LinuxMint (K)Ubuntu Made Better

Many people know I have used Kubuntu for some time. Though there are many things about it I am not thrilled about it does have the largest software repository collection available. So when a friend said try LinuxMint I looked at it but I didn't jump into it immediately.

LinuxMint, at first, was Gnome based. Now I have nothing against Gnome but I am a KDE man and so I didn't give LinuxMint a try. I did however pay attention to what was going on with it since I was hearing nothing but good things about it. LinuxMint released a KDE Beta version and I am now using it instead of Kubuntu.

First LinuxMint is an unofficial Ubuntu version. They use the very same repositories plus a couple of their own. However, its what you get when you initially install LinuxMint that makes a difference.

As far as I am concerned the KDE version of LinuxMint is what Kubuntu should have been to start with. The script and configuration files are much leaner and better written. With Gutsy my video driver would get buffer over run errors and lock up. With Daryna (LinuxMint's release based on Gutsy) I have zero issues with the video now. OpenGL applications do not lock up my system and I can even use Compiz-Fusion on my Intel 965GM based laptop, cube and all. Daryna is basically Gutsy
on some serious steroids.

Because Daryna uses the same hardware base as Gutsy I had no issues installing it onto my laptop. My 1280 X 800 widescreen was setup perfectly as was my sound and USB.

Multimedia setup is an absolute breeze and LinuxMint is much easier to get it going in as well. Not that it was all that hard to begin with in Gutsy. You can even use Automatix2, but I caution people to be careful using it as you are apt to find more up to date packages in the repositories since the Medibuntu trepositories are part of the apt sources used in LinuxMint.

I was able to update KDE to 3.5.9 by adding the following to my sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-kde-3.5.9/ubuntu gutsy main

I updated without a hitch and I was also able to install Kickoff 1.

The KDE version of LinuxMint uses Tasty Menu as its default but you can use the standard Kmenu, KBFX, or Kickoff 1.

I also like the mintUpdate and Software Portal apps in LinuxMint which are really much better than the standard Kubuntu issues, even if they are GTK based. (Just so everyone knows, I am not opposed to GTK based software in KDE and I use a lot of it. It's more important to me that the software I use fulfill the needs it supposed to than how it appears or what file manager it uses.)

The final win me over feature is LinuxMint will ask you if you want to setup a root account. (This is not recommended but at least you have the option.) As I am a traditionalist I think that's great. The sudo only thing never thrilled me and even though I still use sudo I also like having access to my admin account separately in case something goes wrong in my main user account. Trust me with all the playing around I do I have blown up my user account a lot and having access to a root account is, for me, vital. This also fixes, what to me is, a glaring security issue in standard Ubuntu based distributions.

Last note: I am not sure why but the Synaptic Package Manager, though part of the initial install, does not have a listing in the menu. I had to go in and make one so I wouldn't have to launch Synaptic from the run command prompt. Since all of the LinuxMint update and software install tools
rely on Synaptic I found it a bit odd that they don't list in the menu. Adept is there but I am not a fan of adept. (See previous statement about GTK based software.) I like Synaptic a lot better.

I have got to say LinuxMint scores a 10. This is what I have been wanting in a Debian Based distro for a long time. The LinuxMint motto is "From Freedom Came Elegance" I say "With Intelligence Came
Reliability" at least with LinuxMint.

Notes of Interest: I removed the Generic Kernel and replaced it with Real Time kernel. I also changed the tray Icons used by the update notifier to get rid of the Tango look. I found some appropriate Icons easily enough and to be honest they actually make it easier to determine what's going on. I also changed the update check from 5 to 60 minutes. Mostly because I don't need to have my system eat bandwidth that often and every 60 minutes is appropriate enough.

Also in todays KDE news there was note of a major problem with a Gnome update that literally broke Gnome. Seems like many Gnome users will be going to KDE to fix it or replace Gnome altogether. Hmm support calls anyone?

News of note

First off, the Microsoft olive branch is a lie. Please all developers take note of the NON-COMMERCIAL CLAUSE and statement. Please for the love of technology do not fall into the spiders lair.

