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| Cinnamon: Main Menu |
Showing posts with label issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label issues. Show all posts
2013-12-19
Review: Linux Mint 16 "Petra" Cinnamon + MATE
2013-06-12
Review: Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Cinnamon + MATE
It's that time of the year again. Linux Mint has just released the latest version of its distribution, and I'm going to review it.
What has changed since the previous version? Cinnamon has gotten more bug fixes as usual. More importantly, its settings have been consolidated into one program, and it has become less immediately dependent on GNOME than before. Meanwhile, MATE has also been moving away from old libraries toward newer ones used in GNOME 3 as well, allowing for things like Caja to look a little more like Nautilus. There are other changes in store for Linux Mint itself, like new separate tools to manage software repositories and drivers, respectively (in opposition to how Ubuntu is doing it now).
I tested both of these as live USB systems made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what they are like.
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| Cinnamon: Main Screen + Cinnamon Menu |
I tested both of these as live USB systems made with UnetBootin. Follow the jump to see what they are like.
2011-02-27
Featured Comments: Week of 2011 February 20
There was only one post this past week that garnered a handful of comments, so I'll post all of them.
Commenter BP had this advice: "You need to append "gtk-icon-theme-name = "[name-of-icon-theme]" to your ~/.gtkrc.mine (not gtkrc-2.0) file and then ensure that ~/.gtkrc-2.0 is configured to parse ~/.gtkrc.mine: # ~/.gtkrc-2.0 include "/usr/share/themes/Rezlooks-Gilouche/gtk-2.0/gtkrc" # or whatever theme you want
include "/home/username/.gtkrc.mine" You may also want to consider using lxappearance2-git, which is the most recent developmental build."
Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. I don't have anything particularly planned for the coming week, considering that I have exams and other stuff going on; I'll write what I can, when I can. Remember, if you like what I write here, please continue subscribing and commenting!
LXAppearance Issues
Reader T_Beermonster said, "ObConf?", later adding, "Oh, and now I notice you are using gnome with openbox rather than lxde or straight openbox it could be that an update has broken your .obt mime-associations. Try: update-mime-database /usr/share/mime update-desktop-database /usr/share/applications" After my explanation that this is just straight-up Openbox, this reader replied, "Ah I misread, the perils of post midnight web surfing. Anyway ObConf should be able to manage your themes."Commenter BP had this advice: "You need to append "gtk-icon-theme-name = "[name-of-icon-theme]" to your ~/.gtkrc.mine (not gtkrc-2.0) file and then ensure that ~/.gtkrc-2.0 is configured to parse ~/.gtkrc.mine: # ~/.gtkrc-2.0 include "/usr/share/themes/Rezlooks-Gilouche/gtk-2.0/gtkrc" # or whatever theme you want
include "/home/username/.gtkrc.mine" You may also want to consider using lxappearance2-git, which is the most recent developmental build."
Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. I don't have anything particularly planned for the coming week, considering that I have exams and other stuff going on; I'll write what I can, when I can. Remember, if you like what I write here, please continue subscribing and commenting!
2011-02-18
Not All is Fair in Linux
There are a couple experiences I had yesterday computer-wise that I'd like to share.
The first has to do with printing. Yesterday, I needed to print out a paper I had written for my history class; I don't have my own printer in my dormitory room, so I usually print on-campus. I went to one of the quick-workstations with Ubuntu-based MIT Athena computers, and I tried printing my document there. Of course OpenOffice.org recognized the document just fine, as it was an ODT file made in OpenOffice.org on my computer. However, I wasn't able to print, because my account didn't have the printer in that room as a recognized device. I didn't have very much time at all to fiddle with the printer settings, so I headed to a Microsoft Windows-based Athena cluster of computers in the library. Unfortunately, Microsoft Windows XP didn't have the Droid Sans font enabled, and of course I couldn't download it as I don't have administrative rights, so the document got printed in Times New Roman. That's not a big deal, although I would have preferred that it be printed in the font I originally used.
