Ubunchu ch.08 and PSA: Sudo powers

Here's a double release of art projects geared towards new(ish?) users/discoverers of Linux and the Ubuntu distribution.

Ubunchu chapter 8 typeset by me took a year (lol, I had no schedule and it was very on-off, next time I'll schedule it properly so I don't forget what I was doing). It's my first official type-setting/translation manga release, hope you like it. =) I was going to try and perfect it but because the project dragged on so long I thought I should just try and quickly push it out and release/ship it.
Ubunchu is about a school club in a Japanese high school which is tinkering with Ubuntu.
Read the whole series (and a better synopsis) here: ubunchu.net
My latest release (ch8): on google drive - zip of PNGs (click File -> Download),

        Shared folder here - DL in PDF (recommend you DL the zip of PNGs instead and use MComix to read get MComix1.00), 

        and on the ubunchu website (when it gets uploaded there someday).

Getting to work on an open sourced manga/project like this one is pretty nice. Especially without having to clean 'scans' using levelling, and other more sophisticated techniques. xP All of it was done in GIMP which is open source and is also available on windows due to GTK magic (but it feels nicer on my Kubuntu). I've never used photoshop properly (to a certain extent) but I can say GIMP is competitively advanced and has nice plugins too. Mostly used Blambot's fonts - free for non-commercial use.

Also would be nice to get a Wacom tablet/ergonomic mouse/SteamController (check out this demo vid!), I get RSI with at least my index finger when using conventional mice. Currently use a trackball for everyday use, but gets annoying since it doesn't have a scroll wheel. Steam controller definitely looks promising since my HKD20 PS-like controller definitely has bad resolution, and I don't imagine my PS controllers or the XBox ones will be much better. Although having fond memories of my Saitek joystick (which is so old it used a serial or parallel connection), I might use that for Star Citizen, although I'll have to test the Steam Controller first, like how I tested the OR. Which reminds me, Oculus Rift post coming soon =)

[Linux is complete with gaming rant]
With Valve's SteamOS, Steam on Linux and Source, Unity, Unreal game Engines being native on Linux as well as CryEngine soon, games seem to be moving en-masse to the Linux OS. This is welcome news, since gaming, and atm, only one particular game (Star Citizen, which has gained 4mil in crowdfunding since I last blogged about last month - 1.5mil of which was from the last 4 days) is the only thing holding me back from never booting Windows on my laptop. It's on CryEngine 3, so can't wait for that to build natively for Linux.
We've got Dota 2, KSP, Guns of Icarus Online, L4D2, TF2, X-series and an increasing amount of games, indie and big-publisher alike natively on Linux already or coming. I find if I'm looking at a game purchase/Humble Bundle, availability is a deciding factor. These next few years will be very interesting for Linux =)

[/rant]

Here's the PSA (it's related to Ubunchu ch.8), sad to say I learnt this the hard way one too many times:




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Came across an interesting blenderguru post about why and how Blender's UI is broken and the principles of making good UI, how Blender can be fixed. The folks who made Unity should have a look =P [Sincerely, KDE/XFCE user]

UPDATE: Blenderguru made a video with suggestions, here it is!


=)

So I didn't know I wasn't using Kubuntu's repositories for 1.5 years

That moment you realise for your entire 12.04 LTS usage life of 1.5 years, you've never pinged the Kubuntu repositories because you thought Canonical and Canonical Partners included them.

And I only found out when I saw the process "kio_file" take up massive CPU time when my Dolphin had preview on. So I googled it, and sure enough, it's in the KDE bugtracker, and they say the issue is resolved - after 4.9.3.
I check and I've got KDE 4.8.x. So I finally add ppa:kubuntu-backports and update, dist-upgrade, and bam, 4.11.

Well not really, because when KDM was configuring, I had to go through this wizard. I accidentally checked 'shutdown kdm' then clicked next, and sure enough, my X session died. After a reboot, I needed to
sudo apt-get -f install or sudo apt-get -f dist-upgrade
and dpkg -i --force-overwrite
and sudo dpkg --force-depends -r kde-workspace-data
giving me:

    dpkg: kde-workspace-data: dependency problems, but removing anyway as you requested:

At least now everything is over thanks to APT, apt-get and dpkg. That said, I should be releasing something from one of my projects relating to APT soon. But don't anticipate a tech project, haha.

