What i think Canonical needs to fix in Ubuntu
Posted by FlamingLinux
Canonical has for a long time since October 2004, been working on their Debian based linux operating system, Ubuntu. Well, Ubuntu is the most popular of the linux distributions, but i think it has one big problem. I believe it is the way Canonical is managing the Ubuntu release cycle. When 10.04 Lucid Lynx was released, it nearly had a major GRUB bug in the default install. To me, that is unacceptable for a LTS release. The way i see it, a lot of adjustments should be made. For the October releases (x.10), they should add new features that they want to add to Ubuntu, and in the April releases (x.04), they should make those the bug fix releases since it is in line with the LTS releases every two years. Also, i believe they should work on the LTS releases at least a year ahead of the release. This type of schedule would give Canonical more time to develop the LTS releases and to build on the features they want to implement in the LTS releases.
Also, as an addition, I think they should put in the multimedia codecs and flash and have the LTS releases as paid editions for Ubuntu to help support development, pay for the legal rights to distribute the codecs, and earn a little profit from it. Then, once Ubuntu becomes really stable, I might have faith in it going mainstream again.
Fun w/ Synaptic and KDE 4.5
Posted by Tyler Brown
Today's post is going to be me more or less venting a little bit about Synaptic and the Kubuntu PPA. So earlier this week I read about the KDE 4.5 Release Candidate and I decided to give it a little spin. I added the Kubuntu Beta PPA repositories and installed the KDEBase packages, etc. etc.
I guess I should first talk about my experience with KDE 4.5. From the probably 4-5 hours of me using it I can definitely see that this is going to be a release focused heavily on fixing bugs and stability. I noticed a few changes here and there to features, but I haven't really seen any new SIGNIFICANT features in KDE 4.5 RC. I would also like to say that the problems I had previously w/ Audio in KDE 4.x, where if you use a GTK app in KDE it would try to take control of the audio and not let any KDE apps use the Audio, is actually fixed, and I can now actually have the really annoying result of listening to a Youtube video in Chrome and Amarok at the same time, or just simply be able to hear an IM notice from Pidgin or Emesene while listening to music in Amarok. I did noticed a few bugs here and there, since it is a release Candidate, however, the issues I have previously with it have been fixed, and once its finally released next month I will heavily consider going from GNOME over to KDE! 
Soo... if you managed to get anything from that mess of a paragraph, you can probably guess that I am still using GNOME for now. So, earlier Today I decided to try and install KVIRC, and this is where the troubles began. The .deb package was looking for older versions of the KDE packages and not the version that indicated it was the Release Candidate, so I just decided "hell with it" and started to remove the KDE packages anyway since I don't plan on using it until the final release of 4.5 anyway. Well, first I removed the repository, and I had to keep going from Dependency to Dependency until I found the one package that was still using the version from the repository. Needless to say, I finally managed to get it removed, but to remove that package it did ask me of one bizarre thing, that I had to remove fglrx. In the end I was able to reinstall my ATI drivers, but that was a bit weird (I haven't rebooted yet, so I hope nothing screws up). In the end I was actually able to install KVIRC, but that did take up about half an hour of my time trying to fix it and find out which packages I needed to remove/downgrade.
In the past 4 years of me having used Ubuntu (off and on of course), this is the first time where removing a repository and downgrading/removing packages from it has really given me any issues like this. But I guess it happens to most people at one point or another.
Oh, and while typing this I just thought of another thing I might do is ask a question at the end of each post in relation to what the topic was, so for example Today's question is:
So, have you had an issue w/ any repositories like that? And have you been able to fix them, find the root of the problem, or did you just say hell with it and reinstall Ubuntu?
Please leave a comment answering the question, or just what you think of the post in general. Also, if you like what I write, please subscribe to me using your favorite RSS reader. Have a great Weekend and Check back for a New Post Monday!
