Geubuntu/OpenGeu Mini-Review

If you've read the title, you'll notice 2 names for one distribution. The recent change of names actually characterizes what I think is the state of this distribution. It's a great effort that needs a little more time to achieve cohesion.

Don't get me wrong. I like OpenGeu. The best part of it is the themes. I like what they've done to spruce up the themes. More on that in a bit.

Let's start with the install and the packages. The install went smoothly, owing to OpenGeu's heritage from Ubuntu. There were no problems at all with the install and it was pretty straightforward in the normal Ubuntu fashion. The nVidia drivers were even set automatically for me. I just had to click my approval. This is a big deal for me, as I am using onboard video and it does look awful when the generic drivers are loaded. The reboot did take a while though. I had expected that after the install it would boot faster, since that drivers would have been known by then. It still took its time rediscovering my ethernet card and loading an alternative driver for it.

The packages installed by default were a mix of apps associated with Gnome, Xfce and Enlightenment. The menu could be activated by using the 'e' logo on the bottom 'shelf' (the taskbar), or left-clicking the mouse on any open area of the desktop. Conversely, right-clicking brings up the Favorites menu listing the most commonly used apps. The bottom shelf also has a icon list(of the same apps) that scrolls sideways as you move your cursor along it's width. The icons 'throb' as the cursor pointed at each icon. Other icons displayed on the shelf included the desktop switcher, active apps, and applets for the CPU temp, CPU speed, battery meter and clock.

Speaking of effects, there are plenty. The default effects that come with each theme are wonderful and says a great deal about how much time they've spent making this implementation of Enlightenment drool-worthy. All menus opened have shadows and highlighting on by default with the colors and hues contrasting wonderfully. Moving your cursor across the entries produced a shine effect.

I did notice some quirks. When I started using the Moonlight theme, the button and scrollbars didn't change color. They maintained the orange hue that I thought was bound to the Sunshine theme. I tried the other themes and they still had the same hue. Then I opened a terminal and noticed it had transparency pre-set. When I maximized the window, I noticed the image behind the transparent effects was the wallpaper for the Sunshine theme (instead of the wallpaper of the current theme). Another theme snafu happened when I highlighted any icon on the desktop or a couple of the icons on the shelf. It showed the same background color from the Sunshine theme. The Xfce panel on top didn't adjust to any theme changes as well.

Moving on to other quirks, logging out and shutting down gave me consistent errors that the logout was taking too long. Another weird error was latency when I launched HTop on the terminal and did something else in the same window. I experienced latency when I opened a separate tab or the terminal would close itself when I attempted to adjust the fonts in the profile section. The strange thing about it was that it happened only when HTop was active.

Overall though, I like what they done with the themes and this is one 'beautiful' distro as far as the GUI is concerned. The developers just needs a little more time to tweak out the minor details that make Ubuntu what it is right now -- very polished. So despite the small quirks, I'd still recommend this.

Next up...Re-install with Xubuntu and download the packages from the Elbuntu repositories.

Via's Isaiah

While looking at the usual news about upcoming processors, I found 2 articles that interested me. you can read here: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/via-cpu-isaiah.ars/2, http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=511. They detail what's known so far about the next-gen Isaiah processor from Via. The processor is touted to have 2 to 4 times the speed of the current C7 processor, but will have the same low-power profile and thermal envelope. Smaller but more powerful. What's not to like about it.

Thinking Small

I found 2 videos about the Via Nanobook and 2 products that came out of that Via reference design. I posted them over at my Tumblr blog (http://daysleeper.tumblr.com). The Everex and the Packard Bell are similar down to the specs and look like more viable options for my needs that the Asus Eee PC. I'm just hoping that both would reach Philippine shores under the same price point as the Asus, if at all they will distribute it here.

Geubuntu 7.10

After trying it out as a live CD, I've finally decided to install Geubuntu. Geubuntu is yet another apple off the Ubuntu tree. It uses Ubuntu 7.10 as its base and the only basic difference would be that its uses Enlightenment as its desktop environment. The packages included by default are still mostly off the Gnome project, so if your coming from Ubuntu you won't feel like a stranger.

