Das U-Blog by Prashanth

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 February 5

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:56:00 +0000

There were no featured comments the previous week because I didn't post anything for that week due to my end-of-IAP business. There was one post this past week that got a couple of comments, so I will repost both of those.

Comparison Test: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" KDE vs. Netrunner 4.1 "Dryland"

Reader Bart said, "It is a bit.. surprising to see a Facebook shortcut installed on a Linux desktop by default. You write that Netrunner also considers for example Google docs, GCal and Youtube as applications. So in that way it is a sort of a net-runner after all. Thanks for the comparison, I was indeed curious to hear more about Netrunner."
An anonymous commenter had this to say: "Given the web oriented mood Netrunner seems to have ... it would have been interesting checking, as a level of polish, the integration of Dropbox in Dolphin (context menu for Dropbox folders, etc...). On the other hand ... it would have also been interesting knowing a bit more about Blue-Systems, the main sponsor of Netrunner and Linux Mint by now. Good review, but as you can see the curiosity is even bigger. Ps.- Do you really believe they will join together ???"

Thanks to those commenters for commenting on this past week's posts. Depending on my workload this week, I may or may not be able to post anything, but if I do have that kind of time, I do have at least one thing in mind. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Comparison Test: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" KDE vs. Netrunner 4.1 "Dryland"

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:10:00 +0000

Linux Mint: Main Screen

Both of the latest releases of these particular distributions came out this week. Also, Linux Mint now has a partnership with Netrunner for Linux Mint with KDE; hence, this comparison test may be the last meaningful one between the distributions while they remain as separate as possible, because I think they will converge in the coming months. Finally, Kubuntu just lost its funding at Canonical, so like Xubuntu, Lubuntu, and Edubuntu, after (but not including) version 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" it will be recognized by Canonical as an official derivative but will only be supported by the community. This means that there will need to be a new top dog for Ubuntu-based KDE distributions, and these two distributions seem like the most likely candidates. That is why I am comparing these two distributions now.

Linux Mint of course needs no introduction here. Interestingly, considering that for almost all of its history it has made Ubuntu with GNOME better and more usable, it actually started out in version 1 "Ada" as a KDE distribution, and KDE was still prominently featured until around version 3.1 "Celena" (and that is also around the time KDE made the transition from version 3 to version 4, which caused many users to move away to other DEs). After that, though, GNOME became the really prominent DE in Linux Mint, and KDE has almost become a second-class citizen in Linux Mint; in the last few releases, though the main GNOME edition has received extensive customizations, the KDE edition has been just a lightly-rebranded version of Kubuntu with a few other small customizations here and there. I will see whether or not that continues to be the case.

Netrunner: Main Screen

Netrunner, despite the name, is not a cloud-oriented distribution. It is a traditional desktop distribution like any other, and it aims to provide KDE mixed with useful tools taken from GNOME along with other helpful installed programs and customizations.

I tested both using a multiboot live USB made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation processes, because both are based on Ubuntu so there is really no need; all I am really comparing are the first impressions created by each distribution (so the whole post may seem a bit superficial), because soon they will more likely than not converge. Follow the jump to see what each distribution is like.

Fourth Semester at College

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Yesterday my fourth semester here started. This semester, I am taking 8.04 (Quantum Physics I), 8.044 (Statistical Physics I), 14.02 (Principles of Macroeconomics), and 18.06 (Linear Algebra). In addition, I am continuing my UROP (though my work will likely change soon) and doing some other work too.
It's going to be a busy semester, but given that I am now used to this kind of workload from last year, I think I will be able to manage it better. Plus, now that my classes start each day no earlier than 11am, I can get more sleep! Yay! That aside, it's going to be an exciting semester, though I can already feel the heat with problem sets and such.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 January 22

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:52:00 +0000

There was one post that got a few comments this week, so I'll repost most of them.

How-To: Make KDE Like Unity

Reader decentralist.wordpress.com had a few suggestions for KDE itself: "The main things I want to fix is being able to start a dash/menu/takeoff with just the meta/super/windows key and not need key combinations in KDE. I'm told this would require a change to Qt itself. I also want KDE to be able to use CTRL+ALT+ arrow keys to switch desktops instead of CTRL+Function keys. Don't think this can be fixed currently either."
An anonymous commenter responded to this, saying, "I did this a couple of months ago on openSUSE and Debian. The CTRL+ALT+ arrow keys is in the convoluted UI somewhere, I just don't remember where. I have also have gotten the super key to launch Kicker, I believe I added something to .xinit. Google is your friend, er maybe not. :)"
In the context of KDE being a refuge for people who don't like the Unity UI, another anonymous reader asked, "Why?"

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I don't really have much planned, but I'm sure I can think of something to write about. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

How-To: Make KDE Like Unity

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 02:14:00 +0000

I was going to do a review of PC-BSD, but unfortunately, that didn't work out (more on that later), so I'm doing this instead, though I had planned this for next week.

