Terminology: The Terminal Emulator With Bling

Image credit: Wikimedia.org

If memory serves, it was +Greg Kroah-Hartman who last December enthused on Google Plus about Terminology, the terminal emulator component of Enlightenment.  It was just released at version 0.4.0 by one very talented, industrious Samsung developer, Daniel Juyung Seo.

I took a look at it, put it away and all was forgotten.  The other day, I was looking around for new software and decided to revisit the state of Terminal Emulators.

Incidentally, Solarized Theme will be part of Fedora 21 and I remember trying it at some point.  But didn't recall how.  To my surprise, Terminology includes a number of themes, one of which is Solarized, so, I decided to install it.  Yes, one can install Terminology separate from Enlightenment and it won't pull in a lot of dependencies -- just what it needs.

Okay so, I thought lets see what this puppy can do.  Five minutes later it was installed and shown on my Fedora 20 LXDE menu under System Tools.

It's quite pleasant in terms of aesthetics and given it is an Enlightenment component, that is to be expected.  But there's nothing keeping one from using it with another Desktop UI and many do just that.

Those partial to certain emulators like Gnome-terminal, Konsole, will prefer one over another, especially if doing development work and dwelling in a character-based shell.

What is especially nice about Terminology is that selecting a theme, such as Solarized, makes doing other things at the terminal prompt most pleasant and easy on the eyes, including other ncurses-based applications like vim, nano, htop.  And the entire window is bit-mapped scalable which means it can be as small or large as needed just by moving the lower-left screen corner.

Features

• Most escapes supported by xterm, rxvt etc. work
• Xterm 256 color escapes work
• Backgrounds (bitmap, scalable/vector, animated gif, videos)
• Transparency
• Bitmap and scalable fonts supported
• Themes for the layout and design
• URL, file path and email address detection and link-handling
• Inline display of link content
• Multiple copy and paste selections and buffer support
• Works in X11
• Works in Wayland
• Works directly in the linux framebuffer (fbcon)
• Can be finger/touch controlled
• Scan scale by UI scaling factors
• Can render using OpenGL or OpenGL-ES2 (not a requirement - just an option)
• Can display inlined media content (images, video, documents)
• Can do multiple "tabs"
• Can do splitting into multiple panes
• Block text selection
• Drag and drop of text selections and links
• Can stream media from URLs
• Tab switcher has live thumbnail content
• Single process, multiple windows/terminals support
• Fast (gives urxvt a run for its money)
• Themable visual bell
• Compress backscroll
• Text reflow on resize
• Color palette selection

More...

I am including below a few screen shots I took of Terminology running on Fedora 20 LXDE.

Terminology with Solarized theme shown in split-screen mode

Terminology with Solarized theme running ncurses-based htop

Terminology settings screen with Themes selected

Install

As mentioned, it took all of 5 minutes to install Terminology on Fedora 20 with this command from the lxterminal:

$sudo yum install terminology

Then, I went straight to the terminal window, right-click, settings and selected my personal favorite font Droid Sans Monospace 12 point, and, of course, Terminology's Solarized ('Dark') theme.

  
Bayam!  Sweet relief.  My eyes feel so much better now.

Go get some relief.  Now. 

Terminology.  The terminal emulator with bling.  -- Dietrich

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Linux on the Desktop: It's Not Me. It's You.

by Dietrich Schmitz

Have you grown tired of Linux on the Desktop?

Does 'familiarity breed contempt'?

At times, I feel I have a 'relationship' and when it reaches the point of saturation, or, I don't see anything in the way of innovation going on, I feel the urge to say in parting, "Linux, It's not Me.  It's You."

Yes.  You.  I'm flipping that famous line, "It's not you, it's me intentionally to make a point.

What is my point?

I am a human from planet Earth.  I am really smart and Linux, you are doing a terrible job of keeping up with things.

So much so, I am just about to break up with you if you don't start shaping up.  I know you've been busy with Android and other embedded devices, but you really need to pay attention to me.  Over here, that's me sitting at a conventional keyboard, monitor, desktop unit (or Laptop).

And I keep hoping you'll begin paying attention to me.

But it seems like things are, well, boring, unchanging.  You've made a few attempts to sweeten things up.

Like Gnome Shell, for example.  Okay you worked hard on that, but, it's just that it is easy to use, but too simple.  Why is it so hard to innovate?

