Introducing Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"

This is something that I have wanted to do for the last week and a half or so, but I haven't been able to do it because I've been really busy.
I said in my review of Debian 6 "Squeeze" Standard that I wanted to customize that installation with Trinity 3.5.12. Well, now it has finally happened: please welcome the newest member of the Oxidized Trinity family, Oxidized Trinity 6 "Squeeze"!
There are a couple differences between this and the original (Kubuntu-based) Oxidized Trinity 10.04, the most significant being that the only way to install Oxidized Trinity 6 is to use the Remastersys installer, and that's not guaranteed to work. Also, Trinity 3.5.12 packs a whole lot more stuff for Debian than for Ubuntu; I didn't even want half the stuff included, but I was too lazy to remove all of it. (This is also why Synaptic Package Manager isn't included (it would consume even more space).) Thankfully, despite that, the Oxidized Trinity 6 ISO file is actually smaller than the Oxidized Trinity 10.04 ISO file. I guess that goes to show just how lightweight and versatile Debian really is. Finally, on that note, I have uploaded this to the Oxidized Trinity SourceForge page; also, here is the direct download link. Please do try this out and let me know what I can improve. Thanks! (Also, stay tuned for a brand-new respin!)

Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 4: Standard)

There are a couple of things I want to say before beginning with the real content of this post. First of all, I want to apologize for not having written a post for a few days. That said, I did warn at the beginning of this semester that my work may make me busy enough to be unable to write a post, and that's exactly what happened in these few days. Furthermore, it will likely happen again soon, as I anticipate being fairly busy this weekend and next week.
Second, this is not a Debian version that I wanted to test for the sake of testing it; my ultimate goal is to install the Trinity DE and thus make an Oxidized Trinity variant based on Debian. There will be no screenshots because most of the action occurs at the terminal; the finished Oxidized Trinity screenshots will be included in a separate article (because I haven't yet finished). Debian needs no further introduction, so follow the jump to see the rest. I followed these tutorials to do this: this one on doing a net installation of "Squeeze", and this one on doing a minimal net installation of Debian 4 "Etch" with the X Windowing System.

FOLLOW-UP: How to Oxidize KDE 3.5

SUCCESS! I have actually remastered Kubuntu!
As it turns out, I didn't need to install Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity to do this remaster. I have already installed it (and made the modifications I detailed in the previous post on the subject) within VirtualBox. I realized that I could share folders between VirtualBox and my Linux Mint installation, so I followed the instructions on the forums to do so. It worked, as Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity in VirtualBox recognized the selected folder on my Linux Mint installation.
I then needed to move folders like .config, .kde3, and .openoffice.org to the /etc/skel/ folder in Kubuntu. After doing so, I used Remastersys to create the ISO image of my Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity installation and moved it to the shared folder. I was then able to test it in VirtualBox, and it worked! Yay!
I have linked the email subscriptions for this blog to my Google account, which also manages Google Docs. I have thus uploaded a compressed file containing my remastered ISO for free download (both as in beer and as in speech). Please note, however, as you try the ISO (either virtualized or as a live DVD/USB), the ISO itself is 1.1 GB which is quite a bit bigger than a CD, so if you want to install this on a computer without a DVD reader, the computer must have a USB port and allow USB boot (or else this just won't work on such a computer). With regard to testing the ISO, note that there may be a full-screen console window that shows up with a bunch of information ending with the word "boot". Just press "Enter" to continue to the boot menu and select either the first (preferred) or second option. Also note that if one is doing this in a virtual machine, after the boot splash there may be a warning saying "Ubuntu is running in low graphics mode"; just click "OK" and let Ubuntu run in low graphics mode anyway. Right before the login screen comes up, an error message may come up. Just click "OK" to proceed. For some reason, the login screen has the username "pvbox" (which was my VirtualBox username) typed in as default. Please change "pvbox" to "guest" and press "Enter" twice. Note that there is no password to log in. You should now be greeted by a screen very similar to the one in my previous post. The KDE desktop and applications should have the Oxygen treatment, and so should OpenOffice.org. Next, note that there is an option to install this remaster (it's a standard Ubuntu installation), but there is no icon either on the desktop or in the KMenu indicating such a possibility. To install this remaster, open Konqueror (which is pinned to the Kicker panel), click on the home folder, click on the icon to the desktop, and then click on the icon labeled "ubiquity-gtkui.desktop"; this initiates the installer. Finally, note that after shutting down, one must press "Enter" (when instructed on the screen) to complete the shutdown process.
I have uploaded this ISO as a 7z compressed file on Google Docs. In most Linux distributions, File Roller or Ark can open and extract 7z files. If they can't, you most likely need to install the p7zip packages from the repositories. In Microsoft Windows, you can download the 7zip program to view, create, and extract 7z files. The file itself is 967 MB, which is still pretty big (but smaller than the 1024 MB Google Docs upload limit — the ISO image is 1.1 GB, which is too big), so downloading may take a while. I will now post the download link. Have fun testing this, and please let me know of any comments, suggestions, and other thoughts you have about this in the comments section (or by email)! Thank you!