Vanilla KDE

Many months ago, I did a post on how to make KDE look more like Elementary OS. It was just one way of showcasing KDE's power and customizability. Now, I'm doing the same with regard to the Unity UI present in recent versions of Ubuntu. I know that a lot of people online have expressed displeasure with Unity along with the intention to use KDE instead. But what if you like the Unity UI but want the other features of KDE as well? Then this article is for you.

If you are using Kubuntu, this post is technically moot, because it is possible to use all of Unity 2D under KDE in Kubuntu without any issues; that is because Unity 2D is made with the Qt libraries, which also underlie KDE, so there's some compatibility there as far as I can tell. If you aren't using anything Ubuntu-based, though, then you're out of luck in terms of trying to use Unity 2D, so this is for you. I did this using a Chakra 2011.12 "Edn" live USB, so all my instructions will be based on that. If you are using another distribution, you may have to search online to see how some steps are done. Follow the jump to do it.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 January 15

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:30:00 +0000

There was one post this past week that got a whole bunch of comments, so I'll repost a few of them.

Review: Fuduntu 2012.1

Reader Fewt, who is the main Fuduntu developer, clarified reason for the issue that I was having: "There is a problem with our LibreOffice package (my fault) that causes it to use a lot more space than normally necessary (over 1GB). I'm working on a fix, but you probably saw your system run out of memory and oom killer ate some of your running processes. Sorry about that."
Commenter enrico said, "[I]nstall software in a live environment is a nightmare, in every distro you can try there are some errors, or at least glitch that cause every error you can imagine... A good review is made when software is installed in a real or virtual machine, live cd are a good thing, but some software and the stability of the distro is only a matter of luck... even sabayon has a live dvdfull of software, really good, but if you try to installa anything in live session,there are always crashes... in a virtual setup, there are no such things.. the same occur using a opensuse live cd...and the setups of this distros are stable as debian is."
An anonymous reader had this to say: "Perhaps this should have been named a "live" environment review because basing it totally off of that experience only covers a small portion of a distro's capabilities and character. Thanks for the effort of writing one up though. Hopefully you can try Fuduntu in the future and give it a fair chance."
Another anonymous commenter had these bits of advice: "Not related to fuduntu, but I want to share. I remember reading a live cd review where the author recommended installing distro x. i asked about package manager and he didn´t know. He said he never bothered because he just uses the vanilla distro and doesn´t install anything new. Yet I think it´s kind of unfair not mentioning and not looking at methods of installing new software. Yet a fuller review, where one installs and uses the distro for about a week as his main system and really tries everything he/she normally does, is rare. Understandable. Because Linux still sucks that much. It´s great but it sucks that much that You have to face these hickups. I installed Kubuntu on my laptop and thought it was great. Updated to latest KDE SC...ah. And then my girlfriend was unable to set up wireless. And she was right. The issue is now fixed but I can not blaim her. Sometimes You really need another PC to google Your problem. So, it´s easy to say: write a full review. An I agree that some reviews are really, really shallow, often barely more than a summary of the release notes and screenshots (not PV´s though). This is all free. Open a blog, download the distro and start writing."

Thanks to all those who commented on that post this past week. This coming week, I intend to have another review out at least. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Fuduntu 2012.1

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:57:00 +0000

I'm back! Thankfully it looks like too many people know about how bad the SOPA and PIPA bills are to not take action, and it looks like sponsors of those bills are dropping like European honeybees. Now let's get back to the main post.

I've reviewed Fuduntu a couple times before. There's a new release out, so I'm reviewing it now.

Fuduntu used to be based on Fedora, but then several months ago the lead developer announced that it would fork and maintain an independent codebase. This would serve two purposes: one would be to provide stable rolling releases, and the other would be to maintain GNOME 2 as long as possible. Indeed, Fuduntu uses not MATE, but good old GNOME 2.32.

I tested the live session using a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox inside a Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" MultiSystem-made live USB host with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

In Protest of SOPA/PIPA: Das U-Blackout

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:07:00 +0000

There are a lot of sites that are blacking out on Wednesday, 2012 January 18 to protest SOPA and PIPA together. I know this site doesn't get that much traffic except when I post OS & related reviews and they get on sites like LXer, but I feel like I couldn't have it on my conscience to not show solidarity in this move. Therefore, I will try to take everything on this site offline tomorrow except for this post. I wanted to post something tomorrow, but it [the rest of this sentence has been removed as per SOPA].
Toodle-oo! And just remember, this will become the norm if those bills get passed. This won't affect just small-time sites like mine, but big ones too. If you don't like that, contact your elected representatives and tell them what you think. Even if the only effect is that a staffer adds another tally to the box saying "SOPA [or PIPA]: opposed", that's fine. Do it!

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 January 8

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:39:00 +0000

There was one post that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll repost a few of those.

