Tuesday, December 27, 2016

onyx-silver

Debian 8 ("Jessie") doesn't have a huge number of available Openbox themes, but creating a new Openbox theme from an existing one takes only a few minutes. System-wide themes are stored in the /usr/share/themes directory, and user-specific themes can be placed in ~/.local/share/themes. Just look for the themerc config file. The config file uses hexadecimal color codes, and of course one can find a number of sites out there for picking hex codes and viewing the corresponding colors.

I've been using the Onyx theme, which uses shades of blue for the selected menu items. The following shot shows the Onyx theme in the Openbox Configuration Manager (aka "obconf"), with my right-click desktop menu opened up:


To create a new theme called Onyx-Silver, I copied the /usr/share/themes/Onyx directory to ~/.local/share/themes, renamed the new directory as ~/.local/share/themes/Onyx-Silver, and edited the ~/.local/share/themes/Onyx-Silver/openbox-3/themerc file as follows.

Changed:

!! Selected menu item
menu.items.active.bg: raised splitvertical gradient
menu.items.active.bg.color: #6d95de
menu.items.active.bg.colorTo: #2b829d
menu.items.active.text.color: #f8f8f8


To:

!! Selected menu item
menu.items.active.bg: raised splitvertical gradient
menu.items.active.bg.color: #a5a5a5
menu.items.active.bg.colorTo: #929292
menu.items.active.text.color: #f8f8f8


As well, I changed the color of the window buttons when the cursor is hovering over them.

Changed:

!! Window buttons
window.*.button.*.bg: parentrelative
window.active.button.*.hover.bg: flat splitvertical gradient border
window.inactive.button.*.hover.bg: parentrelative
window.*.button.*.pressed.bg: flat splitvertical gradient border

window.active.button.*.hover.bg.color: #398dc6
window.active.button.*.hover.bg.colorTo: #236d83
window.active.button.*.hover.bg.border.color: #236d83


To:

!! Window buttons
window.*.button.*.bg: parentrelative
window.active.button.*.hover.bg: flat splitvertical gradient border
window.inactive.button.*.hover.bg: parentrelative
window.*.button.*.pressed.bg: flat splitvertical gradient border

window.active.button.*.hover.bg.color: #c5c5c5
window.active.button.*.hover.bg.colorTo: #878989
window.active.button.*.hover.bg.border.color: #236d83



Then I simply saved the file and ran obconf, where the new theme was available to select.


For more info on Openbox theme specifications, see: http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Themes

Monday, December 26, 2016

yin and yang - shadow cannot exist without light

 From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang:

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang ... describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many tangible dualities (such as light and dark, fire and water, expanding and contracting) are thought of as physical manifestations of the duality symbolized by yin and yang...

...Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (rather than opposing) forces that interact to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the assembled parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation. The yin yang (i.e. taijitu symbol) shows a balance between two opposites with a portion of the opposite element in each section.

In Taoist metaphysics, distinctions between good and bad, along with other dichotomous moral judgments, are perceptual, not real; so, the duality of yin and yang is an indivisible whole...



Monday, December 19, 2016

back: the silver and black

With Sunday's 19-16 victory at San Diego, the Oakland Raiders clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 2002, which was the last time the Raiders won an NFL title. They can clinch the AFC West by winning their last two games (at home vs. the Colts, then at Denver), but if they falter they could lose out to the Kansas City Chiefs for the division title based on the head-to-head tiebreaker (the Chiefs beat the Raiders twice this season).


some key performers:

- Derek Carr, QB, 63,5% pass completions, 3705 passing yards, 25 TDs against 6 INTs.

- Latavius Murray, RB, 737 rushing yards, 4.2 yards per carry, 12 rushing TDs.

- Amari Cooper, WR, 74 receptions, 1038 receiving yards, 4 TD catches.

- Michael Crabtree, WR: 77 receptions, 866 receiving yards, 8 TD catches.

tearin' it up early

A couple of guards getting off to good starts early this season in the NBA:

Russell Westbrook, Oklahoma City. Westbrook leads the league in points per game (30.4); he's dishing out 11.0 assists per game, good enough for 2nd in the league; and when you include his 10.5 rebounds per game, he's averaging a triple-double -- nobody's done that for an entire season since Oscar Robertson, back in the 60s! Westbrook has collected 13 triple-doubles so far this season. He had 18 triple-doubles last season, tying Magic Johnson's mark from the 1981-82 season (Robertson had 41 back in '61-'62).

