Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Lie, Cheat, Steal: The ECS Way
If you are considering buying an ECS motherboard or any product manufactured by ECS, think again. Their rebates are lies, all lies. If you mail in your rebate, they will discard it and keep your money. That is the ECS way--lie, cheat, and steal from the customer.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Datacollectionsite.com Phishing Scam
Did you receive an email like this:
Please use your common sense. Nowhere on this good green earth does anybody pay $50 for a survey that takes less than one hour. You would have to work harder and put up with a lot more hassle to earn fifty bucks.
This is a reminder that tomorrow is the deadline to earn $50 by completing this survey. If you have already shared your opinions, please kindly disregard this email.Don't do it. It's a scam! Criminals want your sensitive financial info.
As a Chase customer, we are interested in your feedback. Please take some time to tell us what you think.
Again, this is strictly for research purposes and your answers will be completely confidential and will not affect the relationship or current business you may have with Chase. You will not be asked to buy anything.
You will need to answer some questions to determine whether you qualify for this survey. If you qualify and complete the full survey by Tuesday, February 12, 2013, you will receive a $50 check within four to six weeks after you complete the survey to thank you for your participation.
Once you complete the initial questions and fill in the registration form you will be entered into a sweepstakes to win 1 of 3 iPads minis, whether or not you qualify to complete the full survey.
Please use the following link to begin:
Please use your common sense. Nowhere on this good green earth does anybody pay $50 for a survey that takes less than one hour. You would have to work harder and put up with a lot more hassle to earn fifty bucks.
Thursday, February 7, 2013
You Can Buy a Computer for $100
I don't understand why people pay so much for computers. Really I don't. It is as easy as 1-2-3 to save money on your next computer purchase.
The first thing is to settle on a manufacturer, model, and mode--desktop or laptop--that you prefer. I wanted a Thinkpad (model) laptop (mode) by Lenovo (manufacturer). Why Lenovo? Because I like their style. They took over the IBM line of desktops and laptops and carry on with the IBM reputation for good design or at any rate nice, sleek black outer casing, which I have always preferred when it comes to electronic gadgetry of any kind. Tech should be like the ninja; its impact felt, but not seen. I needed a laptop in particular because I wanted to carry my computer to work.
I had two choices--buy a new Lenovo or a used one. I imagine that this is where my years of experience come in handy, because I felt confident enough to buy a used one on Ebay--and not just used, but broken. The seller fretted far too much over what I regarded as a trivial issue, the trackpad button, which I never use, preferring the mouse. I do not have a high opinion of trackpads and their buttons. Give me a mouse any day. The button probably was broken on purpose by a user irritated by the inaccuracy of the trackpad. The seller knocked off $30 due to this supposed severe defect, which I never notice. Indeed, I've considered disabling trackpad support in the operating system to avoid possible interference with my mouse. My final cost for a Lenovo Thinkpad R60 with 2 gigs of RAM, a 60 gig hard drive which passes S.M.A.R.T., and Intel Core 2 Duo processor was under $100, with free shipping. This rig is more than enough to surf the Internet. It is ridiculously overpowered for my modest needs. I don't give a fig about Windows, so I'm running Linux Mint Nadia KDE as my operating system, with Firefox 18.02 as my browser. As a rule, computer technology declines rapidly in value, so that used hardware with much life remaining can be purchased at a slight fraction of its original price. I think that any processor from 2008 will be perfectly usable in 2013, and at any rate that has been my experience.
But then I talk to my non-techie friends and find that they are still spending hundreds of dollars for a brand new laptop, because they think they need the latest version of Windows in order to be safe from viruses, and in some cases the new laptops arrive broken or crippled by malware. For my part, the first thing I do when a computer arrives is to repartition and format the drive, wiping clean any crap on there and especially getting rid of Windows, which takes so long to boot. The reason people are investing in SSD technology, which remains in its infancy, is due to the slow boot time of Windows. My operating system boots in seconds. On my system, with its slow 5400 rpm hard drive, Linux Mint Nadia KDE boots in 36 seconds! I would like to add that this is considered slow by Linux standards, and a desktop like Xfce would boot faster. But I don't mind waiting 36 seconds for KDE.
