22 posts tagged “linux”
Let's get some background on Flock and it's relationship with Mozilla Firefox.
Firefox was the original browser that broke the mold from Internet Explorer basically crushing browsers like Netscape Navigator and even the early Opera browser. It was a fresh change of pace from the closed source principle of Internet Explorer as it allowed anyone to view the entire source code of the browser to make plug-ins and modifications to improve the browser. But due to the Mozilla Corporation blowing open a free browser to the market place and including the ability to even giving the world the source code for free... This would make a world where even the online experience could be changed and custom tailored for the end user.
Flock's principle that differentiates itself from a standard Firefox installation in one way... Rather than having to download and install things like specialty blogger, RSS, media, account integration plug-ins and applets, they are all built in to the browser. From the Flock "About Us" Page, they say that how people use the modern day web browser is basically that of a nerve center to the online world and we have regular habits or accounts that we just have to check out.
I am not much of a social person online, but I do like blogging and reading RSS streams quite a bit... So I figured I'd give myself a challenge: Use Flock for one week and then do a comprehensive review. I can say that I am actually a bit shocked at how the week has turned out.
I would pull a pre-compiled version of Flock for Ubuntu Linux from GetDeb.net, as I am not much into trying to compile from source unless I absolutely have to. For users of other operating systems, there are versions for Mac OS X and also Windows folks too. I don't feel secure on my Windows box so I have not installed it there. For the OS X end, I don't have a machine set-up for testing... If you want to review it, I will gladly hot-link your review to mine in exchange for the same.
The install was rather painless. It performs like a regular install of Firefox, but it was able to copy my settings, preferences and bookmarks from Firefox on a click. After the details finalized, the installer asks if I want to lock in Flock as the default... but for all intents and purposes, I would say "No" because Firefox is customized for secure items and questionable websites much better than Flock currently is.
The experience is quite unique... the "Home" page is called "My World", the default "nerve center" for your browsing experience. There's a set of links to do things like post to your blog direct from the browser, upload videos to YouTube or images to Flickr/Photobucket, or check out your bookmarks in del.icio.us, provided you have logged into those services. On the top right are tiny icons to indicate which services have integrated with the browser and another set of services that have not been linked to Flock. On the main page are links to your most recently visited book marks, the top 3 newest RSS feeds from each site you have a RSS session with, and then the latest media from your favorite links in another column. Other than that... the browsing experience is much in the same vein as Firefox as far as stability goes.
The difference with Flock is that if you log into your media services such as YouTube, Photobucket, and Flickr, the button for the "Media bar" will pop up a bar on the top that will contain streams with a thumbnail of an image that link to the respective image or YouTube video. The image uploader is nice as it will do batch uploading to Flickr or Photobucket natively in the browser, rather than having to go through the web based uploaders of the sites which typically limit you to a max upload of 5-6 images a session, unless you subscribe for the premium member services. The blog client works well and there is not much to write about... The blog compatibility is hopefully getting bigger, because I can't quite blog to Vox from it yet, but I can only hope that it will be addressed in the 1.0 Final build.
Security is a big thing that needs more revamping with Flock, in my personal opinion... I mean, it's fine for minor things like social use of social networking sites, but I wouldn't dare to say it could replace my stock Firefox install. With things like more network integration (like Facebook is coming with the 1.0 Final build) and more security issues to be addressed, Flock will be a browser to watch for development.
Overall, if you like being networked to everything and see the use of the web browser much like the folks of the Flock Development Team... you will be very pleased! If you are more of a blogger and news reader, Flock does a great job at what it does for helping you keep track of things. I can recommend this browser to folks who love the connectivity but also want the stability of the Firefox engine.
So I did the Dist-Upgrade to Gutsy Gibbon today and well things broke. I won't cry about it, but it is a bit annoying until kinks get worked out. I may have to seek a full reinstall because this time around... so many things seemed rushed. I'll see if I get any replies on the forums about my issues, but it'd be a damn shame to have to reconfigure everything again.
I have been terribly backlogged in stuff and haven't had time to write a proper review on things... so... I would like to get that squared away.