Review: Razor-Qt 0.4.0 (via Ubuntu Razor-Qt Remix)

Reader Jeff Hoogland said, "220 while being far less than KDE is a good deal more than LXDE and E17. Still more alternatives are good."
Commenter Barnaby supported this: "220 MB? LXDE on Salix basic needs only 45, but it's still early days, hopefully it will come down. Thanks for the very detailed walkthrough. Your blog is still getting better, and it wasn't bad to begin with. Interesting. Cheers".
Reader desm0tes had this view: "I've been using LXDE with Compiz for about a year now (left Gnome BEFORE it became cool!!! (lol just kidding: left Gnome for personal reasons way before G3 and not because of it)), and haven't been using any KDE for a long time (8-10 yrs maybe) - but I heard of Razor-qt and had to try it: it's not really "mature" yet, but it's promising. For now, it needs some hard coding and the cumbersome KDE-"theming"-section to customize it, yet there are not that many apps for QT as are for GTK, so it takes time to customize a whole desktop in the way I like it...anyway, I'll stick with it for at least a week maybe, growing accustomed to it and then decide over it for now. But even if I might decide to not use it anymore, this doesn't mean, there is no need for Razor-qt....otherwise there would be no KDE (don't like the whole look and feel of it, esp the panel and the system settings...the plasma-panel seems to not have changed that in a way) , Gnome (tried g3 and the gnome-shell for 1-2 days and didn't like it) or XFCE (cheap copy of g2, why start it at all in the days of g2??^^), not to speak of all the window managers, ROX or E17."
Commenter Mark said, "Im pretty sure it idles at a lot lower if you're using Openbox as your WM as LXDE does. Kwin is as bloated as KDE..."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I intend to have another review out. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Razor-Qt 0.4.0 (via Ubuntu Razor-Qt Remix)

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:20:00 +0000

Razor-Qt: Main Screen + Right-Click Menu

It seems like the recent discontent over GNOME 3 and Unity has caused a renaissance in DEs that act more traditionally. Xfce is gaining popularity as it basically replicates GNOME 2.X and can do even more now, while KDE is winning over users attracted to its shininess and power. LXDE is also gaining attention as a DE that pushes the limit of how stripped-down a DE can be before it is just a WM again, while Enlightenment seems to be gaining renewed interest thanks to Bodhi Linux. Linux Mint has modified GNOME 3 through MGSE, and now it is replacing GNOME 3/Shell with GNOME 3/Cinnamon. Yet only one of these alternatives (KDE) uses the Qt toolkit; save Enlightenment, which uses the E17 toolkit, all the others use GTK+. Until now.

There's a new kid on the DE block, and it's called Razor-Qt. It aims to be a lightweight, traditional-style DE, sort of like KDE, Xfce, and LXDE. The best way to put it is that it aims to be to KDE what LXDE has been to GNOME; it is stripped-down and manages the desktop in a more minimalistic way, but it is still compatible with KDE and Qt applications, just as LXDE can still take GNOME and GTK+ applications just fine.

I am trying Razor-Qt as a MultiSystem-made live USB in the form of Ubuntu Razor-Qt Remix. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2012 January 1

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:17:00 +0000

There were two posts that got a couple comments, so I'll repost most of those.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 December 25

Reader Antonio Jones said, "i'm an old gnome-fan who wants to try KDE style. After a horrible experiences on KDE oriented distros like Mandriva, a not so bad install of Chakra and a not so good experiences with distros like Pardus i arrived to Mageia. Mageia it's the best distro on KDE desktop that i tried. All works ok, including kde desktop efects, not working on any distro in my computer. Easy to install, easy to customize, easy to work with. And is only the first revision. In 2012 i'm sure Mageia can excel."

Comparison Test: Pear OS 3.0 "Panther" vs. Zorin OS 5.2 Core

An anonymous commenter said, "Nice article. I tried both distros before (even had Zorin on my mail laptop a year ago) and came to the same conclusion. Zorin is more polished and professional, but PearOS is a nice try anyway.. =:^)"

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I hope to have another review out at least. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Comparison Test: Pear OS 3.0 "Panther" vs. Zorin OS 5.2 Core

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 16:14:00 +0000

Pear OS: Main Screen

There's been a new distribution making small waves lately called Pear OS. It aims to replicate the experience of Apple's Mac OS X, and upon first appearances, it seems to do so pretty well. I'm comparing it to Zorin OS, which similarly tries to replicate the experience of Microsoft Windows, to see which one does its job better.

Pear OS takes no shame in aping absolutely every part of Apple's Mac OS X. Its slogan is "Think Totally Different", which is an obvious rip off of Apple's slogan, "Think Different". Its logo is a pear into which someone has taken a small bite. It shows box art that clearly apes that of Apple's Mac OS X. Even the version name is "Panther", which is actually a past release of Apple's Mac OS X ( The list goes on, but it's clear what the developers are aiming at.
By contrast, Zorin OS is quite a bit more subtle about its goals. It explicitly states that it aims to bring Linux to Microsoft Windows users, but its website is a bit more generic in that it simply states the advantages and features of Zorin OS without directly referencing Microsoft Windows too many times.