The first thing is to settle on a manufacturer, model, and mode--desktop or laptop--that you prefer. I wanted a Thinkpad (model) laptop (mode) by Lenovo (manufacturer). Why Lenovo? Because I like their style. They took over the IBM line of desktops and laptops and carry on with the IBM reputation for good design or at any rate nice, sleek black outer casing, which I have always preferred when it comes to electronic gadgetry of any kind. Tech should be like the ninja; its impact felt, but not seen. I needed a laptop in particular because I wanted to carry my computer to work.
I had two choices--buy a new Lenovo or a used one. I imagine that this is where my years of experience come in handy, because I felt confident enough to buy a used one on Ebay--and not just used, but broken. The seller fretted far too much over what I regarded as a trivial issue, the trackpad button, which I never use, preferring the mouse. I do not have a high opinion of trackpads and their buttons. Give me a mouse any day. The button probably was broken on purpose by a user irritated by the inaccuracy of the trackpad. The seller knocked off $30 due to this supposed severe defect, which I never notice. Indeed, I've considered disabling trackpad support in the operating system to avoid possible interference with my mouse. My final cost for a Lenovo Thinkpad R60 with 2 gigs of RAM, a 60 gig hard drive which passes S.M.A.R.T., and Intel Core 2 Duo processor was under $100, with free shipping. This rig is more than enough to surf the Internet. It is ridiculously overpowered for my modest needs. I don't give a fig about Windows, so I'm running Linux Mint Nadia KDE as my operating system, with Firefox 18.02 as my browser. As a rule, computer technology declines rapidly in value, so that used hardware with much life remaining can be purchased at a slight fraction of its original price. I think that any processor from 2008 will be perfectly usable in 2013, and at any rate that has been my experience.
But then I talk to my non-techie friends and find that they are still spending hundreds of dollars for a brand new laptop, because they think they need the latest version of Windows in order to be safe from viruses, and in some cases the new laptops arrive broken or crippled by malware. For my part, the first thing I do when a computer arrives is to repartition and format the drive, wiping clean any crap on there and especially getting rid of Windows, which takes so long to boot. The reason people are investing in SSD technology, which remains in its infancy, is due to the slow boot time of Windows. My operating system boots in seconds. On my system, with its slow 5400 rpm hard drive, Linux Mint Nadia KDE boots in 36 seconds! I would like to add that this is considered slow by Linux standards, and a desktop like Xfce would boot faster. But I don't mind waiting 36 seconds for KDE.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Ban China?
The Chinese military hit the New York Times in retaliation for a story exposing the Chinese Prime Minister's theft of billions from the Chinese people.
China is a mere kleptocracy, a country ruled by criminals for whom the law is a tool, just like the switchblade or handgun, to extract money from victims, defined as anyone other than themselves.
As a web admin, it is tempting to ban all of China, but typically I just ban a couple thousand Chinese IP addresses at a time whenever I detect bad activity. The Chinese are spending a lot of money trying to infect servers and computers in the West, and the New York Times is just the latest story. Even small sites are targeted for various reasons. Anytime I see activity from Russia, Ukraine, or China, that's always bad news.
The reason I hesitate to ban all of China is that I could be living in China myself, or someone like me could be. I don't like the idea of banning everybody due to the actions of a few thousand knuckleheads in the PLA. Besides, the thought has occurred to me that the tyrants of China want us to ban China, because they don't want their peasants learning the truth. In fact, provoking a blanket ban may even be an objective of these hack attacks.
China is a mere kleptocracy, a country ruled by criminals for whom the law is a tool, just like the switchblade or handgun, to extract money from victims, defined as anyone other than themselves.
As a web admin, it is tempting to ban all of China, but typically I just ban a couple thousand Chinese IP addresses at a time whenever I detect bad activity. The Chinese are spending a lot of money trying to infect servers and computers in the West, and the New York Times is just the latest story. Even small sites are targeted for various reasons. Anytime I see activity from Russia, Ukraine, or China, that's always bad news.
