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Archives for: June 2006, 12

06/12/06

XGL, KDE and Kubuntu

Getting XGL (some serious eye candy!), KDE (The Desktop of choice) and Kubuntu to all play fair was a little more difficult then excpect. First I had to make changes to my xorg.conf file to enable Duel Monitor support, once I had got the resolved it was onto installing XGL ontop of KDE.

For those of you who do not know, XGL, developed by Novell was designed for the Gnome SUSE desktop, and has some real cool controls, like wobbly windows, pull back windows and 3 dimensional desktops. Theres a hang of a lot more to it, but thats the general gist of it.

I also decided to update my background image as that was designed more for a single monitor rather than a dual monitor. So now I run a desktop background I pulled off http://www.deviantart.com, called Delicious.

Well that aside, and without any further wasting your time, here is mah new desktop:

Cube3

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/xgl/cube_multi_desktop.jpg

Here is another picture of the "pull back" window effect. Basicaly you hold down cntrl, and you can pull down the corner of a window:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/xgl/pulling_window_to_the_side.jpg

And one last picture, the whole "wobbly" windows effect when you shake a window around:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/xgl/wobbly_windows.jpg

You also get that effect when your K menu (like windows start menu) bounces up and down, and the menu options bounce out the side of it.

For the record, if you want to do the same with your Kubuntu install, simply follow the instructions in this how-to and you should be fine and dandy: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=186200&highlight=kde+compiz

Some seriously good eye candy for a great desktop Operating System! Well done Mark!

Why are you still using Windows

Permalink 03:55:10 am, Categories: Current Events and News, Views and Reviews, Geek stuff, 658 words

This is my story of how I left 14 years of Microsoft use and move over to Kubuntu Dapper Drake Linux, 6.06, and the reasons surounding the choice.

Yup 14 years, thats a b!tch long time to use mostly one operating system as your desktop, and after reading the disurbing reports such as the following:

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1974911,00.asp

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1974878,00.asp

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1766920,00.asp

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/06/06/0434242.shtml

http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=882

If you look back at previous posts you will find one about my opinion on copyright, so I have decided to move my desktop completely away from Microsoft and over to a linux distribution. There were a lot of choices for an operating system, but I decided to go for an Ubuntu varient known as Kubunue. The KDE heavy version of Ubuntu (which ships with gnome by default).

I think I chose a winner, I can honestly say that the install was quicker and simpler and a better experience than any Windows insntall I have ever done. The CD boots up into a live CD, and since I was on my works network, the OS that was loaded into memory came with a KDE Desktop, a DHCP client, a broweser and installer (as well as a host of other features), so while the the installer is formating your drive, creating parition tables and installing itself, you can browse the net, or chat on IRC or MSN, or whatever you normaly use.

The least boring install I have ever gone through.

Now I have a new desktop, and it can almost do everything my last one can, and in most cases more so. Click on the thumbnail image below to have a look at the desktop with K Menu extended:

ma Desktop

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/KDE_Menu_internet.jpg

Straight off the cuff, one of the coolest features I noticed in the Operating Sytem, was a media player called AmaroK. To get an idea why I enjoy this media player so much have a look at this screenshot:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/amaroK_media_player.jpg

If you are the more practical kind of person the OS comes with a great office suite called Open Office, and its also very easy to run either Adobe Acrobat in linux:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/office_support.jpg

Navigating through the drive is really easy, and thumbnail support on folders is far better than its Microsoft counter part. The system comes with great graphic manipulation applications, and I suggest you try out Gimp:

http://www.pickledbushman.com/screenshots/graphic_folder.jpg

There should be no reason why you should need to stay with Microsoft. Media plays cleaner and smoother, the desktop doesnt take the operating system with it when it crashes, and theres a host of other benifits that can not be over looked.

No more anti-virus, no more anti-spyware, no more blue screens of death. If I leave my system running for an extended period I dont get memory leaks all over the place, and when I come back to my desktop, its just as quick as when I first booted up.

Im going to try get the eye candy XGL program installed, and going to add duel monitor support to my xorg.conf file during the course of thie weekend, and I will let you know how that goes. Its got some pretty amazing effects that I cant wait to utilize.

KDE 4 is just around the corner, and popular rumour has it that its going to blow Vista out the water. XGL and KDE4...... ooooooh.... just you wait.

As you can see, there is very little reason to stay with Windows, when Linux can do it all, and if not better. Move over now, before corporate captain copyright owns your soul.

Got any screenshots or suggestions you would like to share? Email them through to me.

pickledbushman.com

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