These are not meant to be knocks against either OS; I'm just a little surprised with some of the administrative decisions made here with regard to the network. I thought that to help keep the applications and interfaces uniform, the same fonts would be present in Microsoft Windows as in Ubuntu and the same printers would be enabled by default for all accounts in Ubuntu as in Microsoft Windows.
Last night, however, I experienced some slightly more serious trouble with my Linux Mint installation on my computer. After the boot process, I got the error message of "Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode". I tried reconfiguring X.Org and restarting, but to no avail; the error message came up again. I then entered in low-graphics mode just once, but of course, this meant using the generic graphics driver and having no desktop effects at all. Using the proprietary NVidia drivers didn't help either, so I disabled those as well. I looked in the forums for solutions, and I found one: I logged out, logged into failsafe GNOME, removed the Compiz Fusion extra plugins, logged out again, and logged back in again. Now, [essentially] everything works again.
I read in some forum posts that the issue could be a bad update, but I looked at the Linux Mint Update Manager's update log and found no updates for Compiz in the last few days. It seems like the Compiz issue was just a random breakage; this is the first time I'm seeing something like that happen on Linux Mint, and I had hoped that it was the last, but today when logging in, all my windows' titlebars went missing, so I needed to use the Compiz Fusion icon to reload Compiz. I hope I don't have to do this again.
I feel like this is a symptom of a problem many people online have talked about with regard to Linux distributions becoming more newbie-friendly; as they start to appeal more to migrants from Microsoft Windows, a lot of the same problems start appearing. It doesn't matter that things like package managers require a password to start; hopefully the user knows the password, so once that password is typed, there is nothing to stop the user from totally messing up the system, even unintentionally. Knowing that it wasn't a bad update (though it might have been a bad update of a dependency), I have no idea what I could have done to cause this problem. Unlike in Microsoft Windows, I expect that in Linux problems do not spontaneously appear; they should have some traceable cause.
Well, all I can do is hope that these problems don't recur, and that they'll be fixed in future versions of Linux Mint.
The first has to do with printing. Yesterday, I needed to print out a paper I had written for my history class; I don't have my own printer in my dormitory room, so I usually print on-campus. I went to one of the quick-workstations with Ubuntu-based MIT Athena computers, and I tried printing my document there. Of course OpenOffice.org recognized the document just fine, as it was an ODT file made in OpenOffice.org on my computer. However, I wasn't able to print, because my account didn't have the printer in that room as a recognized device. I didn't have very much time at all to fiddle with the printer settings, so I headed to a Microsoft Windows-based Athena cluster of computers in the library. Unfortunately, Microsoft Windows XP didn't have the Droid Sans font enabled, and of course I couldn't download it as I don't have administrative rights, so the document got printed in Times New Roman. That's not a big deal, although I would have preferred that it be printed in the font I originally used.
These are not meant to be knocks against either OS; I'm just a little surprised with some of the administrative decisions made here with regard to the network. I thought that to help keep the applications and interfaces uniform, the same fonts would be present in Microsoft Windows as in Ubuntu and the same printers would be enabled by default for all accounts in Ubuntu as in Microsoft Windows.
Last night, however, I experienced some slightly more serious trouble with my Linux Mint installation on my computer. After the boot process, I got the error message of "Ubuntu is running in low-graphics mode". I tried reconfiguring X.Org and restarting, but to no avail; the error message came up again. I then entered in low-graphics mode just once, but of course, this meant using the generic graphics driver and having no desktop effects at all. Using the proprietary NVidia drivers didn't help either, so I disabled those as well. I looked in the forums for solutions, and I found one: I logged out, logged into failsafe GNOME, removed the Compiz Fusion extra plugins, logged out again, and logged back in again. Now, [essentially] everything works again.
I read in some forum posts that the issue could be a bad update, but I looked at the Linux Mint Update Manager's update log and found no updates for Compiz in the last few days. It seems like the Compiz issue was just a random breakage; this is the first time I'm seeing something like that happen on Linux Mint, and I had hoped that it was the last, but today when logging in, all my windows' titlebars went missing, so I needed to use the Compiz Fusion icon to reload Compiz. I hope I don't have to do this again.
