Episode 109 – Lady Bugs
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Total Running Time: 1:33:47
Un-edited Live session – http://youtu.be/gR5nWL0ai-I
Contact Us:
show (at) smlr.us or the Contact us page
Summary
Kernel News: Mat
Time: 10:40
Distro Talk: Tony
Time: 22:35
Mary Distro Review
Time: 38:55
Tech News:
Time:52:30
Listener Feedback
Time: 1:18:00
Outtro Music
Time: 1:28:20
Intro:
Tony Bemus, Mat Enders, and Mary Tomich
Sound bites by Mike Tanner
Kernel News: Mat
Time:
Distro Talk: Tony
Time:
Distro of the Week: Tony
- Mageia – 1545
- Ubuntu – 1789
- openSUSE – 1876
- Debian – 1931
- Mint – 4144
Mary Distro Review
Time:
I will try not to wax poetic about this week’s distro review although it’s based on my favorite Linux distro—Kubuntu. The distro I am about to review is new but I did not let that stop me from checking out the details. It’s name? WaxOS It burst on the scenejust a week ago and appears to be a prime candidate for scrutiny. So will I be waxing poetic at the end of this review or will my journey resemble a hair removal session by wax…
The Vitals:
Name: WaxOS – “Divinity”
Maintainer: jtownsend
Distro Latest Birthday: 10/30/2013
Derivative: Kubuntu
Kernel: 3.2.0-52 (was upgraded after install)
Review Desktop: KDE
Live Environment:
A polished desktop you would expect from a Ubuntu based distro. Docky provides the bottom panel and a narrow plasma desktop panel is at the top of the screen. The Docky configuration settings are easily accessible and I admit to spending some time adjusting and testing the settings. Docky is an excellent tool to hold often-used icons.
The Defaults
Browser: Firefox installer (like Kubuntu), Rekonq
Office Suite: LibreOffice 3.5.7.2
Mail Client: Thunderbird, Kmail
File Manager: Dolphin
Window decorations (i.e. the buttons) were organized oddly to me: Stop was on left and the others were on the right. It was easily remedied by going into system settings and moving the close button to the right side with the other two.
I also have to comment on two aspects of the broad desktop experience:
1. the wallpaper – It is a magnificent close-up of a husky-type dog, blue eyes and all.
2. the login theme – it’s animated with a portion of the earth (arc) at the bottom with the sun rising above it. It’s one of the most eye-catching animations I have seen during boot-up.
There is an install WaxOS icon on the desktop that I took advantage of.
The Install Process:
The install process is Kubuntu’s. There are points where you can see references to Kubuntu but overall, there were no issues I encountered.
Installed Environment:
There was no difference between the live and installed desktop, aside from the fact that the install icon was no longer there. The default menu configuration is the application launcher—which is available in the upper left corner. Although I like that launcher, the work flow did not work well for me when it dropped down from the icon, so I changed it to the classic style and that change worked well.
The default WaxOS install includes Gimp, Inkscape, shotwell, OpenShot, Clemntine, and TuxGuitar.
VLC media player. These apps are not included in the default Kubuntu install. I installed Apper and used it to update the installed based system. It worked well and is now installed on my production workstation.
Other interesting Programs:
Kompozer – Web authoring tool
WaxOS also has an Indigogo project established. Their goal is $30K but as of this morning they’ve not raised any capital.
Rating:
Overall, WaxOS is a Kubuntu clone. That’s not a bad thing but other than the cool boot animation, wallpaper and a set of applications that are available in the default install, WaxOS doesn’t provide anything else that that sets it apart from Kubuntu.
Tech News:
Time:
Linux 3.12 Gets Aggressive as Linus Torvalds Plans Linux 4.0
FOSS in the Enterprise: To Pay or Not to Pay?
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/79341.html
KDE Korner
Activity switching questionnaire
The Toolbox
Time:
Impress.js
http://bartaz.github.io/impress.js/#/bored
Visual Editor
http://strut.io/editor/#
Listener Feedback:
show (at) smlr.us or 313-626-9140
Time:
Outtro Music
Time:
http://openbsd.org/lyrics.html#54
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