Linux: Favourite Programs Revisted. November, 2009.

Welcome to the world of Linux, and if you’re not new — let me tell you what programs I use. The programs have varied through my experience with Linux, as well as distributions. As I’ve said in a prior blog post, I’m not using Ubuntu anymore, and that I’m using Debian 100% of the way now which is I think the best thing I’ve done thus far since I started using Linux 5 years ago. It might be longer now, I’m not really sure. Here’s a list of programs I use, and an outline of what they do:

So, I’ll go off by listing my Linux distribution of choice, which if you’re following this, you already know. I’m currently using Debian: Squeeze, which is Debian Testing, It’s not officially released yet, but will be the next release of Debian.I’m not totally sure when it will be release, but if the developers are still doing their same release cycle, it will be a long time before it is released. This reassures stability, maturity which Debian is know for.

My Desktop Environment of choice is GNOME just because it’s the thing I’m used to, and come accustomed to when dealing with Linux. If I wasn’t using GNOME, I would be using Openbox which is a Windows Manager. Openbox is generally highly configurable, just like any Desktop Environment, or Windows Manager, but there’s something about it I really like.. I would also like to think that if my hardware was a bit better than it is, or rather better supported — I would probably also use KDE4 since it looks quite nice, and I like the look. If KDE4 was released a lot sooner, my experience with KDE would have changed slightly too, I think. Just because it’s new and up to date, and a lot nicer than KDE3.5. They are very different in comparison. Google for some pictures in comparison, or even try the different version of KDE out, and tell me what you like.

For the generic programs I use with the distribution, as I said — they change from time to time. if something different, or something a lot more sound comes out, I’ll use that, and try to be content with it since use experience changes, and development of applications tend to be driven quick with new projects always emerging because of the user base, and developers. The system in place for distributions alike wiht different communities doing the same thing — trying to have free software with no point in proprieties. Or at least with any sane person nowadays. An act in community and common use.

Generally speaking, I do use most of the GNOME’s default programs, but there are others I use as well. So, the programs I use. Here’s a list and explanation on what programs I use currently. This list makes my other lists preceeded by this one:

Gnome Terminal: Which is indeed just a terminal emulator for all the BASH tinkering done. If you’re new at Linux, don’t be afraid of it — use the terminal as much as you can. I’m not saying to use a tty straight away, but some tasks are done faster with a terminal than pointing and clicking objectively.

Mozilla Firefox 3.5.5: A Internet Web Brownser: Basically, this version is completely beta, and in active development. Since Mozilla is quite strict on alpha, and beta releases — they frequently change when there’s significant change in the program. It happens quite often, and it’s also nice for Mozilla to have such a community following, just like Linux. When installing the Firefox betas, I usually put them in /opt/ and run from there in a separate folder, and just make an application launcher right on my Gnome Panel.

Mozilla Thunderbird 3.0b4: The version means I’m using Thunderbird version 3.0 beta 4 which is an EMail Client. Again, I download, and install the same way as Firefox, keeping it in /opt/ in a different directory, and just creating a application launcher in the panel pointing to the executable file to start Thunderbird. It’s also a huge improvement from the non-betas. I love the new direction Mozilla has taken, in creating such awesome applications to use with the community following. Being a community means helping developing, or developers develop the application by submitting bugs, suggestions, and possibly creating your own add-ons to submit to the Mozilla site where others like you can download, install, and use said add-on.

X-Chat: An IRC, or rather an Internet Relay Chat client that is simple to use, customize the layout and connect to multiple networks. There’s even a selection of networks you can configure to use. It supports all the newest fads in the IRC world. Some people like it, some hate it.

IRSSI: This brings me to a double post of a similar program, but the program is totally different, but does the same. It’s a lovely n-curses based program that will let you connect to IRC via a terminal emulator, or tty if XORG has a hiccup and you’re left in a tty. It’s also quite nice when used in Gnome Terminal. It has a slew of plug-ins you can use, and it’s generally an awesome companion when used with SCREEN a terminal multiplexer.