Zorin OS: Main Screen + GnoMenu
(Microsoft Windows 7 look)

I tested both using a multiboot live USB made with MultiSystem. Please bear in mind that as both distributions are based on Ubuntu, and as I have found time and again that my laptop's hardware works just fine on Ubuntu and so do applications like Skype and Google Talk, this comparison is going to seem pretty shallow. I'm basically just going to discuss appearances, deeper aspects of the interface, and included applications, without doing my usual other testing. Follow the jump to see what each is like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 December 25

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:32:00 +0000

Happy new year 2012! There were no "Featured Comments" posts the past 2 weeks as there were no comments that got posts those weeks. This week, there was one post that got a whole bunch of comments, so I'll repost a few of those.

Review: Chakra 2011.12 "Edn"

Reader Antonio Jones said, "I installed chakra today, not bad but i had some issues: - font rendering, i can' t live without ubuntu style of rendering fonts. Chakra don't look cool. Any solution to font rendering? - your bar is semi-transparent, how do you configure it? By the way, chakra looks like one of the best distros around kde. I like Pardus, but seems to have less popularity. Mandriva was a hell for me, but i like the way it does things."
An anonymous commenter had this experience to share: "I installed Chakra recently on a troublesome laptop. This laptop does not like the new 3.0 kernels with any distro. Chakra supplies a LTS kernel which works very well. I'm liking KDE after trying out Unity and Gnome 3. Chakra has a polished feel to it."
Reader 3rabuntu had this tip: "To preview videos, make sure you installed kffmpegthumbnail or mplayerthumbnail then enable it in Dolphin (Settings > General > Previews >Video Files). Also, you need to increase the limit to something like 2000 MB for local files (default is set to 5MB). KDE is a great platform and can be tweaked easily to your liking. It just doesn't have sane default options. Cheers"
Commenter TanKe said, "I have been testing chakra since almost the beginning. I loved to see an Arch made easy but it was terrible then with the software manager (Shaman) and they had a lot of conflicts too. Then they changed to their own packaging based or arch making it more stable but the tools they wrote (installer, package manager and so on fail to work properly from time to time. I'm going to test this very last Chakra to see if everything works this time."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I will have at least one review of some sort out. Another review may come either this week or next week. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting! And once again, happy new year 2012!
(UPDATE: I accidentally wrote the wrong date. I guess I still haven't gotten enough sleep. My bad!)

Review: Chakra 2011.12 "Edn"

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 20:49:00 +0000

There's a new build of Chakra out, and I have some free time to check it out, so I'm doing so now. The other reason why I want to try it now is because a member of my family was raving about KDE in Fedora, so I figured it would be worth my time to dig deeper and see if I can massage KDE into becoming something that I could really like and use regularly. I'll spare any introductions because I've reviewed Chakra enough times already, so I'll skip to the main part of it.

Kickoff + KDE System Monitor

There doesn't seem to have been too much changed from the last version, aside from updates of applications across the board. But now that the day is getting closer for me to look into upgrading from Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora", I'm not just going to do my usual testing, but I'm also going to dig a bit deeper and really see if I can recreate something at least as good as what I have right now. With any Ubuntu-based distribution, it's almost guaranteed to be a trivial process, but with Chakra, I can't say that with as much confidence off-hand. I did all the testing using a live USB made with MultiSystem; I did not test the installation. Also, do note that I tested the DVD edition this time, so it does have more stuff out-of-the-box than the CD edition, which is what I have tested in the past. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Done with 3rd Semester!

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 03:15:00 +0000

I'm finally done with my 3rd semester! Yay! Although this semester I was just taking the classes for my major/that I wanted to take, thanks to the combination of 4 classes (all of which have problem sets and exams), a UROP, and grading, this semester was way more grueling than any previous semester. Thankfully, I think I've done fine, so I feel like I would be better prepared to do the same (4 classes, a UROP, and grading) next semester.
But before I need to worry about next semester or even IAP, I get to go home for winter break! Woohoo!

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 December 11

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 17:15:00 +0000

There weren't any posts the previous week, so that's why there was no "Featured Comments" post last week. That's because I was quite busy that week finishing up the last of my problem sets and midterm exams. This past week, there was one post that got a handful of comments, so I'll repost a few from that.