Classic shot of Oscar Robertson playing college ball at Cincinnati

James Harden, Houston. Harden is the league's 5th-leading scorer, pouring in 27.7 points per game, and he leads the league in assists (11.8). He's also been grabbing 8.0 rebounds per game. Not bad.

These two guys also hold the top two spots in the league in free throw attempts (Westbrook - 10.4, Harden - 10.3). Both guys shoot well from the charity stripe -- Westbrook is hitting on about 81% of his tries and Harden comes in a few notches higher, at about 84%. Thus, Harden leads the league in free throws made per game (8.6) and Westbrook stands 3rd at 8.4. The ability to get to the line often -- and to collect lots of "free" points -- qualifies as an art form, one that separates the elite players from the rest.

I don't know if Westbrook and Harden can continue to put up these numbers throughout the entire season. Probably not. Westbrook's triple-double numbers certainly impress, and probably make him the leading MVP candidate so far, but I'm amazed that Harden is scoring so much while also leading the NBA in assists! I didn't think he had it in him!

* * *

Side note: Cleveland's LeBron James is quietly putting up some killer numbers of his own, and for one of the NBA's elite teams (the Cavs currently sport a 19-6 won/loss record, third-best in the league): 25.0 ppg, 9.0 apg, 7.6 rpg, 51.7% shooting from the field, 35.2% on 3-point tries. Outstanding, and still (perhaps) the best all-around player in pro basketball.

The Powerful LeBron James

* * *

Early-season sharp-shooting:

Steph Curry, Golden State: 3.8 made 3-pointers per game, tops in the league. Curry's shooting 40.3% on 9.4 three-point tries per game. He's also 2nd in the league in free throw percentage (93.2% on 5.2 tries per game). Blazing!

Kevin Durant, Golden State: Burying 53.8% of his shots from the field, 40.9% of his three-point tries, and 86.2% from the free throw line. Those numbers make me think of a guy named Larry Bird.

Courtney Lee, Knicks: 45.4% FGs, 86.4% FTs, 47.4% 3-pointers.

Channing Frye, in limited minutes with Cleveland: 44.6% FGs, 94.1% FTs, 47.1% 3-pointers.

George Hill, Utah: 53.4% FGs, 88.4% FTs, 45.6% 3-pointers.

C.J. McCollum, Portland: 47.8% FGs, 90.8% FTs, 45.5% 3-pointers.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

fluxbox, simple and clean

Finally got Fluxbox installed and set up in openSUSE "Leap" 42.2. Here's what the default Fluxbox desktop looked like:


I basically used notes and copies of files from my Fluxbox installation in openSUSE 42.1 (see "fluxbox in leap") for reference. Here's my current Fluxbox desktop in Leap 42.2:


more ink for mx

Like MX-15, the newly-released MX-16 is based on Debian Jessie; so, for now, I'll stick with the earlier release, which I run from a flash drive sometimes.

The MX-16 release announcement at DistroWatch: https://www.distrowatch.com/?newsid=09669

The "official" MX-16 release announcement can be found here.

Also, here's an interesting piece: Dedoimedo interviews: MX Linux team

tinkering with openbox

My Openbox setups continue to evolve. Here's my current BunsenLabs desktop, with a reorganized menu; I've edited my conky and added a conky calendar:



I put a "start-stop-conky" item in my "openbox" submenu, which toggles my conkys off and on by running the ~/start-stop-conky script:

#!/bin/sh
# start or stop conky - click to start, click to stop
 
if pidof conky | grep [0-9] > /dev/null
   then
      exec killall conky
   else
      conky &
      conky -c /home/steve/.conkyrc-2
   exit
fi




My ~/.conkyrc-2 file contains the following (for the conky calendar):

alignment bottom_right
background no
border_width 1
cpu_avg_samples 2
default_color white
default_outline_color white
default_shade_color black
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
draw_outline no
draw_shades yes
use_xft yes
xftfont DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12
gap_x 15
gap_y 25
minimum_size 5 5
maximum_width 205
net_avg_samples 2
no_buffers yes
out_to_console no
out_to_stderr no
extra_newline no
double_buffer yes
own_window yes
own_window_class Conky
own_window_type desktop
own_window_transparent no
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_colour 000000
own_window_argb_value 155
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
stippled_borders 0
update_interval 1.0
uppercase no
use_spacer none
show_graph_scale no
show_graph_range no

