Wednesday, January 22, 2014
mx-14 beta 1
The first beta for MX-14 is up. This is a Mepis/antiX collaboration; comes with Xfce, and it's based on Debian Wheezy. Looks very nice in the live session. I used Unetbootin to put it on a flash drive. Info here: http://www.mepiscommunity.org/mx14
Monday, January 20, 2014
another nice web browser
Today, I installed the QupZilla web browser in Bridge Linux, from the Arch Linux Community repos (it's also available in Debian Testing and Debian Sid). QupZilla is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac; see their "Download" page for more info.
Here's what I saw when I first fired it up, right after I installed it:
The search window in the QupZilla start page uses DuckDuckGo. Nice.
The first thing I did was to import my Chromium bookmarks (File > Import bookmarks...). This went very slowly, then seemed to stop at 98%:
I tried importing the bookmarks again. This time, it stopped at 99% and never finished. I think that it got hung up on importing the bookmark icons because the bookmarks themselves actually did get imported.
Unfortunately, the bookmark folders don't get imported along with the bookmarks -- you just end up with a list of bookmarks. In my case, it was a very long list. I decided that this wasn't too much of a problem. I could go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks and create my own folders and drag bookmarks into them. Better yet, the address bar, which can be set to search using the default search engine, can also be set to show suggestions from history as well as from bookmarks, in effect giving me easy access to all of my imported bookmarks:
After being used to Chromium's Omnibar, I see no point in having a web search bar along with an address bar, so I removed the web search bar (Edit > Preferences > Appearance > Advanced Options > uncheck the box next to "Show web search bar").
QupZilla comes with an ad blocker and a flash blocker, and those seem to work fine.
There isn't much in the way of extensions/add-ons, so I saw no way of adding something like Forecastfox, for example:
I like the Speed Dial on the New Tab page:
QupZilla's interface is set up kinda like Firefox's, so there's a little less space in the browsing window than there is in Chromium. But I didn't have much problem getting used to QupZilla, and I found myself trying to come up with reasons why I shouldn't use it as my main web browser, because it actually seems quite nice. I came up with one major reason: I several different distros across my four computers; I need a way to sync my browser bookmarks (I use Xmarks), and I see no way to do that in QupZilla. So, for now, I'll continue to play around with QupZilla in Bridge Linux only, and I'll see how this browser develops over time.
Here's what I saw when I first fired it up, right after I installed it:
The search window in the QupZilla start page uses DuckDuckGo. Nice.
The first thing I did was to import my Chromium bookmarks (File > Import bookmarks...). This went very slowly, then seemed to stop at 98%:
I tried importing the bookmarks again. This time, it stopped at 99% and never finished. I think that it got hung up on importing the bookmark icons because the bookmarks themselves actually did get imported.
Unfortunately, the bookmark folders don't get imported along with the bookmarks -- you just end up with a list of bookmarks. In my case, it was a very long list. I decided that this wasn't too much of a problem. I could go to Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks and create my own folders and drag bookmarks into them. Better yet, the address bar, which can be set to search using the default search engine, can also be set to show suggestions from history as well as from bookmarks, in effect giving me easy access to all of my imported bookmarks:
After being used to Chromium's Omnibar, I see no point in having a web search bar along with an address bar, so I removed the web search bar (Edit > Preferences > Appearance > Advanced Options > uncheck the box next to "Show web search bar").
QupZilla comes with an ad blocker and a flash blocker, and those seem to work fine.
There isn't much in the way of extensions/add-ons, so I saw no way of adding something like Forecastfox, for example:
I like the Speed Dial on the New Tab page:
QupZilla's interface is set up kinda like Firefox's, so there's a little less space in the browsing window than there is in Chromium. But I didn't have much problem getting used to QupZilla, and I found myself trying to come up with reasons why I shouldn't use it as my main web browser, because it actually seems quite nice. I came up with one major reason: I several different distros across my four computers; I need a way to sync my browser bookmarks (I use Xmarks), and I see no way to do that in QupZilla. So, for now, I'll continue to play around with QupZilla in Bridge Linux only, and I'll see how this browser develops over time.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
wanna help support bodhi?
From Jeff Hoogland's Thoughts on Technology blog:
Bodhi Linux powered Chromebook Raffle
They're giving away a Samsung Chromebook to someone who donates at least $5 bucks during 2014's first quarter. It'll be loaded with Bodhi Linux and ChromeOS. Nice! Great fund-raising idea, too.
Bodhi Linux powered Chromebook Raffle
They're giving away a Samsung Chromebook to someone who donates at least $5 bucks during 2014's first quarter. It'll be loaded with Bodhi Linux and ChromeOS. Nice! Great fund-raising idea, too.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Monday, January 6, 2014
moment of nostalgia
I recently picked up the latest release of Linux Pocket Guide by Daniel J. Barrett. It's a newer edition of my first Linux book, which I had acquired a little over nine years ago. I had given it away a few years back because I figured I didn't need it anymore.
I don't know how much I'll use it, if at all. I just wanted to have it here again.
I think that the book was originally more geared towards Red Hat/Fedora, but it looks like more of a general Linux reference guide now. However, the "Installing Software" section includes info about yum, rpm, and aptitude commands, and tar.gz and tar.bz2 files, but apt-get commands are not covered; nor are other things like pacman and other package management tools. Synaptic and Ubuntu's update manager are mentioned in one sentence about graphical package managers.
I used to take Linux Pocket Guide with me everywhere, poring over it at bus stops and on the city bus, and during my lunch breaks at work. I didn't know at the time that I'd turn out to be more of a Debian guy than anything else! It was a good intro to the Linux world, though.
I don't know how much I'll use it, if at all. I just wanted to have it here again.
I think that the book was originally more geared towards Red Hat/Fedora, but it looks like more of a general Linux reference guide now. However, the "Installing Software" section includes info about yum, rpm, and aptitude commands, and tar.gz and tar.bz2 files, but apt-get commands are not covered; nor are other things like pacman and other package management tools. Synaptic and Ubuntu's update manager are mentioned in one sentence about graphical package managers.
I used to take Linux Pocket Guide with me everywhere, poring over it at bus stops and on the city bus, and during my lunch breaks at work. I didn't know at the time that I'd turn out to be more of a Debian guy than anything else! It was a good intro to the Linux world, though.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
kde-connect
Article: How to integrate Android into KDE Linux desktop
I guess there are some rough edges yet to be smoothed out, but KDE Connect looks like a good idea.
I guess there are some rough edges yet to be smoothed out, but KDE Connect looks like a good idea.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