Strapya World [Legend Cross] Collection Phone Charms
I am one of the people who falls into line with the Asian (primarily Japanese and Hong Kong Chinese) belief that a person should have a lucky talisman around them. Talismans are thought to be a trinket or charm to give the bearer protection or have properties to positively influence the lives of their users. In the modern day, Asian societies have had a thing for putting cell phone charms on their mobile phones as a means of protecting themselves or boosting certain aspects of their lives. Things like anti-evil wards, money blessings, empowering health, and even charms to boost ones romantic life or for making a wish. I was looking for a charm or strap to put on my next phone, because when I owned the Nokia E62 and the Palm Treo 680... these enterprise communicators just simply lack a place for phone charms or wrist straps. I was initially looking to get a phone strap that had a charm that senses the cell phone tower waves when the phone receives a call, for the few times I put the phone on "silent" mode on my desk, face down with out the vibrate.
To my dismay, the selection for those type of charms is rather limited. But Google would eventually lead me to Strapya World. It is one of my favorite places for getting something unique for the people and friends I care about dearly after my great experience there save for one small imperfection. Their selection is unique and huge so it's pretty easy to find something for everyone. There was one section that had me interested... the luck and magic charms section. I liked the designs in this particular section mainly from how interesting they are. The Legend Cross series piqued my curiosity as the design is unique, but the price won't break wallets. I liked the designs so much that I bought all 5 designs. The nice part is that they looked far better in person than the online pictures give them credit for.
The only imperfection with my set was that on the "Pledge of Peace" or "Gladius" (which is on the package) cross... The blue "gem" wasn't glued on properly and fell off during the shipping. I managed to fix it, so no harm there. I really liked the "Red Devil" or "Chaos" cross the most, personally, as it fits with how I am the "black sheep" of the family. I will post pictures of the charms later on with better detail and post repairs for the "Gladius" cross. Each cross was about a little over $4.50 USD, but totally worth it.
Playing Around with a LIVE T-Mobile version of the Motorola RAZR2 V9
With October 15th looming in the horizon of T-Mobile USA's launch of the RAZR V9, people are hyped over the phone's release to T-Mobile. Initially, people were pissed that T-Mobile's rendition was going to be the weakest of them all without expandable memory card access being the buzz kill... Until there was a shocking change in plans. The T-Mobile version got tweak with 2GB of flash memory built into the phone! The fun didn't stop there... The T-Mobile one uses the newest version of the pure Linux operating system. As far as the features go, nothing has changed from the other versions for Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, and so on.
The T-Mobile shop had one to play around with today (October 13th) and frankly... I am impressed that Motorola is finally in a positive step forward for progress. The new system that the phone is based on is pretty quick and responsive, unlike the Java/UNIX fusion system or even the problematic P2K system. The fit and finish of the phone is very sharp. It is a cut above how the RAZR of the past was and even the "upgraded" versions such as the V3i. Once again, it has the flash and wow effect that the predecessor (the V3) had on the market when it first came out... I can already see eBay or craigslist sales go wild over the RAZR2 much the same vein as the RAZR did back in the day. Personally, the 2GB built into the phone is a great move for those who aren't technologically knowledgeable, because they don't have to go "What memory card do I need?". It's just a plug-n-play affair. This is a godsend for folks like my father who is not the most technologically advanced guy when it comes to phones... but he does love music.
As it stands, my father may be getting one when I sign up... so you may be seeing some live photos and a more detailed review at some point. Keep an eye out here if and when the phone comes in.
Sony Ericsson HBH-PV705 Bluetooth Headset
With family blowing up my phone every now and then, they usually have had an ironic timing to notify me about something before I come home or leave a place. Stuff like me doing a stint in a grocery store and then to see my phone ring on driving home... I don't like picking up my phone while I drive, so I just ignore the ringer and just drive. When I get home, it's a situation of "Didn't you get my message? I was trying to call you and ask you to buy this one ingredient for us" and I end up doing a second trip for posterity. So I figured for my own sanity and my family's sanity, I should pick one up for cheap. Found this one for $20 off of the "retail" price that the SonyStyle Online shop was selling it for.
