Confessions of a tweakin geek

I guess I was all caught up in the election of the new president the other night. And while having revelations about what this means to yours truly, I now must admit and commit. I decided to upgrade my Ubuntu 8.04 system installation to Xubuntu 8.10. Why Xubuntu, because I only have 512 RAM on my system and Xfce runs way, way better than Gnome or KDE on the same system. So, leaving the adoring fans of Gnome and KDE, I am a Xfce fanboy, again. Both I and my cats think the little mouse symbol is cool. Yeah, Xfce is not as flashy as Gnome or KDE, not as tweakable in some aspects, but has speed and agility plus a rock solid feel I just can't do without. And by sacrificing a little overhead, I get added performance for the applications I use. I downloaded a few desktop themes from www.xfce-look.org to get away from the standard gray themes. And even though Open Office.org is a fixture in my tool bag I like to use Abiword which is a tad bit nicer (I just discovered this!).

Up top is my present desktop, I do like horses of different colors. But I don't like the clutter of icons all over my desktop. MS Windows likes to bury the file explorer in the menu, my Xfce keeps it handy so that I know where my files are and I don't have confusion staring me in the face. I've seen too many MS Windows desktops that look like a magnet encrusted refrigerator door. And, I am not so distracted by all the "click me" toys Gnome and KDE has to offer.

What is the secret to living with Ubuntu and loving it, it's got to be "The Official Ubuntu Book". I know all the stuff in it because I'm a long time user, right? wrong! There are tips and secrets and explanations galore, as I found out. To have a simple concise fix to common gotchas is a great thing. But what I want is a screensaver that locks the desktop and screams "pull your hands back and step away from the keyboard", snaps a picture and uploads it to the cops.

The art business is shaping up, sort of. I think I am seeing some avenues I want to pursue. Job hunting is producing results and possibilities. Things are positive in spite of the process.

I leave you with encouraging tips to visit Linuxville. If your PC can boot from a USB hard drive or jump drive, install Linux on it. If you have a second drive you can throw into your PC, put Linux on it. OR just use the live-CD version, Linux has pleasant surprises for most people. And if you do plan to install, do a little research so that those surprises are not overshadowed by gotchas. You wireless people need a heads up. And to tell you the truth, if you think Macs are the only alternative to MS, Macs are Unix underneath no matter how much they deny it. Linux can be easy or difficult depending how you approach it. Linux can accommodate the casual mouse masher and the text-hardened code-head. You can come and go in Linuxville without a passport. Too bad there's no free tee-shirt, coffee mug or mousepad..............

New developments and winds of change

Well folks, in my personal Linux adventure, I was tortured by the question of wither to install a full featured Linux distro or a small trimmed down one. Is it better to delete redundancy or install what's needed. I still can't answer that question. But my computing needs did indeed change and I find that Xubuntu does not stand up to the challenge. When inquiring about my new direction, the response was good but not clear cut as I had hoped. To accomplish the things I want and have to use all sorts of command line tweaks and such is not the kind of person I am. Some of you kind and helpful folks really like to dig into the flesh of Linux and make it work. My self, for the purpose of pursuing a more "popular" Linux, prefer to see application and GUI solutions. While I root for the Ubuntu crowd, I have had trouble with the new Hardy Heron 8.04 on both of my machines. The 64-bit one works but web browser extensions are problematic. On the 32-bit one, the install failed a number of times and the desktop settings did not hold once I did get it installed. This was with Xubuntu and with Ubuntu (with Gnome). The 7.10 versions worked without a problem. I wonder what are the underlying causes of these problems, but I really don't have the skills to probe them or the interest to use work-arounds. Oh, I did not mention Kubuntu, I really don't care for KDE desktop but, this has become a part of my new direction. So, you can guess that I am not a true distro loyalist, not a make it work or die kind of person. I have loaded a distro called Mepis onto my second machine. While I don't like the KDE menu or the extensiveness of the tweakability of KDE it does look and feel just fine once you become accustom to it. Mepis is Debian based and does use Ubuntu repositories. I don't know what it has in comparison to Ubuntu but when I installed it, it worked, period. You can't ask for more than that. I of course am looking into the background of Mepis as I want to know about the support community and such things. Then this KDE thing is interesting for one reason, I want the tools to do what I want. Xubuntu lacks networking apps and the path to gather which tools are useful, to download, install and configure is not so clear. You system mechanics might holler "what's the problem?" and "you can do it like this!". This is fine but it is probing too deep into the inner workings of Linux and I really don't have the inclination to 'figure it out'. Back to the question of full or skimpy distro, Mepis has the tools to do everything and to my taste I might have to uninstall a few things and add others, but the tools are there. What I need to do is see my network, share files and remote. I shouldn't have to make it work, from my perspective. I guess the idea of a single computer using Linux is fine but being part of a network is different. And it is not a dedicated server and I am not a Linux system mechanic, so I look for simpler, more complete and accessible solutions. To sum this all up I would say that the new Hardy Heron needs work, is not as cool as the previous version. The KDE desktop, which I am not rah-rah over is not that bad to deal with (takes time) and while Ubuntu enjoys the spotlight, is not all there is to Linux. I am tipping my hat to the Mepis crew. Mepis or SimplyMepis as it is called, uses the KDE 3.5 and I wonder if the new 4.0 would be better but at this point it does not matter, it all just works. That is the point!