The reason I hesitate to ban all of China is that I could be living in China myself, or someone like me could be. I don't like the idea of banning everybody due to the actions of a few thousand knuckleheads in the PLA. Besides, the thought has occurred to me that the tyrants of China want us to ban China, because they don't want their peasants learning the truth. In fact, provoking a blanket ban may even be an objective of these hack attacks.
Monday, January 28, 2013
The ASUS E35M1-M
The ASUS E35M1-M has a bug: unplug your keyboard, lose your keyboard. I would not advise anyone to buy any kludge manufactured by ASUS. I'm sitting here looking at two keyboards in the trash can. They were perfectly good, in fact better than average keyboards, not cheapie specials by any means, until they came into contact with the ASUS E35M1-M, which killed them.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Microsoft Networking
Whenever you install Windows 7, be sure to set aside 100 hours to struggle with network configuration. Microsoft thinks that everyone wants to pay Microsoft Technical Support $99.95 an hour to connect two computers via ethernet.
Windows 7 has to be the WORST operating system in existence today for home networking. I wouldn't use it if I didn't have to for my answering machine. I intend to use it for nothing but an answering machine. What a tremendous piece of garbage it is. Nice, fancy GUI that can do absolutely nothing; networking wizard that can't find its own behind; share permissions that share to everyone and yet no one. I'm glad to see that Microsoft is providing employment to the mentally handicapped, but I wish they would have them doing something other than programming Windows.
Post Scriptum:
I plan to sell my Windows 7 install DVD on ebay since it hasn't activated yet. It is just too difficult to connect Windows 7 to other computers in the home network. I plugged the old Windows XP hard drive back in and presto, the network was working again. Windows 7 as far as I am concerned is just a mistake. If I need modern capabilities then I will use Linux, not anything by Microsoft. I feel sorry for people who feel like they have to use Windows 7. They are really setting themselves up for punishment.
Windows 7 has to be the WORST operating system in existence today for home networking. I wouldn't use it if I didn't have to for my answering machine. I intend to use it for nothing but an answering machine. What a tremendous piece of garbage it is. Nice, fancy GUI that can do absolutely nothing; networking wizard that can't find its own behind; share permissions that share to everyone and yet no one. I'm glad to see that Microsoft is providing employment to the mentally handicapped, but I wish they would have them doing something other than programming Windows.
Post Scriptum:
I plan to sell my Windows 7 install DVD on ebay since it hasn't activated yet. It is just too difficult to connect Windows 7 to other computers in the home network. I plugged the old Windows XP hard drive back in and presto, the network was working again. Windows 7 as far as I am concerned is just a mistake. If I need modern capabilities then I will use Linux, not anything by Microsoft. I feel sorry for people who feel like they have to use Windows 7. They are really setting themselves up for punishment.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Windows Seven: Still Stupid After All These Years
Microsoft clearly has been hiring intellectually handicapped programmers for years. Try to install Windows 7 updates, and Windows falls flat on its face. Can't find the internet. D'oh? Any modern Linux distro finds the Internet without a hitch. Microsoft requires nursemaiding to guide it along. "Right this way, dear. No, don't go potty in the trash can. To your left, dear. The commode. Yes, that's it. Now, now."
Estimated time of installation for Windows: ten hours.
Estimated time of installation for Linux: ten minutes.
Windows 7 should be renamed Windows .07 alpha trialware. Because it will be a trial getting anything done in Windows. Windows 7 is such an obvious kludge: it crashed three times just installing updates--and installing updates took hours and hours. Most of the updates concerned security holes that Microsoft's doofuses left in their code.
Estimated time of installation for Windows: ten hours.
Estimated time of installation for Linux: ten minutes.
Windows 7 should be renamed Windows .07 alpha trialware. Because it will be a trial getting anything done in Windows. Windows 7 is such an obvious kludge: it crashed three times just installing updates--and installing updates took hours and hours. Most of the updates concerned security holes that Microsoft's doofuses left in their code.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
ASUS Warranty & Support
The web site for ASUS is designed with one purpose in mind, to deter warranty/service/repairs. After navigating through their maze of a web site for an hour, I can testify that it is difficult at best to get service on warranty on any ASUS product. If you finally, after much searching, find the link to the web site that handles warranties (why couldn't they incorporate that into the main site?), then if you click on it, you will log on to the web site--and get a blank, white screen, with no text and nothing to click on. That's ASUS customer service for you.