After the headset charged up, I would do the pairing. It was rather painless. After the pairing, the phone worked with the headset well. Once the authentication is configured, the headset automatically pairs to the device immediately. This is much better than my experience with the experience I got from trying to pair a Motorola headset with a RAZR V3, that was actually a really sour experience. The sound quality is crisp and clear, easily a "bang-for-your-buck" deal. The headset is not compatible with MP3 ringtones and the headset had a great little chime that's sure to get your attention. The buttons have a good tactile feel and make a satisfying click so you know that you're not hallucinating if you clicked something or not. With a documented battery life (from the manual) of 12 hours of talk time and 300 hours on standby. That's pretty good for a down to business headset that is simply no-nonsense and just does it's job sort of issue. Sure, it's no Jawbone... but for a basic headset, it's one hell of a deal.
Today I stepped down as an associate to Canonical and followed Schpenke's lead with regard to the new Local Community team management.
We are working on an unofficial support team project to help aid Ubuntu users in Dallas.
Updates!!!
Well... For those who follow my blog, you will know that I officially resigned as of 12:15am. I do know that inquiring minds ask: "Why?" I will hotlink to the reason why below.
Personally, it goes against the philosophy that Canonical has bound with Ubuntu... "Humanity to others" or if you want to put it to the old Christian philosophy "Do unto others as you would unto yourself." But when you form a committee that says which teams can be "approved" or "denied" for things like team webpages, mailing lists, or even free CD's on the release of a new copy of Ubuntu, you encroach on the humanity of another person. Schpenke couldn't agree with it and I followed suit with him. We removed ourselves from our posts with just the Canonical website being the only pending issue as the site is constantly down or being on servers that are requiring repairs.
The next question is probably "What happens to Ubuntu Dallas then?"
As for the Dallas Team, Schpenke and myself have resigned as leaders so that is pretty much done. We are looking for someone in Dallas to step up to the plate and be Canonical's contact for the Dallas folks. JJNova owns the rights to the IRC Channel #ubuntu-dallas so we'll have to see what happens with that. I own the offtopic channel, but I will pass my rights to the new leader once one is found. I will hope that the Dallas Team grows in to a stronger entity, but I am honestly more fearing that the Dallas Team may be choked on development with the idea that a LoCo management committee is the one to be judge jury and executioner to anything team related.
What do I plan to do? I will combine my efforts with Schpenke and dare2dreamer for an effort to advocate free and open source software to the Dallas area. We will sing more of a tune to Linux, but we will not shun those who use a different distro than Ubuntu and even other operating systems such as OS X and Windows. The big difference is that we will opt to be a more social group not afraid of new folks joining our ranks.
To leave with a funny post, I will leave with two things during the hours of separation.
- dare2dreamer felt we could easily be cool geeks as most of us know how to have a good time, bathe (not to reek of geek funk), and most of our ranks have seen women naked (read: not in pornography).
- During the name generation process, I had suggested "Lyceum of the Technologically Apt"
So... The bleeding edge repos for Compiz-Fusion had committed proverbial suicide on me. I lost a lot of my great functionality that I had come to love from Compiz-Fusion. It crushed me, believe it or not. But I knew what I was getting in to by playing with something that's as deadly as a live razor blade... "If you play with the bleeding edge, prepare get cut!". Boy did I ever get cut... If anything, it smarts. After trying to flirt with the power of Terminal to use it as my sword to duel with the files that bring my user interface (GUI for the geek initiated) to life, otherwise I'd be returning to a VERY cold Terminal screen.
After trying to revive Compiz-Fusion with some prebuilt scripts to take the brain work out of slashing and mucking around in the Aptitude system, I decided to hack to the bone and get Beryl back up while reverting any severe changes from the install scripts for Compiz-Fusion from removing my ubuntu-desktop metapackage. After using a couple of commands to clean out bad Metacity themes and any other things being guilty of borking my configuration... I got the ubuntu-desktop package bolted up then I added the beryl, beryl-manager, heliodor, and emerald packages added to the mix. After all those installed and got all settled... I loaded the final bullet in the clip and pulled the trigger, sending the bullet into the body.
I rebooted the laptop and prepared to witness either one of two things... The death of my GUI or nothing at all. After the machine loaded up, it had my custom log-in screen... and I can't tell you the elation that ran through my mind. I realize that there's a limit to how far I can push the bleeding edge, especially when my laptop is my "production" machine. So some pearls of wisdom for new Linux users who want to play with the "knives" of open source and brand spanking new technology... Keep these in mind:
- Make sure you back-up everything.
- Make sure you fully know what each command does
- Read, read, read all documentation before mucking about
- Google (or any other search engine) is your friend
- Do not use a "daily" or "production" machine if you have any doubts.