Empathy: This program is a multi-protocol chat client similar to Pidgin, but Pidgin is now deprecated because Empathy is far more superior and more Linux distributions are using it as default now. Telepathy is used as its back-end, which means that you can also use Telepathy with different clients, not just with Empathy. So develop a client that uses Telepathy and improve on Instant Messaging!

Gwibber: If you like social networking with people, making new friends and you’re running GNOME, check Gwibber out. It’s definitely a thing to get into, it’s also multi-protocol and can be used with different types of social networking. If Twitter hasn’t came to mind, then I suggest you get signed up to different social networking websites, and try this out. Even Facebook, and about 15 other services can be used with Gwibber.

OpenOffice.Org: Generally speaking, if you’re into making letters, spreadsheets or doing genereally productivity work with text — you should check this suite out. It has everything you need, and you can kiss Microsoft goodbye. Even if you like doing presentation, there’s presentation software in the suite. If you’re generally a busy-body using what you can, there’s an actual shortcut that will bring you to an applet and give you a selection of programs within the suite so you can choose from there. It’s quite genius to be fair.

Shutter: A screenshot utility that goes a lot farther than that. You can add text, select what you want to take a screenshot of, make thumbnails within a screenshot, add borders and do a lot more things. Shutter is an excellent screenshot tool if you’re trying to illustrate something in a screenshot, or trying to discover User Interface bugs and want to show people what has happened within a program.

Unetbootin: If you still love to install via a graphic installer and your distribution of choice has a Live CD, well, you can use unetbootin which will let you put an ISO of a distribution on a USB thumb-drive, and install from that provided you have your BIOS set proper and if it has that option to do so. I love using it because I can have a no waste policy since I don’t have to burn CDs, or DVDs and throw them out AFTER a newer version of the distribution has came out and you’re left with a coaster. Simply, load up the partition editor such as GParted, format into ext2, rename the partition if you want, load up unetbootin load the ISO onto thumb-drive.

Brasero: A default program if you want to create audio, video, or data CDs for backup or other personal use. But again, why waste CDs when you can buy a 32gb thumb-drive and just backup on that? Save yourself, and the environment some stress!

MyPaint: A painting program that will let you paint with paint, charcoal, crayons, different types of paint, watercolour, anything under the sun. You can even change the type of paper. It has unique keybindings that lets you paint a lot faster, and the quality is very nice. A tablet is needed to paint with the program. You can change opacity, size, and erase with a keybinding while having your stylus in hand. This increases productivity to a level where you’ll become a better artist is more time, and learn how to paint with a tablet if you’re of student level, as I am.

Alchemy: Basically, it’s a program where you paint/ draw spontaneously which is good for the mind, and spirit and makes your mind start to flow better with creativity. You basically select different settings you want, start by pressing the stylus to the tablet, and spontaneous shapes will appear. Shapes, lines, different copying methods, mirrored methods, etc.. It generally is quite a neat program that you’ll love. If works in PNG, PDF, JPEG, and other formats in layers as well.

Inkscape: Which is a vector graphics program that is awesome for what it does. It has every option in the book, and has a huge following of users.

The Gimp: Gimp is a photo-manipulation program that will help you with your photography needs, and you can also draw with it. You can use a tablet if need be.

Pencil: If you need to make some animations, by that I mean figure, logo, or scene animations — check it out! You can use a tablet with this program too. It’s generally based on drawing animations, and things similar. The program is limited, but it’s nice when it works. The interface is also great. If you’re looking for a upfront timeline, it has it.

Banshee: A music player with attitude, it can do a lot of things.. It has support for mid-sized playlists, video, radio, mp3 player support as well. It’s you’re all around goodness when it comes to sound. It’s quite large, but it’s really nice.

MPD & Sonata: If you want something for LARGE playlist support, I’m talking making a database for fast retrieval, network play, and a very fast player, check MPD out. MPD stands for, Music Player Daemon. MPD is the back-end of the player which supports many different clients. My client of choice is Sonata because the interface is so small, but it also can be maximized. It also supports radio stations, and playlists. It’ll take a bit for you to set it up, but the customization will only be worth it. It also has n-curses clients, too.

