Linux
Category archives for Linux
Xfce 4.8 released
Posted by Greg Laden on January 18, 2011 Xfce 4.8 released after nearly two years of development. Hopefully, there are no added features or functionality! (That’s a joke.) (In fact, there is a loss of functionality for BSD users who implement the *nix desktop environment. But let’s not even talk about that problem because it opens a whole ‘nuther can of worms.) Xfce…
Kindle Reader on Linux: We shall install no wine before it’s time (UPDATED)
Posted by Greg Laden on January 9, 2011 UPDATE: The wine-based linux Kindle Cloud Reader file that I used to have is now no longer current, and I don’t have the newer file. However, if you want to read Kindle material on your Linux computer, the browser-based Kindle Cloud Reader is better. Use that! And it is time. The Kindle Reader now works…
Linux Ease of Use: Designing The Ultimate Grandmother-Ready Computer
Posted by Greg Laden on December 31, 2010 When it comes to ease of use, there is no difference between a computer with Windows and a computer with Linux, assuming both systems are installed properly. That there is a meaningful difference is a myth perpetuated by Windows fanboys or individuals who have outdated experience with Linux. Also, the comparison that is often being…
Is Ubuntu running off a cliff?
Posted by Greg Laden on November 15, 2010 And, is that necessarily a bad thing? Sometimes I feel like I’m watching Ubuntu running quickly towards a big cliff. Recently, it was hinted/announced that Gnome would be dropped as Ubuntu’s default desktop, and x.org dropped as the x server. The mint Distro has forked itself to produce a pure Debian distro, which was what…
How to restore the gnome panels to their default state after you mucked them up
Posted by Greg Laden on October 9, 2010 Not that you would ever muck them up, but just in case: Get a terminal somehow (alt+F2 if you must). Type this in: gconftool-2 –shutdown or gconftool –recursive-unset /apps/panel (or, both if you like) Then, rm -rf ~/.gconf/apps/panel pkill gnome-panel that sounds like a lot of violence and killing and stuff, but it should work.…
Using Google Calendar from the Linux Command Line
Posted by Greg Laden on October 8, 2010 Computer-based calendars are very useful, and the Google Calendar is probably one of the more widely used personal calendars other than scheduling programs such as MS Outlook and Groupwise (both of which are broken). But, webby gooey applications can be rather bothersome because they tend to take up a lot of screen real estate and…
Linux Fedora 13 vs Windows 7 in installation test
Posted by Greg Laden on October 4, 2010 JH at Linux in Exile got a new laptop with the wrong version of Windows installed on it. So he had his tech department wipe the drive and install a new version of Windows, and they kept track of how that went. Then, JH installed Fedora 13 on the same computer. Here is a description…
Making the window controls go back where they belong in Ubuntu
Posted by Greg Laden on October 1, 2010 In the latest version of Ubuntu, the development community decided that they needed to look more like a Mac, so they randomly decided to move the window controls (to close, maximize, minimize etc.) a window, to the left (incorrect) side of the window rather than the right (correct) side of the window. In order to…
Linux in Schools
Posted by Greg Laden on September 29, 2010 This is an excellent guest post by Scott Rowed on the use of Linux in K-12 schools, including strong evidence that school districts that do not have students using the Linux operating system are placing their students at a disadvantage, as well as a description of one outstanding success story in British Columbia.
Why the Linux Market Share is Flat, and other things you will want to see.
Posted by Greg Laden on August 30, 2010 he Linux market share continues to flatline. Here’s a piece on why. My explanation? Same as for a lot of things: People are morons, by and large. The article linked to mentions very good reasons that Linux should indeed not be adopted by others. But most of those reasons actually apply to other OS’s as…
How to reset all of your Gnome settings in Linux
Posted by Greg Laden on August 1, 2010 And, in theory, this should apply to other software as well, but don’t get mad at me if something goes terribly wrong….
Minimizing Linux Maximally
Posted by Greg Laden on July 6, 2010 I find it interesting that Linux hackers have by and large conflated two or three kinds of “minimal” in their discussion of “minimal installs” and implementations thereof. To me, “minimal” could include any one or more of the following:
Linux for Professional Photography
Posted by Greg Laden on July 1, 2010 This is a guest post by professional photographer Scott Rowed, describing his experience in switching from Windows to Linux.
