Bluecurve Classic

About 8 years ago, this time of the year, I used Linux for the first time. I had read about how stable, versatile, open, configurable it was. I tried my first Linux distro. It was not one of the biggies. It was PCQLinux a derivative of Red Hat Linux. Fedora was still sometime in the future. I installed the distro on the same machine that I still have and use. My old and reliable P3.

The first thing I was impressed was the looks of Linux. Belive me or not, I liked Bluecurve, the theme and the window decoration more than Windows look and feel. And here is a screenshot of how Bluecurve looked then. It changed a bit in Fedora Core 1 but I still like the classic look.

Bluecurve

Times have changed and today we have a lot of new themes and styles, but the “curve” has its special place in my heart. It is a great feeling to look back and see how far Linux has come

Mandriva One 2009 – Kaptivating KDE

It has been a couple of days since the Mandriva team released Mandriva Linux 2009 in KDE and GNOME flavours. I decided to try Mandriva and see for myself how it has improved over Mandriva Linux 2008.1. So, I downloaded the One version based on the KDE desktop. The One version is a Live CD and helps to see how it all works without installing it on to the computer. So lets get started.

The test system is my year and half old Dell Inspiron powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo processor running at 1.73 GHz. It is supported by a GB of RAM and the graphics support is provided by an Intel 945 GMA. It has bluetooth and an Intel 3945 a/b/g wireless chip. That is not really a cutting edge configuration but enough to get work done.

As for the Mandriva Live CD, the first thing it reveals is its new artwork. Blue is out and black is in. There are fine lines of various colours on a black background. Mandriva has moved to KDE 4 and this version packs KDE 4.1.2. Other goodies include Mozilla Firefox 3, OpenOffice.org 3.0, Amarok 2 SVN version. There is no Flash or Java support out of the box but MP3 files were played without any complaints.

This is how the desktop looks right after booting. Mandriva has chosen to use its La Ora theme for the controls and the window decoration than go with Oxygen. I think this is a good move. I personally like the window decoration to be distinct from the work area. There are some pretty themes for both the desktop as well for the Plasma engine. The wallpapers are pretty refreshing too.

I can easily say that this is one of the best KDE 4 distros out there. openSUSE has the KDE 4 desktop as default for a while now, but I should say that nothing comes close to the polish that one can see in Mandriva Linux 2009. The OS is a pleasure to use. Another area that has received more attention is the Mandriva Control Center and this is apparent from the new sleek design. Another important thing – Plasma is quite stable and crashed just once when I tried to change the wallpaper. Not sure what went wrong but at second attempt things worked as expected.

There are a few areas where things are still to be improved. For example, when I wanted to check the amount of free space in my hard drive, there was a question mark in the place where the drive icon should have been. I know, this is minor, but does not reflect well on a OS which not so long ago was considered the best linux distro out there for anyone to try. Icons were missing in a few other places as well.

I did not have a wireless network so I could not test that. I know this is really important but I just did not have a hotspot around to test. Another thing that did not work was the front audio control. This one is also quite important and I would like to know if there is any way to get it working. But that apart, almost all the other components worked. The display was set to the correct resolution at 1280 X 800.

Initially there were some redrawing issues, especially on the window decoration, but once I turned Compiz off, everything was smooth. I guessed that an Intel 945 GMA is not sufficient to run Compiz and Plasma together. I tried booting the CD on my brother’s fairly recent desktop powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 processor with 2 GB RAM and an Nvidia 9500 GT with 512 MB RAM. The same issue was visible. However, I tried to boot with the CD again and this time there was no such problem. I am not sure what is wrong.

My conclusion is I am going to install this as dual boot with my current OS and try using it for a while and then decide which is the one OS that I am going to retain for daily use. I have got used to GNOME apps and I may be critical of some KDE apps. I would just like to tell everyone that I started with KDE with Red Hat but have come to like GNOME. I am not going to start a flame war here but Mandriva 2009 has made KDE 4 Kaptivating enough for new users. I sincerely wish Mandriva goes back to be one of the best Linux distros for anyone wanting to use it.

I have a bunch of screenshots here. So let me know what you think.

Mandriva Linux One 2008 Spring – Screen shots

Mandriva Linux Spring 2008 was released a few days back and today I got a chance to have a look at it. The distro can be downloaded at the Mandriva site. If I should say in one word about this release, its gorgeous. The artwork is great and so is the performance.

On my system, running an Intel Core 2 Duo at 1.73 MHz with 1 GB RAM and an Intel 945 GMA, it ran smoothly even from the Live CD. I was able to launch multiple apps and still there was no problem. Mandriva seems keen in reviving its glory and this release is well on target.

The main highlights of this release are Openoffice.org 2.4 and PulseAudio. KDE is version 3.5.9. All the other standard KDE utilities are available and the Mandriva Control Center makes life easy.

This is not a full review, but just a visual tour. Go here and enjoy the screen shots.

