Linux Antique

I have mentioned several times that my acquaintance with Linux started somewhere in the XX century, long before it became a part of our everyday life. It was in a form of Linux distribution downloaded from the Internet, and in a form of CD I bought from a stall on one of the markets in Moscow.

I have recently found the CD I bought that time.

Let me introduce you to Linux Antique, aka Red Hat 5.2 KDE.

I hope you like the Linux history.

And if you want to buy a Linux disk for yourself, you can always use a service from Buy Linux CDs site.

DarkDuck wishes you Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Hello to all my readers!

Year 2014 has almost gone. It was difficult for many of us. It was full of pleasures for many of us too.

It was turbulent and difficult for myself. There were many changes in my personal life, in my work, in my location. But I cannot say that there were no nice moment. They were.

Let's leave all bad memories in 2014, and let's hope for good times in 2015!

Merry Christmas!

Happy New Year!

I wish you all the best in the coming year!

Stay tuned to Linux notes from DarkDuck.

Zorin: That is Flexibility!

I will start off by saying that I am a 67 year old retired male who is only moderately computer savvy.

I started out using Linux with the Mandrake version about 8 years ago as an experiment. I was upset with Windows 95 & 98 because it would continuously freeze up and eventually would ruin the hard drive. Not to mention the virus problems.

I tried Lindows for a while because I liked their repository and the ease at which one could download and install programs. After a few years Lindows which had changed its name to Linspire was discontinued so I switched to Ubuntu with the KDE GUI desktop.

About 2 years ago I tried Zorin 6.0 and have used it and upgraded it on one of my computers since. I especially like the Zorin OS desktop experience because I can change it to look like Windows 7 or like Mac. That is flexibility! I also enjoy the Ubuntu type repository system!

I feel that anyone who has never tried Linux and wants to convert over to Linux from Windows should try a Linux system that is most like Windows - that would be Zorin.

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This is a guest post by Harry S. Durham, which took part in the joint Zorin OS contest.

We would like to thank the Zorin OS team

I'm currently working as the only IT staff member at a small neighbourhood council that is dedicated to helping our neighbours as much as we can by providing various services such as reconditioning schools, parks, and in my case computers.

Now recent we received a huge batch of laptops (Lenovo Thinkpad T60) as donations. We use these laptops so they can provide online and local training to youth workers so they can learn work skills and etiquette that will be essential for them to advance their careers professionally. The issue we are currently facing with these laptops is that the hardware is rather low end and that they were originally designed to work with Windows XP, which unfortunately recently stopped being supported.

Thanks to Zorin OS I was able to breath a new life into these laptops while providing a very similar environment to the end users so that they can feel right at home and continue their work without suffering from freezes or crashes and with greater performance and security to boot.

On behalf of the neighbourhood council, we would like to thank the Zorin OS team for their commitment on an extraordinary software that we hope will be going strong for years to come.

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This is a guest post by Cesar Escoto, which took part in the joint Zorin OS contest.

Linux notes from DarkDuck blog is now 4 years old!

It was 4 years ago when the first post was published in English on this blog, Linux notes from DarkDuck.

Do you remember that time? I think there are not that many of you who do. How may of my readers joined the Linux community after I started the blog? Are there any who was influenced by me on this road? I hope at least couple of you are...

Congratulations to everyone!

And, of course, stay tuned for more interesting stuff to come...

Users don't want Ubuntu 14.10

Linux notes from DarkDuck announced a poll few weeks ago. The poll contained two questions:

1. Are you waiting for Ubuntu 14.10 release?
2. Are you planning to update/upgrade/install Ubuntu 14.10 on your computer?

It is time now to announce the results of the poll.

Order your personal copy of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu 14.10

It is not the first time I announce something similar, so my old readers know what I mean...

With the coming release of next version of Ubuntu 14.10 just a month away, many of you already looking for downloading of your own ISO image of the system. Yes, that's the next version, codenamed Utopic Unicorn.

But many of you are not so lucky, and will need to wait longer, because you can not or do not want to create their own CDs with operating system images.
We can help!