Here's what happened when I tried to chat with one of their "helpful technicians." I should note that the screen also said that I had a 110-minute wait ahead of me, but the screen capture didn't get that part.
Here's what happened when I tried to chat with one of their "helpful technicians." I should note that the screen also said that I had a 110-minute wait ahead of me, but the screen capture didn't get that part.
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Ars Technica Needs to Learn
Ars Technica needs to learn that not everybody has the time to play password games with their site. I am not going to spend all evening devising a password that has a percentage, an underscore, an uppercase, a lowercase, ninety-nine characters, and a logarithm. I'm just not going to do it. I don't know, do they think we are registering for a lottery prize? More like registering for spam from Ars Technica, sounds like. Do they think somebody is going to try and crack their passwords with brute force? Ridiculous. Note to Ars Technica: you are not a bank.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Massive File Copies--Not for the GUI
There are some tasks at which both the Windows and the Linux GUI stink, and I mean like rotten eggs. I'm not taking sides here. Both operating systems stink at massive file copies. Woe betide the user that tries copying tens of thousands of files from one directory to another directory on the network. This is the single best way to get an unresponsive desktop. In Linux Mint Xfce, Thunar blanked, the "File Progress" window blanked, and on one occasion all my desktop icons disappeared. In Windows XP, I waited. And waited. And Windows XP will also become unresponsive. It's not any stabler than Linux. I've learned. From now on, command-line copy all the way. xcopy *.*, my friends. That's the way to go.
And if only I could figure out a way to bypass the accursed trash can in Xubuntu. Linux Mint Xfce offers an option to permanently delete files, rather than spending several hours, or all day, transferring them to the Trash Can, which does not delete them. Overall, Xubuntu's designers don't seem to give too much thought to usability. Instead, they are concerned with protecting the user from himself. I don't think I will install another *buntu distro again. Instead, my choice will be Linux Mint. Linux Mint is just nicer, friendlier, that's all. Linux Mint adds another ten to twenty per cent to the usability quotient. That's not to say there couldn't be improvements, but when is that not true?
Neither the Windows nor Linux GUI have any conception of batch mode. If a user begins another copy while a copy is being performed, each OS will choose to copy everything simultaneously, a disastrous behavior which means it will take much, much longer to complete each copy task. Why not finish one copy, then begin the next one? That is known as "batch mode." Copying in batch is far more efficient.
And if only I could figure out a way to bypass the accursed trash can in Xubuntu. Linux Mint Xfce offers an option to permanently delete files, rather than spending several hours, or all day, transferring them to the Trash Can, which does not delete them. Overall, Xubuntu's designers don't seem to give too much thought to usability. Instead, they are concerned with protecting the user from himself. I don't think I will install another *buntu distro again. Instead, my choice will be Linux Mint. Linux Mint is just nicer, friendlier, that's all. Linux Mint adds another ten to twenty per cent to the usability quotient. That's not to say there couldn't be improvements, but when is that not true?
Neither the Windows nor Linux GUI have any conception of batch mode. If a user begins another copy while a copy is being performed, each OS will choose to copy everything simultaneously, a disastrous behavior which means it will take much, much longer to complete each copy task. Why not finish one copy, then begin the next one? That is known as "batch mode." Copying in batch is far more efficient.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
How to Make Firefox Load the Home Page in a New Tab
I found the way to make Firefox load the home page in a new tab, which used to be Firefox's default behavior back in the good old days. (The suggested solution at Mozilla.org does not work for my purposes.) The user must install a new add-on called "New Tab Homepage" to force Firefox to behave in the way it used to behave.
I see it's time for... Firefox developer training time!
FF dev: So tell me, what is a home page?
igor: A home page is where the user wants to begin browsing the Internet.
FF dev: But when the user opens a new tab, surely he wants to see a bunch of windows thrown together in a big pile, right? That's what I like!
igor: No, the user wants to view his home page when a new tab is opened.
FF dev: But home page is boring...for me. I want to code a bunch of windows and show off what I can do.
igor: Why not use all that energy to figure out a way to integrate flash in Firefox, like Google did with Chrome? Then Firefox might regain some market share.