Migrating the Enterprise from Windows to Linux
Posted by Greg Laden on June 26, 2010 Linux in Exile has a new post on the approach an organization may take in moving to Linux. The post is here, and I recommend reading it. I have a few comments on JH’s commentary. I won’t quote what he says (you should just go there and look at it), but my responses correspond to…
Ubuntusci: Nice idea but you may be doing it rong
Posted by Greg Laden on June 15, 2010 I like the idea of an edition of Ubuntu for scientists. I like the idea so much that I wrote a blog post about it a while back. So I was very pleased to see that there is a project called Ubuntusci that is moving along nicely and that may fill in this niche. But,…
Making emacs insert a user provided HTML tag pair
Posted by Greg Laden on June 3, 2010 In HTML mode, and/or in related functions available in the internet, it appears that one can do the following: Insert a pair of HTML codes that one would then fill in with stuff. If point is in (or at the end of) a word, have the word wrapped in a specific HTML code pair. If…
How to make KDE apps work better in your Gnome environment
Posted by Greg Laden on May 9, 2010 I use Gnome, not KDE. (Pause for flame war.) However, there are a handful of apps that are designed for KDE that I prefer over the Gnome apps. But that presents one or two minor problems that can be easily fixed.
Introducing … Ubuntu Science Edition…
Posted by Greg Laden on May 2, 2010 Wouldn’t that be great? Hey, there’s an Ubuntu Christian Edition, an Ubuntu Muslim Edition, and another Ubuntu Christian Edition. Why not an Atheistubuntu? Or a Skeptibuntu? or, more usefully, I would think, Sciencebunutu with Atheistic tendencies? (And for those of you who like to cross certain boundaries there could be a Science Fiction Edition. Called,…
A nice gesture for open source
Posted by Greg Laden on April 20, 2010 There will be a Linux based iPad equivalent (I hesitate to say clone for obvious reasons), and it will have touch-technology on the ‘screen.” Mostly, it will have this technology because when people started touching their computers … that way … Linux developers fashioned software so it could be done in Linux too. But, nonetheless,…
Technology Rants
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2010 Well, maybe more like tidbits than rants. This is all Linux or ani-Windows stuff, so everyone else you get the clam-hand*.
Linux Fedora 13 Beta
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2010 There are many versions of Linux, but the two biggies seem to be Debian (on which Ubuntu and many other distributions are based) and Red Hat. Red Hat uses a commercial support model, so it is an example of a very different approach than Ubuntu. Many of the commercial applications of Linux are Red Hat.…
How To Actually Get the Kindle Reader To Work on your Linux Desktop (UPDATED)
Posted by Greg Laden on April 16, 2010 UPDATE: GO HERE. UPDATE UPDATE: I no longer have that file, because it is not the most current one. However, people who want to read their Kindle books on their Linux machine need only to use the browser-based Kindle Cloud Reader. It’s pretty nice. There is a Kindle reader application for the PC (and the…
It’s the 21st Century. Do you know where your files are?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 12, 2010 I would wager that you don’t know where many of your most important files are. If you are into music, and use iTunes, you can’t find a particular song file using your file manager. You would need to locate it using iTunes. iTunes would then give you limited access to that file. It does not…
My windows box inches its way towards …. the window.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 11, 2010 A while back I would have said that I have three reasons to maintain a Windows computer. 1) iTunes; 2) a couple of games; 3) tax software. Yes, yes, I know, these things can be done with Wine or an emulator. But really, having the relic Windows machine sitting there has simply bee easier.
The iPad and Skeptical Computing
Posted by Greg Laden on April 7, 2010 I’m going to make an argument that you should buy an Apple iPad despite widespread rumors of hardware problems and despite widespread criticisms of its design as funky and flawed. And by “you” I mean yooz guyz who are skeptics.
Interesting Wiki-Notetaker-Pim Thingie for your Linux Desktop
Posted by Greg Laden on April 3, 2010 This might be a little over-determined for my taste, but it does look interesting, and as far as I can tell is currently maintained.
What is Markdown and why use it?
Posted by Greg Laden on February 1, 2010 The joys of markdown are many.
Which operating systems support USB 3.0?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 19, 2010 Now that USB 3.0 is out, when will Linux get it?
Cool and Important Technology Tidbits
Posted by Greg Laden on January 19, 2010 Twitter has an API that allows the development of some cool functionality, and one of those is the ability to travel into the future, tweet, then return to the present and wait for your tweet to happen.
De-windowizing Ubuntu: Turning off the terminal close warning dialog box.
Posted by Greg Laden on January 8, 2010 Ubuntu, Imma gonna let you be my operating system, but first, I gotta ask you to stop acting more like Windows with every new release. K?
, which is now available for the 
