Back in the days when I was a student, I always wondered if classmates who took copious amounts of notes ever really learned anything. It’s much the same with learning Linux. You can copy and paste a lot of commands but that is just blindly making changes. It is not learning.

Apply a tweak in the same way that you would use the command line. You should never issue a command until you understand exactly what it is doing. Neither should a tweak be applied unless the user completely understands its effects. I have pointed out before that the GNOME configuration editor is purposely not enabled in the menus to avoid newbies from messing up their desktop. And if you do tweak, I would strongly advise keeping a record of it in case strange events start occuring at a later date. I practice what I preach, and believe me, good notes have saved my day numerous times.

Tweak only with caution!

The GNOME Configuration Editor is installed but not enabled by default. It is a powerful tool and should be used with caution only when needed. This was one of those times. To enable it, go to Applications>Preferences>Main Menu. In the left panel select System Tools. In the right panel check the box next to Configuration Editor. It is now enabled and obviously will appear under System Tools.

Start the Configuration Editor. Navigate the editor by clicking on the arrows next to the subsections. Click on the arrow next to apps. Then nautilus followed by preferences. Scroll down the options until you find the one called “show_desktop”. The box next to the option must be checked. To be sure, double click on the option and it should show a value of “True”. If it does not, recheck the box until it does.

The desktop icons on my machine reappeared. If you follow this procedure and you are not the sole user of the machine, you might want to go back and disable the editor for security.

Begin by right clicking on some empty space in the panel. Among the options you will see “Properties“. Clicking on that will reveal several visibility options. Check the boxes next to “Show hide buttons” and also “Arrows on hide buttons“. Return to your desktop. Notice the arrows on each end of the panel. Click on one. Watch the panel slide off to the side.

Once again right click on empty space. This time notice the option “Add to Panel“. You are now offered a long list of Panel Applets. By default the Workspace Switcher and the Trash applets are activated. The remainder of the panel is used as the taskbar. Yes, these applets are certainly useful but they really don’t need to be fixed to a panel, or at least not to the bottom panel.

A dock also serves as a taskbar. Furthermore, you can add docklets to replace panel applets. My next comments will refer to Docky, the dock that I use, but other docks such as the Cairo Dock or the AWN dock may be equally configurable. Instructions for the installation of Docky appear here.

Docky installs with a few default docklets and you can configure it for others. When running as a taskbar, right clicking on an icon will give you the option to pin that app to the dock. Once you have Docky configured to your liking you can return to your GNOME desktop. Right clicking on a panel icon will give you the option to remove it. On my desktop I removed icons for Firefox, email, trash and clock, all of which were now on the dock.

The only remaining bottom panel applet was the Workplace Switcher. I removed this too but not before adding it to the top panel that had gained some free space. With the email, browser, terminal, clock and trash icons now pinned to the dock you probably only need two workspaces. Why two? Sometimes an app will crash freezing your display and leaving your mouse useless. You can go to another workspace with your keyboard.. CTRL+ALT+RIGHT (LEFT) Arrow. Then you can open a terminal and kill the crashed process. Right click on the workspaces applet and reduce their number to two.

This completes our panel customization. All that remains of the bottom panel is a little arrow in the corner. Mine has not been pressed for several days.

I like to compose my posts offline. For the past few months I have been using the ScribeFire Firefox add-on. This has worked well but Firefox often crashes after a posting. It also seems a bit clumsy to use a web browser to update a blog. A client not involving a browser would be preferable. Bilbo would be nice but I use Ubuntu (GNOME) and not Kubuntu (KDE). Here are your install instructions for Ubuntu.

All of the packages and dependencies you need can be installed with the Synaptic Package Manager. Before proceeding check that you have enabled the universe and the multiverse repositories.

First install the package kdebase-workspace. This package installs all the core KDE desktop libraries. Your KDE applications should run with few problems and they’ll look pretty good too. Next install the four dependencies listed on Bilbo’s homepage. Specifically they are kdelibs5-dev, kdepimlibs5-dev, libboost-dev and libqt4-sql-sqlite. Synaptic will inform you of related dependencies as you go. Finally, install bilbo.

After the install go to Applications>Internet>Bilbo. On the Settings menu choose to Configure Bilbo Blogger. Finally choose Blog and enter your blog details. You should now be able to see, edit and compose posts. And yes, this is my first post using Bilbo.

Before trashing the Vista OS that came preinstalled on my desktop Dell computer, I installed the public beta of Windows 7 and used it for about a week. I will admit that it was impressive and far superior to Vista. The best features of Vista were preserved and much of the bloat was gone. I believe it could have been appropriately named Vista – Second Edition, but obviously Microsoft had to get rid of the Vista connection. If they had gotten it right the first time I just might still be a Microsoft customer. But they didn’t.

So what would I do with my free copy of Windows 7? If I installed it somewhere, perhaps my laptop, it would need some cleaning up. Silly trial versions of Microsoft Office would have to be replaced with Open Office. Of course I would need virus and malware protection. To Microsoft’s credit they are now offering a protection suite for free. But this was almost a necessity wasn’t it? I would have to install a better web browser than IE. And I would have to install a third party registry cleaner to keep the system running smoothly. Finally, I would have to install software the Microsoft way with all those ‘I Agree’ clicks followed by a system reboot.

On the other hand, Ubuntu is releasing new GNOME and KDE versions in just a few days. Beta releases are available now for final testing. Both are feature rich and both have as much functionality as the Windows desktop if not more. Both are free, I don’t have to be a contest winner. I am a winner by default.

The question is answered. In the event I obtain a free and legal copy of Windows 7 I will not open the package. I will sell it on ebay to some unenlightened soul.

KDE made a major version upgrade in 2008 from 3.5 to 4.0. Many KDE users were upset and were quite vocal about it. Indeed, the initial 4.0 release was quite buggy. The current release is version 4.2 which supposedly fixes many of the bugs. The fact remains, however, that the new KDE introduces some very new concepts on how a desktop functions. I needed to download a livecd with version 4.2 to see what all the fuss was about. Following this link, I downloaded OpenSUSE 11.1 and burned a CD.

I booted the CD and waited, and waited and waited some more. It took seven minutes from GRUB to a working desktop! Yes, no CD will boot as fast as a hard disk but seven minutes??? Really! Strike ONE. I quickly found a connectoid for networking and was pleased that I had found another distribution that recognized my Atheros AR242x chipset. The KDE “kicker” gave access to all the typical KDE applications you would expect. I used Konqueror to access my blog site (the site you are now reading). It did not render correctly and I could not edit my blog. Strike TWO. A right-click on the desktop produced an invitation to install a widget. I did not want a widget, had no idea what widgets were available, and besides I wanted to a create a document. There is no option to do that. Some googling on the internet showed me some “workarounds” to this problem. One involved the command line and another, believe it or not, a widget. Strike THREE.

OpenSUSE currently holds the number 2 spot on distrowatch.com following Ubuntu. It does come in a GNOME version and perhaps I will take a look at that soon if only to compare boot times. Meanwhile, I will not be wasting any more CD’s on KDE versions of any distributions.