re:Hopefully they start selling apps soon (Score:5, Informative)

      by Merk42 ( 1906718 ) on Friday June 15, 2012 @03:50PM (#40339215)
      You can sell apps on the Ubuntu Software Center and have been able to for some time.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        Well then they need to advertise this fact better.

        As a venue for highlighting interesting showcase applications, the Ubuntu Software Center sucks. This goes triple for the commercial stuff.

        Just goes to show that a great idea isn't anything without a proper execution.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by mister_playboy ( 1474163 )

          Have you used the Software Center in 12.04? I think it's both easy to navigate and slick looking. There amount of things available for purchase have increased greatly over the last two releases.

        • When was the last time you used it? These days it looks very shiny, reminiscent of Steam, including a "featured" advertising bar, a "what's new" bar, and am optional "recommended for you" section (I actually preferred it back when it was a bit more utilitarian, but I certainly do appreciate all the extra features). The front page is now mostly paid programmes, and it's possible to filter by "for purchase". If you just filter by category, it contains both free and paid for programmes in the result. All progr

  • $900 laptop for 3 weeks @ 40 hrs/week is $7.50/hr. Not bad!

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Exrio ( 2646817 )
      You know that the app you submit for the contest doesn't have to be free as in beer, right? The only requirement is that it's open source, but it can be paid-for (to be sold at the Ubuntu Software Centre). The rules explicitly say this.

    • Depending on the specs, the laptop could be worth more than $900 (that model is $900 with the absolute lowest hardware options, about $2000 for top spec). Top prize also includes a Nokia N9 phone, which is what, $400? And I doubt most people are going to spend 40 hours a week for the full three weeks working on this. Lets say 1 hour a day for about three weeks is 20 hours work, I'd say that's not a bad little prize for an amateur's competition.

      As sibling poster pointed out, there's also no reason you can't

  • MS brings computing to the masses and everyone gets pissed and cries.

    Apple keeps the computing race flowing and everyone gets pissed and cries.

    Canonical makes a move to put Linux in the mainstream of computing and everyone gets pissed and cries.

    What exactly is it that you want?

    - Sent from my MacBook Pro, booted in Windows 7 from a virtual machine running Ubuntu Linux - the only way to compute.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jedidiah ( 1196 )

      > MS brings computing to the masses and everyone gets pissed and cries.

      MS brought viruses to the masses. They didn't do squat to bring computing the masses. The best they could do was ride IBM's coat tails and screw things up every step of the way.

      Microsoft did it's best to DESTROY the companies that brought computing to the masses: Apple included.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by garaged ( 579941 )

      If you want to spend hundreds of millions USD to publicize Linux be my guest, but please dont turn linux into windows or mac

      • The beauty of Linux is that even if one distro does something that gets on your nerves, there are others to choose from. Don't like Ubuntu? Go Mint, Fedora, SUSE, Debian, Gentoo, Slackware...

        If Canonical want to turn Ubuntu into a Mac clone, they can knock themselves out. It might even work for them. For those that don't want a Mac clone, they can just not use it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by garaged ( 579941 )

          The part that scares me a little bit is that idea that they can convert the linux community into a similar one to the apple or windows one, I have seen a few apps that are free on android and commercial on iOS, it does has some sense, since iOS requieres a payed license to push apps into their store, but still is kind of weird that we have to pay for the same free app in the other app store.

          Also, since I do not develope for living, it's dificult for me to understand a recent tendence from some developers pu

  • Why give away N9s to all winners? (Score:3)

    by slinches ( 1540051 ) on Friday June 15, 2012 @05:03PM (#40339929)

    Is this a sign they are working on something for MeeGo/Harmattan or the N9 hardware? Or is it just that they had a bunch they wanted to get rid of?

    • My guess is that it's because it's the only mainstream phone that runs Linux (not counting Android). Which is a sad, sad thing in and of itself.

  • Linux Needs Unique Apps That People Love (Score:3)

    by assertation ( 1255714 ) on Saturday June 16, 2012 @07:20AM (#40343535)

    I think this contest is a great idea. Linux needs apps that are unique to Linux that people love.

    It seems like every other OS has some, that people miss when they leave that platform and maybe find a sustitute that isn't quite the same thing.

    There are no apps like that on Linux for me. My main apps are apps that run answhere: Firefox, Visual Slickedit, Eclipse, Gmail Chat.

    The closest I've come to feeling enthusiastic about a linux desktop app is the KDE file manager Dolphin. With just a few easy preferences choices I was able to make it into something very much like Total Commander on Windows, but in some ways better. I love the convenience of the Places panel for quickly finding mounted drives

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