To the Fedora and Kubuntu camps. Who gives a damn who contributes more, has a better 3rd party developer upstream and does the most for KDE development. Neither camp is working off a primarily KDE based distro and that's fine. We can have KDE on either and that's good enough. Both make important contributions to open source and KDE and though there will always be arguments over this, that or whatever they should not be posted on a blog that talks primarily about a particular distro's contributions. Especially since said blog said nothing derogatory about the other's Distro in the first place.

Now on to my news. I de-blacklisted my Intel 965GM video card so I could use Compiz-Fusion. Since it really didn't matter whether I had it going or not the GPU is simply going to lock up from time to time until the bugs are worked out of the driver and backend controls. There's no telling when or what will cause it, so I enabled my card for Compiz.

The HeliOS theme package is looking nice as I play with different aspects and features. Its slowly becoming the toyal and complete package and I setup both KDE a\nd Compiz looks for the package. To show the effects here are the pics.

This is the standard desktop screen shot. Nothing spectacular or special. It simply shows what the desktop looks like in normal state. The purpose is to allow people to see if they like the look.

Now we come to the menu screenshot:

This is a screen shot of the menu and file manager using the KDE Decoration and Theme. Which BTW is Cylon for the Decoration and the Theme is HeliOS which I created by using all sorts of packages from kde-look.org. This theme isn't finished just yet but I an really pleased how its coming together as I find just the right material to use. However, the next screen shot shows the same thing only now its with Compiz activated:

The main, and most obvious difference is the decoration of course. Since I am using Compiz I have to use Emerald as the theme manager. since the Cylon look isn't available for Compiz (yet) I needed to use a theme that fit and so I went with the one you see. Yet none of this is as important as the effects screen shot. By that I mean how does it look on a 3D enhanced system like Compiz? well the cube looks like this:

The cube settings I have are topcaps off, 40% Translucency when moving the cube with the mouse and mirroring on for the skycap bottom. Overall a very cool ( and impressive) look. Though the overall theme is coming together nicely its far from complete. I have the Sounds, Icons, Cursors, KDM, KSplash, Splashy Theme, and GRUB Splash done, which is most everything, but I just feel there is something more it needs. I'm sure I'll figure it out.

Hope you like the look.

Cleaning out the garbage

Facebook: Disabled
WAYN: Closed

Yep both were becoming exxessive or never used. WAYN (Where Are You Now) was a joke of a social site really and then they wanted $$$ for services. Sorry if it didn't work well when services were free why would I throw good money into it now that they decided to charge me.

Facebook just became an out of control worthless social site with no end of issues and way to many emails coming in and most were to entice me to log on to services. Add to that I wasn't allowed access to messages because I wasn't inviting enough people to join. Point blank, who needs that rot? I invite people I think might be interested. I wasn't one of them anymore. Add to that the privacy and security issues in tow with Facebook usage I decided it was best to just stop. I deleted every single app and suspended the account. Will contact customer service to delete it later.

I still have other social web sites I use that don't pound me with emails I don't want or need.

Finally got the Real Time Kernel working and believe me on a DuoCore2 laptop in performance mode its freakin' awesome. even in Dynamic Mode its good but Performance Mode just makes it zing. If you have never used a Real Time Kernel then let me explain what that means. There is no lag time in processor hand off. In the normal kernel if a process is done with its time slice then the system will wait x amount of time before hand off where x is the amount of time left in the time slice assigned to the process. A Real Time Kernel however, hands off the process once the process is done whether there is time left or not. In other words the kernel doesn't go idle when processes are waiting in line for CPU time. Multitasking goes a lot smoother in a Real Time Environment compared to the standard kernel method. Though most people will have no need for a Real Time Kernel heavy resource users like myself can enjoy less lag and lock while the system cycles through processes.

KDE 3.5.9 is out now and its installed on my laptop. Putting it on my son's desktop now. That soon to be four year old can run Windows (Mom's computer) and Linux (his computer) and to him (bless his little heart) there is no difference. The only real thing unique on his, is that he is using the Windows version of Firefox, utilizing WINE so he can have Shockwave (needed for some of his kiddie websites.)

