Fedora 17 Xfce Spin Review - eXtremely eXcellent part 1

Category: Linux

After the pleasant experience of running the Fedora 17 LXDE spin, I decided to give the Xfce Fedora 17 Beefy Miracle spin a try considering that the next iteration of Fedora was yet again delayed (which is not a big deal since 17 is an excellent release). Unlike Qt and the Englightenment desktop, Xfce gets plenty of coverage on the Internet. Linus Torvalds somewhat endorsed Xfce after the Gnome 3 debacle in 2011 and the awesome hosts of The Linux Action Show agreed that Xfce was a desktop environment worthy of Gnome 2 fans back in May 2012.   Xfce is strongly supported by the majority of Linux distributions. I must admit my favoritism towards LXDE, the other lightweight desktop environment, stems from my poor experience trying out a Mandriva 2010 Xfce spin and Xubuntu a few years back. So it's time to give the popular desktop another chance with Fedora on the backend.

Reviewing a Desktop Environment

When reviewing a Linux spin, it's important to remember that the desktop environment is not the distribution itself. Xfce in Mageia is different from Xfce in Linux Mint. Just because the Xfce spin for a particular distribution is terrible doesn't mean the Linux distribution is terrible, too. For example, I preferred Lubuntu over a Linux Mint LXDE release though the mainstream Cinnamon and MATE Linux Mint spins are exceptional. Developers implement desktop environment with differing themes, window managers, and packaged applications.

It's very difficult to review just Xfce and remove it from Fedora. As I noted in my Fedora LXDE spin review, Fedora releases have been a hit-and-miss on my machines, but Fedora 17 struck a sweet spot. I ran Fedora 17 Xfce with the expectations the system would run smoothly.

Packs a punch for a "Lightweight"

I remember reading blogs a few years back about how Xfce had become as bloated as Gnome 2 and was no longer really a lightweight desktop environment. The discussion is somewhat irrelevant now considering the power of mainstream laptops. What I did find surprising about the Xfce spin was that it was fully-equipped with applications such as Remmina Remote Desktop Client, Catfish search, Geany (a lightweight IDE), and Red Hat's System Config Firewall (GUI). Lubuntu, in contrast, has neither a GUI firewall, an IDE, or even a file search utility in its default configuration (I installed GUFNW, Gnome-search, Remmina, and Bluefish separately on Lubuntu). I was extremely surprised that my first update on the Fedora Xfce spin through PackageKit even included the Gstreamer codecs (!). Other great but fairly unknown utilities included are Gigolo, Pragha, Sensors Viewer, and a complete set of Orage Calendar tools. More familiar utilities are Liferea News Reader, Transmission for Bit Torrents, Abiword, Gnumeric, and GParted.   In fact, I can go as far as to say the Xfce spin is more complete than the mainstream Fedora 17 Gnome 3 desktop and more functional to boot. This is an advantage if you prefer your distribution fully-equipped out of the box without having to install any other applications.

The caveat to Fedora 17 Xfce's fully-armed approach, however, is an invisible bulk. The first time I ran the online update, I was shocked at more than 500 updates for software that came with the distribution. It took a good half hour before I was able to reboot and try out Xfce whereas the LXDE spin only had some basic security patches during my tests. There is no question that Fedora 17 Xfce spin's default configuration is more complete than Lubuntu's or the Fedora LXDE spin, but longtime Linux users might have a different set of applications in mind than the selections included with the spin. I would, for instance, use SMPlayer over Parole Media Player and install Thunderbird over Claws Mail.  Fans of frugal Linux distributions who prefer to select their own software are better off with the Fedora 17 LXDE spin, which is severely more lean in its software selections.

PCMANFM vs. Thunar - Not Really a Clash of the Lightweight File Managers

File managers are integral to my workflow and I have a great love for Dolphin in KDE and Nautilus in Gnome. PCMANFM over in LXDE is a great file manager for everything from directory access to SSH tasks. Although I haven't used Xfce's default file manager Thunar extensively, it matches PCMANFM in almost every feature. It has similar deficiencies as well - like PCMANFM it doesn't have the split view and comic book thumbnails.   Due to the lightweight design of both file managers, plugins have to be installed for both applications to add a bit of oomph. I never saw the need for any extensions on my file managers other than network access (which Thunar already has), but this is where Dolphin and Nautilus excel. Unlike PCMANFM and Thunar, the admittedly hefty Dolphin and Nautilus are fully-equipped and plenty of third-party plugins are easily available for install. The speed of Thunar, even when compared to Nautilus, Dolphin, and PCMANFM, is negligible in this day and age of quadcore processors and SSDs.