You can pre-order your own copy of Ubuntu 14.10 (or Xubuntu, or Lubuntu, or Kubuntu) right now. It means that a DVD with your favourite OS will be burnt to you as early as possible, and dispatched on the 23rd of October 2014, or soon after. Dispatched to anywhere in the world.


How you can get the DVD? Go to http://buylinuxcds.co.uk site, purchase the Ubuntu DVD from there, and in the PayPal comments state that you want version 14.10. If you want K-, L- or Xubuntu, state it also in the same comment. That's easy.

To help you even further, here is a mini-shop which you can use straight away. It supports PayPal checkout, similar to Buy Linux CDs site. And you even don't need a PayPal account to pay - you can do this with your credit a debit card!

UK (2.00 GBP): Ubuntu 14.10 pre-order (UK) Variation Ubuntu Kubuntu Xubuntu Lubuntu

USA (6.00 USD):

Ubuntu 14.10 pre-order (USA)
Variation Ubuntu Kubuntu Xubuntu Lubuntu

Other countries (4.00 GBP):

Ubuntu 14.10 pre-order (Other countries)
Variation Ubuntu Kubuntu Xubuntu Lubuntu

And yet another alternative: you can purchase the same disks via eBay.

A Linux love story with real love and romance

My first encounter with Linux occurred about ten years ago when I used to enjoy reading software magazines. I was about 14 at that time. Loving to put in practice everything I was learning from those magazines, I downloaded my first Linux distribution: Ubuntu! I really can't remember which version, but if I look in some old boxes I'm sure I will find the CD I used to install it.

I loved it but my parents that needed to use very often the only PC in the house got quickly tired of the dual boot start page and they asked me to get rid of it. That is how my first experience with the Linux world came to an end. It was quite painful but I never forget the good moments.

Ubuntu 14.10 expectations

There is no doubt Ubuntu and its siblings Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu is one of the most popular Linux distributions. It became synonym to Linux to many, though Ubuntu is not only a Linux distribution.

New versions of Ubuntu family come out every six months, April and October each year. Every forth of them, released in April on even year, is a "long-term support" version. It means users get updates for their LTS systems longer than for non-LTS. The current version of Ubuntu 14.04 is LTS. It is so stable that many Ubuntu derivatives like Linux Mint and Zorin decided to remain on 14.04 base and not upgrade it until the next LTS version.

However, it is not so obvious that Ubuntu 14.10 will be worse than 14.04. It will come out on the 23rd of October. That is why I decided to make a little poll for my readers. There are two questions:
1. Are you waiting for Ubuntu 14.10 release?
2. Are you planning to update/upgrade/install Ubuntu 14.10 on your computer?

The poll is now open, and I will announce its results early October.

THE POLL IS NOW CLOSED!!!

Ubuntu... the unusual one

For most of us Ubuntu and Canonical are synonyms.
Ubuntu is a brand in the world of Linux-based operating systems, while Canonical is a company behind that brand.
However, I was surprised recently when I saw a different Ubuntu. Namely, this one.

It was found in a pharmacy store in the UK. Apparently, Ubuntu (or Ubuntu Oils) is a brand of haircare products. Nothing to surprise here. Ubuntu means "humanity to others", as per their official About page.

If you are interested in haircare product, or want to make an unusual gift to your Linux friends, you can buy it from Amazon. They are available in both Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com parts of that web store.

Even more... if you want to have Ubuntu cola, it is available too: Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

And, of course, if you just need a disk with Ubuntu, you can order it via BuyLinuxCDs.co.uk.

Happy shopping!

Clusterbit Developed the World’s Smallest Datacenter

64 cores of high performance computing at your desk

We now have the freedom to test a wide variety of solutions without the need to run loud, hot, expensive high end hardware or outdated power hungry servers.

The project began in March 2014 with both co-geeks Raffi Manoian and Zohrab Tavitian who founded Clusterbit. They decided to cram 8 credit card size servers into a little box and develop an open source platform where home enthusiasts, IT professionals, Linux technicians as well as high-end users can explore new possibilities.