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)
The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7
Lekhonee – A blogging Application for WordPress Blogs
Posted by Tyler Brown
Ok, so the first piece of software I would like to touch upon this month would be the piece of software I've started to use for this blog this month called Lekhonee. There is both a KDE and GNOME version, and the UI is essentially similar on both versions (though I think there may be some favoritism towards KDE). You can easily find Lekhonee in the Ubuntu Software Center/Synaptic Package Manager for Ubuntu!
Lekhonee (Click for Larger Image)
So, to start off with the Basics, Lekhonee's UI is pretty straight-forward. You have an area to input your blog's message, a right sidebar for selecting categories, area to add your tags, and to include a Title. One thing I would like to mention is formatting is kinda limited to a few options, such as bold, Italics, including a link or Image, however, you do have the ability to include HTML formatting as you like. Overall I have to give the UI a 7/10, although it is very straight-forward and easy to use, you do have limited formatting options in the toolbar.
Now some of the not so obvious features of Lekhonee include being able to browse through and edit older posts (Edit > Old Posts), The Last Post (Edit > Last Post), or you can actually upload files as well (FIle > Edit) which I actually just learned about when writing this post.
Now, there have been a couple differences I've noticed between the KDE and GNOME versions of Lekhonee, one of which is how the Categories are selected on the right sidebar. On the GNOME version, if I want to select more than one Category, I have to press Ctrl (like I would in the file manager), while in the KDE version I can just select more than one w/o having to press Ctrl. Its a tiny annoyance and wouldn't prevent me from using the GNOME version of Lekhonee, however, it was a bit annoying when I when from first testing the KDE version to using the GNOME version. Another difference is probably due to the KDE version is ahead in development compared to the GTK version, but the bottom area in the GNOME version where it has the WordPress Tab it just says "For Future Use", whereas in the KDE version I see a button that says "Add Page". Although the button does nothing when pressed, I just found that interesting (as well as the fact that the KDE version had another tab at the bottom that was faded out that had the text "Future Work").
So overall I would have to say that Lekhonee is a pretty good, straightforward application for Blogging using WordPress, although it could use more options, it definitely does the job I need it to do. I would personally give Lekhonee a 8/10.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to Read Today's Blog Post, Subscribe and Check Back for Friday's Post in a couple days, and tell your friends about my blog as well. Another thing I would absolutely appreciate is Feedback in the comments section, whether you liked the blog post, disliked it, etc.
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)
The post is brought to you by lekhonee v0.7
New Random Blog Post, Updates, etc.
Posted by Tyler Brown
Ok, I apologize for not keeping up with my promise last month. Summer started to drag on, I had a cold for the first week and a half of June, etc. etc. So anyway, its July 1st, new month, and I figured, time for a new blog post.
So in the past month I've probably used Ubuntu 10.04 95% of the time, and Windows Vista about 5% of the time. So, I'm definitely using Linux hell of a lot more than I have in the past, which is definitely a good thing! Yes, I have gotten used to the buttons being on the left side of the titlebar, and even Ubuntu's new Ambiance Theme (although I changed it to something else eventually anyway).
So, around a week and a half ago I decided to order a new 500GB HDD. I wasn't running dangerously low on space, but I figured I might as well order one just to have the extra space, have one nice really large drive, and for performance too (the 32MB of cache is pretty nice). The drive I ordered was a 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black. Absolutely amazing drive. Boots up into Ubuntu 10.04 much quicker than the 40GB I previous had Ubuntu on. And just to bring it, my previous drive configuration was 1x120GB for Vista, 1x80GB for Storage, and 1x40GB for Ubuntu 10.04. Now its 1x500GB for Ubuntu, 1x120GB for Vista, and 1x80GB for Storage. I'll include the unboxing video of the HDD below. I gave the 40GB SATA to my younger brother to use as an extra drive, which brings up the next topic.
