Tag: linux mint

The Linux Setup – Christine Hall, FOSS Force

June 28, 2016

Christine makes a great point that the question I ask about essential Linux software is increasingly less significant as so much of the same free and open software is available across operating systems. Christine is also an Xfce user who likes it because it stays out of the way. I don’t think there’s a greater compliment to pay a desktop environment.

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 Christine Hall. These days I publish the website FOSS Force, where I’m also the editor and a writer. Other than that, not much of anything, which means I really need to get a life. I live in an old rented farmhouse in rural North Carolina, where I’ve had the same roommate, whose name is also Christine, for the past eighteen years. Needless to say, we get along well.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    It all started in 2002. I’d been wanting to try operating systems other than MS-DOS and Windows, which was all I’d ever used. I had been reading up on Linux and open source for about two years or so. As an old dyed-in-the-wool counter-cultural hippie (actually, we called ourselves “freaks” back in the day; only the press and tourists called us “hippies”) the philosophy behind free and open source software appealed to me—the notion of sharing and giving back to the community and all that.

    Then one day I found myself roaming the aisles of Best Buy, looking for something or another—this was back in ancient times when stores still sold shrink wrapped software—when I ran across a boxed copy of Mandrake 9.0, the Power Pack edition containing tons of software, for 70 bucks or so. I shelled out the bucks, installed it on the white box I was running at the time, and never looked back. By the time 9.1 was released, I’d discovered Cheap Bytes, which ended my paying retail, and not long after that, broadband became available, which brought an end to needing to find install disks at all.

    The simple answer I use Linux: because it’s who I am. Obviously, as a journalist covering free and open source software, it’s still all about the FOSS philosophy and not handing over bucks, which is handing over power, to corporations that already exercise too much power over our lives. Beyond that, it’s also because Linux is bulletproof stable and secure, and a much better platform for running the software I use than the two big, proprietary platforms. Also, because it’s mine, not just because I have the source code—for which I have no personal need—but because there’s nothing hidden from me and I can configure my system any way I want. Granted, with FOSS Force taking up more of my time these days, I no longer have the time to customize my system that I once did, but I still make tweaks to improve my work flow.

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

    On my main desktop, I use Linux Mint 17.1, Rebecca. My main laptop, a 64-bit machine, is running Mint 17.2 Rafaela. The laptop got updated from Rebecca so I could write a review, but the desktop never got upgraded because it’s a 32-bit machine and would require another download, which I haven’t had the time to do. I have another laptop running Bodhi, which might be my favorite distro, but I can be more productive with Mint.

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

    Xfce. I first looked at Xfce because of its reputation for being relatively lightweight and I’d rather my computer put its processing power to use working for me rather than drawing pretty stuff and keeping a lot of bells and whistles at my beck and call. Beyond that, however, I really like Xfce. It has a simple straight forward design that has more features that I need and doesn’t get in the way of me performing my work—which is my whole purpose for sitting at a keyboard all day in the first place.

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

    First of all, what is Linux software? The day has long passed when most of the software we consider “Linux software” runs only on the *Nixes. Up until around 2013, I maintained a Windows system for a retail store, and for the last five years or so I had GnuCash on it so they could do their books, as well as GIMP. I also installed Bluefish on it for my own use. These days I still use GnuCash to do my books, and Bluefish as my text editor of choice. Other than utilities and command line tools, there’s little difference between my computer and what you’ll find on your garden variety Windows setup. I do most of my work in a browser (Chrome), use Thunderbird for email, LibreOffice for work, etc… I guess the “Linux software” I use most is GIMP, when working with images that will end up on FOSS Force.

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

    Right now I’m using an old 32-bit HP that was gifted to me, running AMD Athlon quad four at 2.3 GHz with 4GB RAM.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Yup!

Christine Hall's desktop

Interview conducted December 20, 2015

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.

The Linux Setup – Duffy P. Weber, Consultant/Voiceover  Artist

May 19, 2015

I’ve said this before, but anyone who can do audio production on Linux really impresses me, so I am knocked out that Duffy uses Linux for voiceover work. I’m even more impressed it’s done on a netbook. Like Duffy, I believe netbooks are a fantastic application of Linux and I continue to be disappointed Linux never got the chance to push into that space, because a netbook running Linux is a thing of compressed power and beauty.

