Hitched Hiker

Tilt Shifted Fake Miniatures

Abhilash — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:26:22 +0000

After my first trials with fake tilt shifting with tiltshiftmaker.com and GIMP, and the second post with my Toronto trip pictures miniaturized, this is the third set of images that have qualified to be miniaturized via fake tilt shift effect.

Granular Linux

Abhilash — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 12:10:48 +0000

Granular has been my first successful tryst with KDE and E17. I have never been a fan of KDE and really didn’t like it this time either. Enlightenment is a different story altogether. It is slick and light and just so different that you actually feel that you are using a different OS. Although there is a slight learning curve to E17 and there is a lot of tweaking to make it look and feel exactly like you want it to. My first tryst with E17 was quite disappointing mostly because of the fact that I has used it on Elive.

I used Granular for a few day but I really couldn’t get myself to work on it as productively as I was used to so I went back to Linux Mint, which is still my top recommendation for not only first time linux users but also for pros. What follows is a screenshot tour of the Granular linux install and features.

The live CD starts up with an selection menu where you can kind of live boot you want. If the live CD fails to start in the default mode, VideoSafe does generally work

The boot of the live CD

Choose the keyboard to proceed

This is the only linux distro that I have seen that requires you to log in to the live CD too

The system loading screen here reminds me of the Red Hat loading screen from yore

The KDE desktop starts up by default. This can be changed during login

The KDE menu is liked by quiet a few people as they tend to compare it to the Ubuntu menu. I am sure that they have not experienced the awesomeness of the mintMenu

Fancy icons are a given with KDE. Another draw for first timers and DE hoppers alike

Amarok is a KDE app that I really like

The KDE control Panel. Pretty standard in all aspects. Although I havent done a deep dive yet

Choosing E17 loads the Enlightenment DE instead of KDE. Much better in my opinion. Faster and more intuitive… after you have gotten used to it

The E17 splash screen. This can be disabled from the option towards the top of the screen

The E17 menu comes up on left click of the mouse and a shortcut/fav menu comes up on right click

The dock at the bottom is nice ans configurable, but needs a little getting used to. There are also very few plugins available by default. You might notice the missing icons on the desktop. This apparently happens because there are none available for the varios desktop icons that we are used to.

Launching the Granular control center. I think thats the wrong spelling of centre

Thecontrol centre is also fairly standard and in my opinion looks better than the KDE one

The Granulat linux install wizard

The whole process is quite simple as I was installing to a virtual machine. FUlly automatic are not really needing any inputs from me

The flie copy process takes some time

Configure the boot loader GRUB

Restart to start using

Granular startup from the HDD

Setting up the root password and a user account

And also shutdown

Granular Linux Aside

Abhilash — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:14:51 +0000

Granular Linux has caught my fancy now. I have been looking for a distro with Enlightenment as a desktop option primarily because it looks so much cooler than KDE or Gnome. Also, because its the DE thats most unlike Windows or Mac. I hope I can get Granular to work properly on my laptop. Really burned my fingers with Elive.

Moo Cards

Abhilash — Sun, 31 May 2009 13:23:33 +0000

My Moo Cards arrived a week or so ago. Took their own sweet time getting here, almost 4 weeks. Standard international post. They were quite nice to see and I felt that it wasn’t a waste. I could have chosen better images, a fact that was also pointed out to me by my wife. The whole package (cards + packaging) is made from recycled paper. Another way I am going green.

Linux Mint 7 Changes, Feels the Same

Abhilash — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:10:31 +0000

I downloaded 3 flavours of Linux a couple of days ago. I was looking for revamping my Linux box to look as cool as possible, and I was also looking to upgrade my current Mint 6 distribution to Mint 7, as I had only heard good things about it. I have been using Mint 7 since yesterday after experimenting with the other downloaded distros of Good OS and Elive. So far I am happier with 7 than I was with 6. Even though there are no visibly ground breaking changes to the system, Linux Mint 7 does what is expected of it and much more and delivers a consistency that is very… refreshing. The best part… no manual configuration of my wifi card as it worked out of the box. This is the firs time that this has even happened in all my time of using the various distros of Linux.

This screenshot tour will give you a overview of whats new and whats not from what I have seen thus far.

The desktop after loading from the live CD. All the usual stuff that mint users are used to.

The install process keeps the same look and feel and flow. Language choice.

Partitioning during install is simple and takes just a few minutes. It does look a little bit more colourful than the partitioner in mint 6

Putting in your personal and login information

During install, if your internet is up, the installer looks online to add additional language packs. This can be easily skipped.

After the installation is complete you can choose to continue using the live CD or you can restart and go to the Real McCoy. Why would I want to remain in the live CD anyway… right?

The mint startup after Install. You can just about make out a slightly differently coloured box under the loading bar. This is probably where the messages would appear in case you switch them on.

The login screen has been changed and looks more console like than before. I liked it although I have read mixed review about it in the forums. However, since you can easily change this screen, there is really nothing to be concerned about.

