linux monday

Linux Monday

Four days in a row of maps... time for something different.

it's a month starting in 4 and that means new Ubuntu... and goodbye to Karmic Koala.
You come and go, you come and go.

But the beta versions of the new Ubuntu, Natty Narwhal, is getting some negative reviews, in large part due to a change in the default desktop interface from old standby Gnome to a new desktop, Unity.

Translation for Windows users: You know when you get locked up and have to use Task Manager, and you see that program called Explorer that you think is Internet Explorer, and you cancel out of it and then see nothing but a blank desktop? Well, Explorer is the Windows desktop interface, the program that lets you do everything else in a GUI. And by the I mean only. Linux has options, and that's what we geeks are fighting about in this Unity vs. Gnome thing.

Another translation for Windows users: One of the first things you hear in Linux, usually when you ask "hey, where are my drive letters?" is "everything's a file." Here's an explanation of how that works and how your system sees the different types of "files."

Here's a way to download ISO (disk image) files directly to a CD, DVD or BLU-RAY. Tangent: Just saw an ad for a recent Disney film available for download, on video on demand, or Blu-Ray. First time I'd noticed no mention of DVD. (I'm now picking those up for about two bucks each at junk stores.)

Of course, the going price for media in the 21st century is free, as we note under the headline Did file-sharing cause recording industry collapse? (tl;dr version: No.)