FF dev: Uh... too difficult!
igor: Thought so.
I see it's time for... Firefox developer training time!
FF dev: So tell me, what is a home page?
igor: A home page is where the user wants to begin browsing the Internet.
FF dev: But when the user opens a new tab, surely he wants to see a bunch of windows thrown together in a big pile, right? That's what I like!
igor: No, the user wants to view his home page when a new tab is opened.
FF dev: But home page is boring...for me. I want to code a bunch of windows and show off what I can do.
igor: Why not use all that energy to figure out a way to integrate flash in Firefox, like Google did with Chrome? Then Firefox might regain some market share.
FF dev: Uh... too difficult!
igor: Thought so.
System Builds
My ideal job would be to build and configure desktops. I have probably built about a dozen desktops over the years just for my own household, never buying from Dell, Gateway, Best Buy, or Staples. I like to choose every part from the case up. I've even grown quite opinionated about the power supply, something a lot of builders ignore. I'm all about efficiency. I like the idea of a computer using a minimal amount of electricity, especially a computer that's on 24/7. For my part, I cannot justify using any processor that consumes more than 45 watts, not for today's applications. Of course, if everyone used efficient computers, then our energy crisis would be that much less.
In the olden days, I was a Windows XP diehard, but now I'm coming around to appreciate the Linux point of view a bit more than I had before. Most of the credit goes to Linux Mint and Ubuntu, distros that made things easier on new users (with considerable help from Debian and Linux itself, of course).
The biggest problem with Windows, as I see it, is the restrictive licensing. Just because a new Windows is released doesn't mean I'm happy to drop $300 for the dubious privilege of doing a complete reinstall requiring many hours of work on three different desktops. Linux offers freedom in more ways than one. And while I'm not as fluent on the command-line as a Linux guru, I grew up using MS-DOS and am not afraid to type commands. I prefer GUI, because it's faster, but will use the command line if needed. My hope is that Linux becomes easier to use and that customization becomes easier using GUI tools. Already I can testify to the fact that Linux is much easier to install than it was several years ago. I have been able to get Linux Mint installed with little effort. When I last tried Linux, I experimented with Mepis, Open Suse, PCLinuxOS, and Ubuntu distros, and I ran into various issues such as mouse not working, display not working, or sound not working. I soon went back to Windows XP. With Linux in 2012, installation is a breeze, with the exception of exotic hardware like S/PDIF sound output. It's just the customization and optimization that takes some time, along with setting up the home network, something I found aggravating on my first try.
In the olden days, I was a Windows XP diehard, but now I'm coming around to appreciate the Linux point of view a bit more than I had before. Most of the credit goes to Linux Mint and Ubuntu, distros that made things easier on new users (with considerable help from Debian and Linux itself, of course).
The biggest problem with Windows, as I see it, is the restrictive licensing. Just because a new Windows is released doesn't mean I'm happy to drop $300 for the dubious privilege of doing a complete reinstall requiring many hours of work on three different desktops. Linux offers freedom in more ways than one. And while I'm not as fluent on the command-line as a Linux guru, I grew up using MS-DOS and am not afraid to type commands. I prefer GUI, because it's faster, but will use the command line if needed. My hope is that Linux becomes easier to use and that customization becomes easier using GUI tools. Already I can testify to the fact that Linux is much easier to install than it was several years ago. I have been able to get Linux Mint installed with little effort. When I last tried Linux, I experimented with Mepis, Open Suse, PCLinuxOS, and Ubuntu distros, and I ran into various issues such as mouse not working, display not working, or sound not working. I soon went back to Windows XP. With Linux in 2012, installation is a breeze, with the exception of exotic hardware like S/PDIF sound output. It's just the customization and optimization that takes some time, along with setting up the home network, something I found aggravating on my first try.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Operating Systems
One thing that is really true about operating systems is that all of them take a lot of time and effort to research, configure and learn. Now that I've cut my teeth on Xubuntu, I'm loathe to install any other distro on a production computer. Just takes too much time and effort. I can understand why people feel loyalty to their particular OS, distro, or desktop. It's not just fear of change or conservatism, but fear of the amount of work involved learning a new bag of tricks. There are a lot of little configuration files spread all around the Linux file system that control this, that, and the other, and a lot of little components that need configuring or else they will cause strange errors and misbehavior and warning messages. All of that takes time to sort out. The result however is that in the end, one can achieve a desktop that is arguably superior to Windows both in usability (providing nothing breaks with the next release) and appearance. Windows may retain some advantage in speed, however, when it comes to things like games and HD video playback, although one's mileage may vary depending upon the hardware. I've been satisfied with standard definition playback. I haven't made the leap to HD video quite yet, and since I haven't done so, I don't know what I'm missing, and ignorance is bliss, so please don't anyone show me HD video on an HD monitor.