This dialog appears at startup giving you something to do even before you get into the distro completely. Where I haven’t been is the chat room. That’s where I will head next.

The mintMenu looks the same at first glance but has captions of applications on by default and also other interesting addtions like suggested actions and pre-populated favourites section.

The mintMenu already has some of the frequently used applications listed in the Favourites

If the filter in the mintMenu doesnt find what you are looking for it suggests some common/useful takes that you can perform using the phrase that you looked for. “Install Package” is what I found most useful.

Shiki-Mint is the default theme now. Nice, clean and easy to work with. The older default thems are also there and of course customization is possible to all the elements of the theme.

The theme customizations are pretty much the same although I did see a fe wnew and improved border styles

A very useful feature that has been added to mintInstall is the Featured Applications area. From here you can install the most commonly used applications that didn’t make it to the live CD. I thought that this could have been more comprehensive, maybe even segregated by intended use.

This image is actually to show the ”busy“ animation at the top right of the window. This is a new addition although purely for asthetics.

Firefox 3 does duty as the default browser. I would have much rather liked a mint optimized version as suggested by some of the users.

Open Office.org 3.0 does duty as the office suite. I haven’t taken it for a spin yet but I am sure that there is nothing much to write about. The load time does seem to have improved.

The Shut Down dialog.

I dont know if this was part of Mint 6, but I just noticed that Mint 7 allows me to connect to an ftp server directly from Nautilus.

The location gets mounted as a partition that you can browse like any other folder. This means that I wont really need Filezilla to move file from here to there and vice versa. Quite frankly, I find ftp clients very irritating and slow.

Good OS is a Good Boy: Needs to Grow up

Abhilash — Sun, 31 May 2009 11:08:34 +0000

Good OS’s gOS 3.1 is based on Ubuntu and uses Gnome as the primary desktop. Their main claim to fame is the liberal use of Google Gadgets in their distribution. They also claim to be the most easy to use distro out there. However, this may be a bit of an exaggeration considering my experience. Which does not mean that the OS is faulty, it just requires more work to set up things like wifi and display that I have completely grown out of putting effort into with Mint. o revert back to my Ubuntu 6 and 7 days is not something I would enjoy I feel. Especially considering that the wifi card in my laptop is the infamous Artheros AR5007.

I could have spent a few hours trying to get it up and running but I think everyone gets the point. Screenshot tour below.

The default menu is like the menu in Ubuntu with a few modifications, but there are no customizations like the ones found in the mintMenu.

The install process starts with the language selection.

The method of partitioning.

The partitioner is the same as used in ubuntu/mint so you wont be troubled with the process

User and login details during install.

The installer starting the file copy process. No surprises here as it is the same as the installers in say Ubuntu or Mint

gOS loading after install. Green seems to bethe theme here as in Mint.

The gOS login screen. Neat and clean. I like it. I would have used it for a few more days if not for the wifi issue.

The gOs desktop. It does look good and prides itself on its integration of google gadgets for everything under the sun delivered on the internet.

Updates are served throught the standard Update Manager

The WBar is by far the best launcher I have seen. Mac like movement and more flexibility than thah provided by AWN. I don’t know if they are related as I have yet to read up on it

gOs uses an older version of Firefox as the default browser. This was also tru for other apps like OpenOffice.org etc. Dont miss the App bar at the bottom. I believe its called WBar. I havent ecplored that project yet. Maybe I will use it in my Mint 7 install

Nothing extra in the exit dialog either.

Elive Gem: Disappointing Luxury

Abhilash — Sun, 31 May 2009 10:58:14 +0000

Elive was the distribution I was most looking forward to using for many reasons. The screen-shots and video on their website looked awesome. The distro uses Enlightenment 17 (E17) as it main desktop. Did I mention that it looked really awesome! I didn’t even mind that you had to make a compulsory donation of 10 bucks minimum to download the distro. Everything went downhill from the start. The Live CD refused to start up even after burning at the lowest possible speed to avoid errors and using up 3 disks. Apparently, the distribution has a problem handing laptop drives and newer hardware. This was mentioned nowhere before downloading the OS.

But this is fine. I like rummaging through forums and finding the solution to a problem. Apparently the developer doesn’t really consider it worth his while to respond to queries in the forum. I mean what kind of moderator has only 160 odd posts on his own forum! This is turning into a rant so I will focus. To actually see the OS running off the live CD, I had to use Virtual Box. Even in the Virtual Box the whole process of setup is quite unlike the more modern distributions of today. The interface uses the non GUI kind of installer in many places and the partitioning, while it looks simple, failed to partition my Virtual Drive.

I really feel that the developer needs to be more involved in troubleshooting the distro especially since people have paid for it. Most distros that I know of show that they work and then ask for a donation. Tour below.

The Elive CD starts up to this screen where you can choose your boot options

After you choose the boot options, this screen is displayed.

