Reviews
GhostBSD Review: Simple and Lightweight
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 24th of February 2021 09:00:38 PM Filed under

Because there are so many different options out there for your free and open-source operating system, it can be hard to figure out what the best option is for you. Sifting between Linux distros is difficult – Debian and its derivatives, Ubuntu and its derivatives, Fedora, Arch, openSUSE, the list goes on. However, what if the best choice for you isn’t actually technically Linux? Here we review GhostBSD, a FreeBSD-based Unix OS designed for a simple desktop experience, to see if it’s the right fit for you.
[...]
The applications that are installed are all necessary. It’s exactly what you might expect to find in your typical lean open-source desktop OS configuration, with no frills and just the essential applications.
There is not much to remark on with the user experience – it is a very simple and friendly version of the MATE desktop that’s designed to be light on system resources and simple to use. Overall, I think there is no way you could go wrong.
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Review: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (Linux Edition)
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 22nd of February 2021 02:29:41 PM Filed under

FOR MOST OF eternity, if you wanted to run Linux on your laptop you bought a Windows laptop, wiped Windows, and installed Linux. This was known as the "Windows tax," the extra money you paid for an operating system you didn't need.
About 15 years ago, pioneering companies like System76 began selling white-label hardware with Linux preinstalled, along with all the necessary drivers to ensure hardware compatibility. Linux worked out of the box. They were seldom what you'd call svelte laptops, but they were solid machines, and hey, no Windows tax. Today, System76 builds its own Linux-based desktop hardware at a factory in Colorado, and even big brands like Dell sell laptops with Linux.
Lenovo is the latest manufacturer to want in on the fun, releasing its first Linux laptop in the form of an eighth-generation ThinkPad X1 Carbon. There are some quirks, but it's one of the best laptops around for Linux.
[...]
It's worth asking then, what does the X1 Carbon bring to the table? The answer is support. The main advantage of preinstalled Linux is both hardware support and customer support from Lenovo. If you run into an issue, you can take to the forums or even call Lenovo support.
That hardware support shows immediately when you boot up the X1 Carbon—the fingerprint reader works out of the box. This is one thing I've never managed to get working when I installed Linux myself, so it's really nice to have it working immediately. Except, well, we'll get to the except.
I opted to test the Fedora-based version of the X1 Carbon. There's also an Ubuntu-based option. If you're unfamiliar, Fedora and Ubuntu are the names of two Linux "distributions." A Linux distribution, usually shortened to "distro," is a collection of software that contains everything you need to run Linux on your PC.
If this is confusing, think of it in terms of Windows or macOS. Apple and Microsoft combine all the little pieces of software that make up macOS and Windows and distribute the result as a single package. Fedora, Ubuntu, and hundreds of others do the same for Linux.
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Review: Septor 2021
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 22nd of February 2021 12:24:42 AM Filed under
Septor is a Linux distribution which provides users with a pre-configured computing environment for surfing the Internet anonymously. It is based on Debian's Testing branch and it uses Privoxy, a privacy-enhancing proxy, together with the Tor anonymity network to modify web page data and HTTP headers before the page is rendered by the browser. The distribution uses KDE Plasma as the preferred desktop environment and it also includes the Tor Browser for anonymous web browsing and OnionShare for file sharing.
Septor is in the same family of distributions as Tails, which we talked about last year. Tails is also Debian-based and is intended to be used for anonymous web browsing and file sharing. One of the big differences between the two projects is Tails uses the GNOME desktop while Septor uses KDE Plasma. Another difference is Tails is typically run as a live distribution from a USB thumb drive, often with persistent storage. Septor, on the other hand, can either be used as a standard live disc or installed to a hard drive via Debian's system installer.
Septor is available in one edition for 64-bit (x86_64) computers. The ISO file we download is 1.8GB in size. Booting from this media brings up a menu asking if we would like to run the live desktop or launch the installer. When running in UEFI mode just one install option was visible, but in Legacy BIOS mode I could select either a graphical installer or a text installer.
Taking the live option brings up a graphical login screen. We are shown a mostly empty screen that tells us we can sign in to the live desktop using the password "live". There are drop-down menus for choosing our session type (only KDE Plasma is available) and our keyboard layout (only US is available). Signing into the default user account brings up the Plasma desktop with a blue background. A panel sits at the bottom of the display. The desktop is fairly quiet and empty, though browsing through the application menu presents us with several useful tools I will talk about later. We are automatically connected to the Tor network when we open a web browser or other tool, allowing us to browse the web with a degree of anonymity.
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An early look at VLC 4.0 - Hello darkness, my old friend
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Friday 19th of February 2021 02:04:32 PM Filed under