TEXT

$color ${font DejaVu Sans Mono:size=12}${execpi 60 DJS=`date +%_d`; cal -h | sed s/"\(^\|[^0-9]\)$DJS"'\b'/'\1${color gold}'"$DJS"'$color'/}




A similar setup in Antergos (on the same computer), but with a few launchers down near the bottom of the tint2 panel, and a somewhat different menu layout:



Here, a look back at the default Openbox setups I snapped earlier in BunsenLabs and Antergos, respectively:




Both distros ship with nice setups. Very few self-respecting Openbox users will stick with the default setups. If you use Openbox, you tinker; it's what you do. :)

Monday, November 28, 2016

again, the gecko - leap 42.2

I replaced openSUSE "Leap" 42.1 with a fresh installation of the newly released 42.2 (I downloaded openSUSE-Leap-42.2-DVD-x86_64.iso). openSUSE no longer offers a live session iso; there's a full, DVD-sized installation iso, well over 4 GB, and a network installation iso (see: https://software.opensuse.org/422/en).


I went with a fresh installation instead of an in-place upgrade. Desktop choices offered by the installer: KDE, GNOME, Server (Text Mode), Xfce, Minimal X Window, and Enlightenment. I chose the KDE Plasma desktop, which is at version 5.8.3 in openSUSE 42.2.

After about 30 minutes with the excellent openSUSE installer, I booted into KDE Plasma 5, in Folder View:


Nice, but of course I had to come up with my own setup:



As with the previous release, the KDE installation of openSUSE 42.2 provides a login option for the IceWM window manager, for when you're in the mood for a lightweight setup:


I'll probably add Fluxbox eventually, but there's enough to explore in the KDE and IceWM setups to keep me happy for now.

I was reluctant to replace 42.1; that release was working great for me. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I enjoy doing Linux installations, so I took the plunge, and openSUSE 42.2 hasn't disappointed. openSUSE is still one of the best Linux distros out there.

The release has a support life cycle of about 18 months, but the next Leap release is expected in November 2017.


Jesse Smith's review of openSUSE 42.2 at DistroWatch: https://www.distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20161128#opensuse

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

linux hardware guide

"The Linux-Hardware-Guide provides a data base of hardware and investigates the Linux compatibility of the equipment."

http://www.linux-hardware-guide.com/


Sunday, November 20, 2016

fresh antergos

Antergos "iso refresh" announced: https://forum.antergos.com/topic/5489/iso-refresh-2016-11-20

As can be seen at the Antergos blog's news page, these .isos drop on a fairly regular and frequent basis, which is very nice.

searching bash history

Something I didn't know about until recently: For a reverse search of the commands in bash history, press the ctrl+R key combination. Pressing ctrl+R again takes you to the previous command in bash history. "Enter" to run the command. ctrl+G quits the search.


Perhaps even more useful, use grep to find each command in bash history that includes a given string. For example:

$ history | grep pacman

Or better yet, if you need to quote a string:

$ history | grep 'sudo pacman -S'


Then you can run the desired command from the resulting list by using this simple trick:

!n: Expand to command with history number "n"


For example, the following will find command No. 70 in my bash history (see screenshot, above) and run sudo pacman -Syu:

$ !70

from spain, antergos

I downloaded the Arch-derived Antergos (antergos-2016.10.23-x86_64.iso) and installed it in a multi-boot setup on one of my computers. The Antergos installer lets the user choose between Cinnamon, GNOME, KDE, MATE, Openbox, and Xfce desktops; I went with Openbox.

The default Openbox setup keeps things simple: right-click anywhere on the desktop to access the Openbox menu; there's a tint2 panel at the top, a dock (Plank) at the bottom center, and a basic, gray background -- boring and uninspiring, just the way Openbox-lovers like it. :)



Once installed, running Antergos is supposed to be the same as running Arch. We'll see. The Pamac GUI shows me that a handful of software packages come from the Antergos repository, which can be disabled. The other repos shown are official Arch repos:



For the most part, I'm in the "if you want Arch, install Arch" camp; you get a "cleaner" Arch system and you have a lot more control over what gets installed than you will if you go with an Arch derivative. Still, Arch derivatives (thinking of some I've run in the past, like ArchBang and Bridge Linux) can be great not only for folks who want to get a feel for what Arch is all about, but also for somewhat experienced Arch users who simply want a quick and easy Arch-based system installation.