To read more: http://www.clusterbit.com/press-release

Other links
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/884048325/worlds-smallest-datacenter

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This is a guest post by Zohrab Tavitian, co-founder of Clusterbit

Six Advantages of Choosing Linux over Windows

Linux is a computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. It has many advantages over Windows and some of which are listed below.

Another article got published off-line

You, readers of my blog, know that my articles are often translated into other languages and published in off-line press. My usual partner for this is magazine "User and Linux".

Today I am happy to announce that my article "How to enable spell-checking in different languages in Pidgin in Linux" has been published in Russian in the issue 14.08 (#30) of that magazine.

Welcome to read the original and translation, which you can find of page 24.

How I stopped distro hopping

I, a Microsoft user since DOS 5.x was introduced to Linux in the late 90's when a friend gave me a copy of Novell Linux. I was in awe that you could get a "free" operating system without having to pay for it. The system didn't hold my attention long because there were not a lot of applications for it that were similar to the Windows programs I was accustomed to.

Along comes Fedora and in 2004 I picked up a book called Linux for Non Geeks by No Starch Press which included a copy of Fedora. I learned of Open Source and the Free Software Foundation through this book and thought it was great that a community of folks could come together and make a product they then would give to the world. I loved the idea that software should be shared freely. I used fedora for about a year while dual booting with Windows. During that time I learned there were many Linux distributions gaining popularity like never before. I tried as many as I could but were never satisfied. I had my Windows XP operating system so why bother getting serious about Linux when Windows provided all I needed.

I began to notice Microsoft in the news more and more for unscrupulous business practices. This contrasted with the meaning of Open Source I had learned from my Linux experience. Microsoft started losing it's appeal. I began to see how with each new Windows release the systems became more draconian and restrictive. I am a hard core first person single player shooter fan and Windows played all my games when nothing else would. I could not just leave Windows no matter how I wanted to.

I decided I would try to use Linux for everything else except gaming. I used several distros for a while, PC Linux OS, Mint, Ubuntu (until Unity) and learned to love a slackware distro called Vector Linux. I even tried and liked PC-BSD 9 and 9.1. My goal was to try to find the system that most resembled the look and feel of the Windows systems I was used to because of familiarity and ease of use. I didn't like the terminal much and only used it when I had to. Though I liked each distro they somehow fell short of my expectations.

I first found Zorin with Zorin 5. I liked it but Zorin 6 had just come out and so I switched but felt Zorin was still too new so I didn't stick with it. Zorin 7 came out and it was Linux love at first install. I used Zorin 7 till Zorin 8 came out and now I'm onto Zorin 9 my first LTS Zorin distro (still dual booting). I have seen how the Linux community has grown up over the years with stable distros that have all the features I could desire but Zorin has a style that matches my expectations of how a distro should work.

Steam now has games that work in Linux and thanks to the stability of Ubuntu I know Zorin will play those games. GOG will be coming out with game versions for Linux at the end of this year. Between the two, I hope to leave Windows forever in a heap of dust. I can finally have my cake and eat it too. Linux for me means a chance at computer freedom. I know I can have that with Zorin.

Thank You Zorin!

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This is a guest post by Electric Rider, which took part in the joint Zorin OS contest.

Zorin OS Contest Results

And today is the day...

First of all, Zorin team, Linux notes from DarkDuck and Linuxaria would like to say THANK YOU to all the participants of the contest that we ran for last few weeks. It was a real pleasure to see such a response, and to read all your article.

Unfortunately, not all of them could get the prizes. It was a difficult task to select the winners. It is time to announce their names!

Drums, please!

An unusual comparison of Desktop Environments

I created and published a series of videos few months ago, that show how to set up multiple keyboard layouts in different Desktop Environments.
Just to refresh your memory, here they are:

• GNOME 3
• Unity
• KDE
• Cinnamon
• MATE
• Xfce
• LXDE

Statistics of the views is quite interesting. Here are just naked amounts:

Zorin OS 9 - a step forward for Windows migrants

Linux notes from DarkDuck has closely followed the development of Zorin OS for a long time now. The first review was for Zorin OS 4, and since then it seems like I haven't missed any new release. I also interviewed Artyom Zorin, the leader of the distribution.