One feature of Thunar that might annoy users is bulk rename. Selecting files and pressing F2 in Thunar will trigger the Thunar Bulk Rename plugin. The utility is extremely powerful and allows users to customize file renaming from file suffix to number sequence. It's a bit overkill for most users and takes awhile to get used to especially if you're accustomed to a straightforward renaming experience in Windows or KDE. Although the approach is not as laborious as in MacOSX, the number of options can get confusing as well.

Sans the Bulk Rename, Thunar actually has more accessible settings than PCMANFM, but really doesn't have an edge in performance or functionality.

A Tale of Two Browsers

The ubiquitous Mozilla Firefox and the lesser-known Midori browser is included in the Fedora 17 Xfce spin and while I applaud the inclusion of a backup browser, Midori may not be the best selection. Midori is great for casual browsing but a message box pestered me several times on reboot about Midori crashing even if it hadn't during my last session. I actually would have preferred to have the developers include Chromium instead though I admit the whole point of including Midori was to provide a lightweight alternative to bulky Firefox.

PackageKit works!

I have no qualms with using yum on the Terminal but I was pleasantly surprised that PackageKit didn't have any issues in the Xfce Fedora spin whereas I had to uninstall Yumex in the LXDE spin due to a persistent error. Although the PackageKit GUI isn't as impressive as openSUSE's Yast2 or Ubuntu Software Center, I had no problems downloading updates and installing utilities such as Grsync. Devoted Terminal fans scoff at package managers but I actually like browsing through available packages and discovering new and useful software to try. Perhaps it was because of upstream updates or maybe the Fedora LXDE spin had native bugs, but PackageKit had no errors in this go around with Fedora 17.

Fedora 17 Xfce Spin Review - eXtremely eXcellent part 2: Panel, Application Finder, Window Manager, and Sex Appeal?

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Fedora 17 Xfce spin QuickFix: Cannot Find 'True' Font

Category: Linux

Although Fedora's next release is around the corner, users may still want to resolve a lingering and somewhat minor issue in GRUB2 when booting up the Fedora 17 Xfce or Fedora 17 LXDE spin. Just prior to the Grub menu appearing, the error Cannot find 'True' font will briefly flash. The issue has already been filed in the bug reports and the nice folks over at the Fedora forums have already offered various ways to resolve it. The steps here are exactly the same albeit on a Xfce desktop and using a rudimentary approach.

You will need to have administrative rights to edit and save the Grub file.

1. Using the Xfce Terminal Emulator (or any Terminal), enter:

leafpad /etc/default/grub

As an alternative, you can manually open the file using the Leafpad text editor.

2.  Delete the text on the Grub file:

SYSFONT=True

3. Save the file.

4. On the command line, enter:

grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

5. Reboot the system to check if the error still appears.

The issue occurs in a freshly installed Fedora 17 Xfce spin. Fedora 17 has been around for awhile now so I was surprised to still the True Font issue still present. Running an online update may resolve the issue (though it didn't on my LXDE spin nor my Xfce install). For a more detailed method involving replacing the font file please refer to the the Fedora forum thread. Hopefully, the issue will be permanently resolved in the next Fedora release.

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Linux on Film: The IT Crowd Season 1 Episode 3

The British TV comedy series The IT Crowd (2006-2008) is a funny but short-lived series about a trio of IT staff sequestered in the company basement. The series actually doesn't deal too much on information technology or consumer electronics at all but like the British series Coupling focuses more on the characters' odd social interactions.

In episode 3, a poster advertising the O'Reilly tech media publishing company hangs behind Richard Aoyade's character. The poster is probably intentionally blurred to avoid any sort of free advertising but SUSE and Linux users can probably make out the lizard logo and fairly popular Linux reference books. Since episode 3 was aired in 2006, the book on the poster was probably about SUSE Linux 10.x.


Richard Aoyade in "The IT Crowd". Screenshot from Episode 3 Season 1.