With Antergos, you basically have to download the .iso, get it onto a flash drive, boot up, run the installer. I didn't find much good documentation at the Antergos site, but I did find a few nice guides (with screenshots) online. They're easy to find; for example: http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2016/08/an-everyday-linux-user-review-of.html

I think the Antergos site needs a nice installation guide along those lines. For post-installation documentation and help, the Arch wiki (they should provide a link to that!) and the Antergos forums should suffice.

Post-install, Antergos is ready to go "out-of-the-box" -- although some things might need to be added by the user, like maybe LibreOffice or whatever. To update the system, Antergos has the Pamac Update Manager available:



Or one can simply use pacman from the command line normally, as with Arch. Whatever the approach, the user should check the Arch homepage for important announcements before bringing in system updates.

I got rid of the Plank dock, went with a different tint2 panel setuup, edited the menu, added a few of my favorite apps (and some wallpapers!), tweaked a few other things, and came up with a desktop that works better for me:




Kinda bloated, perhaps, but quite crisp and snappy in action, as to be expected with Openbox.

Here's a link to DistroWatch's Antergos page: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=antergos

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

mx at wikipedia

New Wikipedia page for MX Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MX_Linux



Monday, October 31, 2016

mx community site

The redesigned MX Community website: https://mxlinux.org/


Nicely done!

Sunday, October 30, 2016

flash-knoppix

flash-knoppix command usage:

$ flash-knoppix --help
Usage: /usr/bin/flash-knoppix [-a] [-f] [-m i|p|n] [-p mb] [image|dir] [target_device]
       -a            Allow fixed disks
       -f            Force overwrite, no questions (batch mode)
       -m i          Method: Create overlay image
       -m p          Method: Create overlay partition (recommended)
       -m n          Method: No overlay (read only)
       -p mb         Overlay partition or image size in MB >= 200
       image.iso     Loopmount source ISO file
       dir           Source data directory containing files
       target_device Destination block device (flash disk)


The corresponding window in the flash-knoppix GUI displays the following:

Please select installation method:
p Installation on FAT32 with additional overlay partition.
i Installation on FAT32 with (optional) overlay file [less than 4GB].

n  No Overlay (read-only like CD/DVD).

I've been going with option p, which gives me an installation of the compressed filesystem in /dev/sdb1 (FAT32) and the persistent memory in /dev/sdb2 (ReiserFS).

Here's a look at the flash drive in GParted, from Debian Jessie:




Here's what fdisk -l shows about /dev/sdb, the flash drive, when run from the live session:

Disk /dev/sdb: 7.5 GiB, 8004304896 bytes, 15633408 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0xe01e57cc


Device     Boot    Start      End  Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdb1  *        2048 10518527 10516480    5G  c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/sdb2       10518528 15633407  5114880  2.4G 83 Linux



And here's a view of the contents of the /KNOPPIX-DATA directory on sdb2 of the flash drive, from SpaceFM in Debian Jessie:



Saturday, October 29, 2016

knoppix live

I played around with Knoppix live CDs when I was first starting out with Linux. Knoppix sold me on Linux more than anything else did. I decided to take another look at Knoppix this week; the live session is still great for "demo" purposes, and of course it's also a great maintenance/rescue tool to have sitting around in the toolbox.

I downloaded KNOPPIX_7.7.1DVD-2016-10-22-EN.iso, the English language Knoppix 7.7.1. It's a hefty 4.3GB download.

Supposedly, you can now run flash-knoppix [iso name] from within another distro (from Debian, for example) to get Knoppix onto a flash drive. I didn't find any good documentation for this procedure, so I didn't try it. But users can also run flash-knoppix from within a running Knoppix live session, and that does a fine job of creating the bootable Knoppix flash drive.

