What you should not expect when switching to Linux

Linux is a great operating system. Nobody in the Linux camp will argue about that. There are many articles on the Internet convincing you to try and to switch to Linux. There are also many articles that attempt to show you why you should not switch.

Let's look at this question from a slightly different viewpoint today. Say, you are now convinced that you want to switch to Linux. What you should NOT expect from this switch?

Austrumi 3.2.2: a nice stranger

Austrumi is not a very famous distribution in the Linux world, although I have written about it twice already.

Let me introduce it again for those who did not read my previous reviews.

Austrumi is a Linux distribution that is based on Slackware and developed by a small team from the Latgale region of Latvia, a small ex-USSR Baltic state.

The official site of this distribution is far from the best I have ever seen. It pretends to have several sections and work in different languages, but many of them simply do not work. Even the forum link from that site is not functioning.

The "news" section of the site tells you that the latest version of that distribution is 2.4.0. The download link on the site points to an ISO image with index 2.2.9, but it still does not work. But if you remove the filename from the download link in the address bar of your browser (ftp://austrumi.ru.lv/), you will be able to see a list of ISO images. The latest version is 3.2.2 and it was released in August 2015, so we are talking about a very fresh release now.

Image size of Austrumi 3.2.2 is just 278 MB, which definitely puts the distribution in the "pocket" category.

When I reviewed the previous versions of Austrumi, I had to record a CD-RW or DVD-RW, because neither the dd command nor Unetbootin worked with this ISO image. This time I was a bit luckier. Although dd command still does not work, Unetbootin created a workable USB stick for me.

So, USB drive is in the port of my Toshiba Satellite L500-19X laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

How many OSes does your computer have?

There are so many operating systems in the world. Apart from the famous ones, like Windows, MacOS, Ubuntu, Debian, Mageia or Linux Mint, there are hundreds of smaller and less well-known.

If there are many operating systems, there is a good chance that your computer has several of them installed.

How many?

Let's vote for the number of operating systems you have on your computer. If you have multiple computers, please vote for the one you use most often.

Knoppix 7.4: whom is it for?

I have already tried to write about this distribution couple of times. The last time that happened more than 4 years ago, when I reviewed Knoppix 6.4.

4 years passed by, and now I had an order from buylinuxcds.co.uk site to dispatch an USB stick with Knoppix.

The most recent version of this distribution is Knoppix 7.4.2. It has been released in September 2014. The ISO image size is just under 4Gb. I downloaded it via torrent.

Unfortunately, Knoppix is not the distribution you can write to a USB stick using the dd command or Ubuntu's built-in tool. You basically have three choices:

1. use Unetbootin,
2. use the long and windy way described on official site, or
3. write a DVD.

I tried option 2, but gave up after approximately 10 minutes of going round. Option 1 simply worked.

So, USB stick is in the port of my laptop Toshiba Satellite L500-19X. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

Linux Mint 17.2 KDE: do you have the hardware?

August 2015 is only half-through, but it has already seen releases of two popular Linux distributions.

DarkDuck has already reviewed Zorin OS 10 Core.

Today is the turn of Linux Mint 17.2. Yes, you are right. Linux Mint released the version 17.2 in August 2015. Of course, they are not their "major" Cinnamon and MATE editions, but rather slightly less popular flavours: KDE and Xfce.

Image size of Linux Mint 17.2 KDE is about 1.6 Gb, which is 0.2 Gb more than the Cinnamon edition. I downloaded it using the torrent link available on the web site and "burnt" onto the USB stick using the built-in tool of Ubuntu 14.04.

So, the USB stick is in the port of my Toshiba Satellite L500-19X laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

Zorin OS 10 Core: install and forget

You may have noticed that DarkDuck publishes articles about certain operating systems more often than others. They are LinuxMint, Emmabuntus and Zorin OS. The reasons are different, though I can tell you that I keep good relationships with both Emmabuntus and Zorin teams. That's why I cannot miss a chance...

And there is a chance this time!

It has been more than a year since Zorin OS 9 was released. And the 1st of August 2015 saw the release of the brand new distribution from the Zorin team: Zorin OS 10.

I downloaded the image of Zorin OS 10 Core 64-bit from the official site. It is easy to navigate, though a torrent option is definitely missing for downloaders. ISO image size is just below 1.5 Gb in size.

Then I faced the same issues with Zorin OS 10 that I previously had with Emmabuntus 3.1.01. Neither Ubuntu's built-in image writer tool, nor the dd command worked for me. Unetbootin helped me to deal with Zorin OS image this time.

So, USB-stick is ready and plugged into the port of my Toshiba Satellite L500-19X laptop. Reboot. Choose to boot from USB. Let's go!

Working with Pivot Tables in LibreOffice Calc

Pivot tables is a very powerful tool in spreadsheets that allow you to analyse big massive of data in flexible dimensions.

LibreOffice Calc gives you an option to build your own Pivot tables using the built-in tools.

Please watch a how-to video showing you details of working with Pivot tables in LibreOffice Calc.

You can also follow this link to watch directly on YouTube.

By the way, if you use OpenOffice Calc, this tutorial may help you too.