Although the series was filmed more than 5 years ago, the comedy presents a fascinating look at how quickly technology moves in such a short period of time. Windows XP is shown prominently on occasion and the slow broadband depicted in one episode is a testament of how far we've gone in the realm of IT.

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6 Reasons why Linux is Comic Book Friendly

Category: Linux

1. Read and view comic books with Okular and Evince

Linux distributions don't require a separate comic book viewer to open .cbr and .cbz files. Okular and Evince both provide page thumbnails, multiple views, page zoom, and allow users to open and read comic book files. Moreover, Okular and Evince are both standard document viewers and are preinstalled in the majority of Linux distributions regardless if you're running an Xfce, Gnome 2, Gnome 3, LXDE, or KDE desktop environment.

2. You don't need a separate program to organize your digital comic books

You don't need a comic book organizer such as Comic Rack in Linux. Once you organize your comic books into folders, you're good to go since two of Linux's most popular file managers can display thumbnails and metadata out of the box. Nautilus (and Nemo) as well as Dolphin support resizeable cover thumbnail previews.  Nautilus is used in most Ubuntu-based/Gnome desktop Linux distributions while Dolphin is found in KDE distros.

3. Plenty of comic book applications are available in your repository

If you don't like how Okular or Evince displays your digital comic books, you can always install applications like qcomicbookviewer or the popular cross-platform Comix utility. If you want to organize your physical comic books as well as your digital collection, there's the friendly database Gnome Comics Organizer or the multipurpose GCStar for tracking your superhero or hentai library.

4. Uploading comic books to your smartphone, ereader, tablet, iPhone, or iPad

Linux supports various file systems and can easily access the storage of Android and Windows devices. Moreover, Linux distributions like Lubuntu and Linux Mint can even copy files to iOS devices directly from the file manager. Are you a manga fan and prefer reading Rurouni Kenshin on your ereader? Install the powerful Calibre ebook manager and convert your .cbr or .cbz files to EPUB for a quick and easy upload to yourSony PRS or Kindle.

5. Creating .cbr and .cbz files

Linux distributions can open and extract Zip files and allow you to create .cbz on the fly. Ubuntu even offers the option to compress to .cbz once you select a range of .JPEGs and .PNGs and select compress from the context menu. Renaming the zip extension to .cbz is also a cinch using standard file managers such as Dolphin (KDE), Thunar (Xfce), PCMANFM (LXDE), Nautilus (Unity/Gnome), and Nemo (Cinnamon). If you prefer to create .rar-based .cbr files, all you need to do is install the rar package using your software manager. Preinstalled archive managers such as Ark and File Roller will do the rest. For users accustomed to 7Zip, the popular utility is also available for Linux.

6. Extract pages, edit panels, and create a Spider-Man meme

The aforementioned archive managers can easily extract pages from digital comic books. You can then open the page in Gimp, LibreOffice Draw or Inkscape for some quick cropping and sharpening. After adjusting Levels or Color saturation, add your own text and upload to Tumblr to gain comic book notoriety. Too lazy to use an archive manager or even crop a comic book page? Zoom into your comic book panel and take a screenshot using Ksnapshot or Shutter for an instant image of Spidey thrashing idiotic morons like the Punisher. With the right tool, you can easily create a high-resolution screen capture of Neon Genesis Evangelion's Rei or Slam Dunk's Sakuragi Hanamichi for use as your desktop, iPod, or Android tablet wallpaper.

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Sony MDR-ZX100 Headphones Review by a Tone Deaf Non-Audiophile

Category: Techtoday

You won't see me spending $200.00 on a pair of Dr. Dre Beats headset, much less a Lady Gaga branded one. I can never justify buying any one of the Sennheiser or Audio-Technica noise-canceling or wireless headphones CNET recommends either. For the price tag of one of those fancy headphones, I'd rather spring for a more practical investment such as a portable hard drive. It's amazing how the proliferation of smartphones and MP3 players has inspired the masses to shell out hundreds of dollars on a one-trick pony accessory (Bluetooth and wireless is not a primary function). I was perfectly happy with earbuds when I was toting my Sony Walkman in the early 90s and still invested in cheap earbuds when I migrated to my first MP3 player (a 256MB Samsung Yepp). I persisted with the flimsy and damage prone audio accessory when I received an iPod Touch two years ago and was perfectly happy with the much-reviled stock Apple earbuds. What can I say? Besides having virtually no disposable income, I learned the hard way years ago that I'm tone deaf (six years of playing the alto saxophone). Even if I did have the sensitive hearing of Daredevil and could distinguish the subtle differences between individual notes, pitch, treble, and bass, I'm satisfied with listening to Duke Ellington performances, the Cowboy Bebop OST, and Will Ferrell's Love Me Sexy in a 128-bit, VLC -ripped MP3 format. Heck, I'd be happy listening to a YouTube downloaded Michael Jackson song.