Why the installer asks me this question is beyond me. Whats the problem in configurng synaptic? I have not seen or read this issue anywhere. Although I am pretty sure that Elive is the only distro highlighting this non-issue.

This screen allows you to choose the looka nd feel of the desktop that loads. Night style was my choice but the default is lighter and more cleaner.

A default username and password is automatically created for you and you kust use that for the first login. The warning just below the credentials is made to sound quite dire. I really dont know what the developer is thinking as I know for a fact that a new linux user would never be able to install Elive and giving this warning to seasoned linux users is just stupid

Choose your resolution in this screen.

The SLICK login screen of Elive. It looks soooo cool. Sigh…

This is the menu that appears on a left click on the desktop. Enlightenment 17 at its best I think. In spite of this distro totally pissing me off, I really like E17 and would like to use it in some other more stable and better supported and FREE linux distro.

This is the menu that appears on right click. Oh man… I am so pissed that I am not using this!

Mplayer is the default media player with a nice skin thrown in. I didnt try to play anything but this is anyway not my main use of my system.

The default terminal. I do love the slickness of the interface and since enlightenment is lighter than Gnome and definately lighter than KDE, the speed is also quite good.

The default Elive desktop. Does it look good or what! Alas, I will never be able to use it even after paying for it. I think the app bar at the bottom is AWN although I didnt check. Not as slick as WBar used in gOS. There are little lights that twinkle every now and then in the background. Nice touch.

Starting the Elive installer by clicking on the last icon in the app bar at the bottom. If I hadn’t read where it was, I am pretty sure that it would have taken me quite some time to find it as there are no popup names on the icons in the app bar. Pretty non-ergonomic I say.

Elive recommends using Reiserfs instead of ext3/4, Maybe thats why I got all the errors and couldn’t install. I dont care… ext3/4 works fine everywhere else and since I have never used Reiserfs, I am not comfortable using it now. Especially with such a buggy distro

An info message that more or less confirms that you are going to have problems in partitioning.

Adding a new entry is definately not for first timers since you actually have to enter the device name like hda or hdb and be aware of the naming conventions. Why cant the partitioner be easier to use? Why I ask you… WHY?

You have the option to select your partitioner.

Elive installer error. One of the few errors I faced that prevented me from installing this on the vitual machine. It was not possibel to get the live CD going in my laptop as Elive has issues in handling my DVD drive.

Would the Best Looking Linux Distro Please Stand Up!

Abhilash — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:44:32 +0000

I have been a regular user of various distributions of Linux over the last 3 or so years and on and off before that too. Having started with Linux more from a novelty point of view, I very soon realized that I could actually get my work done pretty easily on Linux and also not have to worry about a lot of issues that arise in proprietary operating systems. Today, I rarely boot into Windows Vista which is currently dual booting with my LinuxMint installation.

I switched to LinuxMint from Ubuntu because it looked and performed better than Ubuntu, and now I seem to be reading about some more fringe distributions that people seem to like a lot when it comes to having a Linux box that not only works great but also looks awesome. When I say awesome, I mean that when you boot your laptop in an area with other human beings around, there have to be murmurings of “cool” or “wow” or “must be a mac” (just kidding). You get the idea right.

So I started looking around on google and came up with a few distributions that I am now going to try out. The first is Elive, described as, “Where Debian Meets Enlightenment” and the other is Good OS which is summed up as “Beautiful on the Outside” and “beautiful on the Inside” Both these distros use enlightenment as their default desktop and both of them look Super-Cool or Batman-Cool as I prefer the kind of cool that Batman is rather than the kind of cool the other guy is. Judging from what I have been able to see on the website of these distros, Good OS has the neat and clean coolness of a simple and easy Linux distro whereas Elive gives me the impression of being the more sophisticated one with more of an advanced user feel to it. Which I like even though I am not a Linux power user I do feel that I should be allowed to look like one at least.

So I am leaning towards Elive at the moment and since both of them are based on Enlightenment, I think I will give it a whirl first. This will be my first tryst with Enlightenment 17 (E17) and from the screenshots I am really exited about using it. All the articles that I have already read on the internet about Elive have confirmed to me that this distro is going to look undoubtedly cool on my laptop, and that is exactly what I want. Not to mention that fact that Elive is base don Debian so I should not have any problems in getting around the system either or using the few commands that I do use on a daily basis.

Expect a review soon!

Edit [30th May 09]: GoodOS has Gnome as primary desktop and not Enlightenment as mentioned above. Also, Elive has been a major disappointment. Detailed review soon.

Reviews Added:

Linux Mint 7

Abhilash — Thu, 28 May 2009 05:20:52 +0000

Linux Mint 7 (Gloria) is out. I have yet to try it out as mintUpdate seems to think that my system is up to date. The forums are abuzz with people who seem to be having the same issue. I think that upgrade method from Felicia to Gloria is not up yet. Probably that’s why I am not able to upgrade. I might even download the CD to do it. I really can’t wait!