Unity?  You've really gone out of your way to be 'different' but again, the gui is not usable and limiting.

I've stuck with you this long only because of LXDE.  Now, after all of the upstream struggles to get Gnome 3.x to a point of 'usability', I have resorted to using lightweight LXDE.  Why?

Because, it doesn't reinvent the wheel.  Don't fix what isn't broken.

Panels, Desktop, Desktop folders, icons, menus, terminal windows, they all work in a classic intuitive way which is why I have always liked you Linux.

I think the problem is, you are trying to be different but no matter how hard you try, the technology just comes up short, deficient.

Maybe you should just be yourself again?  You know like when Ubuntu first came out?  Gnome 2.x worked so darned well.

Why did you change?  I don't like you as much anymore.

Please change.  I mean, innovate, in the truest sense of the word.
Let's not make new widgets that replicate existing functionality.  We already have in my estimation too much of that.

And please.  STOP cloning yourself.  You could go blind doing that.

How many of you do we really need?  I think you should just work on making one Distro better.  No, perfect.  That's right, perfect.

Make yourself sexy with a purpose, but let's stick to just the Linux Standard Base (LSB), one Filesystem Hiearchy Standard (FHS), one graphical API (like Windows GUI).  Yes?  Come to think of it, isn't that what makes Windows so successful?

Please.  Don't put on pretenses for me.  I know you.  I just want what's best for you and think you should really strive to simplify.  And, never mind what the other clones are doing.  They are just copy cats trying to emulate.  You are better than that.

Linux on the Desktop:  Be the best that you can be and I won't leave you.  Promise.

-- Dietrich

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Edward Snowden Email GPG Encryption Tutorial

English: from http://logo-contest.gnupg.org/subm-6.html, copyright info see http://gnupg.org/misc/logo-contest.en.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Dietrich Schmitz

Folks, I've been on a privacy jag for over a year now since whistle blower Edward Snowden broke the story of how the NSA monitor everybody's electronic communications (PRISM).

It is understandable that many have been reluctant to start using email encryption.  But there is no risk and if done with strong encryption such as free open source Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG), you can be assured that only your intended recipient will be able to open and read your mail.

So, with that, today I am bringing to your attention a youtube video put up by none other than Edward Snowden himself wherein he provides a step-by-step tutorial of how to encrypt your email with a Windows version of GPG encryption, called GPG4Win.

So, even if you aren't a Windows user per se, you can watch to get a feel for the steps required to set up your public/private key pair and publishing to a key server and how to import a public key from one of your email contacts who has set up encrypted email also.

I use Fedora 20 LXDE with Evolution and GPG.  Once you've created the keys, you don't have to repeat the same process.  It is a 'one-time' affair and then creating and sending email is done with the existing GPG keys in place.

It's not hard after you've done it a few times.  Trust me.  It will make sense.

Here's Edward Snowden's youtube tutorial.  Enjoy!  -- Dietrich

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Fedora 20 LXDE Spin Tune-Up Tips and Tricks

by Dietrich Schmitz

Regular readers will have figured out by now that I have a particular obsession affinity for Fedora.  It has things that make it just 'better' than the competition.

Still, competition exists and Fedora is not everyone's cup of tea.  And isn't that the way of the world?

It seems that it suffers from an arguably undeserved reputation for being more difficult to set up and use.  Some of that is true, still.  But, I maintain that the Fedora Team has done a brilliant job pulling together their twentieth iteration family of spins, Fedora 20 and the 'ease of use' category hasn't been overlooked.

All the spins have their merits -- you have Gnome (Fedora Desktop default), KDE, Xfce, Mate, and LXDE spins from which to choose.  Conspicuously missing from the line-up is a Cinnamon Spin, but, fortunately, as with Enlightenment 17, Fedora chose to include software groups, should you feel the need to run with those GUIs.  Only you must install one of the aforementioned spins first before installing one of the two guis.

That is all well and good.  But, some of you also know I have this thing about minimalism.  It's not just about visual elements; it's minimal in terms of resource consumption as well.

Thus, I have come to like the LXDE Desktop along the way using Lubuntu.

Let me say that Lubuntu is a very fine Distro for new users coming from a Windows perspective.

I've gone back to Lubuntu several times in the past because of one thing or another that set me off and I got annoyed by so as to induce a reflex response -- go back to that which 'just works well'.  That was, for me, Lubuntu.

