Tag: linux

Free software for remote working

April 1, 2020

A lot of us are now suddenly thrust into fully remote work environments. Purism shared their stack of free and open source tools.

My personal situation is tougher, since my colleagues and I have to agree upon our tools, and some of that conversation is informed by access: both what our college pays for, but also the larger university.

For instance, we’re a Windows shop. Rather impressively, Office 365 allows me to get a ton done in the browser.

I’ve been using the non-free (and perhaps sinister) Zoom for web conferencing because it runs flawlessly on Linux. WebEx is horrific if not impossible. I actually now run WebEx calls in a virtual Windows 10 partition. I’d like to experiment with Jitsi, which is free and open source, and looks as easy as anything. Hacker News had a very useful thread on it.

I spend a certain part of each day in the Windows partition, but if it’s not for WebEx, it’s usually for relatively minor formatting issues, either with Word or Excel. I was using Boxes for virtualization, but while it’s simple, it seemed to run slowly and didn’t handle sound very well. VirtualBox feels much more robust.

My Cowin E7 Bluetooth headphones are fussy. Connecting both audio and mic can take a few tries. I don’t know if that’s Linux or the nature of Bluetooth.

But in general, Linux is getting me through, just like always!

Free software for remote working | Purism

The Linux Setup (Again) – Charles Profitt, System Administrator

March 18, 2020

Charles reached out to me about doing another interview, which is something I’ve thought about for a while. You do an interview about your setup and it’s locked in time, when really your Linux set-up evolves. So I was happy to hear from him again, after our 2014 interview. He’s using Fedora and GNOME now, rather than Ubuntu and Unity, but as he mentions, his workflow hasn’t changed. Which is the beauty of Linux. The desktop and distro can change, but your workflow doesn’t have to.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow me on Mastodon here and follow me on Twitter here.

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

    I am Charles Profitt. I am a systems administrator for a K-12 school district. I focus on the technology infrastructure of the district including wireless, firewalls, cybersecurity, and identity management.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I use Linux as the operating system of choice because I enjoy the ability to tinker while using a secure and stable system. I am the type of person who enjoyed squeezing enough memory out of my MS-DOS system to be able to use the CD-ROM drive, listen to music, and play a game. Linux still allows me to see under the hood.

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

    I currently use Fedora on both my work and personal laptops. I have used Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE and Arch in the past. For me the best mix of the latest and greatest on a stable platform is Fedora.

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

    I currently use GNOME. I like its simplicity and several of the default apps. I enjoy having GNOME extensions that allow me to personalize my experience. I currently use Disconnect Wi-Fi, KStatusNotifier, Refresh Wifi Connection,
    Transparent Top Bar, and Vitals.

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

    In my job I rely on nmap, nano and ssh for my job. I use nmap for security scans of my network, to look for unknown and misconfigured devices. Note-taking at meetings is completed using nano. I use ssh to connect to the multitude of appliances that I manage.

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

    My work laptop is an X-1 Carbon 6th gen with a core i7 processor, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD. My home laptop is a Dell XPS 13 9343. This laptop has a 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM and a Core i5 processor. I am looking at replacing the home computer with an X1 Carbon 8th gen when they finally go on sale.

  7. How would you broadly describe how your setup has changed since our last interview?

    When I was interviewed the last time, I was a member of the Ubuntu Community Council and was running Ubuntu. Despite the change in distros, not much has changed. While I miss the Unity interface most of my workflow is unchanged.

  8. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

Interview conducted March 10, 2020

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, for the first or second time, drop me a line.

You can follow me on Mastodon here, follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to the feed here.

The Linux Setup – Steve Best, The Art Directed Journal

February 5, 2020

I found Steve via this very thorough review of elementary. I played with elementary years and years ago and it didn’t feel right for my workflow, but it seems like it’s picking up more and more steam. I should probably give it another chance someday. And I definitely hear Steve on the pragmatism of Linux. There are philosophical reasons for choosing free and open source tools, but there are also practical ones. Neither is more valid than the other.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow me on Mastodon here and follow me on Twitter here.

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

    I’m Steve Best, and I have a site that is really more of a hobby than anything else called The Art Directed Journal. I use it to practice/experiment with HTML and CSS, as well as improve my writing skills. By profession, I’m in cyber security, and Linux does cross-over somewhat into my day-to-day.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I have used Linux in varying capacities since 2004. I use Linux for all the stereotypical reasons. It’s fast, secure, and free. I’m not against Microsoft or Apple, but I like to use what works. Right now desktop Linux is what works for me. I have found that with my current hardware set up, Windows is just a bit too much in terms of system requirements to be anything other than frustrating. This is an older piece I wrote, which explains my “why” for Linux more in-depth.

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

    I am currently using elementary OS (5.1).

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

    I use Pantheon, which comes default on elementary. It is actually one of the main reasons I use elementary. It is fast, fluid, and it makes my old hardware run like new.

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

    I have come to rely greatly on Code, which is the default code editor on elementary. It is very lightweight, but yet extremely feature-filled. It is another of the main reasons I use elementary. Anything else I can do on my iPhone.

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

    My personal laptop is a very old HP Pavilion with a dual core i5 and 4GB RAM. For a number of reasons, I have just never replaced it, nor do I have any plans to do so in the near future. I really need a new battery, more RAM, and a solid state drive. I’ll eventually get around to upgrading these things on it. However, my iPhone 11 is probably my most used “computer,” in terms of my personal use.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    The wallpaper is from Windows 10x, which I downloaded off Twitter. 🙂

Interview conducted January 26, 2020

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 me on Mastodon here, follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to the feed here.