His mother prefers she uses hers (she is a die hard Windows user) and not his. Hey the kid has his own computer and not just some toy system either. Its a 2GHz P4 (granted a single core system but still great for a four year old boy) with a GB of RAM and a 250 GB Hard Drive. (His old Hard Drive crashed so I had to replace it.)

I am working with/for HeliOS Solutions now. Good guys and were working on a whole new business model and system.

My Unbranded Kubuntu

I did I removed the Kubuntu startup and shutdown displays. How I did can be found in my latest Theme Package that I pasted at KDE Look. It was an effort but I am extremely pleased with the results. Now for my next trick...

Kubuntu Breaks Itself

Okay that's an odd title but let me explain and you'll see why I am kinda glad things worked out this way.

First off I make no qualms about my issues concerning many of Canonical's more "interesting" decisions and why they PO me.

One of the more recent issues is the KDM over ride. I like making KDM and Ksplash screens. Its fun and helps me learn how things work and people generally like my material when I'm done packaging it.

I can't use the KDM theme manager but I did find the way to get around it and have plastered that information all over kde-look.org. Whatever Canonical did to KDM is not as i shall say, a good thing. This is another one of the "hmmmms" things. Is Canonical trying to be the MS of the Linux Community?

Usplash versus Splashy: I can give a lot of reasons why Splashy is superior to Usplash but the one I feel is the most important is that Splashy allows anyone to create and change splash themes without to much effort. Usplash on the other hand requires some pretty hard core programming knowledge, requires a bunch of steps to convert the graphic to something it can use and then you have to compile that. three letters, a acronym, WTF?

So after banging my head around slightly I actually got Usplash replaced with Splashy and that means I can do a total theme configuration.

However, KSplash went nuts on me and I had to clean out the KSplash cache folder in ~/.kde/share/apps/ksplash/cache and also move all my themes to /usr/share/apps/ksplash/themes so now that's working again.

Now why all this is going on something happened to my KDE config files. I.E. Kubuntu broke itself and my desktop just went bye bye. I had to reset EVERYTHING and then I noticed a wonderful thing. Those annoying little Kubuntu hacks were gone. KDE started acting like KDE should. Yep my New Year just strated off great.

Way to funny not to poswt

BE AMUSED by some different Feminine & Masculine Archetypes at work and play
within these 2 American English Students:

THE WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Remember the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus"? Here's an
interesting example offered by an English professor from the University
of Phoenix Arizona:
PROFESSOR: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem
story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting
to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will
write the first paragraph of a short story.
You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me.
The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another
paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to
me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on
back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep
the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of
the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the
e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of my English students:
Rebecca (last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).

THE STORY:

(first paragraph by Rebecca)

At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The
chamomile, which used to be her favourite for lazy evenings at home,
now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times,
that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep
her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she
thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So
chamomile was out of the question.

(second paragraph by Gary)

Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron
now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about
than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with
whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to
Geostation 17," he said into his trans galactic communicator. "Polar
orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he
could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and
blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct
hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.

(Rebecca)

He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt
one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who
had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its
pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4.
"Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,"
Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously
excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her
youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no
newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of
innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one
lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.

(Gary)

Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.
Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched
the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy
peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty
through the congress had left Earth a defenceless target for the
hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race.
Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships
were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the
entire planet.
With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical
plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The
President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the
ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive
explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other
Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We
can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty!
Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"

(Rebecca)

This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My
writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.



(Gary)

Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at
writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have
chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh
no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads; too many Danielle Steele
novels!"

(Rebecca)
Asshole.

(Gary)
Bitch.

(Rebecca)

FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!-!!

(Gary)

Go drink some tea - whore.



(PROFESSOR)

A+ I really liked this one!