<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 am Duffy P. Weber and I own (for 17 years now, jeez…) an IT/programming company called Weber Consulting. On the side, I do voiceover work with a heavy preference to doing video game voices.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    Several reasons. Servers at the shop are great with Linux. The HTTP servers, of course, and some file/FTP/SMB/SSH servers, as well as TeamSpeak3 so that I can collaborate on projects, or so my friends and I can horse around online together. We use the live boot disks for saving data off crashed client computers before we haul them off to work on them, and also for data recovery operations. Speaking of data recovery, we also make custom live Linux USB drives that are loaded up with stuff you don’t normally find pre-installed on the main disc. It’s HUGE—4GB in some cases for studio stuff—but if you need to live boot and don’t have internet to get to the repositories, it’s pretty awesome.

    I also use it for my portable audio recording rig when I’m doing voiceover on the road.

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

    “Main” is kind of a misleading word here. My main one for general use currently has Mint on it. The main HTTP servers are running Xubuntu and SuSE, and the main SSH server is still on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. I LIKE Slax for live USBs, but tend toward Ubuntu variants there, too.

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

    I like Xfce’s simplicity. Cinnamon is nice, too, and GNOME’s always been a staple.

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

    Wine. Without a doubt, Wine. Sometimes on a Linux box, you need to be able to run a mainstream Windows program. I’m a FoxPro programmer, and if I couldn’t run VFP 9 on Linux, I wouldn’t be able to run Linux.

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

    Everything from old P3 towers to my little Acer AspireONE z5. In fact, people (wrongly) dismissed netbooks as toys. I’ve recorded pro production audio using them, as well as created custom design/graphics, done 3D modeling, written software, done publication work…

    Linux is largely responsible for making the best use of their smaller resources (though to be fair, Windows XP did a LOT more on them than most people gave credit for).

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    It’s not very exciting, I’m afraid. I keep most of my stuff in the menu, and haven’t even bothered to change the background, since I always have something open, and am never looking at it. Basically a Google Image search of “Xfce Desktop” will pop up a collection that looks pretty similar to all my Linux computers lined up in a row. I’ll attach it anyway, in all its boring glory. ; )

Duffy P. Weber's desktop

Interview conducted March 2, 2015

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.

The Linux Setup – Carla Schroder, OwnCloud/Writer

April 7, 2015

So Carla is awesome and I want to be her friend. She’s got a wide variety of interests and they’re all fascinating. But her non-Linux interests aside, her Linux philosophy mirrors mine: create a workflow that works for you and your team and use tools that work for you, but also for your team. These are the strengths of Linux that are mostly ignored in enterprise IT, where it’s all about everybody using the same setup, regardless of what they are trying to accomplish. But I don’t put this all on IT departments. Users need to learn their tools better and become better advocates for themselves. It’s not about IT vs. End Users. We’re all on the same team—both sides just sometimes don’t act like we are.

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?

    Who am I? The shortest answer I have is “restless seeker.” You know how some people work in the same job their whole lives and then retire? I can’t even do something I enjoy for that long. I’ve had multiple businesses: auto mechanic/handyma’am, landscaping and housecleaning, massage therapist, freelance system and network administrator, and freelance author and editor. I wrote three books (Linux Cookbook, Linux Networking Cookbook, and Book of Audacity) and hundreds of how-to articles for various online publications. I’ve had an assortment of jobs: janitor, pill packer (working on an assembly line re-packaging over-the-counter vitamins and drugs), editor/tech journalist, and now I work full-time for ownCloud as a technical writer. I figure I’ll work until I die because I don’t have much in the way of financial security, but I’d rather do work I enjoy than work only for a paycheck.

    I’ll never be bored because I have more interests than I will ever have time to explore: musician, audio producer, photographer, woodworker…I live on a little farm with my splendid significant other, two horses, three cats, two dogs, and assorted wildlife and neighbor’s animals that come to visit. I have some ideas on indoor farming that I’m trying to find time to test. I’ve read about big operations that grow food on stacks of racks lit with LED lights, and usually the heat from the lights is all they need. They’re also water-efficient, which is huge as good, clean water becomes scarcer. My current new skill I am learning is sharpening knives on a belt grinder (Kalamazoo 1SM). That will make a nice little sideline that gets me up from the computer.

    I also have a backlog of story ideas I want to write. Someday!

