Savage Nomads » linux

Choosing the Right Desktop Environment for Your Linux Machine

JesseLangley — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:59:36 +0000

Linux and Ubuntu give users enough options that they could do anything with their desktop if they had the time and the coding background. For the users who want something to call home on their system, one of the various desktop environments will do the trick.

Choosing the right desktop environment and shell can change the user experience dramatically. Some are designed for smaller devices and touchscreens, while others are more at home piloting dedicated server and powerful machines. For new users, Linux can be a bit overwhelming, and the variety of choices only makes the task of choosing an environment more overwhelming. Luckily, we’ve assembled a list of the top four desktop environments below.

Gnome 3:

Gnome is widely regarded as one of the best choices for new users, despite Linus Torvald calling it a mess. It should be expected perhaps, that the choice for newbies might not appeal to the man who built the entire system, but regardless, it’s a solid choice for someone not used the Ubuntu system.

There is a bit of culture shock when you first turn on your device, since you can’t save anything to the desktop or launch programs from it. However, most of what you’ll need can be accessed through the Activities button. The completely minimalist screen changes to show you your apps laid out in neat little squares. Because it was optimized for touch screen, the squares are bigger than you’d typically see on a PC. That certainly doesn’t take away from the usefulness of the environment, though.

Unity:

Unity was first created to run on netbooks, so it too features a clean working space. Unlike Gnome, though, the desktop functions as a more normal space that allows you to save items to it and run program shortcuts from it. Unity is all about a clean interface, and sometimes it sacrifices functionality for design.

Launching an app that isn’t on the desktop or a dedicated task bar requires opening a window that organizes them by category, but it only shows a few. If you want to see more, you have to click the dedicated ‘more’ button. Expanding the screen theoretically should allow you to see more apps at once, but in practice, it only expands everything around the apps.
Despite these few flaws, Unity is a great program that will appeal to former Mac users.

Image via Wikipedia

Xfce:

Xfce is one of the more customizable options for Linux-enabled computers. It’s regarded by most as being unfriendly toward new users, but like many difficult mountains to climb, it’s worth the journey. Master Xfce, and you’ll be able to work with any desktop environment.

There are also other benefits than simply saying you use it, of course. Xfce comes with the code for several programs that work well in the environment. The calendar application, Orage, works similarly to iCalendar from Apple, making it compatible with many of your devices. Parole is a music player that is mostly playlist-based, which you could easily set up to play your favorites.

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Causes of Corruption in the Linux Block Group Descriptor

tompatrick — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 15:11:43 +0000

Linux has become one of the most reliable operating systems in the digital world. Yet, like other operating systems, it is likely that a user’s Linux volume may get deleted, and the user may encounter data loss. In cases of disk failure, virus attack, power surges, accidental deletion of partition, software conflict, inaccessibility of the hard drive by the operating system, or registry file deletion, one encounters data loss. Apart from that there are various reasons that may directly or indirectly lead to data loss. In such a situation, you have little option but to opt for Linux Recovery using backup, to ensure that your working is not hampered. However, in case the backup is unavailable, not-updated, or non-working, then you need to opt for Linux data recovery solutions.

Consider for example that you try to access some data file using Linux partition, and instead of the file opening in front of you, following message greets you:

File is inaccessible

or,

File not found

Inode entry of the file is deleted

These errors are a result of corruption or deletion of a data structure which control and manage various file creation and access activities. This data structure is known as Block Group Descriptor, and stores information super block, block bitmap, inode bitmap and inode table. The Block Group Descriptor is used very frequently by the file system and the operating system, its corruption can lead to the operating system failure in accessing the specified files. This causes data loss in Linux.

However, with a clean and updated backup in place, it is not a difficult problem to handle. But in case the backup is absent, non-working,or not-updated, then data loss is unavoidable.

To recover data in such a case, one has to opt for third party Linux data recovery software. These are tools that recover data from Ext2, Ext3, Ext4, and FAT file system volumes. Recovery is performed for all sorts of office files, photos, videos, audios, and BKF files, by applying complex algorithms. Good Linux recovery tools performs recovery from all distributions of Linux, including, Caldera, Debian, Gentoo, Mandrake, Red Hat, Slackware Sorcerer, SUSE, and TurboLinux.

Stellar Phoenix Linux Data Recovery is a bankable utility for data recovery Linux operating system. With various recovery options including drive cloning, imaging, save scan and resume recovery; and a graphical user interface, this tool is very user-friendly. With read only conduct, and compatibility with Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP and 2000 operating system the tool ensures comprehensive recovery of all data.

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bye,bye Linux trial

jayb — Mon, 12 May 2008 00:46:16 +0000

I installed wubi a few months ago. so I could dual boot with ubuntu. Just to see how far linux has come as an option for a business desktop. After fight with my wireless card and video drivers. I was able to get it running on my wireless network at home, but I could never get the fancy desktop (Compiz-fusion) to work correctly.

Now the latest kernel update make my Linux install un-bootable. I really don’t want to spend too much time troubleshooting it. I’ll write down the error and post it here soon.

After spending about 5 months using Linux on and off, mostly at home. I still have way too many windows apps I need at work. I would say Linux still has quite away before it comes a solid business desktop, especially for mobile users.

Here’s some of the past post:

wubi update

WUBI help

[tags]wubi, linux[/tags]

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wubi update

jayb — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 01:19:32 +0000

Well I finally got ubuntu working with my wireless.

After another reboot and not using my docking station, the ethernet port starting working. I was able to using apt-get to pull down a new version of ndiswrapper. Then I had to download the driver from dell. I found a forum post on how to put those two items together to get the wireless working and the new version of network manager supports WPA.

I also had to download a special driver for my nvidia card to enable 3D.

I feel good that I got it working, but going through all this trouble just doesn’t cut it as an option for the enterprise. Also now what? so I have linux installed, ok. Why is it better than windows.

I feel geeker, but ready to boot back into windows because that is where all my applications live.

Even if I could take the time to find simliar applications that work in linux, why?

Anyone got any ideas for cool stuff todo in linux?

let me know

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WUBI help

jayb — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 22:54:57 +0000

I installed WUBI on my Dell Latitude D820. But I can’t get the wireless card to work. It looks like the card is installed, but I’m using WPA for wireless at home and WPA is not a option.

I just downloaded WUBI so its the latest version.

That’s for the help in advance

[tags]linux, wubi, wireless, WPA, help, dell[/tags]

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