It is easy to install, use, familiar, comfortable, lean, minimal and wicked fast.

When briefly using it not long ago, I thought to myself, "Self, why can't Fedora be like this?"  I was left to wonder about it until this past week and I set out to reproduce the "Lubuntu Experience" by seeing if I could tweak up the 'bland' out-of-the-box Fedora 20 LXDE Spin by making a few needed changes.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that I was able to achieve the desired result.  Fedora 20 LXDE tweaking helps more than a bit, I think.  But, you can be the judge.  

Here's a run-down on what I've done to tweak up the LXDE Spin a bit.

Btrfs Filesystem

I don't think this is easy to do on Ubuntu, but, I can't remember if I tried to make Lubuntu run with Btrfs as the root filesystem.  Somewhere, I read that it gives grub major headaches, but, I have found the out-of-the-box selection of Btrfs with auto-configuration makes a separate partition for /boot (512MB) using ext4.  There was no thinking on my part to make that happen, but given grub is running on ext4 is the 'rub'.  Nicely done Fedora Team for making this a 'seamless' process.  There's nothing worse than the feeling one gets after an install seeing on first boot a grub> prompt.  That's a sign that something has gone fubar and it usually requires going back to grub.cfg and/or booting up a pendrive and using fdisk to remedy.  So, I was quite pleased that the new Anaconda installer handles Btrfs so well.

Full Disk Encryption

Full Disk Encryption will encrypt your entire HDD/SDD and every time you boot, you will need to input your WDE password to unlock the drive before the system can bootstrap.  This is strongly recommended in today's world where theft of Laptops has become rampant.  As a matter of good security practices, I'd suggest it be used on any hardware, regardless of whether it is a Laptop or not.  In the Anaconda installer, it's a checkbox [x] selectable item.  Check it!

Linux Kernel 3.12 zswap

My good Friend +birger monsen shows in a Google Plus post how to enable a new feature found in the Linux Kernels >= 3.11 called zswap.  

Zswap essentially takes data that would otherwise head to I/O disk swap space and compresses it in a kernel ram cache using LZO compression.  Effectively, a speed performance gain can be realized by using zswap.

Interestingly, Lubuntu 13.10 has zRam, a similar technology (but not the same), enabled by default and it helps greatly with older PCs, even ones having as little as 256MB ram will benefit.  Naturally, I have zswap.enabled.  Why?  Because I am bad. :/ Seriously, if you google around, you'll find information that shows IBM is equipping their Linux mainframes with zswap for heavily I/O bound applications yielding measurable performance gains.  Enough said.

Yum Plugins

If you love yum as much as I do, then Fedora is for you.  It's just far superior to Apt-Get for so many reasons.  In Fedora 20, presto has been merged so a separate install of the plugin is not necessary.  But, I installed two delicious plugins: yum-plugin-fastestmirror and yum-plugin-fs-snapshot.  The former, determines the 'closest' mirror to your geo-location -- this actually can make a difference in terms of number of hops your tcp/ip packets must travel to reach your PC, believe it or not.  It's a must-have as far as I am concerned.

The latter, yum-plugin-fs-snapshot, is 'money in the bank' if you need to have a restore point from which to recover.  Apple OSX and Microsoft Windows users enjoy having such when things go fubar.  Now, with this plugin installed, whenever using yum to make an update/change/removal, the plugin will diligently create a 'snapshot' (a standard feature in Btrfs).  The plugin automatically backs up each time yum is called.  By virtue of copy on write (COW) technology Btrfs uses minimal disk space and the backup time is near instantaneous.  The first time I messed with Btrfs a few years ago I thought something was wrong.  The snapshot command returned to a prompt in less than a second.  I thought, "Did it just core dump?"  Nope.  

It all seemed counter-intuitive at first but with COW you only get only pointers to read-only data (data that hasn't changed) with any other disk 'writes' getting a full copy.  It's a great idea that Btrfs borrows from the SUN's Solaris ZFS filesystem. (See directly above yum in a terminal session doing an automated fs-snapshot.)

Install both plugins with:

$sudo yum install yum-plugin-fastestmirror yum-plugin-fs-snapshot

Google Droid True Type Fonts

Google Droid fonts, easily, are as good as Windows Tahoma TTF and Ubuntu TTF true type fonts and were installed with:

$sudo yum install google-droid*

After installation, be sure to go to the Preferences->Customize Look and Feel->Fonts tab and make sure hinting is using Rgb and set to 'Full'.  This is especially helpful on LCD Laptop displays.  On the 'Widget' tab, set the 'Default Font' to Droid Sans 10 point.