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I adore Linux because I can do what I want on it. My first PC way back in 1994ish was an Apple something. It was fun, and then I got an IBM PC running Windows 3,1 and DOS 5. Windows was useless, so I spent a lot of time in DOS. Then I learned about Linux and never looked back. And Windows is still useless, and Apple is too confining. They both have their little walled gardens, and their primary purpose is lock-in and to keep selling you junk whether you want it or not, and whether or not it’s any good. They think they retain ownership of your stuff that you have purchased, which is a concept that needs to die.

    Linux fits my temperament. I’ve always been a tinkerer. I tear things apart, I fix things, I make things, and I make them to suit me. It’s way more fun to tinker than to just buy things and push buttons. It’s a little scary to me how the younger generations are so lacking in manual skills, so I try to encourage and lead by example. Which reminds me, I’m way behind on my blog, carlaschroder.com. I switched from Drupal to WordPress and haven’t migrated all the articles yet. Every time I post something maker- and do-it-yourself- related, like baking bread from home-milled flour, learning to work out with weights, photography, or whatever, it gets a lot of traffic, which is encouraging—people want to know about this stuff.

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

    I used Debian on servers and Ubuntu was my fave desktop for several years, but now I’m running Linux Mint on my desktops and laptops. There is a lot of nice engineering in Ubuntu, and I think people forget what
    a giant step forward it was. But to me, Mint feels like that last 5% of polish and I like it a lot. For example, I had some chronic USB problems on Ubuntu that disappeared with Mint, and Mint also handles attaching Android devices more nicely.

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

    I used to be a huge KDE fan, and I still like it. But Cinnamon on Mint is beautiful—it’s like it has all stuff I like in KDE without the overhead and clutter. It has desklets, and wallpaper slideshow, and a configurable panel so I am never more than a click or two away from the apps I use the most.

    I also like Fluxbox and Xfce, and I’m comfortable in the console. The neat thing about Linux is I get both the console and the GUI together seamlessly, so I can build extremely efficient workflows.

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

    The Kate text editor and Konsole are my main work tools at ownCloud. We use Git and Github, so I spend most of my workday working in plain text. Kate and Konsole are both very configurable and customizable, so again, I can construct an efficient workflow and get things done with a minimum of bumbling around.

    I can’t pick just one. My other main apps are Digikam for managing photographs, Raw Therapee for editing photos, and Audacity and Kdenlive for audio-video production.

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

    I always build my own PCs. My current machine is a couple years old, and handles all the crazy experiments I throw on it just fine:

    • Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell 3.5GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core CPU
    • CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
    • Cooler Master mechanical tenkey-less keyboard with Cherry brown keys
    • Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
    • Another 2TB hard drive (I forget what)
    • Onboard audio, plus a MobilePre USB audio interface connected to a glorious old Pioneer stereo amp and studio monitor speakers
    • Saffire Pro 26 I/O firewire audio interface
    • 24" Viewsonic monitor
    • Quiet Antec LifeStyle Solo case. I adore Antec cases. They are quiet and easy to work in.
    • Some kind of big ol’ quiet power supply

    Plus various headsets, USB optical drives, card readers, and all kinds of crazy stuff.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

Carla Schroder's desktop

Interview conducted January 18, 2015

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.

The Linux Setup – David R. Heffelfinger, Author/Consultant

December 16, 2014

David is the second Cinnamon user in a row! Cinnamon is traditional desktop environment and that’s something that speaks to a lot of users. I recently watched some family members struggle to find and open programs in Windows 8 and it made me appreciate—yet again—the control I have over my system. I use Xfce but it’s not hard to switch to something else, so I’m never at the mercy of my interface.

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 an independent consultant specializing in the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and I own a small consulting firm called Ensode Technology.

    I’m also the author of several books on Java development and related technologies. You can see my Amazon author profile here.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    When I was a CS undergrad back in the early-to-mid 90s (I’m dating myself here), introductory computer science courses were taught using PCs running DOS and networked using Novell Netware (does anybody remember that anymore?). Advanced courses were taught using Sun workstations running SunOS, a Unix variant that was popular at the time. The Unix workstations were much more powerful than the DOS PCs and students taking lower-level courses frequently suffered from “Unix envy.” Linux offered the opportunity to turn my personal DOS PC into a Unix workstation. I believe my first distro was Slackware, which I installed from a CD that came with a Linux book (this was around 1994, if I remember correctly).

