Netrunner 13.06 Enigma: Best KDE Out of the Box Experience

by Dietrich Schmitz

Netrunner-os released Friday, July 5th, their newest version Linux Distribution, Netrunner 13.06 Enigma.

I am going to tell you straight up, Netrunner Enigma is the best KDE-based (version 4.10.4) Ubuntu derivative I have ever used.

It's really that good.  I am serious as a 'heart attack'.  Maybe because some of the KDE 'brain-trust' also happen to work for Blue Systems who develop Netrunner?

Not maybe.  +Martin Gräßlin, is maintainer of KDE Plasma Compositor and Window Manager and is employed by Blue Systems, coincidentally.

I would also mention Blue Systems is doing coding support for Kubuntu and Mint KDE editions.

Features and Changes

Netrunner Desktop Containment (clean folderview, hidden plus/minus overlays)
- Improved KWin performance, so default enabled fx work on most low end machines
- Kate Minimap scrollbar
- Automatic KWallet Active
- Hot-Corner in lower right
- Simplified System Settings
- Removed Wine (due to less relevance)
- Alsa instead of Pulseaudio for best compatibility and performance (intel hda)
- Firefox with Mozilla App-Store
- Steam Installer-Link
- Mint Software Sources and Hardware Manager
- usual KDE goodies, Homerun 1.0, Tomahawk 0.7, etc.

So, you see, it would stand to reason that the level of 'fit and finish' as well as stability would be of high-quality in this Distro.  And, it is.  I don't know what Martin did (thank you), but KDE is flying on my Netbook with 2GB ram.  That's not what I usually get using KDE.  So, I am giggly using it like I found a diamond in the ruff.

Netrunner-os 13.06 Enigma shown on my Netbook

There are now several Desktop projects based on Qt:

• KDE
• Razor-Qt
• KLyDE (pre-release)
• LXDE-Qt (pre-release)
• Unity (cough Mir)

And, one wonders if others will follow suit, like, for example, a port of Xfce to Xfce-Qt maybe?  Maybe so.

It seems that there has been a seismic shift and programmers are scurrying to move away from anything remotely resembling GTk.  Maybe there is good reason.  Regardless, it is all up for debate as to the merits of one GUI framework verses another.  Some swear by the GTk tool set which currently holds the majority share of Linux applications written with it.

But trends are trends.  And Qt programming is definitely on the up-swing.

If you want to experience true KDE 'nirvana' please go straight to the Netrunner website and get your copy of Enigma today.

-- Dietrich

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Fedora 19 Desktop Edition: Pleasantly Surprised by Gnome 3.8.3

by Dietrich Schmitz

No, this isn't an act of contrition.  It is a confession.  How so?  Let me explain.

Life is experiential as they say.  And with experience comes wisdom--hopefully, gradually, learning accretes.

Gradually, what was important yesterday is no longer important today as we reach new plateaus and learn what is truely meaningful and cast aside things which do not accrue to our general well-being and happiness.

Some days, you discover things you never imagined would happen.

Take for example Gnome's GUI.

In the past, I have been quite clear on how I have felt about this project's decision making along with my displeasure with Canonical's Unity GUI.  Neither was my cup of tea.  And, fortunately, alternatives have been around which have made possible avoiding their use entirely.  I am not unique on that count.

So, without apology, I will confess that today I decided to do:

$sudo yum groupinstall "Gnome Desktop"

into my already tweaked Fedora 19 Xfce Spin, which as you might have guessed I am quite happy with, given its meager system requirements and given that I am writing this story on an Acer Aspire One D260 Netbook sporting 2GB ram.  I've also installed OpenBox and found it makes the machine perform with near CrunchBang 11 Waldorf-like speed.  All well and good.

So, the groupinstall finished in minutes and I then dispatched to doing a logout, select GNOME from the session manager, and logged back in.

Now, mind you, there are still issues in my mind concerning Gnome, but this time around, I will tell you that Gnome 3.8.3 is what I call 'minimally functional' in its 'out of the box' default form.

Prior to Fedora 19 Desktop Edition, I could not recommend Gnome.

Today, I can say:

I like Gnome 3.8.3.

