Posts published in “Desktops”

Ethical Hackers Unethically Hacked, Keystroke IDs & More…

By Christine Hall on March 25, 2016 |

Business, Desktops, Distros, Internet, Operating Systems and Security

Ethical Hackers Unethically Hacked, Keystroke IDs & More…

FOSS Week in Review

While Facebook and Google work to better identify you by your typing skills and Red Hat counts the bucks from its best ever year, Ubuntu finally makes it possible to launch from the bottom.

If you depend only on mainstream tech media’s coverage of FOSS, you might be excused for thinking that the biggest news of the week revolved either around Ubuntu’s new summer home in the world of BSD — which isn’t a Canonical project by the way — or Microsoft’s open sourcing of every scrap of code it can find that might benefit Microsoft if it were open sourced.

In my not-so-humble opinion, both of these stories were yawners. Of course somebody’s attempted to create a BSD *buntu. There are already Ubuntu flavors for every single desktop environment known to mankind, as well as a few DEs that are figments of Canonical’s imagination, so where else was there to go but to another operating system? What’s next? Given the way Ubuntu has been cozying up to Microsoft, I’m expecting Ubuntu for Windows.

As for Microsoft’s continuing open sourcing? There’s nothing new here, move on. When Redmond loves Linux and open source enough to quit suing open source projects over patents it claims it has — that will be news.

Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

FOSSForce.com

A Usability Study of GNOME

By FOSS Force Guest Writer on March 23, 2016 |

Desktops, Operating Systems, Software and Tutorial

Gina Dobrescu and Jim Hall

“Thou shalt make thy program’s purpose and structure clear … for thy creativity is better used in solving problems than in creating beautiful new impediments to understanding.”
~ “The Ten Commandments for C Programmers” by Henry Spencer

How easily can you use your computer? Today, the graphical desktop is our primary way of doing things on our computers; we start there to run web browsers, music programs, video players, and even a command line terminal. If the desktop is too difficult to use, if it takes too many steps to do something, or if the cool functionality of the desktop is hidden so you can’t figure out how to use it, then the computer isn’t very useful to you. So it’s very important for the desktop to get it right. The desktop needs to be very easy for everyone to use.

Whenever we think of how easily you can use a program, we’re really talking about the usability of that program. Developers sometimes discount usability and think of usability as making things look nice instead of adding new, useful features. Other times, developers assume usability is too difficult, something that only experts can do. But usability is a very important part of software development.

‘Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’ Turns 20, Opera Fetches $1.2 Billion & More…

By Christine Hall on February 12, 2016 |

Browsers, Community, Desktops, Distros, Internet and News

FOSS Week in Review Two important Internet events happened 20 years ago this week and a web browser gets an unexpected — to us —…

Lumina Desktop Getting Ready for FreeBSD 11.0

Lumina Desktop Getting Ready for FreeBSD 11.0

By Larry Cafiero on February 11, 2016 |

Desktops and News

Larry the BSD Guy

The BSD licensed Lumina Desktop aims to release version 1.0 in July.

It appears the sun is rising on Lumina.

Ken Moore, the lead developer for the BSD-based Lumina Desktop Environment, announced that another step towards the release of a full-fledged desktop environment for BSD variants (and Linux distros, for that matter) has been achieved with the release of version 0.8.8 yesterday.

For those of you keeping score at home, the Lumina Desktop Environment — let’s just call it Lumina for short — is a lightweight, XDG-compliant, BSD-licensed desktop environment focusing on getting work done while minimizing system overhead. Specifically designed for PC-BSD and FreeBSD, it has also been ported to many other BSD variants and Linux distros. Lumina is based on the Qt graphical toolkit and the Fluxbox window manager, and uses a small number of X utilities for various tasks.

Larry Cafiero

Larry Cafiero is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate and is involved in several FOSS projects. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero

Distro or Desktop? You Say Both

Distro or Desktop? You Say Both

By FOSS Force on January 29, 2016 |

Desktops, Distros and Polls

The FOSS Force Poll

Inquiring minds wanted to know, so we asked. When choosing what to run on a machine — we’re talking computing machines running GNU/Linux here — what’s more important, the choice of distro or which desktop environment to run? We began asking the question among ourselves several weeks back when we were running our “best distro” poll and a few commenters observed that the desktop might be a more important metric for most users, since it’s the desktop that supplies the interface with which the user interacts. Good point, we thought.

So we put it to you in a poll that asked, “Which matters most to you: The GNU/Linux distribution you use or the desktop environment?” The poll went up on Sunday and on Monday we published an article introducing it. The poll concluded this morning, shortly after midnight EST.

Which is More Important: Distro, Desktop…or Something Else?

Which is More Important: Distro, Desktop…or Something Else?