Review: VectorLinux 7.0 Standard Gold

Reader Barista Uno said, "I have the same experience in regard to the speed of Vector Linux 7.0. It is noticeably slower than SalixOS 13.37 when installed on one of my rigs, a vintage HP Pavilion running on 500MZ processor and 500MB RAM. SalixOS is well-integrated, elegant looking and snappy. Unfortunately, I had to replace it with Bodhi Linux 1.2.1 on the same machine because it uses LILO instead of GRUB or GRUB2 and applications available are limited."
Commenter kelvin said, among other things, "i have not used vector for a long time but I have used Salix and it is fast. In answer to Barista, what is wrong with lilo it does all that grub does I used it with multiboot win+ 4 linux distros no problem. regards software with Salix you have the whole world of Slackbiulds at your feet and a wonderfull packagebuilt system that finds all the deps. Also 64bt uses only 180mb ram running KDE4 its more stable than bodhi."
Reader kevin had these issues: "i tried vector linux 7.0 and it ran fine on my machine with the live usb but trying to installl it would not order my drives correctly. i have 1 IDE for my OS drive plus multiple SATA drives for storage. it would not see the IDE as drive A which every other OS does. ended up going with pinguyOS".
Commenter Ken had a few suggestions: "Nice to see a review on Vectorlinux. Thanks. There are a couple points I would like to look further into. 1. This distro is one of very few running the latest Xfce. Since it is new, I think some of your reviewing audience would have liked to hear what you thought of it's newest features. Networking right in Thunar, compositing, etc. 2. Kind of unfair comparing speed of Vectorlinux to a distribution that is not running the newest Xfce. If you want to compare apples to apples, turn off the avahi daemon, (old xfce never did networking), turn of compositing, and quit cairo-doc. (You can take Cairo-doc out of auto-start if you never want to see it again.) 3. Sure you can install google talk. Here is how. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsOjNA0OaoE 4. Your comment "ie for powerusers". This is just not true. After install everything is ready to go. Codecs, applications, drivers. Where does the need to be a power user come in." I especially appreciated the video made just in response to this article.

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I have final exams, so I don't think I'll be posting anything new. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: VectorLinux 7.0 Standard Gold

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 03:29:00 +0000

One of the distributions I've been wanting to check out for a while now has been VectorLinux. Recently, version 7.0 of VectorLinux was released, so I'm reviewing it.

Main Screen

What is VectorLinux? It's a Slackware-based distribution that ships customized versions of Xfce and KDE that aim to be a lot more user-friendly, while retaining the benefits of using Slackware. The version I'm reviewing today is the Xfce edition ("Standard"), because the KDE edition ("SOHO") of version 7.0 hasn't been released, and as far as I understand it is not free of charge.

I tested the live session using a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox on a MultiSystem-made Xubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot" live USB, with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 27

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 17:28:00 +0000

There were two posts that got a handful of comments this past week, so I'll try to repost a few from each.

Review: openSUSE 12.1 GNOME + KDE

An anonymous reader also had some audio issues and some tips to deal with them: "I noticed some quirks with sound when upgrading a couple of systems previously from openSUSE 11.3 to 11.4, in part I think because PulseAudio had now been imposed as default. You could try running Alsamixer in a terminal and fiddle about with some of the switches for mic autodetect / speaker out / LFE, etc. Or try upping the volumes of anything that is muted in there. When I did that, suddenly the sound issues got sorted out, and neither YaST nor Kmixer's controls had been able to do the same. However, I'm not sure if having PulseAudio installed limits Alsamixer's controls, in which case you'd need to either run a PulseAudio-specific tool like pavucontrol or uninstall PulseAudio altogether (by deleting all pulse* files in YaST but for libpulse and rebooting). Anyway, just a hunch. Maybe you've got some other issue."
Another anonymous commenter had the opposite experience — lots of problems in version 11.4, only to see them all solved in version 12.1: "I was glad to get off of 11.4 . I had some font/sound and more issues with 11.4 that I was never able to resolve. For me 12.1 has been awesome. I don't mind Gnome 3.x or KDE and either works well. Sound and font issues are a thing of the past. As well, the annoying beep I would get on my laptop on shutdown with 11.4 is now gone - happy days!!! I have done 4 installs and only one of them has given me issues. I do believe it is hardware based though. My wife, who is not technical, loves suse 12.1 and functions well with both interfaces. So 12.1 gets my vote."
Reader buy my laptop had this to report: "Have been testing 12.1 and the only issue I found was that the wireless network does not log in automatically."
Commenter m_goku said, "openSUSE 12.1 is the first openSUSE that had a lot of issues for me. My bluetooth does not work, loading kmix make KDE stall for a long time, my wifi unable to detect encrypted AP, and it fail to detect my printer. I uninstall pulseaudio, that fix my issue with kmix. And then i uninstall systemd-sysvinit, that fixed my issue with bluetooth. Load my printer ppd file manually (from YAST printer module), fixed my issue with printer. The last one is issue with my wifi, unfortunately i don't know how to fix it."