Adwaita Nemo Widget Theme

I chose by trial and error Adwaita-Nemo Widget theme.  Install with yum:

$sudo yum install adwaita-nemo

Select from the Customize Look and Feel->Widget tab.

Elementary Icon Theme

Just by chance, I decided to try Elementary Icon Theme and liked how it gives LXDE an overall professional feel.  Install it with yum as follows:

$sudo yum install elementary-icon-theme

FedoraUtils

FedoraUtils is a 'grab bag' of utilities with a Zenity gui wrapper for a series of shell scripts.  Used judiciously (not all scripts are applicable), one can quickly configure features which otherwise might require additional time when done manually at the terminal command line.    

Features include:

• Install codecs and additional software
• Fix various problems
• Tweak and cleanup your system
• View system information
• And much more...

OpenBox 'Flatbox' Window Decorator Theme

What really sets LXDE apart is it's OpenBox window manager.  I love OpenBox for it's blazing speed and minimalism.  I went to Box-look.org to check around for other styles of OB window decorations and ultimately chose Flatbox.  Download the obt file and import from Preferences->OpenBox Configuration Menu->'Install a new theme' button.

The decoration is clean and doesn't cause the eye to break -- it integrates as though it was meant to be.

It's a clean crisp look that when added to the Elementary Icon Theme and Adwaita-Nemo Widget style is simply superb.  In fact, I really think appearance-wise it is better than stock Lubuntu.

Pidgin Instant Messenger - pidgin-libnotify

I hate how Google Plus Hangout (formerly GTalk) works.  So, instead I set up Pidgin.  It's really better anyhow, since you'll never miss any message from a friend with Pidgin (such as when your G+  tab is closed).  And if you install pidgin-libnotify along with xfce4-notifyd you'll have notifications screen up when friends come and go.  Don't forget to go to Pidgin->Tools->Plugins->Libnotify Popups (select)->Configure Plugin button  and checkmark [x] 'Buddy signs off' and 'Buddy signs on'.  Also, in Tools->Preferences, be sure to have Pidgin minimize to your system tray 'Always'.

Install pidgin-libnotify and xfce4-notifyd with:

$sudo yum install pidgin-libnotify xfce4-notifyd

If you don't like the default location for Pidgin's popup notifications (top right), open a terminal and type xfce4-notify-config and set the location to lower right as I did.

Compton Composting

LXDE in the Fedora Spin is considered lightweight by design.  Thus, you don't get any compositing like KDE, MATE, Gnome Shell, or Cinnamon.


If you have the intestinal fortitude, clone the compton project using git and manually compile as I did.  This rpm 'should' be installable on Fedora.20 if you pass in $sudo yum localinstall --releasever=19 <package name>.  But, I haven't tested it.

RPMFusion Free and Non-Free Repositories

RPMFusion provides Free and Non-Free rpm packages which aren't found in the standard Fedora repository system.  Follow the directions to install the *.repo files and you are good to go.  Once done, I installed VLC Media Player, Mozilla Totem plugins which are accessible from both Chrome and Firefox.

Redshift-Gtk

At first, I was skeptical about this technology.  But now, I am sold.  What does Redshift-Gtk do?  Well, it when fed your latitude and longitude, goes to its own database of current weather conditions indexed by time of day, and then makes a display color 'heat' adjustment.  It automatically adjusts throughout the day to the most ideal setting for viewing and eases eye strain accordingly. I strongly recommend it and you will appreciate it most at night when an otherwise 'bright' screen can kill your vision.  Install redshift-gtk with:

$sudo yum install redshift-gtk

With LXDE, you'll need an autostart file in your ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE/ directory.  


The commands in mine include starting Pidgin, compton, and redshift as follows:

dietrich@localhost LXDE$ cat autostart

@compton -c -r 16 -l -24 -t -12 -G -b

@pidgin

@redshift-gtk -l 43.030718:-74.992302 -t 5700:3600 -g 0.8 -m vidmode -v

Conclusions

Looking at the Desktop, it is clean, easy on the eyes.  If you've never tried Fedora, I would suggest LXDE especially for older PCs.  You'll find the machine will return to life and OpenBox's windows paints and LXDE GTk refreshes will snap on screen instantly.  Short of using Lubuntu or #!CrunchBang, I cannot think of any faster Linux Distro setup.  