Cross Development Adoption in KDE 4

Kickoff Menu Style- Developed by SuSE, will be the standard menu in KDE 4. It replaces the old 2nd generation menu in KDE 3. This is not the same Kickoff that we have available in KDE 3.5.5 and up. Its a port and is instead a plasmoid. I consider Kickoff the best of the 3rd generation menus but Raptor is in development and it will be a 4th generation menu system totally unique to anything else out there. To get an idea of what Raptor will be like go here to see it. Once Raptor is fully developed as a plasmoid it will be an exciting replacement menu.

System Configuration - Developed by Kubuntu, will be standard in KDE 4. This is good idea as the Kcontrol center is a bit confusing. However, the current Kubuntu version does not give access to all KCMs and if we are going to have this as the new means to utilize them then access to them must be allowed. I am not in the mood to use kcmshell setups.

Dolphin will replace Konquerer as the file manager - Don't get me wrong I can see the idea and even the need behind this. However, Dolphin is not KIO capable which means in some ways its a step backwards. If Dolphin is going to be the new File Manager then it needs to be made plugin capable and the KIO plugins will need to be ported over to Dolphin (as plasmoids of course.) Otherwise what's the point?

Plasmoids finally end the issue of kicker applets not being available to all KDE based distros. Plasmoids set and use a standard that makes them plug and play in KDE 4 that does require packaging for specific distros to be used. In other words plasmoids make KDE 4 standards that allow people to use as they see fit, regardless of the specific distro they use. So when Raptor does get released for general use all you have to do is get the plasmoid package and install it into the plugins of KDE 4 and you will have it. That's cool. No more waiting for your distro (or someone else) to package it so you can use it.

Lastly Moodin will become the default splash screen engine, though no surprise there.

(K)Ubuntu strikes again

Okay my disdain for what Canonical is doinf to Linux is getting to be over the top and I'm just plain sick. With all the over rides, lockouts and plain bad attitude they are giving to 3rd party repositories which they DO NOT WANT YOU TO USE I am just getting sick and tired of it. The use od sudo is bad enough but to lock out KDM and to make it use the GDM config files just plain PISSES ME OFF.

Linux is supposed to be fun and configurable, not locked down with schemes and over rides. What Canonical is doing, in my opinion, is taking the fun out of Linux. Yes I use Kubuntu but that just may well change soon. I am looking at other options now. I will not support a Linux Distro that both destroys the overall Linux philosophy and locks out developers because they only want people using their approved repositories.

From DesktopLinux

"Woodford said, for MEPIS users this means that Ubuntu does not provide a foundation for long term incremental upgrades. "Ubuntu is almost a whole new distro each time it's released," he said. "By using the EXPERIMENTAL code, each and every time, the Ubuntu code tree is inherently less stable than the Debian code tree, which contains additional levels of testing and vetting and fixing of code."

Woodford said that sometimes the Ubuntu tree contains desirable newer versions of major user applications, and the major user applications, such as Firefox and OpenOffice, come from upstream sources where the code was already stable.

So it is that Woodford has decided to go back to Debian for MEPIS' Linux heard. In particular, he will be using Debian GNU/Linux version 4.0 -- code-named Etch. - Woodford has also found that although Ubuntu is source compatible with Debian, it is becoming less and less binary compatible with Debian. "This was not obvious over a year ago, but it is very obvious now," he said."

Gutsy Gibbon Webcam Woes

If you use Gutsy Gibbon (Edubuntu, Ubuntu, Kubuntu or Xubuntu) then you have noticed a neat little issue. Webcams that previously worked in Feisty aren't working in Gutsy.

Though I was surprised to find my reliable and old VGA cam didn't work I was even more surprised to learn that I couldn't get it to work in Gutsy even using the correct driver.

Apparently there was a major overhaul of the webcam modules to alleviate them of outdated drivers which means support for older webcams is gone.

So I went looking for a list of webcams known to work with Gutsy. All I could find is a list for Skype but its a start. Since the cams listed here are known to work in the Linux version of Skype for Gutsy they will also work with Gutsy sans Skype.

EZonics
EZ CAM II

Logitech
Communicate STX
Quickcam 9000 Pro
Quickcam Chat for Skype
Quickcam Express II
Quickcam Notebook Deluxe
Quickcam Pro 4000
Quickcam Pro for Notebooks
Quickcam Ultra Vision
Quickcam Zoom

Phillips
SPC 900NC

These are the models I wrote down when i went to get another webcam that would work. I ended with the Quickcam Notebook Deluxe which worked right out of the box on my laptop.