Review: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" GNOME + MATE

Reader kelvin had this defense of GNOME 3 Shell: "what is so hard with moving the mouse to the right hand side of the screen to preview minimised programs or using gnome window switcher extention yes a extention get real compiz extentions aren't installed by default niether is windows its up to you if you want to use them or not also as far as i know compiz works with gnome3 but not in gnome shell or it did upto 3 months ago. gnome 3 will carry on where 2 left off when people stop slaging it off and start using it also as far as i know developement of comppiz ended a long time ago so its days are numbered."
An anonymous commenter said, "i have installed mint gnome and mint mate from a ubuntu mini.iso and mint gnome3 works nice with compiz. for mate i had to install it and enable it from mateconf manager (replace the /desktop/mate/session/required-components/windowmanager/ marco with compiz)".
Reader Psychorat had this tip: "Robert, you've got a point there as KDE is more mature than Gnome3. But as a gtk lover i prefer the interface minimality of Gnome3. Im quite sure that the customization that is missing right now, will be come pretty fast as the users push for it. Compiz with gnome3 is an issue as i tested atm. Gnome3 shell / Compiz = Panels are disappearing Gnome3 Failback Mode / Compiz = Working Mate / Compiz = Working To enable the compiz in MATE, do what i mention above: 'From mateconf manager (replace the /desktop/mate/session/required-components/windowmanager/ marco with compiz)' Also it helps to install fusion-icon Mate Team workaround 1 (didnt work for me) https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=983409#p983409 Mate Team workaround 2 https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=985190#p985190".
Another anonymous commenter said, "[...] I have subsequently downloaded LM12, and tested it. So far the only problem I've had is it fails to recognise the different resolutions of the two monitors, on my test machine, settiing both to the same resolution as the lower of the two. In all other respects MATE appears to function the same as I am used to with GNOME 2.x. It's a releif to know that when I do finally upgrade, I have a decent upgrade path available."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I don't really have anything planned because I'm probably going to be quite busy. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Linux Mint 12 "Lisa" GNOME + MATE

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 01:53:00 +0000

Recently, the latest version of Linux Mint was released. Considering that I almost exclusively use Linux Mint on a daily basis and I'm a huge fan of the distribution, I had to review it.

GNOME 3 Shell: Main Screen

This release could easily be one of the most highly-anticipated new Linux releases in a long time, far surpassing the anticipation of its parent, Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". Why? Well, although Unity had to be ported to GNOME 3, the interface is still essentially unchanged from version 11.04 "Natty Narwhal", so most of the changes have been back-end and bug fixes and general polishing. Linux Mint, on the other hand, used its classic GNOME 2.X setup through version 11 "Katya". Now, however, the small group of developers has had to port all that over to GNOME 3 with far fewer resources to do so than Canonical. Yet, the Linux Mint developers have essentially rolled 3 desktops into this one release. The main desktop is a heavily customized GNOME 3 Shell. The secondary fallback to that is a slightly customized GNOME 3 Fallback mode. The third (but really, equal to GNOME 3 Shell) desktop is MATE, which is a fork of GNOME 2.X akin to how Trinity is a fork of KDE 3.5; because MATE aims to be able to coexist with GNOME 3, it cannot use the "GNOME" names for files because otherwise there will be conflicts, so the MATE developers have had to completely rebrand GNOME 2.X along with making other small changes here and there. The Linux Mint developers advise using the GNOME 3 desktop, as MATE is still under heavy development and will still be a bit unpolished, but considering how much I really like GNOME 2.X, I think it's worth checking out.

I tested the live session through a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation using a VM in VirtualBox in the live USB session with 1024 MB of RAM, 64 MB of video memory, and 3D graphics acceleration capabilities allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see what it's like.

Review: openSUSE 12.1 GNOME + KDE

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 19:05:00 +0000

GNOME: Main Screen

It's November again, so what does that mean? It means there's another new release of openSUSE, and I'm reviewing it.

openSUSE doesn't really need much of an introduction here. There are a few new things with this release, though. The first is that GNOME 3 has become an official part of openSUSE; this is not surprising considering that openSUSE and Fedora were the only distributions who provided vanilla live CD previews of GNOME 3 before its official release. The second is that the release numbering and schedule have changed. Now, there will be releases in November, July, and March, and they will respectively have decimal numbers ".1", ".2", and ".3" before the number before the decimal point gets incremented by one with the next November release. This means that there will be no more ".0" or ".4" releases, and that the jump from, for example, version 13.1 to 13.2 will be just as significant as the jump from version 12.3 to 13.1.

KDE: Main Screen

I reviewed both the GNOME and KDE editions using a live USB made with MultiSystem. I tested the installation in VirtualBox in one of the live USB systems with 1024 MB of RAM allocated to the guest OS. Follow the jump to see if I'll like this release as much as the last one.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 20

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:05:00 +0000

There was one comment on one post this past week, so I'll repost that one; interestingly, it was on a "Featured Comments" post.

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 13

Reader DarkDuck had this little tidbit of news: "Hi Prashanth, Looks like I overtook your blog by total pageviews. ;-) My counter is already at 430k. Hope to have half a million by January."

