Showing all posts tagged ubuntu

In In Focus

After Ubuntu 18.04

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

Ubuntu 18.04 is great! I’ve beta tested it, tweaked Vrk (my desktop quick setup app at http://verb.ink) to recognize the new desktop features, and it all just works! Bravo Mark, loved Unity with certain desktop setting tweaks from Vrk, but it’s great that GNOME has been “Unity-ized” for more of what everyone wants and one less desktop environment for me to support for Vrk.

Now, can we all please take a break from this “perfect desktop push”?

Don’t get me wrong, I want to come back to desktop and I even have a few priorities I’ll describe here. But, there are other issues with Linux on desktop computing, mainly more external hard disk support and printing.

Linux started as terminal work, just like DOS back in the early 90s. OS2 was a dream that should have been, Windows 95 broke the mold, which even Linux desktop systems still use (the ‘Start’ menu as a one-for-all resource and right-click context menus).  · · · →

In In Focus

Convergence and the Linuxist

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

To the meat: for now, I’m back to Xfce on desktop.

If you’re gonna’ be beautiful and stuff, then get on tablets or go home. When doing desktop, do desktop. I’m going with the “eXtremely fast computing experience”!

I always feel ahead of the curve. I wrote an article a few years ago on Seven Reasons I Chose Xubuntu Over All Else. Then, I switched to GNOME one year before Unity made the big back-to-GNOME announcement. In that time, I wrote my own “break-it-in” script, Vrk at verb.ink. The original goal was to “make Unity less unbearable”. In the end, with stability and options I set through gsettings and dconf, I had Unity 7.5 running as the slickest, most user-friendly thing I’ve seen. Unity was stable. Since using GNOME as of 16.04, every install was buggy and glitchy out of the box. Budgie also just arrived on the scene and UBports is taking off.  · · · →

In The Desk

Night and Day Theming

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

The punchline: We need flat/zen themes with push-button dark/light theme settings that apply both system-wide and dark/light theming per individual app.

I am firstly and lastly a writer. But, Ubuntu was just too attractive for me not to understand development life under the hood. I’m one of the chosen who identifies with both app users and app developers. I stand in the middle and see the future.

For almost two years, I have watched my VPS/Desktop Ubuntu hobby mature into verb.ink beta. In the process, I have come to understand two best-kept secrets about theming.

  1. Coders and media workers need “dark” desktop/environment themes; writers need “light/bright” themes.

  2. There are WAY too many desktop themes for Ubuntu.

Light/Dark Themes: Writers v Coders

Dark themes are all about eyesight and pupil dilation. We see pictures, videos, and computer code better by looking at light letters against a dark background.

But, desktop publishing apps prepare text as it will appear on white, printed paper.  · · · →

In In Focus

Why I changed to Ubuntu GNOME Studio at 16.04

Author Jesse SteelePosted on

I use Ubuntu GNOME on all my machines. I write and maintain my quick install scripts here:

https://github.com/inkVerb/vubuntu/blob/master/vStudio

After the new 16.04 LTS, I knew some things could change. Some did, some didn’t. I will update this as the developers fix any problems.

KDE I still can’t stand.

Ubuntu (Unity) is a yeah-yeah-yeah-boo.

Ubuntu GNOME is great with mods.

Xubuntu is robust and delightfully boring as always.

Ubuntu Studio (Xubuntu-based) seems to have gotten a face lift. (a change for the better)

[rant] Before I get into these by item, I need to say: If the repo gods can get xscreensaver updated in time for 16.04 after two weeks of boot nags, what the hades is wrong with ownCloud and their grabastic version-named client repo URLs that have no 16.04… in April of an LTS year!? Only ownCloud rejected me on a GitHub bug fix pull—they wanted the bug, they said.  · · · →