Skip to content
  • Home
  • About
  • The Linux Setup
  • Contact
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • linux
  • the linux setup
  • longform
  • hardly working
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Linux Rig

Desktop Linux for Everyone

  • Home
  • About
  • The Linux Setup
  • Contact
  • linux

Steven Ovadia May 5, 2011


This is pretty hard-core, but if you want a new desktop experience, xmonad seems like it’ll give it to you.

Between Unity and GNOME 3, all kinds of window managers are now in play.

Link courtesy of the Linux Action Show

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
  • linux

Thank you kind sir =) One more thing though (sorry =P) before I install, is there a program is the software repository that allows for a laptop to work as a hotspot itself. Similar in the way Connectify works with Win7.

Steven Ovadia May 5, 2011

I’ve never used it, but it seems like hostapd will do this: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1663788&highlight=connectify.

  • linux

I have Xubuntu 11.04 burned to a CD, now when installing I assume the 3 main choices are there: Install along side Windows, replace windows and custom config. When choosing the “along side windows” option, would it be possible to partition my main drive and install xubuntu on that so I could choose between the OSs when booting my laptop?

Steven Ovadia May 5, 2011

It seems like that’s what will happen when you chose that option. Details are here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot

  • linux

Steven Ovadia May 4, 2011

I’m not sure what a naked Padma Lakshmi has to do with FreeBSD, but I think the FreeBSD people might want to get that connection more front and center. I bet they’d pick up tons of new users.

  • linux

Xubuntu 11.04: Solid, Sleek, and Speedy | Linux.com

Steven Ovadia May 4, 2011

A positive review of Xubuntu 11.04. Unity seems to be driving lots of reviewers to other desktop managers, which is kind of cool.

Xubuntu 11.04: Solid, Sleek, and Speedy | Linux.com

  • linux

max@pseudogen:~$: Gnome3 from a XFCE user’s perspective.

Steven Ovadia May 3, 2011

A well-reasoned review. I guess we XFCE people tend to be rational like that…

max@pseudogen:~$: Gnome3 from a XFCE user’s perspective.

  • linux

Do we need project-wide support for Debian rolling?

Steven Ovadia May 2, 2011

This is pretty neat. A Debian developer is proposing turning Debian Testing into Debian Rolling. Not much would change. Mostly Testing/Rolling would be acknowledged as a viable, distribution in its own right.

Do we need project-wide support for Debian rolling?

  • linux

k3rnel.net: Why I’m Sick and Tired of Gnome Shell

Steven Ovadia May 2, 2011

I’ve been using Gnome Shell (Gnome 3) exclusively for 2 weeks today, and while I do have a few good words to say about it… today’s the day I’m switching to KDE once and for all.

I’ve yet to play with GNOME 3 or Unity, so I can’t speak to the quality of either, but from what I hear and read around the Linuxsphere, it seems like tons of people are moving to KDE because of GNOME and Unity.

I kind of wonder if some KDE developers managed to infiltrate the GNOME and Unity teams.

k3rnel.net: Why I’m Sick and Tired of Gnome Shell

  • linux

Backup Your Gmail Now…Please

Steven Ovadia April 30, 2011

I’ve been a little nervous because some people around me have had their Gmail accounts hacked.

I’m not sure if the hackings were preventable, but it was making me slightly nervous.

And then, James Fallows had a series of posts about the hacking of his wife’s Gmail account, complete with tales of other Gmail users losing all of their data after getting their accounts hacked.

And that made me really nervous.

I had been thinking I should backup my Gmail for a while, but the Fallows posts pushed me to finally sit down and do it.

NOTE: I know about the Google two-step verification process, but that just feels like a lot of work, just to check email. Plus, I hate the idea of being locked out of my email if I don’t have my phone with me and I’m not near a landline I registered with Google. Situations like that are probably when I’d want my email most. So for now, it’s off of the table for me.

There are a few ways to approach the backup, but I decided to use POP to download all of my messages. It took a couple of hours to download everything, but other than that, it was a painless process. There are lots of articles and tutorials online about backing up your Gmail, but there weren’t any that gave me a workflow for the entire process, which is why I’m documenting it here:

  1. Download and install Thunderbird, but don’t configure it
  2. Enable POP on your Gmail account
  3. Configure Thunderbird. Thunderbird is great with Gmail. Once you put in your address and password, it’ll set everything up for you. Make sure you tell Thunderbird to use the Gmail POP account, though
  4. Download all of your email. This will take a while because you can only download it in batches. You can leave Thunderbird to handle this on its own, or you can keep it running in the background while you do something else, and manually get your mail every time it announces it has finished a batch. I chose the latter
  5. Now that you have all of your mail held locally, you can leave it in Thunderbird. That seemed like a pain to me, though, so I downloaded a Thunderbird plugin (ImportExportTools) that let me export the messages as .eml files. ImportExportTools gives you a number of export format options, but .eml keeps attachments with the files. Plus, it can be read with a text editor.
  6. Save your email someplace safe and you’re all set! At this point, you can turn off POP in your email and remove Thunderbird, if you’re so inclined.

I’m not sure how easy it would be to work with email in this format, but at least I could search through the files for specific messages I needed. Hopefully, I’ll never need to use this archive, but I feel better knowing that it’s there.

Now I just need to remember to do this at regular intervals. I wish Gmail would let you POP email as of a certain date, so I could just regularly top off my local archive, rather than re-downloading everything.

But the backup process is really pretty simple. Especially now that I know all of the steps to take (and the order in which to take them).

  • linux

hello have you ever tried to install nautilus instead og thunar in xubuntu? i am asking because i use a lot the “notes” (right button>preferences>notes) to save some notes about my files, an option that thunar has not. thnx  mattia

Steven Ovadia April 30, 2011

I’ve never tried that but it’s an interesting idea. Let me know if you’re able to make it work.

Posts navigation

Previous 1 … 103 104 105 … 111 Next
  • Home
  • About
  • The Linux Setup
  • Contact
WordPress.com.
Cancel