Linux offers a free OS in exchange for sweat equity. Windows requires purchase, and the purchase price can grow expensive, since it is per computer, rather than paying just once for an entire household or office. In exchange for money, Windows offers an easier solution requiring less configuration, but it is also less customizable and more rigid in its appearance and functionality. After all, in Linux, many desktops are available--Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce, and others. I use Xfce 4.10 in Xubuntu 12.10, and it works well for me, but I had to invest a lot of sweat equity to learn how to customize it the way I wanted. Also, I was interested in tweaking the OS to try to get better performance.
Linux offers a free OS in exchange for sweat equity. Windows requires purchase, and the purchase price can grow expensive, since it is per computer, rather than paying just once for an entire household or office. In exchange for money, Windows offers an easier solution requiring less configuration, but it is also less customizable and more rigid in its appearance and functionality. After all, in Linux, many desktops are available--Unity, Mate, Cinnamon, KDE, Xfce, and others. I use Xfce 4.10 in Xubuntu 12.10, and it works well for me, but I had to invest a lot of sweat equity to learn how to customize it the way I wanted. Also, I was interested in tweaking the OS to try to get better performance.
Adios, Google
Greasemonkey's script to fix Google broke tonight, so I've quit Google and am using Bing as my search engine now. I don't know why Google decided to hide the first 3-4 search results. It seems odd to me that the designers place so much confidence in a dropdown list. That dropdown list is the most irritating thing Google has ever put on its page. I never use it, it has never been helpful to me, and I have to click on the search button multiple times in order to get my results back and dispel the accursed dropdown list. There is no option to disable it that I can find after much searching. I've even Googled how to fix Google and get rid of this stupid "feature," but even the fix has broken.
So let's see how Bing is doing these days.
So let's see how Bing is doing these days.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Second Thoughts About Mate
I discovered to my dismay that the slideshow screensaver is completely removed from the latest version of Mate. At any rate, it never worked right to begin with, so I imagine the developers just don't want to hear about it anymore. Many people assume that screensavers are no longer necessary, which is true, but those of us that appreciate art also appreciate screensavers. I am willing to give up certain things in a desktop, but a screensaver slideshow is not one of them.
So I am going back to Xubuntu, which has no problem running xscreensaver. Xubuntu may be slower than Mate, it may boot slower as well, and it may lack certain nice features found in Mate, but it has no problem whatsoever with the screensaver.
Not only is Mate's internal screensaver defective, but many of the potential replacements are also defective in Mate. I spent hours installing slideshows and screensavers, all to no avail. Finally I decided the easiest path forward would be to install and configure Xubuntu, which is now my permanent replacement for Linux Mint Mate.
Xubuntu is about as easy to install and configure as Mate. I would say it is very comparable to Linux Mint Mate once you get the hang of it. However, the better design lies in Linux Mint Mate, no question about that. I do miss my Linux Mint Menu.
I plan to check out Linux Mint again however, when the next LTS is released around 2015 or so. The most likely flavor I try will be Cinnamon or Xfce. I expect Mate will join the history books by then. Based on the backstory, Mate always seemed like a stopgap to me until Cinnamon matures.
Not only is Mate's internal screensaver defective, but many of the potential replacements are also defective in Mate. I spent hours installing slideshows and screensavers, all to no avail. Finally I decided the easiest path forward would be to install and configure Xubuntu, which is now my permanent replacement for Linux Mint Mate.