I feel like this is a symptom of a problem many people online have talked about with regard to Linux distributions becoming more newbie-friendly; as they start to appeal more to migrants from Microsoft Windows, a lot of the same problems start appearing. It doesn't matter that things like package managers require a password to start; hopefully the user knows the password, so once that password is typed, there is nothing to stop the user from totally messing up the system, even unintentionally. Knowing that it wasn't a bad update (though it might have been a bad update of a dependency), I have no idea what I could have done to cause this problem. Unlike in Microsoft Windows, I expect that in Linux problems do not spontaneously appear; they should have some traceable cause.
Well, all I can do is hope that these problems don't recur, and that they'll be fixed in future versions of Linux Mint.
2009-12-04
Recommendation Communication Issues
I'm starting to have doubts about the coach of our school's Science Bowl team, of which I am a member.
For one thing, she doesn't really seem to be that enthusiastic about us practicing. She has, for whatever reason, started ending practices at 3:15pm (rather than the 3:45pm typical of the last 2 years). She probably has a lot on her plate, but she never says so when asked to explain this change.
Yesterday there was supposed to be a practice. The day before that, I told her that myself and another student would be doing the Continental Math League, so we would be about half an hour late. She was agreeable with this and promised to continue practice. However, by the time we got there (exactly when we said we would), no one was inside the room, which was locked. When I asked her about it this morning, she did say that the other students were a bit impatient and decided to go ahead and leave for their other clubs. However, when I reminded her about myself and the other student coming late, she said that 2 days before (when I first mentioned it) I never mentioned the other student coming/being late.
Wait, what?
I've asked her to write me a recommendation for the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC. She kindly agreed to do so. She sent the recommendation out a day before the deadline for postmarking it, which is fine. Oddly, though, it got sent to my house rather than to the university. Yesterday, I told her about it, so she said to bring the material in a new envelope without my address (added as a supplement) so that she could resend it.
Today, when I brought it to her, she was irked that I took out the material from the original envelope and put it in the new one. She decided to break the seal just to make sure I hadn't tampered with the recommendation letter, then resealed it with tape.
For one thing, what would I have to gain from even reading (much less modifying) the letter? (She said, "I hope you enjoyed what you read." Wait, what?)
For another, she basically totally contradicted what she had said the previous day.
It seems that she has some rather serious communication issues (both on the speaking and listening ends), or maybe she isn't really thinking about what she says to me or what I say to her.
Gah!
For one thing, she doesn't really seem to be that enthusiastic about us practicing. She has, for whatever reason, started ending practices at 3:15pm (rather than the 3:45pm typical of the last 2 years). She probably has a lot on her plate, but she never says so when asked to explain this change.
Yesterday there was supposed to be a practice. The day before that, I told her that myself and another student would be doing the Continental Math League, so we would be about half an hour late. She was agreeable with this and promised to continue practice. However, by the time we got there (exactly when we said we would), no one was inside the room, which was locked. When I asked her about it this morning, she did say that the other students were a bit impatient and decided to go ahead and leave for their other clubs. However, when I reminded her about myself and the other student coming late, she said that 2 days before (when I first mentioned it) I never mentioned the other student coming/being late.
Wait, what?
I've asked her to write me a recommendation for the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC. She kindly agreed to do so. She sent the recommendation out a day before the deadline for postmarking it, which is fine. Oddly, though, it got sent to my house rather than to the university. Yesterday, I told her about it, so she said to bring the material in a new envelope without my address (added as a supplement) so that she could resend it.
Today, when I brought it to her, she was irked that I took out the material from the original envelope and put it in the new one. She decided to break the seal just to make sure I hadn't tampered with the recommendation letter, then resealed it with tape.
For one thing, what would I have to gain from even reading (much less modifying) the letter? (She said, "I hope you enjoyed what you read." Wait, what?)
For another, she basically totally contradicted what she had said the previous day.
It seems that she has some rather serious communication issues (both on the speaking and listening ends), or maybe she isn't really thinking about what she says to me or what I say to her.
Gah!
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