Google Chrome on Jaunty/Ubuntu

The easiest way to install Google Chrome is to download the deb from here. Both 32 bit and 64 bit builds are available. The best part is just installing the .deb adds the repository information and keeps the installed version uptodate.

Typing Break

I have been suffering from a back problem these last few weeks. I remembered that long time back in Gnome I used to use a Typing Break where the computer would force me to take a break of 3 mins every one hour. These timings can be configured to whatever one pleases.

This can be accessed from :
System->Preferences->Assistive Technologies->Keyboard Accessibilty->Typing break

Hope this helps someone who wants to take forced breaks.

MyPasswordSafe

I wanted to keep a few passwords handy so I was using Tomboy Notes to keep them. Problem was in encrypting as I sometimes have other family members using my computer(s). So I stumbled upon MyPasswordSafe. It does the work in a simple way and can work with Password Safe a windows software, so one can keep the passwords synced between Windows and GNU/Linux.

Fonts on GNU/Linux

IMHO the fonts issue on GNU/Linux is the single biggest detterent to wide spread acceptance for Desktop use. There are a few distros which get the font rendering correct, but by and large the font rendering is not good for most people. Now, font rendering is very subjective, for example, in the office that I work in, we have a couple of Macs, a iBook 64 and a Mac mini, both running 10.4.8. Personally I hate the font rendering on these Macs. I think the rendering is worse than that of any Linux distros and to make things worse one cannot turn off antialiasing for font size greater than 12. There may be a hack, but I am not aware of it as I have been using these Macs for the last month or so. After turning off the antialiasing and using Monaco or Chicago, the Mac is usable for me. I was not able to use GNU/Linux full time because I never liked the way the fonts were rendered. I am not a fan of Cleartype on Windows. I use the Standard font rendering on Windows and I absolutely love it. I have never been able to quite get the same effect in GNU/Linux distro till tonite. I refer all my fellow sufferers to:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=208396

I have tried the tweak and it works for me. At long last I am happy and will most prolly never use Windows for personal use.

Long Live calande.

Ubuntu, Kubuntu posters

Great Stuff. totally free posters, check them out.
Thread link : http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=296742

Download from here

Katapult - a cool KDE App

I came across this app while mucking around with the latest Kubuntu. It is a program launcher. You hit alt + space then type for example, kmai. By now it should show you the kmail app and all you need to do to launch it is hit enter. It should normally sit in the tray, in case it does not, you can hit alt+space and then control+c to configure it. It is a neat app, try it out.

Home page : http://wiki.thekatapult.org.uk/Home

Kde-apps page : Link

Kubuntu 6.10 Thoughts

Been using Kubuntu on and off for the last couple of days. My primary distro atm being SimplyMEPIS.

What I like:

Speed, is perceptibly faster than Mepis, could be because of background tasks running/not running in both. Haven't done a detailed analysis. Even the Synaptic search seems to be faster, again that could be because of the number of installed packages.


Will add more here.

What I did not like:

Adept is not very good. When I searched with Superkaramba nothing showed up. When I searched with Karamba, Superkaramba showed up. I installed Superkaramba, while installing Liquid Weather I got the message that it would not run without ImageMagick. Wonder why it was not installed as a dependency. Anyhow, am using Synaptic now.

The number of installed packages does not seem to be adequate. One has to do a bit of hard work after the basic installation to get the distro running. For example, I could not find a calculator. I wonder whether I did something wrong or the basic installation is spartan. From what I can understand, this is not a newbie friendly distro. One would have to know the package names to install them. I could not find kwikdisk anywhere in the repos. It seems I have to do some serious research.

I like the speed. I will stick with this distro if I can figure out how to get the fonts to behave.

The fonts are killing me. Let me go and fix them.

More later