After you Install Ubuntu You Should...

1. Update your fresh Ubuntu installation using the Update  Manager

2. Open the  Ubuntu Update Software Center and install the following programs:  Chromium, Gimp, Xiphos Bible Study Guide,  and whatever other software you fancy.

3. Go to the Bisigi Project page and install Bisigi Themes Package.  These are just cooler than the  default Ubuntu Themes.

4. You may also want to install Ubuntu's Restricted Extras if that floats your boat.

Ubuntu Firefox switches back to Google for Default Search

Not that it was a big deal, but Ubuntu Developers flip-flopped, and have decided to keep Google as the default search engine in Firefox. When Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx is released in the later part of April, Firefox will be using Google as the default search engine. Yahoo is now out of the picture, and the developers have offered no informative reasons why the made the change.

I have reached a point now where I am not using Firefox as a browser if at all. It seems that Google Chrome Beta is working just fine, either on a netbook, laptop, or desktop computer. I have not had any problems with the Chrome browser even though it is still in Beta.

Although Google acts like big brother, keeping track of everything that you search for, it is making some headway in developing some decent applications.

Default Search for Ubuntu Will Set to Yahoo

According to a report out of The Register, the next version of Ubuntu, Lucid Lynx, will have the default search setting for the Firefox Browser, set to Yahoo Search.

Is this a big deal? Not really. It is easy enough to change the search settings on Firefox. Just click on the tab just to the left of the search bar and select which engine you wish to use. It is the little search engine icon. Then the default is set. Even if you quit and restart your browser.

The funny thing is that Yahoo is actually paying Cannonical to have their engine set as a default. Since Microsoft is now in partnership with Yahoo, in a sort of weird way, Microsoft is paying a share to build and distribute Ubuntu. Still, not quite as overt as the Novell deal, but the link is there.

Will there be a backlash against Ubuntu in the Linux world? Who knows. Let the griping begin!

I have been using Chrome a lot anyways. It seems to work quite well.

Chrome Used more than Safari

In the browser wars, Google Chrome has established itself by skipping ahead of Apple's Safari browser in terms of usage. In comparing the two, Chrome seems to offer very similar features. What makes Chrome stand out is speed. Safari is nearly as slow as Firefox and Explorer on my rarely used Windows PC. But as in my Ubuntu PCs, Chrome is very fast, especially on start-up. I doubt there will ever be a Linux version of Safari, but it would be nice to do a comparison.

There seems to be ways of getting Safari with Wine on Linux, but that would not quite be the same. In either case, I'll stick with Chrome for now. The beta version has been running very well. It will be interesting to see if Chrome catches up with Firefox. My guess is that it probably will!

Ubuntu One

Anybody try Ubuntu One? With the latest version of Ubuntu, 9.10 there is a software package that allows you to sync files on your desktop to another PC, via a file drop box service. It is part of the default install for Karmic Koala. I thought it was a nice feature. You get about 2 GB of storage area.

The client runs on your desktop and checks a folder in your home directory every so often for updated files. When it sees that a file has been updated, it will automatically sync it up to a server. I wonder what would happen if you logged off in the middle of a sync? I have not tested that out. So far I have been only using it to save documents and a few work files. I was able to sync them up from my Ubuntu machine at home, and upload the files. The next day at work, it was an easy retrieval, even from a Windows machine.

There seems to be no equivalent to a client that would run on a Windows machine for automatic file syncing. That probably would be the next step.

If I stick to straight documents, I seem to get the same functionality out of Google Docs. But Google Docs is a manual process. My guess is that some sort of file syncing process will arise out of the new Chrome OS. The possibilities are there.

Chrome in Centos: Does not work

Well, I tried to install Google Chrome on a Centos 5.4 computer at work. It did not work because Centos 5.4 still has an older version of lsb. It seems that it is a pretty trivial thing to fix within Chrome that will allow it to use an older version of lsb for the install. But, the Chrome developers closed out the bug report, stating it will not get fixed.

It seems they are only willing to support the latest version of Fedora, but are going to leave Enterprise Redhat behind. Interesting...especially with all talk of cooperation between Ubuntu and Chrome developers. Anyway, there is more details about it here at the Centos Forum.

I guess I'll just wait for Centos6....

Chrome in Beta for Linux

You can now head over to the Google Chrome Website and grab yourself a copy of Google Chrome for Linux. It is the beta version. I have been running a developer build of google chrome, which is an unstable release version of Chrome for some time, and have had very good luck with it.

The only thing I have noticed is that when you load a Google theme, the colors along the border are not rendered quite correctly for some themes. I am not sure if it is something within GNOME, or whatever. I assume it will get fixed. Either way, it is not a show stopper for me, since most of the themes work just fine.

Since I am on the developer release, I am going to stick with it for now. There are versions for Redhat/Fedora as well. I use a CentOs box at work, and will try the Google Chrome Beta there to see how it works. I assume all should go well!