Even though I don't do reviews en masse now, I felt I had to write a review of Zorin OS 9, which was released in July 2014, just few days ago.

I downloaded the version Zorin OS 9 32-bit Core. It is about 1.3 GB in size, which means you either need a DVD or a USB stick with >1GB capacity to get this ISO working.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get Live USB with this distribution. I tried different methods: dd command, Unetbootin, and even USB image writer from Linux Mint 17 toolkit. None of them created a workable Live USB stick.

Then I reverted to a Live DVD option.

So, DVD with Zorin OS 9 Core is in the DVD-ROM of my laptop Dell Vostro 1500. Reboot. Choose to boot from DVD. Let's go!

Contest for Zorin OS lovers

Contest is closed. Results are here.

You probably remember a contest that ran about two years ago. It was dedicated to Zorin OS 6. A new release of Zorin OS 9 has been released only few days ago, that is why it is time for yet another contest, isn't it?

Let's Do It!

Just to refresh your memories, here are the rules.

This contest is organised together by Zorin OS team, Linux notes from DarkDuck and Buy Linux CDs.

Who can participate?

Everyone with a passion for Linux, and with some writing skills. If you're good enough to compose a short e-mail to your friend, then you're ready for the contest.

What you need to do?

Please write a short story about Zorin OS, or maybe just Linux in general.

Why do you use Linux? How did you come to the Linux world? What do you like here? What are you doing to promote Linux? Any of these, or maybe your own themes are good.

It would be better, if your post is about Zorin OS, but this is just "nice to have".

The text you're going to write should not be one-liner. Please be little bit more productive. At least 50 words, if you don't mind.

Where to send your works?

Please e-mail them to zorinos.contest@darkduck.com.

When to send?

Any time until the 31st of July 2014.

What will you get?

Organizers of the contest will select winners, and they will receive:

1. Disk with Zorin OS 9 Premium with all the attached support. Prize is given by Zorin OS team.
2. 10 GBP e-voucher for Amazon.co.uk site. Prize from Buy Linux CDs.
3. CD with any Linux distribution of your choice. Prize from Linux notes from DarkDuck.

Update: there is another prize from Linuxaria: 25 USD voucher for amazon.com. It will be awarded to the 10th article submitted to the contest, disregarding the content of it (unless it is a really dummy submission)! Please hurry!

Will my work be published?

By submitting your work, you allow organizers to use your work on their web sites, unless you specifically withdraw your permission in writing.

When will results be announced?

The results will be announced on the 2nd of August 2014.
The winners will be contacted by e-mail.

Small print:

1. One prize per contestant.
2. Decisions of contest organizers are binding, and cannot be changed.
3. Non-monetary prizes cannot be exchanged for money.
4. No cash equivalents.
5. Monetary prizes will be given in currency stated: 10 GBP and 25 USD.
6. In order to get non-monetary prizes, you must provide your postal address. This will be kept confidential and never disclosed to 3rd parties.
7. Winners must respond the requests within 14 calendar days. If there is no response, the prize will be withheld.

Linux Mint 17 Xfce quick screenshot tour

Linux Mint team produces a number of distributions. Of course, the most famous of them are based on Cinnamon and MATE desktop environments.
However, KDE- and Xfce-based versions of Linux Mint also find their fans.

Linux Mint 17 Xfce was released today. Let's look at what it offer to the user. This is not going to be a full-blown review, rather a quick screenshot tour in the Live session.

Let's go!

How to enable spell-checking in different languages in Pidgin in Linux

If you are a person who speaks different languages, you are very likely to end up having friends in different parts of the world that you need to communicate with. The modern technological world gives you a good way of doing so using various instant messaging protocols.

Pidgin is a free open source application that allows you to communicate through different protocols. I believe it covers most of the protocols currently known in the world. Some of these protocols are available out of the box, others are available through additional plugins.

I have previously written a guest post on Linuxaria's blog that shows the power of plugins for Pidgin. Today I’m going to dive into a similar topic once again, looking through a different prism.