Camorama was of no help for camera testing and Kopete and aMSN were the apps I had to use to see if it was working.

PLEASE if you are reading this and know of any webcams that work in Gutsy out of the box or with minor tweaking email me at shaun.marolf@gmail.com so I can add them to this list.

(K)ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

It's been a really long time since I posted anything and there are several reasons for that and something I tend to rectify. So here is a post.

I still am not the biggest fan of (K)ubuntu but I have to admit Canonical has done a great job. Since I use Kubuntu I will make a couple of statements. Hardware detection and setup was SWEEET!!! Everything, including the built in winmodem is up and running on my Compaq Presario C700 Laptop that I just bought and the only thing I had to do was activate the firmware file in the Restricted Drivers control panel for the modem. All other devices setup without a hitch.

For some odd reason Dolphin was made the default file browser. For some this isn't a bad thing but if you are going to change the default file browser there needs to be a way to select Konqueror without removing Dolphin. However simply removing Dolphin will return Konqueror as the default.

Some will prefer Dolphin because of its simpler more graceful interface but it is limited on options so power users will (like myself) want to remove it and get Konqueror back. Since I use Firefox and have it set as the default web browser which comes up no matter what app or interface I am in I have already seperated my file browser from my web browser. Good idea bad implementation on that.

Apps are solid, plentiful and KDE 3.5.8 is really solid since it is a bug fix release.

Beryl is gone and compiz is it and I am still learning the differences so I can get my 3-D desktop going as I like (cube and all) but there is no real documentation so I am experimenting with it still. I had just figured out Beryl (sigh)

Multimedia setup is a breeze as well and Automatix2 is only needed to get a few codecs that Canonical does not carry in its repos. Surprisingly that's very few compared to the Feisty Fawn repos.

Anyway (K)ubuntu is very much improved with 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon and despite the sudo scheme that I hate I really am impressed. It scores a 9 out of 10.

Mobile Again

Okay I pulled out the OLD and reliable laptop and decided to give the HDD one last try. Would you believe it worked? Not only that Kubuntu reconfigured itself to work on the Video board built into the laptop. I can now say I am duly impressed. Never ever had any other Linux Distribution do that before.

So the old and slow but reliable Laptop is up and running. I have it on the wireless updating as I type this. Its installing packages. It already downloaded most of them will have to run the update one more time to get all of them. (Seems to just be the way it is.) Yes its SLOW but it works and I can get back to being a portable hacker again.

I lost the ability to use Beryl on the transition though but minor loss compared to other things.

So back in the saddle again.

Women in OSS deserve respect

Melissa Draper recently did something that took both courage and intelligence to do.

Her recent letter to the Open Source Software community (click on the title to read it) makes a clear and shocking statement. Here it is coming to the end of the first decade in the 21st century when equal rights, opportunities and acceptance for and of women should come without question.

I don't agree with all aspects of the sexual revolution, as it were, but I definitely feel that women have rights equal to any man. Among those is the right to be accepted for talent, ability and effort without being harassed because of gender.

Melissa, Celeste and other women I know of in OSS have my utmost respect as individual contributors. I certainly could not do some of the things they do, nor would I want to. Celeste is a interface designer. Uhm I'm surprised the poor lady isn't bald sometimes after reading some of her blog entries.

The point is these ladies work hard at what they do for the community. They should not have to endure sexist remarks and comments from those who can't see past their bust lines. (Sorry ladies I could not think of a better way to phrase it.)

I know its a males natural tendency to first see the woman. That's not the issue. It is however an issue when we men don't check our libido before we open our mouth or put our fingers on a keyboard and make rude, crude and in some cases obscene comments. The males in the OSS development community certainly should know better.

Yes men and women are different, thankfully. However, the differences go beyond the physical and women are able to see things in ways we men never will. Its those different perspectives we need in the OSS community for Linux, KDE, Gnome and whatever other projects you can name to stay fresh and growing. Matter of fact I would like to see more women become involved with OSS development and design.