Fedora 20 Linux LXDE Spin running with the tweaks shown in this story.

Hopefully, the tune-up tips and tricks I gave will increase your level of enjoyment using Fedora.

Fedora Linux:  The safest operating system on the planet.

I stake my reputation on it.

--Dietrich

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Moving Away from Google's Proprietary Ways

by Dietrich Schmitz

As a result of drawing a line with Google, I've spent considerable time considering a range of options to avail myself to in replacing Google services. 

As for Blogger, I intend to use Wordpress and will convert my Linuxadvocates website soon and am hoping to have some of Kev Quirk's guidance on tap as I move forward.

As for my browser, I've turned to looking at Chromium.

Why?

Because The Chromium Projects is fully open source and not proprietary, unlike Google Chrome. The two are quite different beasts. In fact, I am using Chromium right now and it is working nicely as many of my colleague Friends have reported. That word 'proprietary' will mean more to you below when you continue your reading of this piece of verbosity.

So, I've also shifted from Lubuntu 13.10 to Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Xfce Edition.  That's Mint below for those of you interested in making the 'leap' from Windows to Linux who may be wondering just how difficult the transition may be.

Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Xfce Edition - My Desktop

If you are new to Linux, you may think of the graphical user interface (gui) as being 'loosely coupled'. Linux doesn't care if you have one or not. In fact, linux web servers are set up without one in command line 'headless' fashion. But, as far as choices go, the move to Mint Linux is a safe bet. You see, they are #1 on Distrowatch.com for a reason. It's that good. I call it Ubuntu +1.

The choice of guis was easy for me. Xfce. It's still a lightweight gui, like Lubuntu's LXDE, but it is really more feature complete. There are trade-offs for using LXDE which for me are taken in stride but for a newcomer, Xfce will make any Windows user feel quite at home. There is little to do after installation. Just boot and use.

Here's some background information on Xfce: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xfce

Many newcomers will find the naming of things in the Linux world funny, but that's open source for you. It is rather benign but much of it will make sense as you become accustomed to the "Linux Way" of doing things.

The "Linux Way" of doing things incorporates many concepts but there is none more important in light of the Snowden revelation than open source 'Transparency'. This is a good place for you to stop and read a link on the topic to frame in your mind this abstract but yet so vital concept:

http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2013/09/open-source-values-transparency-in-the-post-snowden-era.html

It's basically this. Proprietary = Exploitation. That's how I see it.
And at growing levels I see Google's expansion in the name of profitability colliding with their "Do No Evil" mantra that so many of us, including myself, believed in.

So, on principle, I am looking to non-Google solutions to continue using the Internet.

I find using Chromium safe and acceptable by virtue of the pure open source footing on which it is developed. That will assure transparency going forward as with Mozilla's Firefox.

As for the array of Google services like Drive, Gmail, etc.?

I don't need them. I am looking at Kim Dot Com's Mega for its Zero Knowledge Encrypted free 50MB space support and also their upcoming encrypted end-to-end email. Phil Zimmerman, the Founder of Silent Circle and Lavabit's Ladar Levison are forming Dark Mail Alliance.

Those are my two target email solutions going forward.

That should do it for now.  -- Dietrich

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Notable Ubuntu Derivatives

by Dietrich Schmitz

So, you may or may not know that I am not a fan of Ubuntu. Let's leave the reasons out. It has become tedious and the topic of why is painfully boring at this stage of the game.

But despite what is or isn't happening with Ubuntu, depending on your point of view, much is happening elsewhere and that is fortunately a 'good thing' for the prospective Linux user.

I have spent much time discussing how I feel about the plethora of choices in the Linux ecosystem which is to the point of creating confusion and many inconsistencies across the spectrum.

But that doesn't keep me from seeing value in a narrower segment and if we look at core Distributions close to the base Distros, there is good work being put forth by Developers which in the case of Ubuntu is fostering a thriving Derivative environment.

Those who seek value know that anchoring to the Ubuntu application repository is perhaps their highest criterion for choosing one Distro over another.  On the other hand, those who are avoiding Ubuntu, are likely motivated to find an alternative GUI which let's them feel most comfortable in terms of usability and provides the best balance of functionality.

