New poll: how do you like changes?

THE POLL IS NOW CLOSED!

Hello my dear readers!

If you read this blog for some time, you may have noticed the evolution. Things are changing in this blog as time goes.

The changes were introduced by myself, because I thought they would benefit the blog and, as a result, you, my dear readers.

And now it is time to ask you, if they are useful or not.

Now I publish a little poll. It contains four major questions, which describe changes happened in the blog. Please feel free to vote. If you have something to comment, there is a separate comments field for you.
 

AgiliaLinux: No More Interviews!

I have done interviews with different people all around the world. But these were interviews with individuals: Linux writers, bloggers, developers. Today I open another page, and my interview is with whole team who works on Linux distribution.
Please meet: Agilia Linux Team.

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DarkDuck: Hello, Agilia Linux team. Could you please introduce yourselves?

fat0troll: My name is Valdos. I live in Smolensk, a town in central Russia. I am musician-saxophonist.

pztrn: Hello, my name is Stanislav, and my nickname is "pztrn". I'm from Moscow. I'm maintaining all the XFCE-related stuff.

K900: K900, a generic Linux/android/anime geek with an (almost lifelong) affection for cats, Japanese music and Terry Pratchett books.

DarkDuck: Agilia Linux grew from the now-defunct MOPS project. What has happened to it?

Results of the Twitter contest

Hurrray!

It is another reason to have some good time. Another contest is over.

This is my pleasure to announce the winners. They are:

@metalmayhem420

@Oemissions

@debianmain1

Congratulations!

Each winner will receive a 1Gb USB stick from me.

I ask these my Twitter followers to contact me by Twitter Direct Message, specifying the mail address they want to get the prizes to.

Is There any Hope For Desktop Linux?

This article on operating system technologies is written by Paul Barrett, a web developer for www.bathroomrenovationsperth.net, a business helping people find bathroom design in Perth and other bathroom related needs.
The opinion is author's own and may be different from blog owner's.

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Image by KobraSoft

Around 10 years back, like many IT people at the time I decided I would make a switch to using Linux on my desktop. It wasn’t to be any sort of dual-boot venture where I would simply never boot up into Linux and just use Windows; it was to be a full migration to Linux.
So, in an afternoon I managed to install Redhat Linux and eagerly began to use my new operating system. I used KDE as my desktop environment which seemed pretty polished at the time, and then loaded on a series of applications with which to run my business. Eventually, it was the inability of OpenOffice to 100% work with Microsoft Office data that forced me back to Windows but for a while there I was a glorified fully fledged Linux user.

Current Market Share of Linux on the Desktop

Presently, according to research done by the main search engines, the main operating system in use by far is Windows (at over 90%). Linux has hovered at around 1% of desktops for a number of years now and this does not look set to change. There are some reasons for this.

Why is the share so low?

What many of us may not know is how widespread Linux is in all the other areas of everyday life. A very large percentage of mobile devices run on Linux. GPS systems, DVD and Blu-Ray players, eBook Readers, and all manner of consumer electronics use Linux at their core. In these markets it is actually Windows that operates in the 1% share, and Linux in shares of around 90% for some things.
Chances are, the hosting computer that you are reading this from is running Linux as its operating system.
The problem is not the technical viability of Linux. Nor is the problem the compatibility of applications any more – virtually all compatibility issues have been solved some time ago.
The problem is marketing. The problem is also the business model of Linux. Namely - that there is not one.
We have long been aware of technologies that have lost in the market, despite being better than their competitors, and Linux has fallen into this category for a long time.
The markets where Linux is successful are invisible to the consumer. It is not unreasonable to say that nearly everyone uses Linux, every day, without knowing. Linux has never received the credit for the work it has done.
So, like a loud and bossy sibling, Microsoft will continue to dominate the minds of the market and ability to access their purse strings.
Perhaps one day we will see some hope for Linux, but there is probably still no chance for this until we see some real marketing efforts. And the business model ensures that we never will.

CrunchBang Linux: a good system for the devoted to Linux

This Linux OS distribution is one of the most famous in the world. There are almost no people who are acquainted with Linux, but never heard of this OS. At this moment of time, it is on the 29th place in the Distrowatch rating, somewhere between Xubuntu and GhostBSD.

Of course, I knew about this operating system for ages. But I have not tried it yet. I was a rather afraid of it.

Anyway, this time had to come sooner or later, and I decided to give CrunchBang a go on my laptop.

CrunchBang is sometimes abbreviated as #!. But I will call it by its full name out of respect, and so it will not confuse people.

CrunchBang Linux is a distribution based on the stable branch of Debian, currently Squeeze, or more precisely – Debian Live. CrunchBang’s distinctive feature is the use of the OpenBox window manager. From the sound of it, this should be an extremely light and quick system. Let's have a look.

There are two versions of CrunchBang available: Stable and BPO. The BPO version includes Debian backports, and is not widely recommended for people looking for stability. My choice was the Stable system.

The version of CrunchBang that I tried (R20120207) came out on the 7th of February 2012, and is called CrunchBang 10 Statler. The 32-bit ISO image size of this version is very modest in size, just 662 Mb. It means you can use a CD on which to burn the image. Or, if you're not sure you can do it properly, you can request a CD to be delivered to you using the Buy Linux CDs site.

The ISO can be downloaded either directly from CrunchBang's site, or from a torrent. I used torrent to get my own image.

The friend of mine advised me that Unetbootin was originally a Windows application. The SquashFS error comes in because Unetbootin, like Windows, uses capital letters interchangeably with lowercase, and it stops the installation cold because Linux knows the difference between them. Although, I’ve never experienced that issue before myself.

I tried to create a Live USB using the CrunchBang’s ISO image. The usual issue with the BIOS of my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Pi 1505 laptop did not allow me to create a Live USB with the dd command. Another usual friend Unetbootin was also useless. The Live USB created by this tool gave me an error with mounting the SquashFS file system during the boot. Finally, I burnt the ISO image to DVD-RW disk.

So, the disk is in optical drive. Reboot. Choose to boot from DVD. Let's go!

Carla Schroder: Whoever controls technology controls society

I have interviewed different people for my blog already. They were Russians, Americans and even Bolivians. They live in different parts of the world. They are men and women. Some of them are high-profile figures on Linux horizon, some are just people who popularise Linux in their blogs.

My guest today is a woman who continues to popularise Linux for 17 years now. But she is not only a Linux writer. Much more... Please meet: Carla Schroder.

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DarkDuck: Hello Carla. You are a Linux journalist, writer, user and fan. Have I missed anything in this list? How would you introduce yourself?

Carla Shroder: Hi Dmitry! You can add to the list system and network administrator, programmer, beginning electronics nerd (soldering and everything!), farmer, rancher, carpenter, photographer, musician, audio recorder and producer, moviemaker, and lover of the great outdoors. I say all this not to brag, but to encourage people to follow their dreams and pursue their heart's interests. Anyone can learn to do anything, and you're never too old to learn something new.

DD: How and when were you first acquainted with Linux?

Yet Another Guest Post

There are some places which I've visited several times, but never got returning visits. Until I got an interview...

And there is a place which I've never been yet, but owner of it has been visiting me several times.

It was a time for me to make yet another guest visit, and see how my name looks at his blog. That's why I invite you to appreciate my guest post on tavisonline.com, dedicated to must-have apps for any Linux operating system.