The ladies deserve our utmost respect and acceptance. They do not deserve lurid comments and attitudes which lead to open letters like Melissa wrote. Hopefully, that will be the last such letter.

Laptop Is Dead

It died Sunday morning on a restart. I just wen over it. No way to save it, the cause. Power supply blew and spiked it. Its toasted nothing appears to be salvageable. Even the Hard Drive is gone and won't spin up. Not sure on the DVD burner but I'm not gonna count on it.

Setup Tower system again and like the good geek I am had all data backed up so I am rocking and rolling. Even have Beryl going but no longer portable.

The Look of Tux

When you work on the look and feel of your computer you just tend to want to show it off. So here it is.
The background is Crystal Tux.
The Icon set is Crystal SVG
Cursor theme is Fedora 6 set
Panel Wallpaper is Blue54
Using the SuSE Kickoff menu compiled for Kubuntu
The Launch Button is from the KDE@work KBFX button set modified to work with Kickoff.
The monitor panel is gkrellm2 with the Invisible Theme
Using Beryl and Compiz for 3D effects and features.

I call this theme layout Tux Blue.

Hope you like

My New Web Site Is Up

All my murking around in Linux is paying off. Check it out and get back to me.

--Shaun

Good Bye SUDO hope to never see you again

My biggest beef with Kubuntu has been the use of sudo to any damn thing. I have always and forever stated that Linux is not Windows and that the root (super user) account exists for a reason.

Well I finally found the answer. I can have Kubuntu, all its packages in the software repository, AND no more sudo. That's right boys and girls this happy camper has eliminated the need for sudo and now has a a root account with a password.

Next phase is to fix it so I can log into KDE as root. Not something I will do unless I need to fix some things trust me but that account needs to be there and it will be.

There are a lot of other issues to fix in Kubuntu as well but you know what, I will fix them. the answers are there they just have to be uncovered.

BTW I am not giving the answer on how to do this here. It will be on my Kubuntu Hacks web site when I get written out.

Menu Systems, Some Observations

The number one complaint I hear on Vista is the new Menu. Its a flat panel menu system and most people do not care for it. They would prefer to have the XP like Start menu. Okay it does organize the structure a bit better but it just doesn't sit well with users.

KBFX uses a flat panel menu as well but most people downloaded it to modify the launch button in KDE and set KBFX to use the default Menu. Why? Like Vista users linux users did not care for the flat panel layout. It was skinable though and that was a big plus in its favor.

Tasty Menu tried to be a bit of both and though conceptionally its a practical idea it just doesn't work as well. To many bugs and issues.

Now SuSE Kickoff I like. For a next generation menu system it has the right potential. I'm not saying it doesn't need work because it does. It should be made skinable and that includes its buttons. However, it functions much more intuitively than the others. The tabbed layout just makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. Yes it needs a lot more work but I really like it and want to see reach full potential. here is what I think Kickoff needs to have added:

Themes - If the developers add the ability to use themes in Kickoff I am sure its popularity will swell ten fold. People today want to customize the look and feel of their system. Making the menu customizable with themes would be a huge step to gaining popularity and thus more deployment by end users. Along those lines also set up an easy way to use and set different button sets like KBFX does. That was what made KBFX popular to begin with.

User Definable Tabs - The stock tabs are nice but it would be nice to have a couple of others as well like a tab for URLS. The favorites tab is a nice feature but it really isn't enough. Hard core users may want a tab that gives them instant access to a specific group and or combinatin of programs. Again the Favorites Tab doesn't fill that niche exactly and really shouldn't be used for that purpose.

Now how do you approach these? I know in some ways the look is kinda built into Kickoff but a bit of redesigning and re-coding can fix that. Kickoff 2, if you will, can easily be rewritten to allow for that, and a KCM can handle the issue of providing the interface for the user to select the themes and button sets.