Thanks to that reader for commenting on that post this past week. I meant to have a review out this past week but couldn't do it due to the Thanksgiving holiday. (Incidentally, my holiday was great, except that traveling on Megabus was a pain, and I hope to keep future travels on Megabus to a minimum.) Therefore, this coming week, I hope to have two reviews out, but I can't guarantee anything because it'll all ultimately depend on my schedule this week with schoolwork and other stuff. Anyway, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

FOLLOW-UP: SOPA: The Year of the Zombie Internet

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:54:00 +0000

This one's a quickie. It's just that I mailed a whole bunch of letters to my senators and representative expressing my opposition towards SOPA and PROTECT-IP and urged them to do the same. I also wrote a similar set of letters (to the same recipients) co-signed by my friends here at college. Hopefully they'll make a difference. If anyone wants to see what I wrote, I'll try to repost it here. And I'd love to see your letters or other comments in the comments section as well!

On a brighter note, happy Thanksgiving! I'm going home this evening, and I plan to have a lot of fun and do a lot of eating and relaxing!

Featured Comments: Week of 2011 November 13

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 18:53:00 +0000

There were no "Featured Comments" posts the last 2 weeks because I was too busy to post anything until this past week. Anyway, this past week, there were a few posts that got a bunch of comments, so I'll try to repost a few from each.

A Disappointing Review of #! 10 "Statler"

An anonymous reader said, "The Debian installer is not that to use. It's true on Debian live cd images you have to look a little, no big deal. Crunchbang is designed to be light on resources so you shouldn't expect "point and click." I thought the Dedoimedo review came up short.He should not have done this review unless he was willing to do it right."
Commenter Neuromancer put things in perspective: "Considering how very long Statler has been out, no one probably gave any weight to his review; I know I didn`t. Never mind. He wrote a pissy article and you wrote a pissy response to it. It happens. It`s the internet. I`ve already forgotten about it. In 10 minutes, so will everyone else, lol."
Reader Matt responded, " Thank you for your critique of Dedoimedo's review. I distro hopped for years before landing solidly on Crunchbang, and I won't be leaving any time soon. Needless to say, I love it, and I don't think it deserved this review. Now, I do understand that any Linux user in their right mind would instantly dismiss his review, but still, bad press is bad press. It wasn't so much that his review was negative. I don't mind that at all, his opinion is his, and he has the right to share it. What stung about it was that he didn't give it a fair chance. This isn't a replacement for Fedora, OpenSuse, Mint, or Ubuntu. It's a fun, enjoyable distro for those of us who enjoy playing with Linux, not necessarily expecting it to work the first time, every time. [...] What further put a sour taste in my mouth is that Dedoimedo admitted to not wanting to configure things and expected the distro to 'Just Work', and yet he chose to download the openbox version of Crunchbang. The XFCE version is far more user friendly, and is recommended for those users who want the Crunchbang experience without having to edit all of the fun config files. @Neuromancer As for your your comment, Neuromancer- Really? A blogger on the internet doesn't have the right to question another blogger? Dedoimedo posted his review publicly, fully knowing that his review was critical and negative. By your logic, what gave HIM the right to do that to Crunchbang? As an adult, with a public profile and with public posts, Dedoimedo is just as entitled to receive criticism as he is to give it. I'm sure that if he read your post he would do a literal face->palm. I'm sure he doesn't need you senselessly and needlessly defending his honor."
Commenter rikhard seconded the description of the Xfce edition: "i use #!CB for a long time, uninterrupted since it's been Debian based and i have never had to configure any file, maybe because i use the xfce version, i don't know! it's clean, fast and easy to use, my girlfriend use it and she hates computers."

SOPA: The Year of the Zombie Internet

Reader Neuromancer said, "I admit it, sometimes in a case like Silent Hill 1 or Final Fantasy 7 where the company has long since got its money and the only copies go for hundreds of dollars on Amazon, I`ll download a torrent. As far as new content, no I won`t. I wonder if anyone else will admit to it... Plus, I live on Youtube, and I shudder to think of the chilling effect that this will have there. One last thing, one error in the article. It isn`t hard at all to find pirated copies of anything on Google. Just saying." S/he later responded to my clarification, "Good point about the first few searches. If someone doesn`t include "torrent" in the search it won`t show. Youtube actually closes users that upload copyrighted material very quickly now, it`s the fact that some companies, (and countries), insist that everything is copyrighted even when it isn`t. Good article!"

Review: Pinguy OS 11.10 Beta

Commenter Van Long had this tip to make GNOME-Tweak-Tool setting changes effective: "instead of logging out and back, you can press Alt F2, type r and press enter"
An anonymous reader reported these quirks: "I found that I can't delete the Docky at the bottom of the display. Also, my Workspace defaults to #2 (or maybe it is mis-labeled on the Display), but if I open Firefox, it's magically changed to Workspace #1 on the Display with no switching of Workspace by the user. Also where are the Screensaver settings to select the Floating Feet? I've searched every menu? It does appear to run good from LiveDVD, and I guess an install is needed to really test it appropriately."
Commenter Pinguy, the creator of Pinguy OS, had this bit of news: "I will have the mini's done pretty soon."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. This coming week, I plan to have out a review, along with maybe one other post. In any case, if you like what I write, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Pinguy OS 11.10 Beta

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:03:00 +0000

A new version of Pinguy OS has come out, and as can easily be predicted, it's based on Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot". And because I've taken a liking to past versions of it, I'm reviewing this new one now.