How to Oxidize KDE 3.5

What's the title supposed to mean? You will figure this out by the end of the article.
I mentioned in my review of Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity that while the Trinity revival of KDE 3.5.11 has huge potential as a new contender in the field of DEs for old computers (competing with Xfce and LXDE, among others), KDE 3.5 looks pretty bad. Sure, it looks quite cool/cute when it first came out. That said, the KDE 3.5 developers themselves said that they benchmarked the speed and looks (and went over and above the stability of) Microsoft Windows XP when developing KDE 3.5. As a result, it is very fast, very stable (unlike Microsoft Windows XP), and bears more than a passing resemblance in its icon, panel, and window decoration themes to the latter. I haven't ever particularly cared for the default look of Microsoft Windows XP (and honestly, Microsoft Windows 7 is pretty good looking, making Microsoft Windows XP even worse to look at), and KDE 3.5 looks even more cartoonish (and this is exaggerated further with the KDE 4 looks).
What does all this mean? If KDE 3.5 is here to stay, it needs at least a visual overhaul to stay competitive with other DEs optimized for low-resource environments. So I tried to do just that. Follow the jump to read how I tried (and failed).

Review: Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity "Lucid Lynx" (Idea by Candid of Linux Today)

Main Screen: Ethais Wallpaper + Kicker

First off, I want to give a huge thanks and a shout-out to Linux Today reader Candid for suggesting that I take a look at Trinity. Your suggestion piqued my curiosity enough to make me want to do a full review and write-up. This one is for you. Thanks!
Reviewing this Linux distribution has reminded me of automotive news site Edmunds Inside Line's final review of the 2010 Mercury Grand Marquis in honor of Mercury's impending demise. It was a great nostalgic piece, as the car itself had turned into a weird mishmash of throwback controls and modern safety technology. For example, antilock brakes are present (as is traction control), yet the frame itself is a ladder-frame (like a truck, rather than a car's unibody frame) and the turn signals are operated by actual switches (as opposed to computerized systems). This is how I felt when testing Kubuntu 10.04 Trinity. It's a weird mishmash of old-school and new-school KDE.
So what is Trinity? For one, it's not the codename of this distribution — this version of Kubuntu 10.04 is still called "Lucid Lynx". Trinity is actually the name of a project that aims to revive, maintain, and further develop KDE 3.5 as a fork from the main KDE project. Yes, folks, KDE 3.5 has risen from the dead! [Insert dramatic sound effects here.] The project itself has had to overcome a lot of obstacles, chief among them the facts that Qt 3 has not been officially supported for 3 years (and rewriting the Qt code is just what the developers did for KDE 4) and that KDE 3.5 itself has not been actively developed or maintained for over 3 years. (Trinity is only a few months old.) That said, the Trinity packages are available for Ubuntu systems and can be installed alongside existing GNOME or KDE installations as a separate desktop environment. Trinity labels this newest release of KDE as KDE 3.5.11 (as the last official release was 3.5.10). Follow the jump to accompany me on a trip back to the future. (I had to say it. Sorry.)