Interestingly enough I tried out i3 while fixing my KDE desktop environment and it was pretty nice to use.
Also, I'm still getting that error sometimes when my KDE session starts, and then restarts after like 10-30 seconds after splash image and you can see the actual desktop. It might have to do with Akondi crashing. [Edit: It was actually Skype using XFS.]
I've also lost the window decoration I normally use in 4.8, I forgot its name but it was a nice blue bar at the top with white text and minimal/compact buttons. I can't find it in the default window decorations where it was. At least the 4.11 oxygen looks pretty nice and is compact =)

Valve and AMD reveals

So Valve has revealed their SteamOS a couple of days ago which is based on Linux, so it's pretty much a Linux distro. It will be a living room entertainment OS, so think console+xbmc combined. It is also free and open source!
Today, they also revealed SteamBox, and are offering 300 beta units for testers to be randomly selected, as long as you earn the Steam Hardware badge level 2.Unfortunately, actual specs are not disclosed, although they are saying the system is open, and you can upgrade individual components (like a PC!), as well as being free to install any OS on it or turn it into a robot! Gotta love Valve and their open/hacker/community culture. First open console since the PC =P. They are also claiming to have different boxes available in 2014 from different vendors, so PC and linux gaming seems to be ever on fire and advancing, thanks in no small part to Valve! [S2] (companion cube). It's great to see games like Dota 2, L4D2, Kerbal Space Program, X3: Albion Prelude and Guns of Icarus Online (and hopefully the Crytek 3 Engine soon) on Linux!
In a couple of days, Valve will reveal something else. Using symbols 'O' as the SteamOS reveal, and '[O ]' as the SteamBox reveal, they are revealing something along the lines of 'O+O'. They've already suggested streaming video from your gaming PC to the steambox via LAN, and family sharing for games, but it could be something different. Check the reveal here below in 33 hours:



AMD has revealed their newest line of GPUs at every price point, and personally I'm rooting for them as they are actually supporting open source linux driver development. Unlike a certain competitor which only releases binary blobs, although they run alright. In the livestream other game devs were also featured as were a lot of audio technology.
Check out Star Citizen's Chris Roberts at 1hr 44minutes of the livestream and some new hangar module features! (And an Aurora take off sequence in the new trailer demo!). It's also set to break 20 million in crowdfunding within 24 hours. See you in the 'verse!

Watch live streaming video from amdlivestream at livestream.com

Ubunchu!~

WOW (lolwut). Just found this on linuxmint's Tumblr. ( http://linuxmint.tumblr.com/post/33029338128/episode-12-of-ubunchu-a-manga-about-ubuntu )
There's a manga about Ubuntu?! Seriously?!

https://seotch.wordpress.com/ubunchu/
http://www.aerialline.com/comics/ubunchu (japanese page)
http://divajutta.com/doctormo/ubunchu/c.html (translation project page!)

Another great CC project =) [It's CC BY-NC]
Basically Japanese manga on a computer club in highschool that is discovering Ubuntu.
First made in 2009 so it would be the 9.04-9.10 releases of Ubuntu; I personally started using it somewhere in the 7-8.x range. This was before the polished product 10.04 was though, and none of the stupid Unity stuff from 11.04 onwards (KDE/xfce ftw), so it can't comment on those in the first chapters. However, the series is ongoing, hence the post from mint.

The art's alright (but I seriously don't care too much about the art in my manga/anime - look at Initial D, I liked it a lot but all the faces looked ugly to me =P).
The plot and characterisation doesn't have the depth and force of a regular shonen (ONE PIECE!!! =D) but you do get the regular Japanese manga stuff in there (love the stereotypes, melodrama etc.), and it's interesting to see how a manga would work with the whole topic based on a linux distro. lol.

Desktop Environments

So after a long absence, I've decided to post again in the interests of keeping a record of my personalised settings in my distribution(s) of linux.
Yes, I always break something and then reinstall >_>

So this post isn't exactly a post about changes I've made: maybe I'll post on my up to date exploits in another post. It's a post about DE's for Linux distros, namely Ubuntu. It's also my record of optimizations.

Without further ado, here are the main Ubuntu Desktop Environments I have tried.
KDE
I started out with Kubuntu 12.04 LTS, which I really like, except for the fact that mount.ntfs (I'm neomutix(?) indexing 2.8TB of NTFS but that should have completed a while ago. I think it restarted and has gone on forever for a week now, but whatever.) and Xorg take up quite a lot of CPU and sometimes the whole KDE lags a lot and/or freezes. Amarok also runs pretty badly optimized in KDE, which is weird for a KDE distro.
KDE also offers perfect (read: everything is tweakable) customizations, workspace and activities are great! Plasma-desktop really doesn't crash as much as in 10.10-11.10. (Or maybe it's just KDE 4.8)
I have a thing against window borders taking up a lot of my precious laptop screen space. KDE and XFCE are the greatest in this regard allowing customizations to utilise screen space effectively.
[Edit: Kwin also allows you (via right-click Title-bar, More actions ->Special Window settings) to set many custom window settings for particular windows with many different window matching rules! That More Actions menu is wonderful! Alt-F3 to get titlebar menu if you enable "No Border" and can't right-click the title-bar again =P]
I use the standard style with the shortest window bar (it's blue, my favourite colour - bonus!), seeing as my 16:9 15.6" laptop's vertical real estate is very precious. 

