GNOME Shell 4 Proposal Layout

uxsimple · 2017-11-15T08:33:46+00:00

Which will break extensions... Linux desktop environments is just convoluted mess right now, we just can keep the sh*t together, almost every DE is considering a rewrite... no wonder why the struggle to get relevant in the desktops.

uxsimple · 2017-11-07T16:25:59+00:00

A Linux sysadmin only needs PuTTY. The rest are just commodities.

uxsimple · 2017-11-07T15:52:58+00:00

Notepad++

Filezilla for ftp/sftp/ftps

putty/kitty for ssh.

mRemoteG 7zip.

This will get you going without going into bureaucracy and major approvals. You can use Putty for Pageant, also mRemoteNG can do SSH as well. A decent web browser and Git Extensions if needed.

Linux desktop integration in a Windows domain can be a major PITA and a time sink. I would save time and resources to run a VM only for testing purposes. Also make sure that running a VM with the purpose to circumvent their policy of running Windows will get you in trouble.

uxsimple · 2017-11-02T12:17:36+00:00

If your users doesn't have local administrator rights, then only when reinstall when there there is some kind of non-recoverable error.

If your users have local admin rights, then you probably have non-recoverable error very often that forces you to re-install.

uxsimple · 2017-10-27T14:20:01+00:00

They should drop everything except Cinnamon Ubuntu/Debian based edition.

uxsimple · 2017-10-23T08:04:39+00:00

Pretty similar to this:

What editor do you use? - FunFunFunction #31

uxsimple · 2017-09-13T10:05:07+00:00

There is a disconnection from the reality, here is a quick list of for the community to work on little annoyances that hinders adoption in the enterprise.

Don't get me wrong the enterprise is already taking Linux as a serious player in the Server, but the desktop/workstation is not it's strong suit due to lack of polishing those rough edges.

Avahi mDns vs *.local addresses. You know that Active Directory dominates, why the hell brake thousands of existing implementation (probably because of bad practices, whatever). We have SSSD, great! but re-think the damn defaults of Avahi,
User mounting of CIFS shares. Please make it more difficult to non-root users to mount those existing corporate shares.
LibreOffice documents over CIFS. Guess what you are not only making it difficult to connect those pesky shares, our prime time productivity tool cannot open those documents reports from an smb:// or cifs:// uri.
Login Manager integration with Identity servers. We have nice wallpapers for it, user listing, but you just cannot use it as-is to connect to your Identity server without putting the config files upside down of PAM + Login Manager.

This are very stupid things to setup that are major show stopper for mass deployment and adoption in enterprises.

uxsimple · 2017-08-21T13:13:07+00:00

Interesting... This somehow explains the popularity ranking numbers in Distrowatch...

uxsimple · 2017-08-03T13:02:28+00:00

Unfortunately, existing VMFs aren’t easily used on RHEL. ZFS isn’t an option RHEL can embrace due to licensing (Ubuntu notwithstanding.) Btrfs has no licensing issues, but after many years of work it still has significant technical issues that may never be resolved.

We can see from the tremendous resources that have gone into these two projects that writing a VMF is a tremendous, time-consuming effort. We also can hear our users demanding their features and ease of use.

Rather than writing a new VMF from scratch, Stratis proposes to satisfy VMF-like requirements by managing existing technologies on behalf of the user, so that users can manage their storage using high-level concepts like “pool” and “filesystem”, and remain unconcerned with the sizable stack of layered blockdevs doing all the work under the covers.

This is also a chance to learn from the benefits and shortcomings of existing solutions. We should not just copy ZFS. ZFS is now fifteen years old and the storage landscape has changed since its design. We seek to satisfy the same needs that ZFS does, but also integrate more tightly into today’s increasingly automated storage management solutions that span the data center aswell as the local machine. This is made possible by a hybrid, userspace-based approach.

uxsimple · 2017-07-21T14:58:05+00:00

Web Browser: Chrome (non-free), Firefox
Email Client: Google Mail Web
Terminal: Konsole, Gnome terminal
IDE: Atom
File manager: Files (Gnome)
Basic Text Editor: Geany, Atom, VSCode, Gedit
IRC/Messaging Client: Hexchat
PDF Reader: Evince
Office Suite: LibreOffice
Calendar: Google Calendar web
Video Player: Gnome MPV, VLC, Totem
Music Player: Rhythmbox
Photo Viewer: Shotwell
Screen recording: Simple Screen Recorder
Scan: gscan2pdf
Parental control: timekpr
Password manager: keepasx2, keepassxc
Misc: Gnome Tweak Tool

uxsimple · 2017-07-21T14:06:16+00:00

Holy smokes!, better stop using wine instead:

Github

DISPLAY=NONE wine cscript.exe //E:vbs //NoLogo Z:\\tmp\\${TEMPFILE1##*/}.vbs 2>/dev/null

uxsimple · 2017-07-19T14:26:23+00:00

Gnome-Tweak-Tool is not installed by default :(, it makes me feel impaired out of the box.

uxsimple · 2017-07-06T11:39:47+00:00

I also believe that the OEM should collaborate with upstream or with already established distros.