By FOSS Force on January 25, 2016 |

Desktops, Distros and Polls

The FOSS Force Poll

A couple of weeks back when we ran our two part GNU/Linux distro poll, a couple of commenters made a single point that, at first glance, seemed valid.

It’s not the distro that’s important to most users, they said, because most users don’t interact with the distro itself as they work and play on their Linux machines. Instead, the average user’s direct interaction with a computer is primarily through the desktop environment, whether that be KDE, GNOME, Unity or something they rolled on their own on a Friday night instead of having a boys’ or girls’ night out.

In other words, they opined, it’s the desktop, and not the distro, which represents the operating system — or even the entire computer — to most users.

Linux: When Uniformity is Good

Linux: When Uniformity is Good

By Ken Starks on October 20, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

We’ve been in this bid’ness for ten years now. The business of giving Linux-powered computers to kids who cannot afford this technology, or any technology for that matter. And so far so good. There have been some lessons learned along the way. Some of those lessons small but valuable. Some of those lessons so painful that we had no choice but to change the way we do things. And never doubt…there were uh, spirited discussions about this change. Yeah, we’ll stick to “spirited”. I’ve been to football matches in Great Britain and Germany that couldn’t come close to such levels of “spirit.” So which thing could bring about this measure of “spirited” discussion?

The Linux desktop environment. Environments such as Unity, KDE, Mate, Cinnamon, etc.

These environments all have their strengths and their weaknesses, just like any number of things you might put up for comparison. But this business of desktop environments, well…there are a lot of moving parts here. A lot of things to consider, and most importantly, the mechanics that lead us to our decision to use one environment over the other.

Ken Starks

Ken Starks is the founder of the Helios Project and Reglue, which for 20 years provided refurbished older computers running Linux to disadvantaged school kids, as well as providing digital help for senior citizens, in the Austin, Texas area. He was a columnist for FOSS Force from 2013-2016, and remains part of our family. Follow him on Twitter: @Reglue

linuxlock.blogspot.com/

Running Linux Mint 17.2 Xfce

By Christine Hall on August 31, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros, Operating Systems, Reviews and Tutorial

Linux Mint Logo The good guys and gals at Linux Mint are on a roll, with three long-term support (LTS) releases in a row. It all started back in May of last year, with the release of 17.0, called Qiana, followed in January by 17.1, Rebecca. At that point it looked as if we’d hit the jackpot and could sit back and relax for at least a couple of years until the next LTS release, but the Mint folks had other plans and introduced yet another LTS, 17.2, Rafaela, this summer.

Although Rafaela with the “official” Cinnamon and MATE desktops came out at the end of June, those who prefer KDE or Xfce had to wait until the end of July for Mint to get those editions polished and ready for prime time. That’s okay. The Mint folks don’t like to release versions that still need work, which is one of the reasons why the distro remains the most popular desktop version of Linux on the planet.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

A User’s Eye View of Bodhi 3.1.0 & Moksha

By Christine Hall on August 21, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros, Operating Systems and Reviews

The Bodhi development folks have been busy bees since lead developer Jeff Hoogland returned to retake his place beneath the Bodhi tree. First, there was the release of version 3.0.0 back in February. Then, a couple of weeks ago came the release of 3.1.0. Although this might be supposed to be a “minor” point grade release, it’s a “big deal” according to the distro’s website. Why? Because it introduces a new desktop called Moksha.

A new desktop for Bodhi might seem crazy, even heretical, since Bodhi has always been about the Enlightenment desktop. This has never been a distro for running KDE, GNOME, or any other desktop but Enlightenment. Sure, running another desktop could certainly be done, but it would be silly, as Bodhi has always been designed from the ground up to be a showcase for the simple elegance of Enlightenment. Running anything else on Bodhi would be akin to buying a bucket of Colonel Sanders’ Original Recipe and trying to fix it up to taste like Bojangles’.

Christine Hall

FOSSForce.com

Moksha: Just an Enlightenment Fork or the Birth of a new Desktop?

Moksha: Just an Enlightenment Fork or the Birth of a new Desktop?

By Christine Hall on August 20, 2015 |

Desktops, Distros and Operating Systems

When Bodhi Linux came out with version 3.1.0 a week or so ago, the distro’s founder and lead developer, Jeff Hoogland, made it clear on the Bodhi website that this was a milestone release.

“This release is a bigger deal for the Bodhi team than our previous update releases have been in the past,” he wrote. “The reason for this is because this release is the first to use the Moksha Desktop which we have forked from E17. Because it is built on the rock solid foundation that E17 provides, even this first release of the Moksha Desktop is stable and is something I feel comfortable using in a production environment.”

Learning of this, and being a big Bodhi fan, I was eager to download and install this new version to take the newly forked desktop for a spin, which I did earlier this week.