The user revolts against KDE 4, GNOME 3, and Unity have left desktop Linux developers with a fear of innovation, exactly when that's what's needed.
Posts tagged as “Xfce”
After you get Linux up and running on your computer, there are still a few things left to do. Here’s a short list that newcomers might find helpful.
Linux for Newcomers
Those who are new to Linux might just go to work right away after installing, or having someone else install, GNU/Linux. However, there are a few things you should do first. Some of them, such as updating your system and activating the firewall, are essential. Others are just things you do to customize your Linux experience.
Here’s a short checklist of things to do after you get Linux up-and-running on your computer. You should consider the first two items on this list as being required, with all the other items being optional. The list is specific to Linux Mint 18.x Xfce Edition, so if you’re using another flavor of Linux, you’ll be better off searching for another list.
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
With Linux Mint Xfce 18.1 “Serena” due to be released any day now, we decided it was too late for a full review of Mint Xfce 18.0 “Sarah,” and opted instead for this down-and-dirty “nonreview.”
The FOSS Force Review Nonreview
Oh, drat. I’ve done gone and procrastinated too much again.
Shortly after Clem Lefebvre and his buddies released the Xfce edition of Mint 18 — that’s “Sarah” for those who prefer names to numbers — I installed it on one of the laptops I keep at the office so I could write a review. I even took the laptop with me to All Things Open in late October to give it a good workout — which I did writing my coverage of the conference for “another website.”
I never did get around to writing the review, but it’s always been on the back burner. I’d get it written before the next version of Mint is released, I figured.
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
Also included: Canonical joins The Document Foundations advisory board, Chromium coming to Fedora, OpenVZ now a complete Linux distro and GNU Linux-libre Kernel 4.7 released.
FOSS Week in Review
It’s not FOSS, but I reckon the biggest story in tech this week, ignoring claims of Russia hacking for Trump, is the sale of Yahoo to Verizon for $4.8 billion. Considering that traffic watcher Alexa says the site is the fifth most visited address on the web, that seems like something of a bargain to me. Add to that Yahoo’s prime Silicon Valley real estate and the price seems to be in the “it fell of the truck” category. The sale puts Verizon in control of both America Online and Yahoo, so I suspect we’ll be seeing Verizon trying to compete with Google and Bing for a share of the search advertising market.
Meanwhile in the world of FOSS…
LibreOffice has been in the news this week. The big story, which we first heard on Tuesday, is that Canonical has joined The Document Foundation’s advisory board. In case you’re new in town, TDF is the nonprofit that controls the development of LibreOffice.
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
Larry the BSD Guy
While the entire BSD world has been buzzing over Ubuntu’s BSD release, the FreeNAS project has been busy releasing version 9.10 as a major precursor to version 10.
Most of the attention this week has been around the release of UbuntuBSD, which in and of itself is a noble effort for those who want to escape from systemd, as the developers have dubbed it according to Phoronix. This manifestation joins Ubuntu 15.10 Wile E. Coyote — sorry, Wily Werewolf — to the Free BSD 10.1 kernel.
To its credit, UbuntuBSD uses Xfce as its default desktop. It also joins a list of other marriages between Linux distros and the BSD kernel: Debian GNU/kFreeBSD, ArchBSD (now PacBSD), Gentoo/BSD and others along the FOSS highway. It’s worth a look and we’ll be giving it a test drive sometime soon.
But for now, there’s a more interesting and significant development in the BSD realm rising on the horizon.
Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero
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 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