Xubuntu is about as easy to install and configure as Mate. I would say it is very comparable to Linux Mint Mate once you get the hang of it. However, the better design lies in Linux Mint Mate, no question about that. I do miss my Linux Mint Menu.
I plan to check out Linux Mint again however, when the next LTS is released around 2015 or so. The most likely flavor I try will be Cinnamon or Xfce. I expect Mate will join the history books by then. Based on the backstory, Mate always seemed like a stopgap to me until Cinnamon matures.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
I'm Sticking with Linux Mint Mate
I've tried other Linux distros: Open Suse 12.2, Xubuntu, and Kubuntu. Linux Mint Mate is just twenty-four flavors of awesome and that's all there is to it. I like the Linux Mint Menu and don't want to give it up, not for Xubuntu and certainly not for Kubuntu. I like the simplicity and easiness of Mate, where things tend to just work, although there are a few quirks, such as the buggy and limited screensaver. But I plan to stick with Mate until such time that I start hearing about the maturity and stability of Linux Mint Cinnamon. Based on the comments I've read in forums, I'm not sure Cinnamon is ready yet to be my desktop. Mate is ready. But I'm going to wait a year or two, maybe for the next LTS release, for Cinnamon.
Xubuntu annoyed me greatly because the file manager, Thunar, does not allow me to open config files with Admin privileges, unlike Linux Mint Mate's Nautilus. It is also slow, especially moving files to different directories on a single partition, which should be fast, as it is in Windows XP. Thunar has some odd default behavior which was anti-intuitive, such as not opening a directory when I clicked on it. Xubuntu did not auto-detect my display resolution either, but put me at 1680 x 1024 on a monitor with a maximum 800x600 display, which meant I was having to guess what the text messages read until I finally figured out how to correct the resolution. I spent hours trying to configure Xubuntu before I gave up. The look of Xubuntu is simply inferior to Mate, and there's no easy way around that. I felt that Xfce overall was sacrificing a lot of conveniences and elegance to preserve a negligible amount of memory. At no time did Xubuntu seem faster. In fact, after creating Samba shares on my Xubuntu drive, Xubuntu booted about 5-10 seconds slower than Linux Mint Mate. In addition, everytime I clicked on Firefox or VLC the response seemed to be much slower than Linux Mint Mate, about three to five seconds of waiting before the application opened. Often I clicked on Firefox two or three times before two or three instances opened. Thus, there was no advantage to Xubuntu, but it was more difficult to use, while being considerably slower. I was also missing my wonderful Linux Mint menu, which I never want to be without, ever again. The menu alone is worth installing Linux Mint. Other distros simply do not understand how human beings work. Linux Mint really gets it.
The thing about an OS is I do not want to learn how to use one. I want the OS to know how to handle me, not the other way around.
I do wish I could find a Linux distro that displayed a modicum of intelligence during the installation process. For instance, if a computer has > 2 gigs of RAM, then swappiness should be dialed down at the get-go. I should not have to go in and modify vm.swappiness to equal 5 or 10. The temp directories in fstab should all be tmpfs. "Noatime" should be the default for all partitions. Why do I have to modify ten freaking configuration files every time I install a new Linux distro? But then again Windows is not much different. Every Windows install I ever made, I had to tweak about ten settings after install.
Xubuntu annoyed me greatly because the file manager, Thunar, does not allow me to open config files with Admin privileges, unlike Linux Mint Mate's Nautilus. It is also slow, especially moving files to different directories on a single partition, which should be fast, as it is in Windows XP. Thunar has some odd default behavior which was anti-intuitive, such as not opening a directory when I clicked on it. Xubuntu did not auto-detect my display resolution either, but put me at 1680 x 1024 on a monitor with a maximum 800x600 display, which meant I was having to guess what the text messages read until I finally figured out how to correct the resolution. I spent hours trying to configure Xubuntu before I gave up. The look of Xubuntu is simply inferior to Mate, and there's no easy way around that. I felt that Xfce overall was sacrificing a lot of conveniences and elegance to preserve a negligible amount of memory. At no time did Xubuntu seem faster. In fact, after creating Samba shares on my Xubuntu drive, Xubuntu booted about 5-10 seconds slower than Linux Mint Mate. In addition, everytime I clicked on Firefox or VLC the response seemed to be much slower than Linux Mint Mate, about three to five seconds of waiting before the application opened. Often I clicked on Firefox two or three times before two or three instances opened. Thus, there was no advantage to Xubuntu, but it was more difficult to use, while being considerably slower. I was also missing my wonderful Linux Mint menu, which I never want to be without, ever again. The menu alone is worth installing Linux Mint. Other distros simply do not understand how human beings work. Linux Mint really gets it.
