The Pinguy OS seems a worthy distro

For the last five years, the Linux distro that I have installed the most is Kubuntu and its derivatives,such as Linux Mint. Lately, I've been getting into the Ubuntu-derived Pinguy OS (v11.04)--it's the first GNOME-based Linux I've ever actually installed in over 8 years of using Linux. Though I'm usually a KDE guy, it seems to be pretty complete and has a LOT of stuff pre-installed--as well as being laid out in a useful way. Pinguy's power lies in the fact that some useful, but tricky-to-install-and-configure software comes already installed and configured. I have been running it for several days and I like it a lot. Other than adding Xfe and K3b (and a few more browsers), I am running pretty much stock, and except for having to install SeaMonkey 2.0.14 from the tarball (2.0.13 kept crashing), most of the added software went in smoothly. The only caveat seems to be that the default keyboard map is "UK"--so when you use the disc "live" you need to go to
Control Centre->Hardware->Keyboard->Layouts
and add the "USA" keyboard. This is part of the installation process, so no problems if you install it.

Is this the beginning of the end for the Wintel duopoly?

A Tegra 2 system-on-a chip (SoC) dual-core ARM-based micro-desktop that runs Ubuntu or Android 3.0 is about to be released (by the end of April, according to the developers). Despite its small size, it seems to be packed with features. For many people, this would be enough computer to do what they need...
April, 2011 – The Month The Desktop Changes

NVIDIA's founder says that this is just the beginning—the successors to the current-generation Tegra chips will be ever-more-powerful, yet still highly efficient.
Q&A: Nvidia chief explains his strategy for winning in mobile computing

For example, the quad-core Tegra 3—code-name Kal-El—is due as soon as this summer.
NVIDIA Quad-Core Tegra 3 Kal-El in Android Devices This Summer

Texas Instruments isn't standing still, either—though their quad-core ARM SoC takes a substantially different approach.
Texas Instruments Reveals Quad-Core 2GHz ARM SoC with Stereo-3D Support

I predict interesting times ahead for all of us, including Intel and Microsoft. The Sandy Bridge fabrication glitch HAS to hurt—and I predict that Windows-on-ARM will be too little, too late.
Intel Finds 'Sandy Bridge' Support Chip Glitch; $1B to Fix

I'm keeping an eye on this one.

How to Install KDE SC 4.6.0 on Ubuntu 10.10

I run Kubuntu 10.10, but you cannot update the KDE desktop to the newest version directly. There is a technique, though, that does allow the newest version of KDE—4.6.0—to be easily installed. Here's the link.

The one caveat is that it didn't update for me the first time—so once I installed the PPA, I went to a terminal window and typed
sudo apt-get update then
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
and everything was cool.

How to Replace Your OpenOffice With LibreOffice In Ubuntu

I run Kubuntu Linux, the KDE-based variant of Ubuntu. I had OpenOffice.org v3.2 installed as my primary office suite. Both OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice have just released version 3.3 of their respective office suites. For those that don't know, LibreOffice was forked from OpenOffice.org over concerns about how Oracle would deal with OpenOffice.org after purchasing Sun Microsystems, the publisher of both OpenOffice.org and the Java programming language. A group of OpenOffice.org developers formed The Document Foundation to create a more open development model going forward; LibreOffice v3.3.0 is their first release.

The LibreOffice downloads for Linux from the official site are tarballs, generic Linux install files. For Ubuntu and other Debian derivatives, they should be .deb files; for maximum compatibility they should be installed through apt, but LibreOffice is not yet available from the official Ubuntu repositories. The solution to this issue is a PPA. There is now a PPA available to install LibreOffice in Ubuntu and its derivatives. This article shows how, step-by-step:
Quick Tip: How to Replace Your OpenOffice With LibreOffice In Ubuntu

If you are not already aware, you can often save a lot of typing by simply using copy-and-paste (link is to my article) to enter each command into a terminal window.

This technique worked well for me. LibreOffice seems to be humming along just fine!

Media management & manipulation under Linux

The full text of this article is still being written—in the meantime, here's the links page.

Tool discs—The ninjas of Linux

The full text of this article is still being written—in the meantime, here's the links page.

Disclaimer

Although I am currently the Chairman of the Special Interest Group-Linux of the SouthEast Michigan Computer Organization, this blog does not reflect anyone's views but my own. SEMCO, its members, and its SIG-Linux are not responsible for this blog or its content. That having been said, I will be posting herein articles based on my presentations to the Group--plus opinions, facts, and occasional wild speculation & flights of fancy (most of which [I hope!] will be related to Linux).