Xubuntu 9.10 on 256 MB Ram

I have a Dell Lattitude C810 that 512 in RAM and about a 1.2 GHz Pentium 4 CPU. I had it upgraded to Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala and it was doing a pretty fine job. Since the laptop was so heavy, I primarily had it laying on a desk and used it to check the web. Otherwise this laptop would be a brick.

One of the memory chips went bad some time ago, and I was forced to remove one of the 256 MB modules. Therefore, I was left with just 256 MB of RAM. Not surprisingly, the Dell C810 became quite slow running Ubuntu and the GNOME Desktop. I three choices on what to do with this computer:

1. Throw it away

2. Go out and spend $30 for a new memory modules

3. Try Xubuntu

I did not want to toss the machine quite yet (although I probably should) and I was not interested in investing any money into this laptop, so I decided to try Xubuntu on it.

Xubuntu is advertised as having a small memory footprint and great for older systems. To install it, I simply opened up a terminal and typed:

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

And hit 'Y' to a couple or prompts. All of the needed themes, artwork, and start-up programs were downloaded and installed without a hitch in about 20 minutes.

For a web browser, I switched to Google Chrome for Linux. Now the laptop is usable once again. It is still a little slower than before. But at least for casual web browsing it is still working. So maybe I will get another year or two of service out of this Dell C810 Lattitude.

Google Chrome OS and Ubuntu

Google made and announcement that Google Chrome OS will be entirely open source. In addition, they announced that the Chrome browser will be available shortly.

The fact that Chrome OS will be entirely open source is great news because this should allow Ubuntu to take advantage of Google powerful software development team. Many Ubuntu developers, Cannonical in particular, are already helping to integrate Chrome browser into the Ubuntu desktop.

Could this mean the end of GNOME for Ubuntu? I am not sure on that one, but this may be something to watch. I am not entirely sure that introducing another windows management system is an entirely good thing for Linux either. There is already a lot of confusing out there among users between KDE, GNOME, Xfce, etc. But maybe the umbrella of development and backing backing of Linux by Google will help bring Chrome OS to the forefront. But, one of the great things that has always been true with Linux is that you have a choice, right?

Here is a link to the Google Chrome OS Announcement

Google Chrome for Linux

I have been using Google Chrome for a couple of weeks on a Windows XP machine and have found it to be one of the better browsers that I have come across. I like it because it is simple, yet very functional. Chrome also seems to run faster than either Firefox, Safari, or Internet Explorer.

You can run Chrome on Ubuntu Linux, but it is still in development. The development version that I installed tonight on my Ubuntu laptop seems to be quite functional, and also very FAST. It loads Java applications and seems to render images very efficiently. I am starting to look forward to Google's new operating system to give it a try. But I doubt if I will ever leave Ubuntu!

It is easy to install Chrome for Linux if you are running Ubuntu. There are quite a few warnings and scary messages from Google about running their development version, and if you can get past those, go ahead and give it a try. Keep in mind that some features may or may not work.

In addition, there may be some security issues. Simply go to these web pages to install Google for your CPU type:

Dev channel (for 32-bit systems): google-chrome-unstable_current_i386.deb

Dev channel (for 64-bit systems): google-chrome-unstable_current_amd64.deb

Playing Evony with Ubuntu

Evony is an online strategy game that loosely based on the Middle Ages. You play the role of a Lord overseeing your lands, defending your cities from attack. You also get the chance to attack others to gain resources and wealth, or you can settle in and try to build up your cities. It is kind of a combination of Sim City and World of Warcraft.

Recently, Evony adds have been popping up all over the internet, especially with Google's Adsense program. They also seem to be running a campaign on DoubleClick. Anyway, since I saw the ads, I decided to give the game a whirl. I tried it using both Windows XP, and my Linux PC with generally the same results.

The game starts fine, but then after a while performance begins to suffer. There appears to be a slow memory leak in the Flash media program that Evony uses. Simply refreshing your browser corrects the problem. I have found that you can play a little longer between refreshes using Google's Chrome browser on Windows XP. For Ubuntu, your best bet is to use Epiphany. It is probably because these browsers have a lower memory foot print over the browser bigboys.

The game uses Flash media as part of its engine, so you will need to be certain of have Flash installed on your Linux PC.

Ubuntu Linux Google Chrome

I still have a laptop that my wife uses that has Windows XP. She needs it for some online classes that she is using. I decided to give Google Chrome a try so I went ahead and installed it on her laptop. I liked what I saw. Chrome is a new browser that was developed by the folks a Google that is an open source project. It has been out for a couple of months already, but I never really sat down to play with it.

The tab setup is a little different and takes a little getting used to, but once you do, it is a breeze. There is also a panel layout were you can see all of your most popular sites on one page.

The one thing I really like about Chrome is its speed. It is way faster then Explorer, and even Firefox. I have found that Firefox is getting a little slower with each release. I am not sure why, I try to keep the extensions, and other junk disabled. Firefox 3.0.5 on my Ubuntu laptop has become a real dog of a program. It seems to start OK, but it seems to have a memory leak somewhere and starts to slow down after some use. Plus it crashes quite often.

Google has promised a Linux release for Chrome and you can even sign up to be notified when Google releases a Linux version of Chrome.