My younger brother having had suffered 2 months on a A8N-SLI board (after trading motherboards with my other younger brother) which wouldn't work with his video card or Processor correctly (it detected his Socket 939 Athlon x2 as a Single Core), he finally got a new motherboard/CPU with 3GB of DDR2 RAM included. He's now finally able to use his 512MB 8600GT again, and his new CPU is an Athlon II x3 CPU at 2.7GHhz. Of course, because that boards only IDE channel would have been taken up by his Optical Drive, we had to order ANOTHER 500GB Western Digital Caviar Black drive. The pure fact that it was on sale AGAIN when we realized he needed another drive was some pretty good luck, otherwise we would have had to go with a 320GB or 250GB drive instead. But basically we set up a dual-boot on his system w/ XP and 7, plus a partition to store games. My youngest brother also got an upgrade out of this, including an upgrade to 2.5GB of RAM, Socket 939 Athlon x2 2.4GHz, and an extra 80GB IDE HDD.
Another thing I would like to mention is I have an extra Pentium D + a Board laying around I am actually considering doing something with. I just need to get a case, HDD, an optical drive for it (and maybe just a little bit more RAM). What I was thinking is I could possibly set that up to do videos on AND I will also probably use that as a machine to setup and do distribution testing and reviews on.
Anyway, I did mention I was getting used to Ubuntu's Ambiance Theme, well, thats when I decided to install the Elementary Theme Package, including The Elementary Modification of GNOME's File Manager Nautilus. I absolutely love this theme, and its actually going to be the Default theme of a Ubuntu-based distribution coming out called "Elementary OS". I think I might do a review on that in the future. That, along w/ Installing the AWN Dock, and using GNOME-DO, I can definitely say this UI is heck of a lot better than Window's UI.
So to continue on with my aimless rambling (is it really aimless?), while I kind of didn't go through with my blog every day in June, I definitely plan on doing more blog posts this month. I have been messing around with some pretty interesting software packages lately, mostly ones I found via Ubuntu's Software manager, that I would probably like to talk about, including an application I'm using to type this blog post in right now. So thats what I might focus my blog posts on in the next week, and I might even include videos. So, I would recommend keeping your eyes glued to this blog.
Anyway, thanks for reading this rambling blog post just updating a few things. Please subscribe to my Blog so you can keep on reading the next series of posts reviewing certain pieces of software, and I would definitely love some Constructive Feedback/Criticism in the comments section.
~ Tyler J. Brown
Mangler – A Ventrilo Client for Linux
Posted by Tyler Brown
So, I guess this is the first blog post for the month.
So, anyway. One of the things that has always kept me from always using Linux, especially when I used to be really really active over at McInTEC, is Ventrilo. I've tried various things from Virtual Machines, using Ventrilo in Wine, to trying under-developed projects such as Spux. Well, in the past month I found this piece of software called Mangler, which is a Ventrilo client for Linux. Their motto is “You should never use our software... ever.” Basically meaning that Mangler is to be used if you have no other option, and that you should opt to use Open Source alternatives for VOIP servers such as Mumble.
The Interface is very easy to use – basic, and the options aren't too hard to get at all. My Microphone works perfectly in it, Audio works, I can set comments, change the volume of people in the application, and more. Thats the very thing that surprised me, it worked. In the past few years this is the first successful Ventrilo client for Linux that I have even used.
Mangler Ventrilo Client
So basically, if you need to use Ventrilo for Linux and have no alternative, I would recommend looking at Mangler. It is a very good application and the best part about it: It works.
So yes, within the last few minutes of the day I managed to get this blog post out. I could have went more in depth about it, but it was a crazy day. Family came into town, first time I've seen em' in a year. Graduation practice was today, and graduation will be tomorrow. So, I will definitely be producing more in-depth posts later on in the month once things get a little back to normal. Otherwise, thanks for reading. Subscribe to see the other 29 posts I will do this month, hopefully, and check back tomorrow for the next post!
- Tyler J. Brown (Condoulo)