Unity - the default DE. I remember when it first came standard in Ubu 11.04 or something I cried. People have been saying it's not that bad anymore, so I decided to give it a shot. It still sucks as a DE. Maybe it'll be a great tablet environment but still too simple and unflexible for my desktop workhorse.

Gnome - it's like these guys followed suit with Unity and went 3.0rd time unlucky. I loved Gnome 2. (The default in 10.04 LTS) Gnome (3) classic looks good, but it's like Gnome 2 without customizability (no panel widgets, icons, etc.) Still, it's better than the default Gnome 3 app menu. Speaking of which, I can't believe Unity actually beats Gnome in the app menu. Gnome has sections, while the Unity one includes sections and filters in its app menu. I still like the Gnome 2 menu better.

MATE. GNOME 2's fork. Although this has the tried and true features I loved with G2 panels and G2 configuration - there wasn't enough to satisfy my appetite after KDE. (Everything has to look and work just right for optimal efficiency! =@ rawr) Screenshotting's pretty cool, Amarok works well, no GUI lag, and although light like Gnome2.0 on wings, the appearance was a bit too bulky for my taste after KDE and XFCE.

XFCE - Which brings me to XFCE. This is like Gnome 2 compacted. Lightweight but offering more customizability than the Gnome 2 original, I really like this one. It's actually what I've decided to use [edit: for less powerful systems].
It uses ALSA for audio I think (opposed to pulse audio for KDE/Unity/Gnome)
Has Gnome 2 style panels with extra customizations,
However, when i chose the oxygen-gtk style, it all went a bit weird. I liked the xfce 4.6 style.
The Greatest setting would be a custom DPI (I used 93).
The Amarok keyboard shortcuts worked like a charm and Amarok even lagged way less than in KDE!! And when it lags, it doesn't lag the whole DE like in KDE.
Dolphin and Konsole are available in their full glory, except konsole's background colour (see profiles) can't be transparent.

LXDE - the other compulsory light-weight mention. In fact, this is so lightweight I once ran this on something like a 400MHz ARM Gumstix running lubuntu-desktop on ubuntu. It's even lighter than XFCE, which would be perfect for your legacy CPU/components need. I don't know about driver compatibility but I'd expect it to be the same for Ubuntu. It's a lot lighter than XFCE with way less customization. It uses the openbox window manager (as opposed to metacity (gnome/unity?) and kwin (kde)) but I'm not actually too sure of their merits apart from the fact that openbox is light and can go on top of gnome and kde etc. (wiki the page on comparison between window managers if you have to). One cool feature though, is the able to get rid of the top window title bar with "Undecorate" after right clicking said bar. [Edit: You can do this in KDE too Right click titlebar, More Actions -> No Border. Alt-F3 to get the titlebar menu back to enable border again.]
This was the 2nd best surprise feature I've found this month apart from Ctrl+H in VLC which almost let's me watch in fullscreen, and in some cases, the video would be the same size as in fullscreen.

[Edit:

i3

If you want to feel like a hacker and want to control everything window/desktop environment-related from a keyboard, this is your thing. It's actually not as hard as it looks. Make sure you have googled a cheat sheet though! =)  ]

Window managers
Finally, if you ever tried to log into a window manager 'session' like me (haha) don't panic!
What happened when I booted into metacity was, I got into an ubuntu like background with no menus or shortcuts at all. Alt+F#s didn't work either. I probably tried Ctrl+Alt+Del too. I rebooted once and of course, with my settings as 'load the last session', I was stuck into metacity again. Fortunately, it's quite easy to get out: just go Ctrl+Alt+T, bring up a bash shell/terminal, then sudo top or your choice of task/process manager. Finally, kill metacity. (In top, 'K', then type in the PID of metacity, and enter, enter).
These window managers work with DE's like metacity for Ubuntu 10.04 (and i presume unity and gnome in 12.04) and Openbox for LXDE (and can also be used optionally on other DE's in place of their default like KDE, Gnome etc. They're not really supposed to be used stand-alone as DEs but can be if you want.
[Edit: In most Window managers, a nifty trick is Alt-LeftClick to move windows (click anywhere on the window) and Alt-RightClick to resize window. No need to find that 1px width edge to resize! =)]


Conclusion: I'll stick with KDE for its configurability and looks, but if I ever need something lighter that doesn't lag then XFCE (with its great configurability) it is.


Have fun linuxing and having a truly free desktop! Lol, imagine if Windows 8 was the default DE for the next windows desktop version. Oh wait ...
At least the OS X interface and Win 7/XP ain't that bad.