The Linux desktop: With great success comes great failure

December 20, 2018

I’ll continue being a Linux desktop user. For me, as a power user’s power user, it’s the best of all operating systems. But for most people, Linux will never be a drop-in replacement for macOS or Windows.

I like and respect Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, but I disagree with the premise of this article. Something doesn’t have to be popular to be successful. Desktop Linux works incredibly well. It’s an amazing tool for lots of people, many of whom you can read about here. Where is the failure? Is success defined just by “beating” Windows and OS X?

When I use Linux, all I see is success.

The Linux desktop: With great success comes great failure | Computerworld

Software and Services I Pay for: 2018

December 19, 2018

I’ve taken to writing about the software and services I pay for each year (2017 and 2016 are here). Not much has changed, but I think it’s helpful to share the things I find to be worth the money.

  • I paid for the CalDAV-Sync and CardDAV-Sync apps on my phone. They’re not free, but they’re one-time purchases. CalDAV, which I mentioned last year, lets me use Fastmail as my calendar and CardDAV lets me use my Fastmail address book, keeping me out of the Google ecosystem on my phone (if you ignore it’s an Android phone…). It took a bit of time to get my Fastmail address book together, but it’s well worth a few hours to know I can take my contacts with me anywhere.
  • I forgot to mention this last year, but I use a VPN on my phone and computers. I use privateinternetaccess (who have a nice Linux client). It’s around $40/year. Sometimes I can’t access certain sites because they can see I’m coming from a VPN but in general, I feel good paying for an additional level of privacy. It hasn’t killed my phone battery life, either.
  • I got off LastPass, because it seemed less-than-secure. I didn’t use it for anything terribly important, like banking, but it still seemed like I should explore other options. Opensource.com mentioned Bitwarden and I liked it enough to pay for it, at a very reasonable $10/year.
  • I’m not sure if this counts, but I support the Mastodon Patreon for $1/month. Twitter is rough. I love it for news and for promoting my work, but it can be a dark, sad place. Mastodon is better, mostly because it’s smaller, but I like the idea of supporting something that might someday lead to better online discourse. Here I am on Mastodon, by the way.
  • I also pay for music. Not via Spotify, but actually buying CDs and MP3s I can download. So I always have the tracks and never have to worry about losing access.

Things I Still Pay For and Love

  • Remember the Milk: It’s how I get through life.
  • Newsblur: The price is now a steep $36/year, but it’s something I truly love.
  • WordPress.com: Because I’m willing to pay for the privilege of not having to keep a WordPress installation updated.
  • New York Times and The Athletic subscriptions. I also added the Washington Post. Pay for journalism you trust and enjoy! Please!
  • Fastmail: Still one of my favorite things. It’s a great service. Given everything we continue to learn about Big Tech, at least here in the United States, I don’t know why anyone would trust a cost-free service with anything important.

Things I Still Pay For and Don’t Love

  • Dropbox. It works well but the company is just so rudderless. Instead of maintaining a core service, it feels like they’re always trying to pivot to something else, at the expense of the core service. Their dropping support for btrfs was inconvenient for me when I was using OpenSUSE Tumbleweed. But I couldn’t find a better tool than Dropbox, so I just switched to Linux Mint, which uses ext4. However, I’m open to switching to a service I don’t have to host or support myself.

Things I No Longer Pay For

  • I dropped Trello Gold because it didn’t seem to give me anything extra. I’m using Trello less anyway, and using AirTable for lots of stuff. In fact, I wish AirTable had a tier that wasn’t $10/month. I’d love something for individuals at $5/month.
  • OneDrive. I was using Dropbox for my work files but I lost a lot of the free storage I had accrued. I wound up switching to OneDrive for $2/month and it was pretty easy to use at a fine price point. I was able to dump the subscription when my institution switched to Office 365, so I still use OneDrive at work; I just don’t have to pay for it. Interestingly, my $2/month OneDrive account was non-stop up-sell but Office 365 leaves me alone. Perhaps because there’s no higher tier!

The list above is not all free and open source software, but it’s all stuff I depend upon. I also donate to the cost-free open source projects upon which I depend. I encourage you to do the same, if you can afford to.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.

Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration

December 18, 2018

I’m not sure what’s weirder: Microsoft embracing open source or people getting mad about it!

Microsoft moving away from their own browser technology and into Google’s is complicated. On the one hand, maybe it’ll help keep Google honest. But it does result in less browser options for Windows users.

Microsoft Edge: Making the web better through more open source collaboration | Windows Experience Blog

Is it finally time for media companies to adopt a common publishing platform?

December 13, 2018

If media could consolidate around a common publishing platform, it would allow players of all sizes to cut costs as well as better compete against Facebook as a media union, taking action collectively, and once and for all addressing their biggest revenue challenges.

I see Jesee Knight’s point, but lack of choice is never a good thing. The challenge of journalism isn’t the content management systems; it’s algorithms.

Also, New York uses an open-source CMS, which I didn’t know.

Is it finally time for media companies to adopt a common publishing platform? | Nieman Journalism Lab

The Linux Setup – Roxy Dee, Security Architect

December 12, 2018

Like Roxy, I’m a big LXDE fan. It’s so light and quite configureable. Roxy is also a command line enthusiast, so it’s no surprise to see terminal listed as an essential program. It’s also interesting that Roxy has only had Linux laptops and servers until recently. Anecdotally it seems like some computer users are migrating to desktops, rather than using a laptop for everything. As a home desktop user, I approve of this migration. I love a big, comfortable keyboard and screen that you can’t really move.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

  1. Who are you, and what do you do?

    I’m a Linux command line enthusiast! I currently work for Hurricane Labs as a security architect and I specialize in vulnerability management. I also create content related to the command line, so if you want to see my “#1LinuxThingADay” or other Linux stuff from me, you can do so on Twitter. I’m @theroxyd.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I’ve never really been much of a Windows user except to get things done and log off. When I discovered Linux and that I could do whatever I wanted from the command line much easier than any Windows experience I have ever had, I was hooked. I’m obsessed with finding more and more things I can do with Linux.