Or you can order a flash drive from an online vendor such as OSDisc:



The default LXDE desktop in Knoppix 7.7.1:



LXDE is the default desktop, but GNOME and KDE sessions are available. The GNOME session failed to boot up for me, but I did get a KDE Plasma 5 session with the knoppix desktop=kde boot option. For some reason, there are no application icons on the default panel, but the Application Launcher works ok. Here's KDE in Knoppix 7.7.1:



Knoppix is loaded with apps -- probably more apps than I've seen shipped with any other distro. The Accessories submenu alone contains too many items to show in one screen shot:



Here's a link to the release announcement at DistroWatch: https://www.distrowatch.com/?newsid=09610

You'll want to check out the release notes, for sure: http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix771-en.html

Monday, October 24, 2016

live linux for rescue and maintenance

In my previous post about Linux live sessions ("low-cost linux, no commitment"), I mentioned that many distros have live sessions that are great for system maintenance, data recovery, drive partitioning, etc. An article at linuxandubuntu.com ("Top 5 Linux System Rescue CDs") mentions Hiren's Boot CD, Rescatux, Ultimate Boot CD, Tiny Rescue Kit, and SystemRescueCD.

For partitioning, sometimes I like to download the latest GParted Live.

Quite a few other distros ship a lot of useful tools with their live sessions -- Ubuntu, MX, and BunsenLabs, to name a few.

For example, in BunsenLabs (bl-Hydrogen-amd64_20160710.iso), I find:

defualt file manager: Thunar
default text editor: Geany
default web browser: Firefox ESR 45.2.0
default terminal emulator: Terminator



Also present are gparted and the usual collection of command line tools like parted, rsync, fdisk, cp, dd, nano, man pages, etc.

Some tools under the System submenu:



Some online info under the Help submenu:



With tools like these and more, live sessions from distros like Ubuntu, MX, BunsenLabs, and many others can be very nice to have sitting around on a flash drive for when you need to do some serious system work.

low-cost linux, no commitment

If you want to run Linux on our own computer, without it costing you anything (except perhaps the cost of a flash drive) and without it changing anything on your own system, there are two things you'll have to do first, and both of them will probably require a little research on your part:

1. Get a flash drive, anything 2 GB capacity or higher. Make it into a bootable Linux flash drive, choosing from any of a (very large) number of Linux distributions (maybe have a look at DistroWatch). I use Ubuntu and MX in the examples below, but other distros might be preferable -- Linux Mint, Knoppix, or Puppy Linux, to name a few. You'll want to refer to the specific distro's documentation for instructions on making the bootable flash drive.

2. Adjust the boot order in your computer's BIOS settings so that your computer boots from a flash drive if one's plugged in. You'll have to refer to documentation from your computer's manufacturer for info about accessing and changing BIOS settings.


After that, the rest is cake. Most of the time. Depends.


Anyway,  just turn off your computer, plug in the flash drive, and boot the computer.

If, for example, you chose to boot with a flash drive with Ubuntu on it, and then you clicked on the "Try Ubuntu" button, in a few seconds you'd be running a "live" Ubuntu session:



A distro like Ubuntu should pick up your wifi, or you can use ethernet, whatever. Shouldn't be much trouble to get online. First thing I do, open up Firefox and go to Gmail:



With a live Linux session, you can explore and learn about how things work in Linux.  Here, I've inserted another flash drive (named "ARCH_201311") and I'm viewing its contents with Files, Ubuntu's file manager:



With two tabs open in Files, I can copy the screenshots I'm using for this post to the flash drive ARCH_201311.



Or you can just open a web browser and handle your biz.



A shot of the MX-15 live session in action:



With Firefox, I can access Google Drive and other Google Apps, of course.



Here, I created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets, then saved a copy of the spreadsheet into the live session itself:



Whatever, once you shut down the system and remove the flash drive, you'll be able to boot your computer as normal.


(Also: Many distros have live sessions that are great for system maintenance, data recovery, drive partitioning, etc., but that's another topic.)

Monday, October 17, 2016

the linux filesystem hierarchy

For a description of the Linux filesystem hierarchy, users can refer to the man hier document that's found among the manual pages that come with most Linux systems. This document can also be found online (see, for example: http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man7/hier.7.html).

From the command line:

$ man hier


Sunday, October 9, 2016

after a certain point, what's the point?

Michigan 78, Rutgers 0. Go Blue.

UofM led Rutgers 57-0 after three quarters.

When one football team leads another by 45 or 50 points, what purpose does it serve to further humiliate the other team like that? 78-0? Really? One of the more disgusting aspects of sports, IMO.

