Thanks to an article on DesktopLinux.com, I was reading about the Asus Eee PC 701 system. One interesting thing about this system is that it will reportedly run a variant of Xandros Desktop Linux.
At far too many companies I have witnessed the effects of homogenized enterprise-grade networks. While many claim that it’s easier to support such networks, I often find that difficult to believe. The benefit brought on by the widespread similarity is often overshadowed by the severe negative consequences when things go wrong.
As has widely been reported, Ubuntu 7.04 is now available. While I know a great many people use Ubuntu as their primary GNU/Linux distribution, I have usually avoided it as I prefer KDE over GNOME. Because of that preference, I have leaned towards Kubuntu instead. Kubuntu essentially takes Ubuntu, and replaces the GNOME desktop environment with KDE. And when there’s a new version of Ubuntu released, soon after we get a new version of Kubuntu. In this case, that version is Kubuntu 7.04.
GNOME 2.18 was released recently, and this release was reported on Slashdot. In the discussion for that topic, one user made a particularly interesting post concerning the state of today’s desktop environments. That user asks the question: So, when are we going to see smart and innovative desktops that dramatically improve user friendliness?
I felt the need to clarify some things with this article that discusses so-called “Ubuntu Web Browsers”. The fact of the matter is that those browsers are in no way tied to Ubuntu. Likewise, Ubuntu supports browsers other than those.
Browsers like Firefox and Opera run on many different operating systems, from Windows, to Linux, to Mac OS X, to Solaris, to FreeBSD. Check out the Opera FTP site for proof of this. Look at the wide range of platforms they support. And don’t forget that some of those directories, like the “unix” directory, themselves contain several platforms.
It’s often the most flashy and rapidly-developed open source applications that get the most attention. Most people focus on projects like Beryl, Metisse, Firefox, OpenOffice.org and Ubuntu. But we can’t forget the importance of the open source software an average user doesn’t see every day. This is a list of nine such programs and libraries.
Today I was pointed to an article giving 10 reasons to use Windows Vista by a topic over at OSNews. I have read the reasons, and they may very well be factual. My opposition of them mostly derives from the fact that the capabilities listed are nothing new or special. Many of them have been around for a decade, if not more, on existing systems.
Over the years I have used a wide variety of UNIX-like systems. And if there’s one essential program that a person in such a situation should know, it’s vi. The task it performs (text editing) is quite essential, and it is available on virtually every platform. Even if you don’t use it as your everyday text editor, the use of vi is still a vital skill to have.
I know a number of people who advocate the use of Xubuntu on resource-constrained desktop systems. But there has recently been talk about how the resource usage of Xubuntu is growing at a rapid pace. Along these lines, today I read an article that considers the use of Ubuntu Lite as an alternative to Xubuntu for those with low spec computers. I haven’t used Ubuntu Lite myself, but I would like to make a recommendation of an open source UNIX-like system for low-end desktop computers: NetBSD.
I have seen a lot of different network setups in my travels and doings. And what I’ve seen has made me think about what I read today in an article speculating about the future of Linux. The article considers the idea that Linux is no longer considered a “winner”. It talks about what the word “winner” can be taken to mean, but the idea I get from the article is that people don’t think of Linux as they did in the past.