The Linux Setup – Kezz Bracey, Web Designer/Developer

December 4, 2019

I found Kezz on Twitter and I’m so glad I did because this is a wonderful interview. First of all, I love the KDE details. Because while I don’t use KDE, I respect it. I wish I could tame it the way Kezz has. Instead, I tend to bow to its will, when really, if I knew how, like Kezz, I could bend it to mine. I also appreciate the screencasting information. I don’t do it very often anymore, but I do know that at some point, there were concerns about the lack of a good Linux screencasting program. Apparently that’s no longer an issue, which is great to hear.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow me on Mastodon here and follow me on Twitter here.

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

    I’m Kezz Bracey. My primary profession is as a web designer/front end web developer, though in recent years I’ve been focusing on teaching. I do this via courses and tutorials I create for Tuts+, though I plan to expand on this via my own site over the coming months at http://www.kezzbracey.com.

    I also like to dabble a little in game development as a hobby, as well as digital art and music production.

  2. Why do you use Linux?

    I switched over to spending more time on Linux than any other operating system after waiting a few years for the promised Mac Pro update that never came. I wanted hardware that was powerful enough for my game development (and gaming) hobbies, but I also wanted a good environment for all the command line based tools that are a big part of web development today.

    MacOS could give me the development environment I wanted, but with restrictive hardware. Windows could give me the hardware I wanted, but was an unpleasant environment for command line work and web development in general. So I searched for “Alternative to MacOS” and discovered ElementaryOS, which immediately captivated me. I tried it, loved it, and started transitioning over as much of my workflow as I could. I was able to then buy the hardware I wanted and have my smooth development environment, too. Since then I’ve distro-hopped quite a bit, but I still prefer every Linux distro I’ve tried over Mac or Windows as excellent web dev environments.

    That said though, as much as I love Linux for practical reasons as a development environment, I also love the ethos of community-developed systems and software. When using company-driven software I sometimes run into problems stemming from what’s good for the company not being good for me, whereas I always feel confident that the goals of the people in the Linux ecosystem essentially align with my own. And I absolutely love having control over my system so I can set everything up perfectly to be a beautiful and efficient place to work.

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

    At the moment my main distro is Manjaro with KDE because I really enjoy the package management and the near-bleeding-edge-but-not-quite update cycle. Of all the distros I’ve tried, Manjaro provides me with what I need the most consistently.

    However I also have KDE Neon on a partition at the moment, so I can use DaVinci Resolve for video editing, as it’s quite hard to get that up and running on an Arch-based system, plus I have ElementaryOS installed as there are some really interesting apps being developed for their AppCenter and I like to check in on them.

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

    I use KDE and it’s my single most-loved aspect of working on Linux. As a front-end web developer, I of course love to tinker with and customize user interfaces (UIs) and that is something KDE arguably allows for the best among all desktop environments. When I hit a point of friction that’s slowing my workflow down in some way, there’s always a method to modify it in KDE. I can move around KDE so smoothly and fluidly that in comparison I feel like I’m walking through mud when I have to use Windows or MacOS, or even some other Linux desktops.

    A big part of why I love KDE so much is also the Dolphin file explorer. It’s absolutely perfect for what I do thanks to the in-line terminal, excellent file previewing capability, split pane, tabs system, and toolbar controls customization. When I have to use another operating system/desktop environment, I feel Dolphin’s absence quite notably.

    As an extra note, I’ve also found KDE has the best support for 4k/HiDPI and handles screen recording without producing artifacts.

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

    If I look at “depend upon” as meaning a piece of software I’d have to boot into Windows without, that would have to be the Figma design tool, despite it not technically being Linux software. The reason is that as wonderful as the coding side of development is on Linux, the graphics side is still challenging if you are in UI design. But the fact I can access Figma from my Linux install, (through the browser or the unofficial figma-linux app), allows me to spend more time booted into it than I would otherwise be able to.

    However if we’re talking more specifically about Linux-native software made primarily for the Linux community, it would have to be SimpleScreenRecorder. I use it for screen recording my courses whenever I’m able to produce them on Linux, and it does a wonderful job of capturing high quality video with essentially no impact on performance. It’s a fantastic piece of software.

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

    My main machine is an i7 processor, RX480 GPU, 16GB RAM, with a couple of SSDs.

    I also have a couple of other Linux machines, though. I have an Asus Zenbook running Arch with KDE, and a handy little Surface Go running Manjaro with KDE. And if anything with a Linux kernel counts, I also have a Moto X4 running LineageOS.

  7. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

    Sure thing! Here are a couple. The first is of my straight up desktop and terminal with screenfetch, the second is of my physical desktop space, including my little Go with Manjaro tablet, and the third is with the “Grid Tiling” extension running and a few of my favorite applications.


desktop and terminal


physical work space


grid tiling

Interview conducted November 18, 2019

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 me on Mastodon here, follow me on Twitter here and subscribe to the feed here.

Back to windows after twenty years

November 19, 2019

This is a post from David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails, about switching to Windows from Apple, mostly because of not loving the new MacBook keyboards.

He reports that Windows didn’t work for him either and it made me wonder where Linux fit into his math. Over in the comments, Hansson says he’s open to trying it.

Based on his issues with Apple and Windows, I suspect Linux will be a great fit.

Back to windows after twenty years | Signal v. Noise