- Respect the Terminal/Konsole/xTerm like a weapon, it can save your machine or hurt it.
So last night, I poked on to LifeHacker to check out if they had any slick posts about new productivity tips in either life or software, I found this slick little gem of an article there: "Power up your Linux Desktop with Compiz-Fusion" on LifeHacker. After about 20 minutes, I had Beryl replaced in favor of Compiz Fusion. I like it and it really does merge the best of both worlds.
Compiz was a "laboratory stable" project, but never was one to push the boundaries of neat productivity effects. Beryl, a fork of Compiz, did the opposite... It pushed to the bleeding edge. It was not for the weak at heart. After installing Compiz-Fusion, I can see the facets of both projects and it is spectacular...
Avant Window Navigator (from the bleeding edge Compiz-Fusion Repos) with the bouncing icons and window preview
The Cube with a custom background and reflections enabled
The Ring, an alternative to the Flip3D of Vista or your boring Alt-Tab of yesteryear
Expo, see all your desktops and drag apps to the workspace desired, reflections are enabled
I'll admit, I am a sucker for clean looking desktops. I don't like clutter and prefer a clean look. To the Linux crowd, Avant Window Navigator is an open-source replica of the OS X window-list and launcher. It is the most well known one with regard to the Gnome desktop environment users, but it still is under development. I originally held off on it as the functionality was lacking... until now. ExxonValdeez from #ubuntu-dallas had told me that the functionality has been increased so things have become a little more functional with it. After fighting the install for a good while until this morning... I have it tweaked to my liking. Enclosed in this post are images... I have retired the XP Inverse wallpaper for the press-release images of the Aston Martin DBS, a replica of the latest James Bond car in the most recent movie, "Casino Royale", for those who are curious.
Disclaimer: If you are seeing the "black bars" around Avant Window Navigator, that's a sign you need Beryl or Compiz-Fusion.
Esteemed members of Ubuntu Dallas,
Many of you who've been in the IRC room (#ubuntu-dallas on irc.freenode.net) remember either me (ZeroXR) or schpenke mentioning about what happened to our site with an announcement via an IRC meeting. If you missed out, then allow me to quote from an e-mail from Jono on the official announcement about the site takedown:
On Monday evening (UK time) it was reported that one of the hosted community servers that Canonical sponsors had been compromised. After investigation, it became apparent that 5 of the 8 machines had been compromised. Since it was reported that they were actively attacking other machines (and because it's What You Do), the decision was taken to shut the machines down.
On Tuesday morning we started the procedure of bringing these machines up in a safe state so that we could recover data from them. Unfortunately, this took far longer than we would have hoped or liked due to a combination of having to use remote hands, arbitrary limits imposed by those remote hands and (relative) lack of bandwidth to copy data off site.
This process is still ongoing (though only one remain has yet to be fully recovered - tiber).
How did this happen
-------------------Unfortunately:
a) The servers, especially zambezi were running an incredible amount of web software (over 15 packages[1] that we recognised) and of all the ones where it's trivial to determine a version, they were without exception out-of-date and missing security patches. An attacker could have gotten a shell through almost any of these sites.
b) FTP (not SFTP, without SSL) was being used to access the machines, so an attacker (in the right place) could also have gotten access by sniffing the clear-text passwords.
c) The servers have not been upgraded past breezy due to problems with the network card and later kernels. This probably allowed the attacker to gain root.
[Quoted from Jono Bacon's E-mail, August 10th, 2007]
The site has been under the restoration and possibly a server move, so we're just waiting on Canonical to bring back the servers up so a few members of the Dallas team can assist with the effort to migrate to a different content management system (CMS) as we have had aggressive discussion with regard to how poor PostNuke has been to us. The main proponents of the site migration are: Myself, schpenke, JJNova, goodtimetribe, dare2dreamer, File13, and ExxonValdeez. Just there is one thing that we must know before we may proceed... What are Canonical's terms should we choose to use their hosting? What if we choose to go at it alone and manage our own server? I will post the next part of the very same e-mail with Jono below:
Loco teams/services can choose to either:
(1) be migrated to the Canonical data centre. This comes with both restrictions and benefits:
+ Better hardware and bandwidth.