User definable tabs can be added or removed with the checking or unchecking of a check box. The menu type can be drag and drop, user defined via a menu file generated by the KCM using data gathered from the users input, or it can be a url selector and all the user has to do is tell the KCM what browser he prefers the tab gets the bookmark data from. (Firefox, Opera, Konquerer, etc.)

Now of course you do have to set a limit on the number of tabs the user can add but I think three should be about right.

It might not be a bad idea to have a on/off togable Control Center module menu as well which allows the user quick and easy access to the KCMs.

Just some food for thought.

Ready For Work

When I had both my desktop and my laptop going but separate in many aspects I generally had a mismatch of information. Solution use only one of the two. The desktop is still a good system and I fully intend to make use of it in another capacity. (I need a server anyway.)

So with a my laptop now being used as my main and only system how do I handle the delicate balance between personal, business and private files. Not to mention the ever so delicate balance of privacy and non disclosure of information. Laptops just are at risk period. Physical security issues and general handling of things you don't want to take out in public for whatever reason. Welcome External Hard Drive Enclosures. I have two of them. (One is empty at the moment.) I bought both for work, and since I no longer have that job, as I quit, I have made use of one. I pulled the SATA drive from the desktop and put it into the enclosure that had the dual interface (either IDE or SATA.) The other drive is IDE only and the drive that was in it went back to the computer I finally setup for my son.

On top of all of that I have a CD-R/W backpack Drive as well that well for the moment is sitting there not being used. Right now the one external drive is where I keep my more delicate files and I maintain a minimalist set of data files on the laptop's hard drive. The files I need for whatever I need to do away from home.

So I keep portability, maintain a modicum of physical security and still have a system that can perform the work I need. Not a bad trade off all in all and to be honest I really do like having my more personal data files detached so that I don't accidentally access something in public I don't want someone to see.

Other things of Note:

Installed CAD for network layout design.
Installed all the productivity files I have ever used and will probably use again
Changed out the system default programs to others that either worked better for me or just plain suited my needs better.
Got the Anti-Virus scanner system going with Dazuko (Vital in that I work with other computers using Windows. Anything I can do to help those poor saps.)
Configured and got Beryl up and running. Not vital but I have to have some toys. Besides its a really cool way to show off Linux. Not entirely done setting it up but the base stuff I wanted it to do is going.
Got the Zire21 and Kpilot to fully sync with each other. Not just my contacts, calendar and to do list, but everything. (Looks like the Kpilot team fixed thos conduits.) So now the data flow between PDA and Kontact is functioning exactly as it should.
Setup my Brother MFC-210 to the laptop. I have full printing, FAX and scanner access to it using Linux (can we say that makes me very, very happy.)

I plan on organizing my Menu to be the way I want it so that's the next big push.

Kubuntu Finally Redeems Itself

Well I really have to admit that Kubuntu has grown on me. Don't get me wrong still want to se sudo get dumped. I think the Ubuntu team has the right idea but I really believe they went about all wrong. Anyway I digress.

What finally made me decide that Kubuntu was alright? Beryl, in a word. Beryl is a 3D theme manager that works with Gnome and KDE, probably with other windows managers as well, that really makes a difference in your desktop computing experience. As stated in my previous post I had eight virtual desktops. that was a bit much so I cut it in half to four. But where i had issues with either my network access being shutdown because KDE lost the pipe between it and the device isn't happening and I have all my multimedia and the system isn't broken, you get the picture. ALL THE COOL EFFECTS AND EVERYTHING STILL WORKS!!!

For that alone Kubuntu has redeemed itself for all the other headaches it has given me.

KDE4 and Beryl

Okay the Oxygen look is sweet but since its an alpha phase look on KDE4 there wasn't a whole lot. Some minor affects added but nothing like beryl.

Now Beryl is up and running on my laptop. I have 8 virtual desktops. all the really really cool 3D effects and of course previews and its worth everty bit of CPU power it consumes. This just makes Vista Premium look sick. There are similar effects but lets see Vista give you a 3D box (in my case octogon) you can move around with your mouse to select the desktop you want. And if you roll the mouse wheel on the desktop it switches them too. Vista doesn't do that and Beryl doesn't require the CPU or RAM vista does.