But, it took some tweaks coming from the Gnome Extensions Website to make it provide equivalence to what I have set up in the Xfce spin.  I will live with Gnome for the time being and share information with you in updates when and where I can as warranted.

Here are the extensions which I have installed thus far:

Installed Extensions

ONOFF

 Drop Down Terminal

 by zzrough

Drop down terminal toggled by a keystroke (the key above tab by default) for advanced users.

ONOFF

 Gno-Menu

 by Panacier

Gno-Menu is a traditional styled full featured Gnome-Shell apps menu, that aims to offer all the essentials in a simple uncluttered intuitive interface.

ONOFF

 Impatience

 by gfxmonk

Speed up the gnome-shell animation speed

ONOFF

 Notifications Alert

 by hackedbellini

Whenever there is an unread notification (e.g. chat messages), blinks the message in the user's menu with a color chosen by the user.

ONOFF

 Pidgin Persistent Notification

 by nemo

Adds a persistent notification if a new message in Pidgin arrives. The notification is reset if the conversation window is focussed. Works best with the pidgin status integration extension.

ONOFF

 Show Desktop Button

 by l300lvl

Places a button to the left of the Window List to hide all windows, and the overview when active, and show the current desktop(credit: MGSE, erguille, madkristoff, mbokil).

ONOFF

 Status Area Horizontal Spacing

 by mathematical.coffee

Reduce the horizontal spacing between icons in the top-right status area

ONOFF

 TopIcons

 by ag

Shows legacy tray icons on top

With these tweaks, this puts Gnome on a footing where I can honestly say, that everything is working satisfactorily.

Your preferences will be different, naturally, but I tend to be minimalist by nature, so that means 'nothing more, nothing less' style of configuration.

I especially like pressing the backtick/tilde key to get a drop-down terminal, Quake-like style.

I added GnoMenu, but decided to toggle it 'off' for now and see if I can live without using it as a 'crutch'.  My concern is and will be as time goes by, usability of Gnome in its default form.

As for ram use, this wouldn't be an issue if I had a Desktop system with 4GB so I discount its importance using this Netbook, in terms of any perceived latency or swapping.  My swappiness is set to 10, which means swapping will be 'aggressive' and do as much as it can with existing free ram.

Chrome, my preferred browser, is notorious for gobbling up ram, and I don't fault it for that, but it does at times put a strain on this Netbook.  It's a non-issue as I said with most of today's machines, so enough on ram.

Well, there you have it.  I am liking Gnome 3.8.3, Fedora 19 Desktop Edition's default GUI.

People can change.  I have and do, every day.  So can you.  Grow. :)

-- Dietrich

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A Desktop Seismic Shift to Qt

by Dietrich Schmitz

No one questions that KDE Plasma Workspaces is the top ranking desktop gui in pure robust features and asthetics.

It's one beautiful working environment.  What is KDE written in?: Qt

Qt is the same framework used to create the Apps which run in the KDE desktop environment, the same framework used to develop the original KHTML, which was acquired and ported to WebKit by Apple.

Qt has a long history behind it and has evolved through the years and endured change of ownership several times over, now in the hands of Digia and under their governance via the Qt Project.

This advanced framework has a fine reputation using the Lesser GNU Lesser General Public License, which makes everyone in the open source community quite happy.  The technology advancements put it on equal or, arguably, better footing than its competing GTk framework.

There was a period of uncertainty when TrollTech was purchased by Nokia, and the disposition of licensing was put into question.  Fortunately, Nokia saw fit to find the LGPL acceptable.

So, today we see a trend with new Desktop iterations using Qt making recent appearances.  First, Razor-Qt, then KLyDE, now we see a port of LXDE which uses the deprecated GTk2 framework is being made using Qt and will be named LXDE-Qt, appropriately.

It seems that gradually a stronger interest in Qt is being taken and, given LXDE's latest move, at least one Desktop which currently runs on GTk2 is hedging their bets and moving to Qt.  They might have simply chosen to migrate to GTk3, but that wasn't done.  Is the effort to migrate too steep of a climb?  Apparently so.  The LXDE community have done a great job setting up a wiki which addresses the technical challenges in migrating GTK projects to Qt--surely a big help to the community at large.  Hats off to LXDE for doing that.