    It just makes sense to me more than any other operating system I’ve used. I like to try different distros, so I’m all about Linux in its many flavors.

  3. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

    For my desktop, I’m using Lubuntu with LXDE. I also have a cute purple HP Stream that I’ve just put Debian on and I’m using that to develop the command line workshop I’m creating now. Ubuntu and Debian are perfect for my desktop and laptop. Although I’m a Linux nerd, I like to keep it simple when it comes to personal computing.

  4. What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?

    LXDE. I love how simple and lightweight it is. Especially because my desktop has an Intel chip!

  5. What one piece of Linux software do you depend upon? Why is it so important?

    When I’m not surfin’ the web, I’m using terminal. I guess that should come as no surprise given that I enjoy the command line so much.

    A recent discovery for me is Shotcut, which is video editing software. I’m hoping to use this more because I want to start making videos which is something I haven’t really used my Linux desktop for previously.

  6. What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?

    I’m not much of a hardware nerd so I don’t even remember. I’m using a secondhand computer with an Intel Core i5-3330 CPU that had Windows on it.

    It’s now my first Linux desktop. Every other Linux OS I had was either on a laptop or server, and I went without a desktop for a long time.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Here’s my desktop screenshot.

Interview conducted February 7, 2018

The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.

Pinebook: My First Few Surprising Hours With A $99 Linux Laptop

December 6, 2018

I hadn’t heard of this. The specs aren’t great and I’m shocked it comes with a modified KDE by default, but I’m very intrigued (even though everyone seems to agree the keyboard is truly awful). The price-point makes it feel relatively low-risk. I don’t think I’d use this for serious work, but it might be nice to take to conferences and meetings.

Although, apparently for $50 more, you can get elementaryOS running on an Acer C720!

Pinebook: My First Few Surprising Hours With A $99 Linux Laptop | Forbes

The Linux Setup – Kevin Purdy, Wirecutter

December 5, 2018

I know Kevin from his Lifehacker work, where he was always very pro-Linux. He continues to work with Linux, which is what he writes about here. It’s always cool to see an Elementary user out in the wild (although Kevin does give Xfce some love). But as Kevin points out, a strength of Linux is that you can always ignore the desktop environment and get a ton done in the terminal.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

  1. Who are you, and what do you do?

    My name is Kevin Purdy, and I’m a writer. I work for Wirecutter, a New York Times site that recommends the best products for most people.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    The most honest answer is that I love to tinker with things. Beyond that, I want to support and help improve open-source software, and I keep learning more about Unix-type systems and how they work by installing and fixing desktops. And, lately, I’ve come to appreciate that a good Linux desktop doesn’t offer as many distractions (read: games and notifications) as a Windows or Mac system.

  3. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

    I used to dual-boot Ubuntu with Windows 10 on my desktop, but then something went terribly wrong and getting a working system back was painful. So I bought myself more RAM and now run Elementary OS in VirtualBox on my Windows desktop. My work laptop is a Mac, and I dare not mess with it too much, so I sometimes use a Chromebook (the 2015 Toshiba model with the upgraded Intel processor), and run an Ubuntu-based Xfce4 desktop through Crouton on that.

    Now that I see the next question, I realize the answer is actually: Ubuntu, always.

  4. What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?

    I used to dislike Elementary OS for all the, shall we say, “nerfing” it did to users. But now I kind of appreciate that the desktop always looks pretty slick, and it’s hard to munge it into the ugly beast I probably want. Same thing with Xfce4; sometimes it’s a good thing to keep it simple.

  5. What one piece of Linux software do you depend upon? Why is it so important?

    This is a cop-out, but really: terminal. Terminal (maybe more accurately SSH) lets me work on my personal site at Github Pages, gives me my secret favorite email interface (Mutt), allows me to focus my writing in Vim, and offers me the power to update my system without having to click a bunch of things and wait for progress bars to fill up.

  6. What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?

    As mentioned, I’ve got a Crouton (a chroot) running on a 2015 Toshiba Chromebook. Elementary OS is running inside VirtualBox (for now) on a three-year-old desktop that has gotten incremental upgrades.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Attached! The Crouton desktop (Xfce4) is intentionally untouched. The Elementary OS is obviously arranged for your benefit, but that’s a typical workday setup. The wallpaper is a screenshot from the game Firewatch.

Interview conducted December 20, 2017

The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.

You can follow Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.

Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability — Part 1

December 4, 2018

A really interesting post about the importance of menus for Linux (and for any operating system!)

There’s a section I appreciated:

Look at the GNOME 3 screenshot again. Note what is also missing? A visual clue that Save is Ctrl-S. The menu entries for “Copy”, “Paste” and so on are entirely missing — not just their shortcuts like Ctrl-C, but the whole menu entries.

WordPerfect used to have a paper template you could lay over your keyboard so you could see (and learn) all of the shortcuts. I loved it. I think it’s one of the reasons I hate taking my hands off the keyboard (not that we had mice, back in the day!).

Also, man do I miss WordPerfect…

Make. It. Simple. Linux Desktop Usability — Part 1 | Medium