+ Fulltime support from Canonical's sysadmin team including software maintenance and integration into our existing backup infrastructure.- root access will not be available.
- Access by per-user SSH key only, limited number of accounts per loco team / service.
- Can only support certain software (e.g. drupal, wordpress, planet, moin, ...)
- No ability to run arbitrary CGIs.(2) or stay on the hosted/outsourced servers.
However, assuming anyone chooses option (2), some things will have to change with how we handle these servers. Specifically, Canonical will continue to sponsor the servers but they will have to become entirely community run, i.e.
+ Community admin team liaise with hosting company for reboots, etc.
+ Community have sole responsibility for all aspects of administration of servers, including but not limited to day to day sysadmin tasks, backups, security, upgrades, recovery if compromised, etc.
+ Use of servers for loco team services only unless previously agreed.
- Both the Community Council and Canonical have oversight on this
[Quoted from Jono Bacon's E-mail, August 10th, 2007]
With that being said, "what" are our options? From the same e-mail, here is what Jono lists off as approved web app recommendations...
As far as what transpired today in the meeting with regard to the LoCo team pages, here's the "Cliff's Notes" from Matthew Nuzum's e-mail to the LoCo Contacts mailing list:
Art-Web
Gallery
Drupal
PHPmyadmin
Wordpress
PostNuke
phpBB
SMF
Moodle
Planet
ASPseek
Moin
TaskFreak
CMS Made Simple
MediaWiki
Hello everyone, here is a quick summary of the meeting today regarding the canonical sponsored loco team web hosting.
In a nutshell, if you are using one of the "approved" webapps listed in that e-mail, you are welcome to use the hosting provided by the Canonical sysadmin team in the London based Canonical data center (CDC).
If you are not using an approved application and don't feel migration to a supported application is possible, the US based servers will still be maintained, but not allocated the same administrative resources that the CDC hosted sites will receive.
All of the above means, "don't worry, everything is going to be OK." ;-)
Sites that had PHP, CGI or other executable code need to make arrangements to have that code replaced, since it could be compromised.
Also, each site will need to make arrangements for getting their site set up in the proper place.
To do this, follow these steps:
*Log into #canonical-sysadmin on freenode and ask for help migrating your existing loco site. The first available sysadmin will contact you to make proper arrangements. As always, be patient. Loco teams far outnumber sysadmins.Change: Instead of logging onto #canonical-sysadmin (which has turned to chaos), file a bug at https://launchpad.net/loco-webhosting. This way you'll be notified if there are questions or when its been completed.* Contact us to make sure we can make DNS changes for your site by filing a bug against the loco-webhosting project in launchpad . This process is not instantaneous unfortunately.
If you do not yet have Canonical sponsored hosting but would *like* to have hosting, please understand that there will be a slightly longer than usual delay, then follow the existing instructions at
Thanks for your cooperation as we work through this event.
[Quoted by Matthew Nuzum's E-mail, August 14th, 2007 at 11:17am]
As far as which CMS everyone wants to go with for our site, the most popular choices seem to be Wordpress and Drupal. Wordpress has many advantages as there are lots of modules and plug-ins that work great with the CMS. Drupal gets notes for the ability to control management from what schpenke mentioned in the channel. If anyone has more details about Drupal, please comment and I will append this news post for the changes.
I would like to make a "state of the union" to our members at Ubuntu Dallas: Let us know which CMS you would like us to impliment and why. If you have a particular design or site template you would like us to use with a corresponding CMS, please show us and we'll let our users give their input. We also need a logo as well... dare2dreamer, JJNova, and File13 have there logos on display, but I would like to see more "competition". After all the chosen logo will be our emblem for the coming months! If you're artistic, get cracking!
When most users think of Linux... They think of a machine that's dull and lifeless to the eyes. No one really thinks that Linux can be pretty and the "definition" pretty computing would be Apple's OS X or Windows Vista. "Some say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder" is a classic proverb but in the world of operating system politics... Beauty can make or break your market pool of potential users. It's why Apple evolved from their roots to their current state of visual bliss. It's why Microsoft went from Windows XP's bubbly look was ditched in favor of Vista's cutting edge looks. The mainstream market would never begin to understand the beauty of Linux that the power of choice gives you the power to customize how your system can look. The default environment (depending on distribution) can be pretty or dull depending on the art team that did the concept artwork.