So, this is a very interesting trend indeed.  Please take a look on the LXDE website to see how well the LXDE port has progressed.  I will certainly try LXDE-Qt at the earliest opportunity.

-- Dietrich

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The Unwitting Linux Saboteurs

by Dietrich Schmitz

I spend time in my Google Plus private Linux Advocates community sharing ideas and trends with colleagues.

Occasionally, we hit on nuggets of gold and when you least expect it, someone comments and really helps put things into perspective.

Last evening, a dear colleague and friend +Shane Keene was sharing his thoughts about Distro-hopping.  We've jokingly coined the term 'Distroholics' for the uncontrollable tendency to not be satisfied with settling down and using one Distro.

It's easy to understand.  It can turn into a real hobby and is admittedly 'fun' to switch Distros and experiment.  And that's a good thing for those who enjoy doing it.

As for +Shane Keene and myself, and a few others in the LA community, we've reached the point where Distro-hopping has lost its luster.  Shane writes in his post:

"I've long since quit my evil distro hopping ways and settled permanently on Arch as the only one that is exactly what I want it to be, but I have discovered another bad habit of mine: I'm a three-timing, DE/WM slut who is constantly bouncing between Awesome WM, Openbox and KDE. But these days, instead of constantly uninstalling/reinstalling/reconfiguring my environment I just keep all three installed full time and use KDM to manage them."

And, that kicked off a series of comments, which is how we 'chew the fat', so to speak.

But, what I didn't expect was such a insightful exchange from +Aaron Seigo.  Don't misunderstand, Aaron is a regular participant in these exchanges--he's quite 'The Thinker', naturally and we all appreciate when he participates--it's just that I didn't expect his off-topic thought to be relevant, but it actually aligns with a series of posts of mine.  So, really, we are in complete agreement.

It's a good read and here's what he wrote as regards Linux Server and Desktop markets in response to participant +Tim Sparrow's comment - "Maybe if we had only 1 or 2 big names in 2008 around the Vista fiasco time" (emphasis added: mine):

"Looking at the server side, I'm not sure this is true. Despite the wide range of options there, including new comers and deaths in the family, server side Linux took off nicely.
Aside from the demographic differences of the target audiences, there are some striking differences between the two markets: 

* there is a general emphasis on stable transition among server side tools
* there is far less 'fork cause i feel like it' behaviour
* there are far fewer significant differences between using distro X for a web server (e.g.)and distro Y than there is between even the same distros on the desktop

I don't think it is the number of distributions; in theory, more distribution channels should mean more opportunities for marketing and a variety of vertically attuned support offerings. 

I think it comes down to the lack of continuity and an emphasis on infighting rather than gathering market. 

This is a deeply embedded cultural norm in Free software on the desktop. GNOME's early days were soaked in this thinking and it just never really stopped. Now we have a further splintering of the desktops with dangerously little thought to the strategic implications and large %s of the Free software desktop using population putting their support behind things that are new despite having untenable futures and being technically deficient relative to the more mature offerings. 

Desktop Linux's own worst enemy has been the desktop Linux community. 

With one or two environments and a focus on application development (a critical matter) rather than getting all excited about which panel looks better on the left side of the screen (which does not gain more market share, people), even with 10x the number of distributions, we would be much further along. Much further. 

Instead, we engaged in a years long battle of mutual tearing down for no benefit, and it continues today. 

With regret, I consider the various new desktop environments, those who enthusiastically support them and all the distributions and environments drifting towards distro/environment specific applications to be unintentional traitors to the goal of spreading Free software on the desktop. 

Short sighted behaviour is sabotaging things, not the number of distros."

Thank you to all the commentators and especially Aaron.  I hope the readership will reflect long and hard on the above.

-- Dietrich

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Don't Compromise. Go with the Best of Breed: Fedora 19

by Dietrich Schmitz

I've been all over the Linux Distro landscape during the past 9 months or so and can now say, without equivocation that Fedora is the best community Distribution, bar none.

In fact, if you've been following the release schedule, Fedora 19 Schrodinger's Cat is due out tomorrow, July 2, 2013.

Seriously, there isn't one single thing I can find bad to say about this Distro.  It has everything going for it and it surpasses all other Distros in breadth of features, community support, and with the backing and financial might of commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

What that gives is confidence that Fedora is going to be around for a very long time.