Main Screen

For those who don't know, Pinguy OS is basically Ubuntu plus everything and the kitchen sink. Also, the interface is made to look much more like Apple's Mac OS X, with a top panel featuring a global menu, along with docks and similar themes. However, there have been some changes out of necessity because as of version 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot", Ubuntu no longer officially supports GNOME 2, so Pinguy OS has also had to upgrade to GNOME 3. As a result, the whole "Apple Mac OS X" look has had to be adapted to the new interface and restrictions (and there are many such restrictions) of GNOME 3. I'd like to see if it still remains as usable and friendly as before.

I tested the live session on a live USB made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation, because (1) this is an Ubuntu derivative, so there isn't much point in going through the whole Ubiquity song-and-dance one more time, and (2) the lead developer has said that this release is still beta-quality in terms of stability. Regarding the second point, the developer has also said that the stability of GNOME 3.X is not likely to improve anytime soon, so there will be no official final release of Pinguy OS 11.10; this is also why I'm calling this a review rather than a preview like I usually do with pre-release distributions, because this is as official as it will ever get. Follow the jump to see if it's the same Pinguy OS I came to know and love.

SOPA: The Year of the Zombie Internet

noreply@blogger.com (PV) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 02:13:00 +0000

I haven't really talked about issues like these in a while, but there is a hugely important bill making its way through Congress right now that could make the Internet a mere shell of what it is right now. It's called the "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA), and it has terrible implications for the whole Internet as it exists today.

But you must be wondering, "Isn't stopping piracy a good thing? What could possibly be bad about it? And won't it do its job right? What's there to worry about?"

1. I don't know if stopping piracy is such a good thing. Study after study has shown that piracy is merely a symptom of a need being unfulfilled. No, that need is not "greedy freetards wanting everything for free". It's people getting content they like in formats they can use in an easy way for reasonable prices. Many studies have shown that once iTunes came around selling music super-conveniently for $0.99 apiece and once that music started coming without DRM (which was supposedly made to increase sales by preventing piracy), piracy of the songs on iTunes dropped precipitously. All you need to do is compete with piracy by giving people something even more compelling; it may sound strange, but while it may be free of charge, piracy isn't actually all that convenient to carry out. And despite what major movie studios and record labels would like you to believe, you actually have to dig pretty deep into search results on sites like Google to find actual pirated content.

2. There are tons of things horrible about it. Foremost among them, it basically upends the justice system which requires that defendants be innocent until proven guilty and which requires that defendants be able to defend themselves in a court of law. This throws all that out the window: now, people can be punished severely just on accusations of infringement, and the burden of proof falls on said defendant and the website that supposedly enabled the infringement (even if it was a link to a link to a link or if the content was generated by other users of the site, not by webmasters). Basically, the big record and movie studios have admitted that they're too lazy to police their own content, so they're asking the government to do it for them and to play by their rules.

3. No, it won't necessarily do its job right. Recently, Warner Brothers admitted that it took down a whole bunch of legitimate content from other sites that they didn't even own in the first place. And Viacom has had a history of legally uploading its own videos to YouTube; under SOPA, it could basically shut down YouTube for its own stunts like that.

4. Well, considering what I've already told you, it should be pretty obvious by now that the Internet would be a far, far worse place under SOPA. Everyone from civil libertarians (i.e. the ACLU) to tech companies to small independent productions studios to libraries to lawyers to [et cetera] have come out against it. Petitions are growing by the day. It's really only supported by Hollywood and the recording studios (and maybe the big drug companies too who don't want to admit that generic drugs are legal and are not counterfeits). It's gotten to the point where a recent House of Representatives hearing was carefully stacked with 5 speakers supporting SOPA and only 1 speaking against it. That should tip you off as to how flimsy the case for SOPA really is.

There are a whole bunch of different petitions going out around the Internet. I myself have signed about 3 of them. Please, sign the petitions, tell your friends, and call your senators and representatives in Congress and convince them that you, as a humble constituent, matter more than big entertainment lobbies, and that the government can do better than being Hollywood's hired thugs. Do it before it's too late!

(Note: this law has gone through a few different names. In 2009 and 2010, it was called "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeiting Act" (COICA). After that it was called PROTECT-IP. After that it was called E-PARASITE, though I genuinely thought the sponsors of the bill were unwittingly referring to themselves as the "e-parasites", as they have just been reaping all the rewards of the Internet and are now going to kill it to make sure no one else can. Now it's called SOPA.)