Tinkering with the Tin man's heart

You know one of the things that always gets to me is that the folks who design things for the rest of us to use tend to make design concessions on things that matter. I had a '74' Gremlin hatchback and the headlight burnt out. The headlight assembly had screws with five different heads. Should I replace the headlight or the car or trace all over the city to find five different screw drivers? Having been a Linux user for a while, I recognize radical departures when I see it and this new KDE 4.0+ is a change. Ubuntu has this thing about normal user and superuser privileges. In traditional Unix or Linux, you would make two accounts, one for the root or superuser and then a normal user account. The idea was always with security in mind. The root account was for doing administrative tasks on your system, the normal user was for doing regular work. When you are the only user on a computer, do you really need these two accounts? There are schools of thought of course. So, distro developers have devised a way to be a normal user yet invoke superuser privileges. The "sudo" command is always talked about with a touch of distain by Linux oldies, inspite of the handiness of it. What am I fussing about? Well, in Xubuntu 7.10 you could just open a terminal, type sudo, then the program name, and presto, you were into superuser mode while using your selected application. There was ample warnings that you could change or damage your system, but you only needed it for the brief moment anyway. In my case, I just want to make sure I have rights to access the Virtualbox files. In Kubuntu 8.04 with KDE 4.0 there seems to be no friendly way to get to user accounts, add or change permissions and continue on. If you are going to change how the interface handles admin chores, you have to remind the application writers that their applications must adjust for those changes also. If admin chores are a thing of the past (old school), then new apps shouldn't use old school means for installation and maintenance. OR, you must establish a root user account at the Linux install. Then, when you do something that requires root user priviliges, ask the user for the password for that kind of access. Also, in KDE 4.0+, when is a file not a file? When it is on the desktop. Move a file from the file manager to the desktop or download a file to the desktop. Those files do not have drag and drop ability. On the desktop, they are different than simple files, more like the widgets on the desktop. So, in my workflow I need superuser access to change settings, priviliges, move files to secure locations, etc and I need to change my habits so that I can freely move about Linuxville. I think they want to eliminate putting file icons or folder icons on the desktop. Oh yeah, did I mention, where's the trash can? Old habits die hard!! The old dog has just encountered an electric fence, the Tin man needs an upgrade. Again I want to thank all you forum people, your tips and tricks make using any Linux distro very accessible. But things that should be common knowledge among users need to be documented, nailed down. Once you explain it and a user does it a few times, it all becomes so clear and easy. The Tin man, he takes a lickin and keeps on tickin.

behind the curtain in Oz

When and if you ever get to see the wizard behind the curtain in Oz you might be disappointed with the man, but you got to admire his toys!! What I did was install the latest Kubuntu 8.04 but not with KDE 3.5. They have what's called a "Remixed version" with KDE 4.0+. It was kind of scary as I was expecting all sorts of flash and thunder of eye candy that would melt my eye balls and turn my Mac and MS friends Martian green, with their tongues hanging and panting, "Somebody slap me!!"or is it "Somebody stop me!!" Instead I was greeted with coolness, suave, and polish. This approach says that a spinning cube (or tornado) is not needed to bring you to OZ.......and I got here without incident.

OK, here I am in OZ and the stupid yellow street leads in all directions, the short in statue folk are very helpful but only hint at where you might be headed and what will happen to you. Linux is a reality TV show and you need a good GPS, a even better set of ears and a Rosetta stone. Adventure awaits you and Indiana Jones (sounds better than Kansas Jones) type experiences are normal in this neck of the woods ( some call it the cutting-edge, some deforestation). If you have the luxury of owning a pencil, it might be a good idea to write down and document your travels because the bread crumbs found in the forums are not very life sustaining no matter the delight at finding them, thanks folks. Let's see, doctors need med records, lawyers need legal docs, builders need blueprints, and you need a business plan to start a business, but we Linux users have survived and flourished with "the missing manual". "Fahrenheit 19", a classic movie, is a terrible metaphor for storing and retrieving information. If you can not find people of the exact experience you are left to experiment on your own. Are you caught between "Not me man, I'm not going first" and "Yeah, I been there, done that!" in your Linux use? I say all this to point out the importance of the Linux how-to. Linux is not an ego-fest for knowledge experts (a very closed sourced attitude), collaborate, co-ordinate and give us the play by play. Don't tell us to RTFM when there isn't one (yes, Mepis has one).

Where am I?..........
I am here in my laboratory and I have installed widgets on my desktop, yeah, you can do that in KDE 4, but how do you put them on the "Dashboard" so that you can get at them with a key or mouse click and not have them welded to every desktop??? I want to know! OR, where is the how-to?? You are supposed to be able to use OS X widgets also. How do you install them hmmmmm??? I hear music in the background, darts whizzing through the air and a huge boulder with human residue on it coming toward me. Oh, I'm not in Kansas anymore, I'm clicking my sneakers but no lights (unlike the neighbor's kids) and the pages I need in the phone book were torn out by the previous caller. In the phone booth I rip open my shirt, damn, forgot my tux super suit. I dropped my car keys down the grate. Falling to my knees, the yellow dust stains my pants and I cry out, "Stella, Stella". Who's Stella?.......and who decided a 24 hour clock is better that AM, PM???

I could snap out of this with a reboot to another Linux version, but I like this place. Kubuntu 8.04, the remixed version with KDE 4.* is very cool and has potential and polish. What is needed is some documentation to make it "ready for the desktop" (LOL). "If you explain it, they will come", oh, that's concerning baseball. You need a recipie for others to make the cake that you enjoyed making from scratch. The dab of mustard in the batter is better than on the top of the finished cake, don't you think?? So, we got the content (Linux of choice) and the gui (face of Tux), and the finicky, picky, choosey user (me!). Life is sweet in Linuxville!!!!!!