This particular distro has not escaped criticism, many citing that it's duplicating efforts by another distro called Elbuntu. But as I always say, Linux is about choice. People rolling their own distro don't start out to undermine any other distro out there. They want is rolled their way to suit their needs. They open it up and share it to the public so they could get feedback and improve what they did. It's all about choice, and they do it simply because they can, not because they want to show off.

I'm actually typing this up while the installer is doing its thing. For the most part, everything was detected correctly. What's surprising is that this is the first live CD I've tried that detected my monitor's native resolution correctly (1280x1024) and used that by default. I've had onboard video for some time now, so that has always been a sticking point in other distros I've tried. Onboard video has always been a problem on my setups and most live CDs would default to a safe 1024x768 resolution. I've had a few that would only go to something lower until I install the proprietary nVidia drivers.

Anyway, I'll write up something more detailed when the install finishes. See ya.

Missed This Tiny PC...

I missed this tiny PC in my previous round up of low-powered computing devices. It's a more interesting option for me because this is a builder's kit and not a completely built up unit. I'd like to have one of these just to satisfy my craving for building something. Check it out:

First Impressions - VectorLinux 5.9 Mini-Review

It's been a while since I used anything outside the Ubuntu family of distros. Two month ago, while looking for distros to recommend to friends, I started using PCLOS2007 and got the itch to try out other distros again. I mainly focused on live distros and installed only one to serve as my main distro. I installed PCLOS-Gnome, because I love Gnome. I also used Mandriva One, SAM and TinyMe at the time. Those apples actually fell off the same Mandrake tree, if you noticed. I'm hopping distros in families, so to speak - LOL.

Well, after a mishap several weeks ago (with no fault to the distro involved), I actually corrupted my Linux partition and messed the whole thing up. So, I was wandering in the interweb for a while and I finally decided to go back to the Ubuntu side of things. But then whilst downloading the newest x64 images, I saw news releases on Google that made me want to try something else. So here I am using VectorLinux 5.9 Standard GOLD. It's been 3 years since I last tried VectorLinux and that's considered an eternity in the fast-paced development world that is open source. Things have changed quite a lot and for the better!

Before anything else, here's a rundown of my current hardware:

• AMD Sempron 3000+, 1.6 GHz
  
• Biostar/Redfox NF61V Rev 1.0
• Kingston 1GB DDR2-533 ValueRAM
• LiteOn DH18A3P DVD-DL Drive
• Seagate 80GB Hard Drive (7200.7)
• Astone Enforcer Mid-ATX case with (packaged) 500W PSU
  

Now that that is out of the way, let's tackle the installation first. The installer was text based. If you've used the Ubuntu alternate install CDs, you won't get lost. The only minor difference would be the VectorLinux installer will give you an option to configure hardware settings during the install. To me that was okay, I guess. I knew what was connected to my machine anyway. Another thing Vector chose to do differently was to let the user choose to compile the Nvidia (or ATI) drivers during the install, something that I was very glad to discover. Anything that requires less fiddling is always a good thing for me. To get a clearer visual of the how the install process goes, you can go to the VectorLinux documentation being hosted by Oregon State University's Open Source Labs at http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/docs/vl58/manuals/vl5_installation_guide_en.html. The page has screenshots of the whole install process for version 5.8, but not much has changed as far as I can tell.

On to the user experience. The default theme is largely based off Xfce. The overall look is that of a custom-designed Xfce desktop with an icon theme I have not seen before. The default wallpaper was that of a green field with a rock face in the background emblazoned with the name VectorLinux. It looks familiar, but I can't remember where I've last seen it. Then you have the now-a-standard, menu button and taskbar combo on the bottom. For Xfce fans, no worries, as you can still access the menus by the familiar right-click on the desktop. Populating the taskbar are large buttons for "show desktop", Terminal, Mousepad, Home (Thunar file manager), VASMCC (Vector's Control Center) and the browser. Having mentioned the browser button, I would be remiss not to note that the first time you click that taskbar button you will be prompted to choose which one you want to use (more on that in a minute).

