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Posts Tagged Karmic Koala

Karmic Win pt. 6, Gnome-do & Twitter [Linux FTW]

Nov 12

Posted by Aaron in Linux FTW | 1 Comment

2009-11-11-202755Yesterday, we discussed using the new “UbuntuOne” cloud service, and integrating it into numerous apps on Karmic.

A while back, I discovered the Avant Window Navigator, a Mac-style docking program (available through the USC). Matt McKimmy had commented on that post, mentioning the program Gnome-Do.

At that time, I had checked out Gnome-Do, found it interesting but was still infatuated with my fancy Mac-esque dock, so I never really got around to using it.

This time though, Gnome-Do came pre-loaded with the Karmic installation, and I decided to give it a shot for a while. Browsing through the preferences, I noticed some plugins and integration tools that I hadn’t noticed the first time around; or maybe they just weren’t offered, not really sure.

Gnome-Do, written to function sort of like “Quicksilver” on Macs, is a genius little app that does it all. My favorite aspect of it so far is its integration with Twitter though. Read the rest of this entry »

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Karmic Win pt. 5, the Cloud [Linux FTW]

Nov 11

Posted by Aaron in Linux FTW | No Comments

2009-11-10-200859In the last post we discussed using Rhythmbox music player, linking it up to last.fm and configuring it. I will do a future post comparing it to Amarok and Banshee.

With this new version of Ubuntu, they’ve introduced a really awesome new feature that shows a lot of potential. It’s called “Ubuntu One“.

Ubuntu One is a cloud-based platform that allows, at the least, file synchronization across Linux PCs (have not yet discovered a way to synchronize with Windows PC also, but I’m looking!). But really, this service offers the potential to really synchronize ANYTHING with the cloud service and some other applications, including Firefox, Tomboy notes, Evolution, and others, have already created plugins to jump on this.

All users are given 2 GB of space, for free (comparable to services such as Mozy), but upgrading to a whopping 50GB is only $10 / month. By comparison, Mozy only charges $4.95 / month, but that price is “per computer”. Since this service is really intended to be used as a cross-computer synchronization service, using it with 2 computers is essentially an equal price. (Are you REALLY going to be backing up more than 50GB of data?) Additionally, Mozy requires a special “MozyPro” plan for businesses / commercial use, and UbuntuOne makes no distinction (to be fair, Mozy does not support Linux natively, either… so if you’re using Linux, it’s really a non-option anyways. :) )

So how does one get on board with this service? It’s easier than it sounds. Read the rest of this entry »

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Karmic Win pt. 3, Playing Music [Linux FTW]

Nov 9

Posted by Aaron in Linux FTW | 4 Comments

Freyja is excited about Rhythmbox!The previous post in this series discussed configuring the desktop to integrate with Google applications.

Being able to play music while working is one of the nice perks of modern computers. On Linux, there are several different applications you can use for it.

A couple of them are very basic media players that don’t really organize anything — VLC, Mplayer, and a few others like that. There are a couple others that do iTunes style organization such as Amarok and Rhythmbox. I’ve had a little experience with Amarok, and while I really love how it looks and the potential features, I can never seem to get it to work correctly. Rhythmbox, though, is slightly more simple but has proven to be very reliable.

To really maximize the usage of Rhythmbox, there are a couple small things that need to be done first:

  • Enable mp3 support (mp3 is not natively supported, since the codec is licensed)
  • Hook up to last.fm, for internet radio
  • Configure Rhythmbox and its plugins

Read the rest of this entry »

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Karmic win, part 1 [Linux FTW]

Nov 7

Posted by Aaron in Linux FTW | 3 Comments

WIN!Karmic Koala, the alias for release 9.10 of Ubuntu Linux, was published last week.

Until now, I had been running version 8.04 (Hardy Heron) and had passed on the two successive releases (Intrepid Ibex, v8.10, and Jaunty Jackalope, v9.04). The manufacturers of my laptop had advised that those newer versions, both of which were available when I purchased 5 months ago, had lackluster support for my video card.

So I waited.

A few days before Karmic released, I saw that NVidia had released a new version of the drivers for my video card — now was the time, it would seem.

I downloaded a live CD of both 9.04 and 9.10, to compare, and checked it out.

Wow.

Jaunty (9.04) was ok — it looked basically the same as what I already had, but perhaps with some updates. But Karmic…wow. They have revamped many of the icons, visual elements, and verbiage used. There are new applications. There is now a free cloud service to do document synchronization across computers. The more I used it, the more I liked — it seems like this time around, Canonical (the publishers) have started to bring everything together cohesively.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, Ubuntu is nearly ready for the mainstream; it’s far easier to use. While there are still plenty of advanced things that are POSSIBLE to do, they are very rarely required.

This post is the first of a miniseries documenting the various features, some tricks and ways to integrate the software to (theoretically) increase productivity. Before I get to the good stuff, let’s talk about the installation: Read the rest of this entry »

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