CMUS & MOC(P): Both on the same scale, they are n-curses music programs that work in the tty, or terminal emulator like Gnome Terminal. The user interfaces are different, but very similar. Keybindings work, too. These types of programs generally are very very light, and will make you love n-curses program all the more. I bet you didn’t think this stuff was possible in the terminal!!

Well, I think this concludes this lengthy blog post. Don’t be afraid to use google to check the programs out. Also a good idea would be to look them up on YouTube. YouTube will provide you with experienced users demonstrating the programs at hand and will give you a general idea in what you’re getting into. So, please, make use of what I’ve said. Leave a comment, or question and I’ll be glad to answer.

Have a good one.

Debian: Squeeze Me Out of Ubuntu.

Greetings earthlings, I hope you come at peace. I hope all of you who read this are in good health, and I hope everything is good. Sorry I haven’t blogged in a long time. I’m come to a slump where I don’t know what to post, and if I think of things to post I don’t do it for some reason. I think it’s just laziness, and writers block working against me which is not a good combination at all. Anyway, not to bore you anymore, I will write what’s on my mind about what I’m thinking of currently while I listen to Ravi Shankar.

I can say that Ubuntu is far in the past for me unless they do something very spectacular with any regard. I tried out Karmic Koala for a short while on three different occasions, and the best performance that I can justify was in the second, or third alpha. I don’t know what it was, but it just seemed very fast and kicking. I loved how it outperformed anything with any respect. The speed of the alpha was very nice, and then I didn’t realize that I had sound issues right away. Pulseaudio was very problematic, and I’m not a very technical user so I couldn’t fix it. You’re asking, “Well, what was wrong?” right? Well, the sound applet would dramatically increase with a small increase to the volume level of the applet. So I had ear-blistering sound in a touch of a button, I guess you’d call it. Plus, every so often the sound would make this wear sound where it sounded like something would timeout, and there would be a loud thump coming out of the speakers every so often. Then, I thought, I’m going to give Debian a try. So I tried Debian: Lenny.

The second time the same persistent bugs were still active, but this time it was the first and only beta release where the developers were almost ready to release Ubuntu: Karmic Koala on time. Though, this time with the lack of performance, and the sound issues — I still couldn’t come to grips with it. And, I went back to  Debian: Lenny. With the lack of up to date packages, slightly older than any Ubuntu release, I couldn’t handle it. Hell, I couldn’t even handle not having Gwibber. I decided to experiment with Debian: Squeeze, so I upgraded from Lenny to Squeeze.

This brings me to the third time trying Ubuntu: Karmic Koala. I decided for the hell of it with a perfectly working Debian: Squeeze I would try the official release of Ubuntu: Karmic Koala, and boy was I in for a treat. It was all themed to go, it looked really nice as a non-LTS release, the sound was fixed. I only had a problem with the loud thumb-zap coming out of my speakers. I found out a prognosis, and quickly fixed a configuration file some the thing wouldn’t time out. I googled it, and I can’t tell you what it was. Sorry. Anyway, despite being a official release, and lack of performance I still had, it felt really good. But, it also felt a lot more geared towards people who are want to try Linux, and or Ubuntu and to get into the world of Free Open Source Software. Then I realized that, Ubuntu was no more for me, and that I’ve gotten over it. It’s a great distribution, possibly striving to be the best, but I find that Canonical is pushing in the wrong direction and that Mark Shuttleworth is only pushing for the capital venture of what he makes off Canonical and its services and will break out communal efforts of Linux by the pushing of specific Ubuntu related services. (There will be more on this later, possibly on another post, and a lot more in-depth.)

For all the times I’ve tried Debian — I think about five, or six times within the past two years, I never thought I would ever run it. Debian seemed very hard to run because it was different than Ubuntu, and Ubuntu was so much more user-friendly. But, I do have to say that, I wish I did start of with Debian first so I could veer off and not use Ubuntu. I would have generally learned a lot more running Debian, and I am learning a lot more administrating my own laptop.

