Monthly Archives: July 2012

Xubuntu 12.04

So I have been using Xubuntu 12.04 for a few days now.  Oddly enough, I think I like the Xfce desktop more so then unity and probably gnome3 … although gnome3 isn't bad.  I also installed it to a USB stick, so I can take my desktop around with me to almost any computer.  So far so good, but I'm getting a faster USB Flash drive to help out load performance and performance in general if I'm doing too much (like lots of chormium tabs open).  Xubuntu also seems to be glitching less.  For some reason Ubuntu 12.04 kept crashing a few things, especially empathy connecting to authorize my chat logins (facebook / gtalk).  Since xubuntu uses Pidgin, no problems, although I remember reading it saves passwords in plain text… so I did encrypt my home directory.  I also encrypted it because it is on a USB stick, and I didn't want to lose it and have some one get complete access to all my files!  

I found out a few other cool things today!  Like holding down the Alt and right mouse button and dragging from inside a window will actually resize it.  So you dont have to try and perfectly put the mouse on a corner or side!  SOO much easier.  I can't tell you how annoyed I got trying to resize something on a 1080p monitor with a decently sensitive mouse.  Finding cool things like this reminds me of the more time you invest in figuring out Linux in general, the more you are rewarded.  At first glance, you may not want to ditch windows or Mac for any variant of Linux, but the more time you spending learning about it, the more your going to love it!  The 3 bigest things I love about linux are

1.  Loads of choice!  There are thousands of apps you can use, to tweak the intire OS.  I love the fact you can install multiple desktop interfaces (gnome, xfce, unity, etc) and just pick what ever one you feel like using on logon.  

2.  #1 works right into #2, which is customization.  Most of any distro is Free Open Source Software, which means you can tweak the software any way you want.  This gives even more choice with all your choices!

3.  The majority of Linux software does not cost money! Only time to figure out and learn to use to its maximum potential.  

 

Remember kids, Linux is free to download, distribute and use.  It can also be run directly off the CD to try out or a USB stick.  So start playing around with it and have some fun!  Technology is cool 😀  

 

Been awhile since a post!

Its been a while since my last post so… thought I'll just do a random post with misc. Updates. 

For starters, I am now using Ubuntu 12.04 as my primary OS for general use.  Its not bad, but it does crash randomly… not completely, in fact it seems to be mostly the google part of empathy, but also some random other stuff but not nearly as noticable (says chromium crashes, but it didn't).  I am also using Gnome 3 as my primary UI, as it seems more responsive and I like how it works more then Unity.  I also had issues with the nvidia close source driver, so I went back to the reverse engineered open source driver and it works better… in compatibility not performance.  

Hmm Proxmox has come out with 2.1 as well, which is a awesome upgrade over 1.9.  I have setup 2 of "servers" with it and clustered them (not with HA though… need extra equipment).  Its pretty awesome how its all laid out, and having the ability to "backup now" instead of trying to set a temporary backup a few min ahead is nice ^_^  

My friend matt has re-light my interest in Seti / boinc and I have setup a VM on both my Proxmox servers that run boinc now.  Should start cranking out a few more units (before it was pretty much just running on my step dads computer).  

Lastly for this post, I have got a e-reader (Kindle touch) and have been reading about liquid thorium reactors (safe nuclear energy).  Its actually really interesting and can solve a lot of the problems we have with current nuclear reactors (uranium light water reactors).  Other books I have been reading include Windows Server 2008 R2, Ubuntu desktop / server book (the "Official" ones).  

Any who, I'll try and get something "cooler" to post later.