Now for the apps. The mix of apps could more accurately be called a hodgepodge. By default, 2 apps of each kind were present in what could be considered tasks that everyday users regularly do. You had K3B and XFburn for burning to optical media. Then you had Xine and Mplayer for playing movies. You had Catfish and GTKFind for desktop search. You had Adobe Reader and XPDF for reading PDF files. For a choice of browsers you had Dillo, Firefox, Opera and Seamonkey that were thrown in the mix for good measure. Aside from the usual packages found in other distros, I was also surprised to find a few that didn't usually come installed with other distributions. Things like the HP Device Manager, Adobe Reader 8, Java and Flash were already there by default. Overall, its a good mix offering users a choice between crowd favorites and immediate functionality post-install.

Next, other jack-in-the-boxes. The surprising additions to that mix that I was glad to find installed by default were wbar (a floating taskbar app), J-Pilot (PIM for Palm handhelds), GKrellm (system monitor), Pidgin (IM client), Transmission (torrent app) and Gslapt (a Synaptic-style package manager). The NVIDIA X Server Settings package was also there (remember, I chose to install it during the installation process). It was also my first time to try apps like Htop (a terminal-based system monitor), vl-hot (which auto-mounted different partitions, card readers and USB thumbdrives) and HardInfo (system profiler and benchmark tool). I also discovered a way to lock my desktop on Xfce using xlock, which was thankfully there by default. While waiting for Gslapt to finish my first round of downloads, I installed the Firefox add-on called Flashgot and was surprised to find cURL was already present on the system when I downloaded a file of the internet.

Overall, I am pleased with this install. If there were one downside, it would be that not that many apps are packaged for Slackware distros. The number is nominal compared to say the likes of Ubuntu, Fedora or even Mandriva. However, most of my needs are met with what is there. VectorLinux has always been touted as "the" distro for older machines. The way the apps are packaged would lay credence to this. As I use it, the memory hovers a little under 200MB. That's a small footprint for something that has almost everything you need. If you do a little pruning here and there, this would be a great distro for any old PC or even laptops. Dare I say this would fly if installed in a machine like the Asus Eee.

More on the Asus Eee

I was actually surprised when I saw an Asus Eee PC unit on display at this computer store in SM Clark. Having seen the actual unit's size in the Asianic display window made me cringe a bit. Saying it is small is an understatement. It is tiny. Viewing review videos do send a common message. It is a capable laptop and users get used to the size of the keyboard in about a week or so. And since I don't own one or know anyone who has one, I can't really do a review or get some hands-on time with the unit itself. I just console myself of the fact that there are experts out there who are considerate and post videos of the actual units being put through the motions of daily use. Here are several of them.

NotebookReview did a video review to go along with their article a few days before the prod:




Wil Harris also posted a video review as the Eee launched in the UK:




Patrick Norton reviewed an early unit in this episode of Tekzilla :




I also found a different sort of review from JKKMobile a European gadget blog. He tested it with windows XP and posted a review of how it performed using XP:




Probably one of the more influential reviews (at least for me) was the one that was posted on Linux Journal:




The Asus Eee PC is one device that I wouldn't necessarily buy, but if it were given as a gift I would gladly take it. The break or make for me is the size of both the unit itself and the storage. Although both could be remedied by simply attaching peripherals to the USB ports on the thing, going through the hassle makes me a reluctant would-be buyer. If I were given a unit though, I could definitely make the most out of it. Especially with Linux pre-installed. The custom Linux install means a no-hassle experience when it comes to device drivers. I'm also optimistic at the rate of hacking going on to customize existing distributions to make them fully functional with all the settings and features of the machine. This level of customization was unheard of before, even with the IBM Thinkpads.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy watching all the videos.

Music Search

I've been busy with little projects at the office, mainly creating presentations for training people. The exposure is limited but at least its giving me a chance to gear up on my presentation skills. Crowds are typically small, 15-20 at a time. We have these small training sessions scheduled twice a month, which gives me ample time for research and preparing my material.

On my quest for better presentations that are less boring, I looked for sites that offered royalty-free music to use. One of the sites I found was Partners In Rhyme. To get a sampling of the kind of Royalty Free Music and Sound Effects they offer, click on the link. You can download the music and sound effects you need for your multimedia projects today, royalty-free at Partners In Rhyme.

Another site I found that had nice short tracks was Accelerated Ideas, get free tracks by clicking on the link.