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

    Currently I run Linux Mint 17, “Quiana.” I migrated to Mint from Ubuntu a couple of years ago after Ubuntu made Unity its default desktop environment. I gave Unity a fair shot, but I never got used to it. Before Ubuntu, I was using Debian Sid.

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

    I use Cinnamon because it just works, gets out of my way and lets me do my work.

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

    It is hard to pick just one. I love the Bash shell for file management; it’s so much faster and more efficient than having a graphical file manager. I also like to edit text files with Vim—not having to use the mouse for anything pretty much turbocharges your productivity. I also use NetBeans IDE for Java development, LibreOffice Writer for word processing (including all seven of my books), GIMP for image manipulation and LibreOffice Impress for presentations.

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

    My main workstation is an HP laptop, Quad Core Intel CPU, 8GB RAM, and a 750GB hard drive.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Here you see two of my most frequently used applications: NetBeans IDE and LibreOffice Writer. You can get sneak preview of a book I am currently working on in the screenshot.

David R. Heffelfinger's desktop

Interview conducted September 1, 2014

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.

The Linux Setup – Jack Germain, Journalist

December 9, 2014

Jack’s a writer who uses a software development environment to write. He’s a big Geany fan and he reminds us that tools aren’t about what they’re supposed to do so much as they’re about how we choose to use them. Jack is also a big Cinnamon desktop fan. Cinnamon doesn’t come up a lot around here, so it’s always nice to see it getting some attention (even though I can’t tell the difference between Cinnamon and Mate!).

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 am Jack M. Germain. I am a technology writer for the ECT News Network. I write software reviews and articles about the role of open source technology in business, industry, and education for TechNewsWorld, The E-Commerce Times, LinuxInsider, and CRMBuyer.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I switched to the Linux operating system many years ago to focus on a better computing experience. I wanted an OS that was not locked into a proprietary spiral that subjected me to constantly poor performance and more costly hardware. Linux lets me use my computers without worrying about virus and malware intrusions. Linux frees me from constantly having to reboot and recover from glitches. It is a much more pleasant computing experience. Linux just works.

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

    I run Linux Mint 17 on my main desktop and my primary laptop computers. I run Ubuntu 14.04 on my secondary work laptop. On an older laptop, I run the SolydX distro. I also have Puppy Linux installed on a USB drive that I use on all of my computers for a change of pace and whenever I work on-site using someone else’s computer. Linux lets me work my way with my default software and desktop settings wherever I am.

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

    I write a weekly column for LinuxInsider that spotlights a software product. I focus on dozens of Linux distros and desktop environments in this column. No matter how many desktop variations I try, I always depend on what the Cinnamon desktop provides. Its superb access to icons on the bottom panel and slide-out Favorites Bar makes scrolling through the Main Menu a rarity. The panel applets and access to virtual workspaces, plus the animation options, are far superior to configurations found in other desktop environments.

    My second favorite desktop environment is Xfce. It defies the traditional meaning of lightweight. It may lack some of the animation and eye candy of Cinnamon, but it makes up for that with its extensive configurability.

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

    My entire productivity as a writer is rooted in the Geany IDE Text Editor. Much of my wordsmithing involves discussing ideas and explaining technology concepts and how stuff works. I rarely have to print out polished glossy pages with multi-color graphics. So for me, a full-function text editor is my primary work tool. Geany has all the bells and whistles I need to create and edit words that flow on a plain page. Its split screen and multi-tab features let me arrange my notes, working drafts and final versions all in one place. It is very configurable and has dozens of plug-in feature extensions available. I have never needed a writing and editing feature that Geany did not have.

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

    The real beauty of the Linux OS is that it can handle low-powered through well-endowed hardware options. My primary desktop and laptop are similarly configured and powered so I do not have to adjust my work routine for the computer I use.

    For example, the desktop has a Quad-core Intel i5 processors and 8GB RAM. The laptop has a Dual-core Intel i5 processor. Hard drive space is less of an issue these days since I rely on large capacity USB thumb drives and cloud storage. Even so, both computers have in excess of 500GB of space. The desktop sports Intel Xeon E3-1200 4th Generation graphics. The laptop has 2nd Generation Intel Core Processor Integrated graphics.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Yes!

Jack Germain's desktop

Interview conducted August 19, 2014

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.