The thing about an OS is I do not want to learn how to use one. I want the OS to know how to handle me, not the other way around.
I do wish I could find a Linux distro that displayed a modicum of intelligence during the installation process. For instance, if a computer has > 2 gigs of RAM, then swappiness should be dialed down at the get-go. I should not have to go in and modify vm.swappiness to equal 5 or 10. The temp directories in fstab should all be tmpfs. "Noatime" should be the default for all partitions. Why do I have to modify ten freaking configuration files every time I install a new Linux distro? But then again Windows is not much different. Every Windows install I ever made, I had to tweak about ten settings after install.
Disable the Google Dropdown List
Who on this good green Earth wants to hide the first three results in a
search? Google does. Their dropdown list obscures the search results, making it so I have to search for a term two or three times instead of just once. A dropdown list only slows me down because I can type faster than Google can populate a dropdown list with its guesses. This link shows how to install Greasemonkey in Firefox. Greasemonkey can install a third-party script that will eliminate Google's dropdown list.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Xubuntu
I continue to find KDE confusing. I look for settings and they seem to be in multiple locations. I also don't yet understand the concept of Widgets or Panels. After fiddling around with Linux Mint KDE for a while, I don't understand why KDE is any better than Linux Mint Mate. I think I prefer Mate for its helpful and expansive menu. The main problem with Mate is that it doesn't offer enough options on the screensaver. In Mate however, items seem organized in a more logical fashion. In KDE, once I installed a package, it would not show up in the Linux Mint KDE menu. Instead, I had to go hunting for it on the file system. That seemed strange to me.
I've hopped over to Xubuntu. Xubuntu knows how to install a package on the menu for me. Another thing I've noticed about Xubuntu is that it boots faster. I like Xubuntu's story, avoiding the fads and nonsense and concentrating on being a small, lightweight, invisible operating system that is easy to use. As long as I can do almost everything in the GUI I'm happy.
I like Xfce and Xubuntu because they seem conservative. I really don't see an improvement to be made upon the way that the desktop works, or at least Windows 8 and Unity do not represent improvements--they represent regressions. The desktop is not a cell phone. It will never be like a cell phone. To make a desktop like a cell phone is to eliminate all the advantages of the desktop. Really this should be obvious.
I've hopped over to Xubuntu. Xubuntu knows how to install a package on the menu for me. Another thing I've noticed about Xubuntu is that it boots faster. I like Xubuntu's story, avoiding the fads and nonsense and concentrating on being a small, lightweight, invisible operating system that is easy to use. As long as I can do almost everything in the GUI I'm happy.
I like Xfce and Xubuntu because they seem conservative. I really don't see an improvement to be made upon the way that the desktop works, or at least Windows 8 and Unity do not represent improvements--they represent regressions. The desktop is not a cell phone. It will never be like a cell phone. To make a desktop like a cell phone is to eliminate all the advantages of the desktop. Really this should be obvious.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Kubuntu
Blew my mind recently to learn that Kubuntu is being sponsored by a German philanthropist (here's the English translation) for no reason other than Just Because. Just because, I assume, he's a nice guy. I could see myself doing something similar if I inherited a bundle from my old man.
I think I'm going to give Kubuntu a spin and see whether it flies.
I think I'm going to give Kubuntu a spin and see whether it flies.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Open Suse
I deleted Open Suse after I ran into trouble trying to install a simple video driver, ATI's fglrx. I don't have time enough in the day to deal with a distro that plays games with PackageKit and tells me I can't update my video driver due to metadata. Whatever. I don't want a distro that is harder to use than Ubuntu or Linux Mint. I think I will stay with ubuntu derivatives for the time being, based on this experience with a non-ubuntu distro.
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