Debian:Squeeze has been so solid for me, I love it. I haven’t had anything crash for me since this installation, and by that I mean, NOTHING has crashed. When I installed it, I recorded a Daily Build of Squeeze on a CD. I will do this from now on, or at least try to push the developers to enable people to be able to install from USB. I’ve been doing so for the last year. This is the first CD I’ve made in a while, and kind of regret it because it’s a waste of money, and space. Not that it’s lonely with all the other CD’s I have in the stack, but because it’s harsh on the environment and I could have just reused my USB drive by putting the ISO on unetbootin. YES, it’s in the Debian repositories, though I wish it wasn’t made in QT. Loathe installing dependencies that are not generic to the GNOME Desktop Environment. Loathe thee. Not to end this on a negativity, I was just trying to be funny.

If you were deeply saddened by the last paragraph of this blog post, I’ll happily show this video:

I couldn’t get a nice video of Debian in YouTube, or Vimeo, so I guess I’ll leave a URL of the user, and video of the best I could do. On that note, I guess write you on the flip side.

Peace.

Mozilla – The New Firefox, and Thunderbird

Recently, I just disovered an awesome Firefox Addon. It doesn’t really help in productivity, but it is visually appealing. But, I mean, some would argue that if one thing isn’t visually appealing, that it wouldn’t help in productivity. I agree with that statement because you’re only as good as your environment is. If you’re in a place with less distraction, nicely painted, and visually pleasing, you want to be there, and be square about being there and doing whatever you need to do. Heck, you may even want to stay where ever you are, and never leave.

I’m at this point with Firefox. After using many other browsers in the past, I’ve never been happier in geekdom. The appearance of Firefox, and Thunderbird now has made my Desktop, or GNOME desktop environment visually pleasing. I can customize the look of Firefox, or Thunderbird to make it stand out and not just let it drap around like I did before. I won’t lie, I even did it with Firefox, and various others.

As mentioned before, they’re not really for producitivity. Personas for Firefox are more visually pleasing to the eye than anything. It lets you customize the looks of Firefox, or Thunderbird just like any other theme available for Gnome, or KDE but, it’s only for Firefox, or Thunderbird. They’re simply skins which is driven by the commity of users who want to create their own. You can design, and upload your own which will individualize your browser.  There are hundreds of artist-created skins as well.

What makes Personas really shine is the ability to look at them via your own browser – just by opening the browser up. Once Personas are installed, the bottom left side of the bar Foxy’s head appears. Just simply click on the head, and you can have your choice of what skin to use. There’s a huge variety of whatever you want. Even hovering over each skin that’s in the addon, it will change the theme while just hovering over the picture(or name) with your mouse.

It’s easily one of the best addons I’ve used because of the quality of the addon, and the aesthics are pleasing to the eye like I’ve mentioned before.

NOTE

Personas come as a default installation with Firefox-3b5. However, if you want to use Personas in Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope’s version of Firefox which is Firefox-3.0.10 you’ll have to download the addon. And, if you don’t have Firefox, and want to download and install Firefox to use Personas – here’s the URL: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

To use Personas in Thunderbird, you’ll have to download the beta version of Thunderbird which is Thunderbird-3b2, and install Personas via the URL above. Download the .xpi file, and install the addon like any other addon. You’ll come to an “install” button in the window – just browse to the file and press ok to install. Here’s the link to the Thunderbird download page.

In Jaunty Jackalope, I downloaded Thunderbird into /opt so I have the beta, and stable versions so if the beta messes up, I have the stable to use. Just symlink the thunderbird executable in /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird into /usr/bin. Here’s the code: “sudo ln -s /opt/thunderbird/thunderbird /usr/bin/thunderbird3″ without quotes. This will let you have two working Thunderbirds in an installation. Create a new profile with, “thunderbird3 -P”. Howto in the ubuntuforums.

Hopefully this helps you.
Enjoy.

Justin