Apr 28, 2011 9:15pm GMT
The first time that you log in to Natty Narwhal (Ubuntu 11.04), expect a surprise. In many cases, the familiar GNOME interface is gone, replaced by Unity, a new interface that evolved out of Ubuntu Netbook Edition. Unity is designed to be easy to use, but you should spend a few minutes exploring before you settle down to working in it. As you familiarize yourself with Unity, its strangeness mig... more »
Free software and redundancy as a marketing benefitApr 24, 2011 2:34am GMT
Outsiders often criticize free software because it offers too much choice. Choice confuses people, they say, and free software would be more efficient if everyone concentrated on improving the best application in each category instead of developing alternatives. To me, this argument has always seemed conditioned by monopoly, but recently I found reason to believe that it couldn't be more wrong.... more »
Eulogy for GroklawApr 11, 2011 3:24am GMT
When I got up this morning, the news was all over Facebook and the free software news sites: Groklaw, the site that was influential in the SCO legal cases, will stop publication on May 16. It's news that I hear with decidedly mixed feelings.Pamela Jones, the site's owner and chief writer, announced the decision in a post on April 9. "The reason is this: the crisis SCO initiated over Linux... more »
GNOME 3 and Its Fallback DesktopApr 06, 2011 11:42pm GMT
Okay, that was unexpected.I like the GNOME 3 fallback desktop better than GNOME 3 itself.Amid all the attention given to the new GNOME 3 with its overview page, you don't hear much about the fallback. Nor are you likely to stumble across it on your own, since it's buried in Applications -> System Settings -> System Info -> Graphics -> Forced Fallback -> On, a location that's both... more »
Bodhi Linux sticks with design principlesMar 29, 2011 12:29am GMT
After your first fifty distribution reviews, a certain ennui creeps in. Most have the same selection of software, and GNOME or KDE for a desktop, and, if they are new, are derived from Ubuntu. Under these circumstances, features worth writing about tend to be rare. That is why Bodhi Linux has been attracting attention from reviewers -- because it has actually done a few things differently.Not t... more »
Documentation and free softwareMar 25, 2011 7:49pm GMT
As a former technical writer and a sometime reviewer of software, I don't need anyone to tell me how important documentation is -- nor how often it is the last part of a project if it is considered at all. But recently, I had a frustrating reminder.The reminder came when I was setting up my new computer. All went smoothly through my backup, installation, and restore, during which I suffered not... more »
Bulk RenamersMar 18, 2011 4:15am GMT
Almost always, command line tools are more efficient than desktop ones, especially for file management. Recently, however, I found myself needing to clean up the file names from six hundred ripped CDs, removing illegal characters, replacing spaces with hyphens, and half a dozen other minor adjustments. To my surprise, the most convenient tools for the task were on the desktop: The Thunar Bulk R... more »