No, all of the cookie cutter Distros, like Cloverleaf, growing like weeds will come and go as the novelty of playing 'me too' wears off.  The inexperienced young Developers, really should focus their formative years by working with this largest of large community Distros where new cutting-edge technologies first get into production and where much hard learning can be gained.  Don't become a Big Fish in a Little Pond.

Redirect your talent to the best Linux Distribution and help make it a bigger success than it already is.

For everyone else, still, Fedora has much to offer and is out of the box a painless install, and gives all of the basics needed for the general user.

And, add to that the rich YUM repository and you have a great Linux platform.

I've written a separate review of Fedora 19's features here.  Enjoy.

-- Dietrich

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Will Google Launch a PC Operating System?

by Dietrich Schmitz

Don't kid yourself.

If you really think about it, Google can do most anything they want, right?

After all, they are flush with cash to invest and they have shown themselves to be shrewd investors, taking Android as just one example.  That yielded a huge return on investment.

But looking at things from another perspective, Google has risen to the challenge and shown themselves to be as good as Microsoft in pure software innovation.

Google Apps for Business?  Google Apps Engine?  ChromeOS?

And they've shown themselves quite capable of putting together solid OEM agreements and the OEMs are as happy as pigs in $hit--that includes both Android and ChromeOS.

Add to that the newest enhancements put into the Linux kernel which make ChromeOS all the more compatible with internal and external hardware and you see where this is going.

And the most recent announcement for ChromeOS Packaged Apps has just surfaced in May.

It may very well be that Google have designs on packaging up ChromeOS for general retail sale.

Is that so far-fetched an idea?  Not really.  Allow me to explain.

When you come right down to it, there may be millions of users now who understand the perceived risks of using legacy (x86) Windows to do anything on the Internet.  The reputation of Microsoft Windows and its woeful lack of security are sounding like a bell (Stuxnet, spambots, trojans, etc.) and the strata of individuals who are 'experienced' with several years of using Windows surely have an inkling that there might be a problem.

This year's Pwn2Own 2013 showed just how easy it was for hackers to compromise Windows legacy (x86).

And conversely, at the same convention in another hall, the Pwnium 2013 was held with zero contestants being able to fully compromise ChromeOS.  (There was a partially successful attack which was given credit by Google, but not an exploit which took administrative control of the operating system.)

So we have here one operating system, Windows, albeit popular but carries with its use an attendant  high risk of infection and the other, ChromeOS, is for all intents and purposes a veritable impenetrable security fortress.

Add in the ability to install packaged apps, a new forked WebKit, called Blink, and the just announced ability of ChromeOS to edit native Microsoft Office Word and Excel documents (QuickOffice required and DevChannel only).

What do you think would happen if suddenly one day there was an announcement for ChromeOS retail, an ISO download away and with nice point of sale at Walmart, Best Buy, Staples?

I think it would sell like hot cakes.  (Cough) Hit? ;)

-- Dietrich

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Thank You Cloverleaf for the Referrals, If Nothing Else.

by Dietrich Schmitz

I have to laugh.  In reviewing referral sources for the month of June, Cloverleaf-linux.org is quite active.

Thank you so much Cloverleaf Team!

If nothing else, my story, to which you so generously linked, does have merit. (Image credit: bubblews.com)

And, I think those who assess the level of mean-spirited behavior your clan displayed in the comment section confirms what I wrote.

Much of what goes on in many camps, like yours, is ego-driven, opportunistic, and shows little talent.  It is, yet, another cookie cutter Distro in the ever-growing Distrowatch sprawl.

My prediction is that you'll have one year of busy bee work and then everyone will grow tired and then say, "I don't want to play anymore.", and then that will be the end of it.

I give credit to only a few community Distro teams for having the intellectual capacity to drive and move Linux forward.  Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mageia, Gentoo and Arch really do the bulk of the technology grunt work, while the other rag tag teams ride on their coattails and take every opportunity to pat themselves on the back.

Otherwise, it's pure ego fulfillment and much intellectual masturbation prevails in the Linux ecosystem.

Don't like what I write?  Please.  By all means, put up another back-link to it and thank you very much in advance for the referrals and, of course, we mustn't forget, your usual vitriol.

Cheers!

--Dietrich

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