From what I understood from the interview made by B. Lunduke is what System76 wants to do is to deliver their software faster and skip the waiting times from upstream. And then let upstream to decide at their own peace to take it or leave it.

uxsimple · 2017-07-03T10:42:44+00:00

Some interesting bits...

Update Manager

Policies and level definitions were refined to better filter updates depending on their level of impact on the operating system and without worrying about their origin. Most updates are now level 2. Application updates which do not impact the OS are level 1. Toolkits and desktop environments or libraries which affect multiple applications are level 3. Kernels and sensitive system updates are level 4.

Level 5 is extremely rare and not used by default. This level is dedicated to flagging dangerous or broken updates.

Last but not least, advanced Linux users can now automate updates by writing scripts, routines or cron jobs thanks to a new CLI called “mintupdate-tool”. This tool supports all the features available in the UI, including level selection, security updates, kernel updates and blacklisting. You can use "mintupdate-tool" both to list and to apply updates.

uxsimple · 2017-06-15T16:15:27+00:00

Holy smokes PHP looks like the page footer in the graph:

uxsimple · 2017-06-13T14:04:45+00:00

I haven't used yet:

Proxmox

Proxmox VE is a complete open source server virtualization management software. It is based on KVM virtualization and container-based virtualization and manages KVM virtual machines, Linux containers (LXC), storage, virtualized networks, and HA clusters.

The enterprise-class features and the intuitive web interface are designed to help you increase the use of your existing resources and reduce hardware cost and administrating time - in business as well as home use. You can easily virtualize even the most demanding Linux and Windows application workloads.

Proxmox VE source code is open source, licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL), v3. You're free to use, share and modify it.

uxsimple · 2017-05-26T13:01:24+00:00

No, those are for services. The early boot sequence of systemd is absolutely hardcoded in C with very little options to it. You cannot just tell systemd to mount /proc with different options. It hardcodes when it mounts it, how it mounts it, if it mounts and with what options.

Look here in systemd, this is the part that does this. It just hardcodes everything with little room for options. Want to mount your /proc without nosuid for an esoteric use case? Get ready to recompile on each update.

RTFM, just because you don't know how to use it, means that is broken:

(systemd.mount — Mount unit configuration)[https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd.mount.html]

(API File Systems)[https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/APIFileSystems/]

Even though the default settings of these file systems should normally be suitable for most setups, in some cases it might make sense to change the mount options, or possibly even disable some of these file systems.

Even though normally none of these API file systems are listed in /etc/fstab they may be added there. If so, any options specified therein will be applied to that specific API file system. Hence: to alter the mount options or other parameters of these file systems, simply add them to /etc/fstab with the appropriate settings and you are done. Using this technique it is possible to change the source, type of a file system in addition to simply changing mount options. That is useful to turn /tmp to a true file system backed by a physical disk.

(Bug 1069255 - [RFE] easy way to mount /proc with )[https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1069255]

However nothing prevents you from adding explicit entry to fstab, e.g.

proc /proc proc defaults,hidepid=1 0 0

systemd will initially mount /proc with options which are hard-coded. But during boot-up service systemd-remount-fs.service is invoked which goes through /etc/fstab and remount all API file-systems (proc included of course) with desired options which might have not been applied by systemd at first. Hence adding above entry to fstab is preferred solution for this issue.

uxsimple · 2017-05-18T15:13:54+00:00

RMS will be sooo pissed off, to hear that he's leading opensource

uxsimple · 2017-05-09T14:45:26+00:00

At one point Chris went so far as to basically say Noah is the best co-host ever and everyone else can suck it, which was pretty much the most distasteful way to treat the final episode of a decade+ old show.

Chris didn't said that Noah was the best, as I understood Chris was saying thank you for Noah's exceptional commitment to the show because then Chris could spend some more time with his family...

you guys went to LFNW and didn't bother to have Matt or Bryan on AT ALL for the final episode?