One distribution that has gotten a lot of intrigue has been Elive and the Enlightenment desktop (known as e16 or e17 depending on version). The folks over at the Enlightenment project have composed a unique philosophy. They figured why is eye candy and a pretty desktop only limited to just semi-modern machines... Why can't weaker machines look pretty too? The lowest runnable specifications for the Enlightenment desktop is:
"[...] 100 Mhz CPU, 64 MB of RAM"
quoted from the Enlighenment Development page "About E17" page
The teaser screenshots look great! I had to try it out... The only thing was the Elive slow server was down and being in debt, I can't spare to donate for pull from their fast server. I didn't have much choice but to rely on the users of Linux Tracker and pull the torrent from them. I don't blame the Elive team for wanting to earn a buck or two, but to help spread development, they should have another conduit serving up the ISO freely! So, even if you are curious (at the time being) you can't get a direct download for Elive unless you chip in a couple bucks for developments before you can get it. If you don't happen to like it, then you may feel that your money has been "squandered" and you have funded a project you may not support. If you go the Linux Tracker torrent path, then you're stuck on waiting for the seeder's bandwidth as the time frame before you can burn it to a CD-R yet. A slight disappointment on making it hard to get into the distro by a lack of venues or conduits just to get it. Make it easier to get in and more users will come, Elive team!
Well, after the torrent completed, I would burn and go... On booting the disc, I was greeted by a friendly GRUB screen with configuring boot options. The image is pleasing and soothing, but a bit lacking on the "wow" factor. After that, the next few screens were in a very ugly terminal style prompts to select configuration options. I feel that if that the Elive team could have did the prompts in a pretty GUI format. The few prompts were pretty simple...
The first prompt was what color mode I wished to boot in. This was interesting as I never thought that the Elive art team would give you a choice of what color scheme to boot in. The modes are Elive or Night. Elive is the bright colored theme with lots of gold bling all over and very inviting to the artistically inclined. Night is a theme that's intended to be a little easier on the eyes with a deep and intense experience. I do have screens of both towards the end of the review.
The next prompt was synaptics device detection saying it noticed my touch pad. Not much to get excited over there.
The next prompt was Intel graphics driver testing. I thought I that choosing the i915 module for my graphics was a good choice. After all, I have an Intel 915 graphics chipset it should work... Well, wrong. I'll get into that story. I will give the Elive team great recognition for having widescreen resolution choices built into this utility.
The last prompt is a text file reminding you to log in to the demonstration when the log-in prompt comes, to use the following information to log-in:
ID: eliveuser
Password: elive
This could have been done away with to get the user right into the experience. It's not too appealing for the eye candy fan to be stuck in terminal style prompts that are not pretty.
Remember why my graphics choices was wrong and soon to make my life a living hell? That choice broke X and I was stuck in command line prompts. Not a welcoming experience when that happens to the novice user. Now, I had to reboot the machine and I would end up choosing the "recommended" choice of the Intel i810 module for graphics and things would boot into X. This could be a little scary of an experience for the novice with proprietary graphics... If there was better checking for the proper modules to load, then there's less of a chance of someone breaking X and not logging into Enlightenment. I hope someone polishes this piece a little better.
Once the proper graphics are loaded... there are a few lines of terminal speaking verbose stating what is going on. Once you see "Becoming Entranced: Entrance" that's when you know that Enlightenment loads up. After plugging in the user info, you're dropped into the desktop. The boot sounds are terribly loud and if you're stuck with digital controls for sound, there's not really a way to bind multimedia keys to the operating systems so I personally felt it could have been done away with. Both desktops have animated wallpapers, which I thought was unique. The stars in both the Elive and Night wallpapers do twinkle, which I felt was killer! I was overjoyed to find my wireless worked from the start. No dirty hacks required!