First Look at KDE 4

KDE 4 the desktop environment for Linux was released on Jan 11. The release announcement is here. A nice guided tour is also available here. Having looked at KDE 4 Beta 4 and KDE 4 RC 1, I could not wait to get my hands on the final release. I downloaded the SUSE CD image, burnt it and got started.

The test system was custom built. I have given the spec below even though I tested using a Live CD

• Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.2 GHz
• 2 GB DDR2 RAM
• Seagate 250 GB HDD
• nVidia GeForce 8500 GT with 512 MB RAM
• LG Super Multi DVD Writer
• Acer 17″ LCD monitor

The Good

1. Stability - The final release is far more stable and usable than the two previous releases I had looked at. This is only to be expected. Congrats to all the developers who had worked on KDE 4

2. Response - The UI was very responsive and I never experienced a lag even while running multiple applications

3. Eye Candy – Plasma has improved greatly. Though the widgets provided don’t do anything great, they dont crash as they did earlier. Even the controls – buttons, scroll bars and the like – have been converted to blue which is more pleasant than the default green of SUSE Linux. The Oxygen icon theme looks beautiful, though I still could find some icons missing under Applications

4. Desktop Effects - Unfortunately, I could not enable the desktop effects while running the Live CD. I don’t have a spare system to install and check it out

5. Configuration – The monitor was recognized and the correct resolution was set. Similarly, the network card, sound and everything else was configured on boot. Once I get my laptop, I should check for Wi-Fi. I know this is more of an OS thing but still I want to mention this here since last time I could not get my Ethernet card detected.

The Bad

1. Kickoff – After looking at Kickoff, I should say, whoever came up with this idea did not have the least idea of what usability is. And what pains me is the decision to use this idea and bring it out in the final product. Why should I click four times to open an application?

2. Konqueror – Again, how come Konqueror can even be imagined as the default web browser. Most sites don’t work on it. It was good to use it as a file manager in previous KDE versions and Konqueror was very good at that. But to use it as a web browser is a little disappointing. Mozilla Firefox should have been there, or if you are against it pitch for Opera.

Conclusion

A great release. Though the Live CD did not have a usable browser or an office suite, I assume it is up to the distros to add their favorite applications on top of the platform.

Screen shots

• My Screen shots
• Screen shots from CNET

Orkut supports Indian Languages

On Orkut, it is now possible to scrap your friends in five Indian languages. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada. This feature has been going on and off for a few days now. I have been waiting to get a screen capture. Here it is.

There is little to wonder since Orkut is a rage in India in spite of all the negative publicity it gets once in a while.

KDE 4 RC 1

Just when I was about to pop in the KDE 4 Beta 4 for another close look, the KDE guys let loose the RC1. This is available for download here and this is the OpenSUSE distro. The release announcement is here.

I grabbed a copy of the disk image and got started. Keep in mind that this is a live CD. The RC1 is a minor change in the version. Well looks like the version has been rounded to 3.96.00. But the text next to it still says KDE 4 Beta 4. Shows work in a hurry. At first look I was really surprised. But on another look, I observed the KDE 4 Beta 4 was version 3.95.2.

At first glance, not many changes are apparent.

The desktop screen shot is right below the About KDE screen shot to your left.

The font for the clock on the task-bar had been changed and rightly so. Just refer to my previous post and you can see how bad the clock looks. Now things seem to be in order. Well, they just seem. I am still not able to right click on the clock and change its properties.

No major changes were visible on the other fronts too. As an example some of the icons for common applications like Kate were missing. For a desktop that is touted as which will be the best, this cannot be considered acceptable.

One major problem I still have is that the Configure Network Card application does not work. As I have mentioned earlier, my ISP provided me a static IP and I have no way to set this and so I could not get online. Shouldn’t that be ready by RC1?

More work is still left. The guys have done a really great job and they should just not loose steam during this crucial period. Even if it KDE 4 goes for 10 RCs I think its fine, but when released, the fanboys from the other side should not have such easy targets to point out.

There are a few things that I had left out in my previous post. Let me tell you about them. Plasma has got a lot of attention. I can see a few improvements there. Just as it was mentioned in the release note, the bits are falling into place and I can see that widgets have options to configure, close and drag them around. The hard disk info widget blanked my screen and I had to restart X.

Dolphin, now shows the previews of images. I have not checked with PDF files though. So there too the final fixes are coming in. Good sign again.

I tried to play an ogg file Amarok and it was good. I did not try the mp3 format since I was using OpenSUSE and mp3 by default is not supported.

The next thing I tried was Konsole and it worked pretty well too. I have a bunch of screenshots below for applications such as Konsole, Kontact, Ocular, Klondike and Sudoku.

For those who are not aware, Konsole is the terminal application aka command line. Kontact is the all in one Personal Information Manager. Ocular is the PDF reader for KDE. Klondike is Solitaire and Sudoku needs no explanation I guess ( I myself was interested in Sudoku, but, never became a fan )

Konsole

Kontact

Ocular

Klondike

Sudoku