Sony MDR-ZX100 for RMB119.00

For the whole of 2012, I was using a cheap but excellent Creative pair of earbuds that I bought for an embarrassing price I won't mention here. The earbuds survived 13 months of being switched between mobile devices and my laptop, thrown into my satchel, and generally pulled and squashed on a daily basis. A few days ago, the left earpiece stopped working but the right still worked like a champ. When that earpiece finally dies, I'll have my Linux machines and iOS devices give it a 21-gun salute. However, since I review my foreign languages and listen to BBC podcasts on a daily basis, it was imperative I purchased a replacement headphone for my MP3 players. The Sony MDR-ZX100 was available on 360buy for RMB119.00 (around $20.00) and for the first time in my life I considered a full-sized pair of headphones over earbuds. I briefly considered a similar Philips headphones for RMB99.00 but Philips earphones have never survived very long in my experience so I opted for the Sony MDR-ZX100 instead. My Chinese co-worker ordered it for me and I received it promptly early the next day.

Sony has a range of headphones available for the discerning audiophile. Thankfully, they had the low-end MDR-ZX100 for non-discerning, penny-pinching non-audiophile too.

Sony Quality and durability

Sony has received tons of criticisms in the last few years for their performance in the electronics market. Everything from the Sony Playstation 3, their Experia phones, ereaders, Vaio laptops, and Bravia televisions have struggled to gain an audience. The remarks are always the same - Sony products are too expensive for their feature set and performance (which can actually be said about Apple's products but there you go). However, even jaded critics cannot deny that Sony's products maintain a consistent level of quality. I've harped regularly about the screen and page refresh rate of my Sony PRS-600 ereader but it's been 3 years since I purchased it and the steel exterior looks brand new and I'm currently reading Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming on it.

Despite the price, the Sony MDR-ZX100 appears durable and (dare I say it) attractive. I could have opted for a red or blue exterior but decided on the relatively safe choice of piano black to avoid looking like a try-hard hip-hop enthusiast. I was impressed with the headband, which didn't have the flex other headsets have. Moreover, it fit my mutated bulbous head quite nicely. I was also especially happy with the reinforced connector between the cable and the earpieces. It's normally on that contact point where most earbuds snap or split. The gold-plated L-shaped stereo mini-plug is supported by a rubber handling similar to those found on power adapters. From my perspective, the design fit my requirements for headphones - durability and longevity. You can easily accumulate hundreds of dollars replacing headphones and earbuds so finding a headphone that was resilient was perfect for my needs.

BBC podcasts, Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Pimsleur Mandarin II, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on the Sony MDR-ZX100

I reiterate that I'm not picky about audio, but as I listened to my BBC podcasts on my iPod Touch, Dan Damon sounded more British than usual while Lucy Kellaway was 300x more annoying than the last time she spoke on air. I connected the MDR-ZX100 to my iPad and watched the episode "Along Came a Spider" from Season 2 of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. The volume quality on the iPad 2 was significantly better than on my iPod. I practically applauded when Spidey broke the arm off of one of the Snake Society members. Next, I connected the Sony to my old ASUS 1000H EEEPC, which along with an already terrible audio chip no longer emits sound from its right speaker. I streamed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade on SMPlayer and almost forgot about writing this blog when River Phoenix scowled and said "It belongs in a museum."

Finally, my last test for the Sony MDR-ZX100 was running a lesson of Pimsleur Mandarin II. Although I really don't mind if Frank Sinatra's Fly Me to the Moon isn't as bouncy as it should be on the Sony MDR-ZX100, I am concerned about catching the nuances of Mandarin words using the Sony. I'm happy to report that although the Sony MDR-ZX100 doesn't have the best volume when connected to a first-generation Creative Zen (which I use for all my language audio lessons), it performs just fine whether you're listening to a nasal French accent, putonghua expressions, or Castellan words.