The mechanism of the desktop is interesting. There is a application launcher on the bottom of the screen a simple click and it launches. I just wish they had something like a text to mention what the name of the icon was... On the bottom corner was a thermometer applet telling me how hot my processor is running and also a battery applet telling me how much battery power was left. The beauty of the desktop is that it's a wide open space and you're free to add other applets to your choosing to monitor other statistical data. The top right corner is your workspace switcher. It's nice as the other workspace fades out and you slip into the new workspace. A very showy effect! The oddest thing is that when you minimize applications, they iconify and show up on the desktop. On left clicking you get a main menu of applications, a window locator, a lost window locator (to find windows that have not been iconified but don't show up), standard shutdown and restarting of X commands. Alt-tabbing through applications became a bit unique... A menu pops up of which applications you can switch to. The ones that do have windows have an indicator in the alt-tab list and the mouse pointer shifts its position directly over the application. Iconified applications simply pop up if you alt-tab for them. This I found to be a bit snappy and to my liking. Restoring applications was a cinch! Just a simple click and the window returns! The windows use a GTK themer, but some of the windows look so dull while others look spectacular. A right click brings up an application menu to let you launch applications. Some apps, due to the lack of a Gnome tray notification area close when you hit the [x] to minimize them, which is a little thing to get used to. The right and left click menu almost reminds me of XFCE... but prettier, much more prettier and pleasing to the eye.
Software... It had quite a variety. Few games, lots of music and video apps, office productivity, and tech demos. The browser of choice was Iceweasel, but ironically, the icon is a Firefox icon... a bit of a mismatch there. XMMS has a sweet looking skin which makes it plenty cool. The tech demo's I want to touch over briefly on... They do have a QEmu demo so you can run a session of Elive within Elive, a cool idea but it makes little sense to run the same operating system twice in one instance while sharing the same LiveCD. It amazingly ran and with all the eye candy as well. That surprised and impressed me. There was also an Enlightenment embedded device demo, but after booting, it comes into a blank display and you can't do anything. A real disappointment and a buzz-kill. The last was just a demonstration of pure class. The multi-video out demonstration was wicked. It launches 5 mPlayer windows, one big window and 4 smaller ones by each corner. The video it was playing was the IBM commercial where various people are teaching a young boy many things and ends with an interesting set of lines:
So... What's his name?
His name is... Linux.
Then the commercial cuts out to the IBM logo. The reason this demo is remarkable to me is that all the videos were playing back in perfect synchronization. Not a single frame was behind. I remember in Windows I couldn't even do that as one application would flip out saying "The video is playing from another app!" A seriously cool demonstration right there.
My gripes with Elive are the configuration modules and the ease of adding or removing applications for the average user. The configuration modules bring up an odd techno-panel that makes more noise launching and closing than really needed. Not only that, they are a bit... Limited in scope. I really wished that the categories were a little more encompassing for the discriminating power users. If you want more applications, you have to navigate Synaptic Package manager to do any adding from the software repositories. There is also the option of using pre-packed .DEB files, but sadly, it's not simple like Ubuntu's Add/Remove menu or the Gentoo Portage system.
I like Elive but it does need a lot more work. They picked a good foundation to build it on Debian and Morphix, but to call it "Elive Gem, Luxury Linux" and a "Stable Release" is really stretching the truth a bit too far. "Luxury Linux" would be something that you aren't scouring around Synaptic for applications. The same goes for the words "Stable release" and clicking the "About Enlightenment" icon to see a note saying "This IS NOT STABLE!" in the disclaimer. Open up the gates, get everyone a chance to have fun and develop and Elive could really make a name for itself as one of the prettiest distributions without requiring hardware that would probably break the wallets of average consumers. Definitely a distribution to keep an eye out for and watch the evolution of the operating system to grow... IF they can open up distribution with hosting on their slow server or network the image to sponsored hosts rather than imposing a donation or having users circumvent things by hopping on a "non official" torrent as one Elive developer commented on the Linux Tracker posting of Elive Gem 1.0's torrent.
I am waiting on my Elive Gem 1.0 torrent to finish, so it'll be the next OS on the review block. The requirements are apparently very minimal but on faster and stronger machines, the beauty really shows from what many say. The screenshots look very appealing and show great promise, so I look forward to the download completion. The build and theory looks good on paper, but I am curious on two things which will determine whether my ride is gonna be bumpy or smooth for my review.
- Compatibility with my Intel Wireless Pro 2200 WLAN chipset
Internet being important, because I'd like to be able to access the web for patches, updates and fixes.
- Widescreen support
Nothing like a 1024 x 768 pixel resolution stretched on a 1200 x 800 screen to give a review a bad bias. I don't have a desktop to do a review from standard resolutions anymore.
I hope for the best and to do a comprehensive review.
