Do you know what this article has in common with the fairly popular book and film called The Hunt for the Red October? Well, nothing really. Except the word hunt. Now, let’s clarify a few things up front. First, there is such a thing as a perfect distro. You’ve seen me declare one or two before. However, that’s given our reality as it is, with limitations and whatnot. But what if there were none? Second, as we explore this pseudo-virtual reality where anything is possible, I’d like to give you my take on what the perfect distro truly is. Not… Continue Reading

In order, for you, to become a master of Linux, there are two things that need to happen. One, you need to invest time studying Linux. Two, you need to do it the right way. Now, a six hundred and eight dollar question. What is the right way? So let’s say you meet all the preconditions of being someone interesting in expanding their knowledge of Linux. There are many paths, as many as there are distributions, spins, forks, and graphical environments, all combined, to you reaching that level where your skills are admirable. Moreover, you may decide to pursue a… Continue Reading

The title of this article may be slightly misleading. What I want to talk to you today is the looming battle between Mir and Wayland, and there’s no better time to do that than right now, a few days after the latest edition of the Ubuntu family has been released upon the world. Now, we did talk about Wayland before, but it was more of a technical discussion, closely following another one on Qt, and how it might make Linux big one day. And then, just a few days back, we discussed what is wrong with Linux, and there’s gonna… Continue Reading

We have all been there. Our first attempt at Linux. And we have all forgotten it. The human mind does a wonderful trick of glossing over less glamorous details, forgetting boring ones, heightening trauma and success, making us believe that our journey to becoming special, i.e. Linux users, was a fairly trivial man-it-up ordeal. We have long lost the touch with reality, which is, most people have no darn clue about operating systems, especially not one named Linux. Today, I would like to try something rather impossible, or at the very least, in the words of Great Vizzini, inconceivable, sans… Continue Reading

Until about a year ago, I considered the Xfce desktop to be boring and bland and not that beautiful. I never thought it could be a decent contender for the likes of KDE and Gnome. Then, one day everything changed. It was the day Gnome 3 was born, and I figured that my favorite choice for the desktop environment was gone now, living in the shadows. While a few distributions still cling to the good ole Gnome 2, and there’s the MATE reincarnation, the landscape has been forever changed. Instability breeds opportunity, and into the vacuum came Xfce, trying to… Continue Reading

Normally, at the end of the year, I tend to run my best annual distro roundups, choosing the finest among five operating systems or flavors thereof that showed the greatest promise in terms of stability, usability, elegance, support, and other curious items in the outgoing twelve-month period. But I have never dedicated much thought to selecting the best implementation of any one particular desktop environment, regardless of the system underneath. But when you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. Oftentimes, distributions rise and fall based on their desktop session, because that is what users see and interact… Continue Reading

Let’s say you want to use an office suite on your favorite Linux distribution. All right, which one? This is an interesting question really, and often left without a good answer. Unlike most other categories, where friendly wars are most welcome, the office suite competition takes a back bench in the digital combat. So you know your way around browsers, media players or chat programs. What about office programs? Today, we will evaluate several worthy and less worthy candidates. The only criterion is that they run on Linux. We will not focus too much on cross-platform compatibility or Windows functionality…. Continue Reading

Before you judge me by the article title, please read carefully. I have a very important message, and it has everything to do with the commercial and public image success of Nokia, and Linux. We will begin with the former. To wit, here’s a brief introduction. Introduction In the early 2000s, Nokia was deemed the king of ergonomics. Its phones were designed with style, but more importantly, the operating systems and the menus were consistent, easily accessible and rather intuitive to users. As the smartphone market began to boom, Nokia chose a somewhat more conservative approach to design and user… Continue Reading