I first tried VLC around 2003 or so. It wasn't a good experience. The player's interface showed me a garbled view of the video file I was trying to play. Then, in 2006 or so, I tried it again. Since, it's become my staple media player on every single platform and operating system, including the mobile. The reasons are many: the king of codecs, tons of features, a simple no-frills interface.
Recently, the VLC team has started working on a visual revamp of the UI, which should come live in version 4.0. This marks a significant departure from the established look & feel of the player, which really hasn't seen any big visual updates throughout its history. So I thought, let's have a look at the early work and see what the future has in store for us. Early impressions, don't get too excited, things may rapidly evolve and change and whatnot. Follow me.
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Hands-On with Ubuntu Unity 20.10 on the Raspberry Pi 4
Submitted by Marius Nestor on Thursday 18th of February 2021 08:29:05 PM Filed under
If you are one of those die-hard Unity desktop users and own a Raspberry Pi 4 computer, the Ubuntu Unity distribution comes with a Raspberry Pi flavor optimized for the Raspberry Pi 4 model (and probably the newer Raspberry Pi 400 too), but also reported to “work” on older models like the Raspberry Pi 3 and 3+.
Being based on Ubuntu’s Raspberry Pi flavor, Ubuntu Unity features the same first-time installation/configuration wizard, which asks the user to choose a language for the system, a keyboard layout, connect to a Wi-Fi network, choose a location, and set up a default user.
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ExTiX 21.1 Deepin Edition is a beautiful Linux desktop in need of some polish
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Wednesday 17th of February 2021 07:28:05 PM Filed under
I love a beautiful Linux desktop. There's just something about logging in to find a developer's work of art greeting you. It's refreshing and reminds you that anything is possible with enough time and effort.
With Linux, there have been so many desktops over the years that have absolutely "wowed" me. I believe the first to have ever done that was AfterStep, followed shortly by Enlightenment E16. After that, it was a rather drawn out dry spell of desktops to really evoke an "Huzzah!" from me. If I'm being totally honest, that honor most likely falls on Deepin Desktop. Since Deepin's arrival, I've fancied it the most beautiful desktop on the market.
Imagine my excitement when I found out that ExTiX Linux was to release a new version, based on Deepin Desktop; it was almost (but not quite) palpable. Without hesitation, I downloaded an ISO and spun up a virtual machine. The end result was a mixed bag of feels and disappointment. Let me explain.
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Review: Laxer OS 1.2 and new Linux Mint features
Submitted by Roy Schestowitz on Monday 15th of February 2021 02:50:08 AM Filed under
My search for new and interesting features in the Linux community took me to the DistroWatch waiting list this week where the Laxer OS project caught my attention. The project's website describes itself as follows: "A beautifully crafted GNU/Linux operating system based on Arch Linux."
Judging from the project's download archive, the distribution is updated every month or two. There is just one edition available which runs the GNOME desktop environment. Laxer OS runs on 64-bit (x86_64) machines exclusively and its ISO is 2GB in size. The project's website suggests the operating system will not only look good, but offer performance improvements: "You will notice the significant performance boost on the first boot of your system."
The website's description was a little vague on how performance and visual improvements were delivered so I decided to find out for myself. I downloaded the media for the project's 1.2 release and booted from it. This brings up a menu where we are given the chance to boot to a live desktop normally or with "speech". I believe the "speech" option runs a screen reader for people who are visually impaired. The live media boots to a graphical login screen where we are invited to sign in using an account called "liveuser" with no password.
Signing into the live session loads the GNOME desktop and automatically launches the Calamares installer. At the top of the screen we find a panel with an application menu and the GNOME Activities menu in the upper-left corner. To the right of the panel is the system tray. I noticed early on there was a lot of network activity happening when I first logged in. This appears to be an automated check for software updates as a minute later a notification appeared letting me know 132 packages were available to be upgraded.
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Hands-On with Manjaro Linux ARM on Raspberry Pi 4: A Gem!
Submitted by Marius Nestor on Sunday 14th of February 2021 11:27:53 AM Filed under
Manjaro Linux ARM on the Raspberry Pi 4, where do I start? An amazing operating system for the Raspberry Pi computer, whether you want to use it just for fun or as a daily driver for your home office. Whoever did the Raspberry Pi port of Manjaro Linux ARM is a genius and knows what he’s doing.
Don’t be scared away by the first-time text-mode configuration, because this Arch Linux and needs to be properly installed on the microSD card of your Raspberry Pi before you can actually use the system.
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Top 10 Best Alternatives to Raspberry Pi OS for Your Raspberry Pi Computer
Submitted by Marius Nestor on Friday 12th of February 2021 08:46:46 PM Filed under
If, for some reason, you don’t want to use the official Raspberry Pi OS on your Raspberry Pi computer, you should know that there are many alternatives out there. Some of these distros are derived from Raspberry Pi OS, which in turn is based on the Debian GNU/Linux operating system, but others are derived from Arch Linux, Gentoo, etc.
Each of the alternatives showcased in this article come with various other desktop environments, such as GNOME, Unity, Xfce, KDE Plasma, MATE, LXQt, and Openbox, which you may find out they better suit your needs.
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First Look at GNOME 40’s New Design Changes in Fedora 34
Submitted by Marius Nestor on Wednesday 10th of February 2021 10:39:13 AM Filed under
As you probably already know, the biggest change in the upcoming GNOME 40 desktop series, due for release in late March 2021 (that’s only a month and a half from the moment of writing), is the redesigned Activities Overview, the screen you see when clicking on the Activities icon on the panel in the left top corner.
In GNOME 40, the horizontal layout also places the dock at the bottom of the screen, and workspaces are now displayed horizontally as previews on the top of the window picker, right under the search field, and navigated horizontally even using the mouse wheel.
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Mozilla Leftovers
| LXTerminal 0.4.0 released.Terminal emulator of LXDE had no releases for more than two years. Not much was added, not much was fixed but still some work done. Could be more of course but what we can do with our forces, that we do. Let hope we can do more later.
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Security Leftovers
| Best Free And Open Source Photoshop Alternatives
Photoshop is quite synonymous with Graphics design nowadays, but it is not the only king in the room. Photoshop doesn’t come with a friendly interface for beginners. No doubt photoshop offers you freedom of using features quite independently, but everything comes at a cost.
There are some other options too that are worth considering for users who are looking for open source and free photoshop alternatives. These free and open source photoshop alternatives are not only useful for beginners but also useful for professionals who are thinking of switching from photoshop. And the good thing is that these free applications make no compromise with the quality of work.
So, what to do if you are a bit tight on budget and want to learn to design without paying the monthly subscription as in Photoshop. Well, I have prepared a list of free and open-source applications like photoshop to create awesome designs without compromising quality.
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