Linux
gregladen | 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 Ubuntu was supposed to be (sort of) when I signed up for it, which I take to be a reaction by the minters of Mint to Ubuntu's increasing non-Debian-ness. At the same time Ubuntu is trying to be all forward moving and stuff, yet it is unable for some reason to provide…
gregladen | October 19, 2010I wrote earlier of the very useful command line utility called gcalcli (short for GoogleCALendarCommandLineInterface). Click here to read that post. One of the options is called "agenda" which spits out, by default, the next five days of calendar entries. If you would prefer a different range of time than five days, then you can specify two dates and the utility will give you that set of entries.
But I find that to be a bit of a pain, typing in the dates to start and end the list, when I generally want a quick and dirty "next several days." That, I suppose, is why there is a default of…
gregladen | October 9, 2010Not 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. Both of your panels will reappear like magic. If not, go here and complain because this is where I learned it!
gregladen | October 8, 2010Computer-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 other resources, and on smaller screens such as a laptop can be rendered virtually useless by all that added functionality built into the web browser itself as well as the calendar page. It is quite possible that on your laptop, your Google Calendar may look…
gregladen | October 7, 2010The command line is a great place to get weather information. Here, I discuss one cli-app for current conditions and forecasts, in the larger context of why you would ever want to use the command line anyway.
There are several ways to use your computer to check the weather. One is to use the Nakob Weather Rock method. Suspend the computer using a rope from a tripod of sticks. If the computer is swaying, that means it is windy. If the computer is wet, that means it is raining. And so on. Like this:
That is a very amusing way to tell the weather, but it is not convenient because your…
gregladen | October 5, 2010This is the first in a series about using the "command line" in Linux. It is also about knowing when to use a gui instead. But before going into any of that we need to understand what is meant by a "command line" application. You'll find that as we explore that idea, a lot of things that are not really true 'cli' (command line interface) apps arguably count as cli, including menu driven console based apps and even gui apps. This will be controversial.
Let's start with some basic definitions. If anyone has any problems with any of the following just let me know. Consider this a first…
gregladen | October 4, 2010JH 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 of the outcome of that test.
gregladen | October 1, 2010In 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 fix this "feature" here's what you do.
Run gconf-editor (enter that phrase into a terminal). Find apps, then metacity, then general, then within that find "button_layout". Double click on that.
It will say "close,minimize,maximize:menu"
Change that to "menu:minimize,maximize,…
gregladen | September 29, 2010This 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.
Linux in Schools
Scott Rowed
What computer operating system should students learn at school? Most schools use MS Windows or Mac, but a number have switched or are in the process of switching to Linux. For schools the advantages are lower costs, greater security, no viruses or…
gregladen | July 31, 2010Item 1:
Linux has perfectly good fonts these days, and they are getting better.
Patents held by Apple Corporation did not allow basic technology (the Bytecode Interpreter)to be implemented in Linux fonts (without paying). FreeType (the Linux font system) worked around this and things were workable, but still, having the Apple technology would have been better. But now....
As of May 2010, those patents have expired and as of July 12 with version 2.4.0, Freetype ships with the Bytecode Interpreter enabled. Version 2.4.1 was released July 18 to address a small bug found in 2.4.0. Freetype is…
gregladen | July 1, 2010This is a guest post by professional photographer Scott Rowed, describing his experience in switching from Windows to Linux.
Does Linux have the tools for a professional photographer?
A few months ago I would have answered "no". After switching primarily to Linux I gradually migrated my computer activities away from Windows. While there are some good open source imaging tools in Linux, there always seemed to be some missing function, forcing me to boot into Windows for serious image editing.
I'd developed a complex workflow for Windows over the years. Irfanview for browsing the RAW files…
gregladen | June 26, 2010Linux 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 his numbering system.
1. I disagree, despite JH's experience, that video and wireless cards are a problem in migrating to Linux. If one is looking for pure FOSS approach, then yes, but otherwise, there really should not be much difficulty. But yes, an inventory of these issues is worthwhile, and when doing so,…
gregladen | June 15, 2010I 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, when I went to look at the web site to find out more about it, I quickly discovered that there are two things wrong with the project that I'd like to suggest that they fix.
First, the distribution is committed to OpenSource Software (OSS). Well, so am I, as a person, but that does not mean that I use only OSS. Were that the case, I…
gregladen | May 2, 2010Wouldn'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, of course ....
... Cthulhubuntu!)
LOL
Anyway, how would a science edition of Ubuntu be different than plain old Ubuntu?
Well, three things. First, it would have a LOT of software automatically included that at present us sciency types…
gregladen | April 20, 2010There 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, it now appears that Synaptics, the makers of the "gesture library" that is widely used to make touch screens work, have made it possible to use it with Linux distros.
Nom nom nom (that's the sound of Linux programmers eating this up).
More
gregladen | April 16, 2010Well, maybe more like tidbits than rants. This is all Linux or ani-Windows stuff, so everyone else you get the clam-hand*.
First, from Linux in Exile we have a discussion of virtual desktops. Virtual desktops, to me, make a GUI computer usable. GUI computers without them suck. Linux has them. Windows does not. Shut up and go read this.
But sometimes you need to run Windows in a virtual machine (or some other thing must be run in a virtual machine). I've been playing around with this and its fun. Have a look at this.
This is a cool new Linux-ready netbook that will run all day…
gregladen | April 16, 2010There 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. I suppose because of the support, but I'm pretty sure most VP's in charge of things would alway pick the paid over the free version just because, well, they're morons that way.
Anyhow, a fedora is a kind of hat (like Indiana Jones and Nick Danger, Third Eye wear) and the hat in Red Hat is a…
gregladen | April 15, 2010UPDATE: 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 Mac and the iPod touch). But not Linux. Which makes us sad because without Linux, your Kindle wouldn't even turn on.
But despite this deeply insulting unforgivable slight by Steve Bozo or whatever his name is, diligent supergeeks have solved this problem temporarily. The problem is, as…
gregladen | April 12, 2010I 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 let you do the same thing your file manager would let you do. Many of your most important pieces of information are in emails or attached to emails. Where exactly are those things? Can you access them with your file manager with little effort, print, copy, delete, duplicate, or otherwise work with…
gregladen | April 11, 2010A 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.
Tax software is now obviated because it all works on line. Ironically, one of Microsoft's original ideas was to have the "browser" be part of the "operating system" which, we may guess, was a ruse to avoid orders to remove their browser from the shipped OS back in the early browser war days. But it turns…