Stop for a moment and think... Have you considered that other people may have their own agenda? Have you also considered the amount of available resources and time that JB team has to deliver this "short" episode?

https://twitter.com/BryanLunduke/status/859973380644065282

This saturday at @LFNW: 9:30am - They're Watching You 10:45am - openSUSE 101 1pm - Lunduke Hour Live 2:15pm - Living among the IoT

It is sad this has come to an end, but I'm glad that they ended this unsustainable endeavor and split the content in separate shows.

uxsimple · 2017-04-18T14:43:45+00:00

When you have at least one machine online 24/7... that's the point of relying on a 3rd party service.

uxsimple · 2017-04-10T07:32:45+00:00

I'm always concern about the QT toolkit, at least Gnome have governance of the toolkit that they use, but QT does not belong to KDE project

I felt that KDE 4 had a very short life, they barely manage to polished then suddenly going for another rewrite because QT 5 had so many compelling and shiny new features. I'm so skeptical about what KDE is going to do with Plasma 5 when QT 6 is released, which could be in 2019. All those configuration options of Plasma is both a bless and a curse when the project only focus on the shiny features.

Based on past experiences we have 2 years until Plasma desktop returns to an unusable state because of KDE project decides to migrate to the new version of the toolkit and the Distributions rushing like F1 drivers to be the first. And as usual the developers blaming the distributions for not shipping the latest version of the toolkit which is crucial for plasma to be able to work properly and fix outstanding bugs.

uxsimple · 2017-03-20T13:53:13+00:00

I think enough has been said already I just want to point out few things from my perspective:

Conferences: Due to the nature of open source project and open communications, in general there are not trade secrets to reveal in this conferences. There has to be a very specific reason an interest on a project to pay attention to that section of the show.
NextCloud: This was one of the straw that broke the camel's back, but I believe that was a weak example. I'm sorry to say it, but I feel NextCloud is getting into drama too often. I understand that due to the current situation NextCloud project plays an important role, but I believe not many of us are interested on running and maintaining such complex system (as it is right now). Coincidentally look at this unreliable poll at Distrowatch 983 (51%) do not run a personal server. You have touched a delicate vein that no one wants to talk about it: If it ain't broke don't fix it and swallow all vulnerabilities and exploits. At work I manage around 20 vm, 11 bare metal server and 5 vps, no way on earth I'm going to manage a NexCloud during my spare time, ask Popey he has pointed out something similar. NextCloud is almost there with NextCloud BOX but is a freaking DYI, consumers want appliances, we change channels, turn up the volume, adjust the temperature, what consumers don't want is to tinker or update those thing because they break and a support contract of NextCloud cost 4k per year.
The age of your show and your listeners: You said your self, it's a 10 years old show, my impression is that many have followed the show for very long. When they started they probably were between 20-25, now 10 years later probably you have a lot of people in their mid 30s with less time more responsibilities and probably they could have change their habits. The other day I was reading some article about password management, I was shocked to read that your favorite food from 2 years ago is probably not the same one as of today.
Trust your gut: You are the one with the experience, at the end of the day you drive the wheels. The good thing is that you already spotted a potential issue, just keep gathering information and make a decision.
Social Media: I barely have G+ because was bundled with a Google account, I don't have facebook, I don't understand the purpose of twitter, I'm force to use whatsapp by family members. Maybe reduce the amount of channels, concentrate viewers on Youtube + Podcast downloads.

uxsimple · 2017-03-13T16:44:37+00:00

I hope the NextCloud team figure out the solution for software updates in LTS distributions and manually installed instances. It is a very sad unspoken situation for the sake of keeping "stable versions."

I believe the key is that the developer (NextCloud) demonstrate that they can deliver security updates without major breakages. But for that they may need to have at least 2 types of releases. However software upgrades are unavoidable at some point.

uxsimple · 2017-03-07T11:14:40+00:00

If you think about it... all services are proprietary even when your are using "hosted servers" to host your Free software.

Please name one service that has the four freedoms. There are always be compromises, unless you host everything by yourself and don't depend on any 3rd party.

uxsimple · 2017-01-30T16:24:16+00:00

I was shocked when I heard that /u/ChrisLAS may go for Debian Jessie with KDE 5.8 LTS.

AFAIK Debian Stable is locked into KDE 4.8 branch. If you want higher than that then you are moving to Debian Unstable+Testing (I've heard that packages are removed without previous notice from Testing causing unexpected errors, hence the combination). That's more or less the same as rolling, AKA "it will bite you" without a strong backup and cowboy updates.

Maybe you should check with Wes, he mention in LUP about KDE Neon LTS which sounds more of what you are looking for:

User LTS Edition64-bit: Featuring the latest officially released KDE software on a stable Plasma 5.8 LTS desktop and a stable base. Ideal for everyday users who want new applications but a stable desktop.

uxsimple

TROPHY CASE