Better than Earbuds?

I would definitely still buy cheap earbuds for jogging and working out but even a regular Peter Parker like me can recognize that the Sony headphones provide superior audio to earbuds. If you listen to an anime or J-Pop song and can identify the kana of the lyrics while using a headphone, then you definitely bought a pretty good audio accessory. It was while using the Sony MDR-ZX00 that I actually noticed the differences between a poorly converted or compressed .MP3 file from an expertly ripped one.

For the frugal, the Sony MDR-ZX100 is a great buy especially if you'll be using your headphones for activities other than entertainment (such as audio lessons and podcasts). There's little doubt that audiophiles will gripe about treble, bass, and pitch if they tried the heaphones but for my part, I'm just happy it fit comfortably over my large head. I was satisfied with the Sony MDR-Z100's performance when connected to different audio sources (the iPod Touch, iPad, 1000H EEEPC, Lenovo Ideapad, and Creative Zen) and while playing different types of audio. It's lightweight and durable and it doesn't make me look cheap when I'm walking down Nanjing Road in Shanghai. After all, it's a Sony.

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Tracking your Device Usage

Category: Techtoday

Although Shanghai's winter is nowhere near as cold as Beijing's or even London's unending chill, the punishing winds are enough to make me wish for a plane ticket back to the sunny skies of California. Deprived of that option however, I am left to my own devices (literally). Winter and the holiday season is a great time to hunker down and assess just how much time you spend with your digital devices. So launch your Microsoft Excel 2010, Libreoffice Calc, or even your browser for the free Microsoft Web Apps or Google Docs. All you need to do is list the devices you own and approximate just how many hours you spend on each device (or a combination of digital devices).  Even if you are jogging while making calls on your smartphone (which you aren't supposed to be doing), a chart/table is a great reminder that you're either spending too much time looking at a display, sitting too long, or spending more time on your social networking account than talking to people.

The example below is a somewhat edited version of my own hours spent with my hardware. Obviously, I didn't include bathroom breaks, meals, and (ahem) lifting 10 tons while battling super villains in the equation.

Weekdays Pie Chart - I spend too much time working at home and at the office with a computer.

Weekends Pie Chart - My hours spent with devices during winter certainly drop during the weekends but I still spend too much time with an LCD panel in front of my face.

Obviously, I need to get out more even if it's cold outside. How much time do you spend with your digital devices?

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Not in your repository? Search for a package at software.openSUSE.org

Category: openSUSE

Most of the popular applications for openSUSE can be found using the default repositories enabled after a fresh install. If you installed multimedia codes from opensuse-community.org, a few more essential repositories (which includes the beloved packman repos) will be added to Yast2. However, on the off chance you can't find an application using Yast2, head over to software.opensuse.org and run a package search. Chances are, you'll find what you're looking for there.

Some of my favorite applications that I had to install from the online software repository are:

1. Comix - cross-platform digital comic book editor
2. Bluefish - advanced development editor
3. Luckybackup - KDE backup utility similar to Grsync
4. Sigil - popular ebook editor

If you're installing software from software-opensuse.org for the first time and you're using Google Chrome, you might be somewhat confused with the interface. Follow the guidelines below and you'll soon find a treasure trove of stable, well-written openSUSE applications:

1. Search for a package using the search box.
2. Select the package from the search results.



3. If the package provides a Direct Install button, click on the button and Yast2 will launch to go through the setup process.



4. If the package doesn't provide a Direct Install button but instead provides several options, click the Show more packages from unsupported distributions button at the bottom of the page. If you click the list controls, nothing will be displayed. Clicking the Show more packages from unsupported distributions button, however, will display all the 1-Click Install options available.




5. Right-click on the 1 Click Install appropriate for your version of openSUSE. Click Save Link As. If you don't save the .ymp file for installation and click directly on the link, Google Chrome by default will actually display the XML in a separate tab.




6. Run the .ymp 1 Click Install file to install the software.

As a final note, running a 1 Click Install and a Direct Install from software.opensuse.org will often offer to add new repositories to your list. Although it's nice to have them available, too many repositories (especially ones that you no longer need) slows down Yast2 since it has to refresh all enabled and autorefresh-enabled repositories. Uncheck repositories during the 1 Click Install process or uncheck the Remain subscribed to these repositories after installation box to avoid adding unnecessary repositories.

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