Let's look at some of what I see as being notable Ubuntu core derivative Distros:

Lubuntu

Now, I list Lubuntu first, not by accident.  It is truly as lean a Distribution as one can get yet still enjoy a good GUI feature set on top of the Ubuntu repo system.  It also happens to be the Distro of my choice.  I stray from it sampling others but keep returning to it.  But my preferences are subjective, since I am using a Netbook.  Yours will likely differ.  If you want a clean and spartan Desktop, which is straight forward and gets out of your way so you can do work, then Lubuntu succeeds.  I've made only minor tweaks turning off the power saver deamon and update notifier and arrive at the Desktop after login with about 130mb ram footprint.  And by virtue of the fact that LXDE in this implementation is using OpenBox as its window (stacking) manager, it is perhaps the fastest Desktop.  (CrunchBangers hold your fire -- this is strictly Ubuntu Derivatives being discussed).

Bodhi Linux

This is perhaps one of the most minimal (ram usage) yet nicest in terms of compositing Distros that I've come across.  Bodhi Linux uses Enlightenment E17 as its GUI.  I am amazed at how much breadth and depth there is to its configurability, yet it weighs in at a mere 70 MB ram footprint.  If you are in love with E17, then this Distro is for you.  This is a capable, nimble derivative, offers much eye candy, yet keeps you in the Ubuntu repo.

Xubuntu

If it weren't for Lubuntu with the OpenBox window manager, I think I'd be using Xubuntu.  Really, the polish of Xfce is a cut above LXDE, and yet, isn't greedy in ram use.  It has its own compositor, the system is spritely and will satisfy by getting the job done with little fanfare.  It and LXDE 'side-step' the XMir/Mir kerfuffle, both using Gtk2/3 and so give that Gnome 'feel' yet are less demanding of the cpu.  As Wayland approaches a stable plateau, expect to see both Lubuntu and Xubuntu transition from X.org to Wayland.  For now, X.org continues to be supported, which is 'peace of mind' for many.

Kubuntu

Many Windows users will find Kubuntu's similarities most to their liking.  Kubuntu uses KDE, of course, and is considered 'Top Dog' to which others Desktop GUIs are compared.  The KDE team fully intend to support X.org going forward and will offer an on-ramp to Wayland in future releases.  You can expect that your 'Apple cart won't be upset' using the strategy of employing a KDE-based Distro.  And, given that Kubuntu is an Ubuntu derivative with commercial support, places you strategically 'in the game' and makes it a safe bet.  The plethora of feature options boggles the mind, but most users will be satisfied with how Kubuntu works out of the box.  While demands placed on ram requirements is a bit higher, one can easily trim away some of the fancier features such as compositing with one setting change to reclaim ram and some additional speed on older PCs or Netbooks.  Kubuntu's aesthetics please and reliability gets the job done -- overall, a nice implementation.

Netrunner-OS

In July 2013, I wrote that Netrunner-OS offers the best out of the box KDE experience of all Linux Distributions.  The Distro coincidentally is produced by Blue Systems whose team is also directly responsible for doing key development for KDE.  Blue Systems contributes also to Kubuntu and Linux Mint KDE edition.

Peppermint OS

Just this weekend, I was spurred by a story about Peppermint OS that wrote how this Distro was a Lubuntu derivative.  It turns out, that is not exactly true -- while it does use LXDE components, it uses the Xfwm4 window manager and many of its supporting components.  So while it sports an lxpanel, I would qualify this as weighted to the Xfce side of things.  Still, I found the implementation to be spritely, clean, professional in its presentation and as good as Xubuntu in terms of overall characteristics and performance.  This is somewhat hybrid but it works well.  Kudos to the Peppermint OS team for a good job and offering real value.

Conclusions

When thinking about notable Ubuntu derivatives, I considered whether or not to include Mint.  I think to include Mint would be wrong.

Mint is in its own league and, as such, given top ranking at Distrowatch (#1), and not what I would qualify as an Ubuntu derivative.

To some extent, it can be argued that their package management system is different, including service packs.  I haven't really heard complaints about Mint.  Most everybody likes it.  But that's why I chose not to list it.  They are a cut above Ubuntu.  So really, that's a hat tip to the Mint Developer Team.

Well, there it is -- a few notable Ubuntu derivatives.  It's hard to get me to say nice things about Linux Distros and when I do, you know it's sincere.  These are good alternatives for you to try.

-- Dietrich

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