According to Wikipedia, college football does have a "mercy rule." Why it wasn't invoked during this game is beyond me, but in any case, it's actually a lame mercy rule, rarely used:

The National Collegiate Athletic Association's mercy rule provides that "Any time during the game, the playing time of any remaining period or periods and the intermission between halves may be shortened by mutual agreement of the opposing head coaches and the referee." (NCAA Football Rule 3-2-2-a)

(from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercy_rule)


New Mexico high school football has a 50-point mercy rule: If any team leads by 50 or more after halftime, the game's over. I like that. Elsewhere, they'll either shorten the game by having fewer minutes in the quarters after the game gets out of reach, or by having a running clock.

Many football coaches and hard-core football fans don't like the idea. For example, I don't think Texas has a mercy rule for high school football. I'm not surprised.

Ironically, here's a quote from Rutgers coach Kyle Flood, from back in 2013, speaking against mercy rules: "I think when you're fortunate to be in a game and you have a lead that you feel the other team can't recover form, the next thing you can do that is productive for your football team is to develop your younger players ... It's still game experience against an unknown opponent. When you get your chances, you want to take advantage of it."

Uh-huh. Flood was fired at the end of last season; not sure how current Rutgers coach Chris Ash feels about mercy rules after yesterday's game...

Wednesday, October 5, 2016

the prez looks back

Articulate and thoughtful as always, Mr. Barack Obama reflects on some of the key milestones of his time in office:

Five Days That Shaped a Presidency: Barack Obama shares with Jonathan Chait a very early draft of his memoirs.

pale moon, ftw

Over the past few weeks, I've gotten the open source Pale Moon web browser installed on my Linux systems. I haven't seen any reason for not keeping it as my primary web browser.

I'm finding Pale Moon to be faster than Firefox and Chromium. The configuration options suit me quite well. I have not encountered problems at any websites, so far.

I'm using Pale Moon with only two add-ons: Xmarks, for syncing my bookmarks, and uBlock Origin, for ad-blocking.

Pale Moon's default search engine is DuckDuckGo, which is my preferred search engine. Excellent choice. I can use DuckDuckGo !bang codes if I really want to use other search engines; for example, !g if I want to "Google it." (Meh. Instead of using Google, I'd rather go with StartPage, which can be easily accessed via DuckDuckGo using the !s !bang code.) (See https://duckduckgo.com/bang for more info about DDG !bang codes.)

I've seen only a few things that I don't like, but none of them qualify as "show-stoppers," in my book. The biggest drawback is that Pale Moon has not been made available in the main repos of any of the distros I use, so I've had to go outside the repos for installation and updates. This has not turned out to be much of a problem; pminstaller, downloaded from the Pale Moon website, works great. That's what I'm using for installation and updates in Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu, as well as in openSUSE. For Arch, I grabbed Pale Moon from AUR, and I've used yaourt to keep it updated.

After downloading pminstaller, I've extracted the tarball to my home directory; I enter the pminstaller directory and run the pminstaller.sh script from there. In the Debian-based systems, the script prompts for the sudo password, so I had to make sure that the /etc/sudoers file was appropriately configured. Here's a look at Pale Moon for Linux Installer v0.2.2:



Pale Moon's devs prefer to ship the browser with a default set-up that includes a menu bar, tabs placed next to web page content (instead of at or near the top of the browser), a location bar as well as a search bar, and a status bar along the bottom.

To give myself more space in the content window, I get rid of the menu bar and the status bar. The status bar options allow me to "Show status in" a pop-up at the bottom-left corner of the window; I set it to display for only 10 seconds before disappearing.

An option in the Preferences allows me to move the tabs to the top.




I prefer not to have both a location bar and a search bar; I'm too used to Chromium's Omnibar set-up, I guess, which combines both functions. The search bar in Pale Moon can easily be removed by opening up the the Toolbar Layout and dragging the search bar into the Customize Toolbar window. This works much the same as removing items from the toolbar in Firefox.

The location bar works fine for searching, for the most part; in situations where it doesn't, I can go directly to DuckDuckGo in another tab, or even use !ddg right there in the location bar to search with DuckDuckGo.

Tabs in Pale Moon aren't quite as cool as in Chromium, and you can't do all the stuff you can do with Tab Mix Plus in Firefox, but about the only problem I have with the way Pale Moon's tabs work is that I see no way to open a tab next to the current tab, unless it's "related" to the current tab. No biggie. Anyway, here's a shot of the tabs options in Pale Moon:




Pale Moon is, of course, also available for Windows and Mac, for those poor, unfortunate souls who use versions of those operating systems. :)

Pale Moon as I have it set up in Arch: