Consider this situation. You have multiple programs installed for a particular file type. Now double clicking it opens an application, but you want it to open in another application.
For example, you want your images to open in showFoto instead of Gwenview, so how do you go about doing this? Let me show you how to do so!
The guys at Phoronix have written made an intresting article, comparing the performance of the Asus EEE-PC 901 with its Intel Atom processor
Here’s some quotes from the article
Late last month we published our preview of the ASUS Eee PC 901 and we shared our plans for a number of benchmarks using this netbook with Intel’s Atom processor. Following our Linux desktop encryption benchmarks of the ASUS Eee PC 901 and Intel Atom N270 CPU we have a performance comparison of Xandros, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mandriva on this low-cost netbook PC.
The Linux distributions we used included the ASUS-optimized Xandros operating system that ships with the Eee PC 901, Fedora 10 Alpha, Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 with daily updates as of August 26, and Mandriva 2009 Beta 2. The Xandros OS ships with the Linux 2.6.21 kernel, X Server 1.4.0.90, and uses GCC 4.1.2. Fedora 10 Alpha uses the Linux 2.6.27-rc0 kernel, X Server 1.4.99.905, and GCC 4.3.1. Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 with the daily updates still uses the Linux 2.6.26 kernel, X Server 1.4.99.905, and GCC 4.3.1. Finally, Mandriva 2009 Beta 2 is using the Linux 2.6.26 kernel, X Server 1.4.2, and GCC 4.3.1.
In some tests the stock Eee Linux distribution was running quite slow and placing far behind Mandriva, Fedora, and Ubuntu, but when it came to the solid-state disk performance Xandros had the lead. Overall though, it appears that Ubuntu 8.10 Alpha 4 had delivered the best performance on the Intel Atom architecture. These are just our initial figures though. We are still running some additional benchmarks on the Eee PC 901 to look for the best Linux OS, but it looks like it is a toss-up right now depending upon how the system will be used. With Ubuntu 8.10 now using the Linux 2.6.27 kernel, the results of the final release will certainly be different.
To read the full article head over to Phoronix
Written by Sathya
Plasmoids are the little widgets that have made an appearance with KDE4. Plasmoids can basically do anything – from displaying your desktop and associated wallpaper to showing your laptop’s battery level,or even display the latest comics or post a tweet to twitter. While KDE 4 comes with some plasmoids, you can add extra plasmoids which do other things – from displaying your current system status to showing your current GPU temperature. Lets see how to do so.
Due to weird-ass PolicyKit rules, you may not be able to mount external drives – such as USB Hard drives, Pen drives, or other mass storage drives. while the drive gets recognised, on trying to mount you’ll end up with this error:
org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable no <– (action, result)
This is because of a PolicyKit rule, which prevents external media from being mounted. To get around this, you’ll have to edit the policy. So first open the terminal. Switch to root by typing
su root
Next, open the PolicyKit config file corresponding to Storage. This file is located at
/usr/share/PolicyKit/policy/org.freedesktop.hal.storage.policy
Open this file for editing, by typing
kate /usr/share/PolicyKit/policy/org.freedesktop.hal.storage.policy
Next, search for this section
<action id="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable">
<description>Mount file systems from external drives.</description>
<message>System policy prevents mounting external media</message>
<defaults>
<allow_inactive>no</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>
And replace it with
<action id="org.freedesktop.hal.storage.mount-removable">
<description>Mount file systems from external drives.</description>
<message>System policy prevents mounting external media</message>
<defaults>
<allow_inactive>yes</allow_inactive>
<allow_active>yes</allow_active>
</defaults>
</action>
Save the file, and then restart the HAL subsystem by typing
rchal restart
From now on, your external drives should be mounted with full access.
Amarok is probably amongst the best audio player and jukebox software, bar none. This feature rich software is also very flexible and extensible. By making use of third party scripts (and writing your own, if you know, say Python or Ruby) you can enrich your experience your Amarok experience. Here’s a list of some must have Amarok scripts
weekalarm is one heck of a alarm script – you can set multiple alarms for the day, different times for different days, support for snooze and nap, make use of fading, and even use a separate playlist for your alarm tunes. Can’t imagine waking up without this one!
It’s no secret that KDE4.0 didn’t get good reviews. Fact is it was heavily criticized, mainly for instability problems. So much so that it was argued that KDE 4.0 shouldn’t have been pushed out as a .0 release. But that was past, and today KDE 4.1 was released. Judging from the reactions, its no doubt that the KDE team has almos redeemed its mistakes of the 4.0 release.
Linux.com carries a review of KDE4.1, and here’s what they say
One of the most controversial announcements during the KDE 4.1 development cycle was the reported removal of icons for the desktop. In actuality, desktop icons are not missing from the new version, they’re just handled differently. This version introduces a Folder View plasmoid, which is a container you can place on the desktop that can show the contents of any directory.
As far as eye candy, KDE 4.1 looks simply stunning. While its theme uses the same foundation as 4.0, the developers have improved it with many tweaks.
Some of the most notable new features in KDE 4.1 include the introduction of the minimalistic Dragon Player for videos, tree view and tabbed browsing features in Dolphin, and several improvements in Gwenview, such as a thumbnail bar and the repositioning of the rotate and full screen options to easier to reach places to minimize mouse movement.
TuxMachines has a collection of reviews of KDE4.1, you might want to check it out.
For those who want to try KDE4.1, openSUSE KDE4.1 Live CD is available, download it from here.
If you’re already using openSUSE 11, upgrade to KDE4.1 using the 1-click installer.
Admin’s Note: This is a guest post by Aditya. Though this post was drafted on 1st July, my work commitments and rather bad memory prevented this post being published. Due apologies.
I know that a title is a bit harsh but I am afraid it is true.
First lets get into some technical stuff.
Dream Linux is a Debian based distro(like Ubuntu) . It has both Xfce and Gnome interface. I’m reviewing the Gnome version.
The first screen you get after booting into the CD ask you to choose the interface(Gnome or Xfce)
It also has memtest for testing memory but the CD cant be checked for defects, which is a very important feature, since the disk has to be free of defects as it is an operating system.
I choose the Gnome interface and booted. Here’s where I faced my first nightmare. The whole thing is pretty slow. Even after booting completely. I do know that a live CD is slow as it is limited by the optical drive but this was way slower than other live C.D’s.
I’d posted previously on How to install Fedora 8 on USB pen drive. Now that Fedora 9 is out, Kevin Purdy over at Lifehacker has post how-to do the same for Fedora 9.
A quick excerpt:
Fedora 9 Linux distribution makes putting a full-fledged desktop on a portable USB thumb drive a three-click affair. Even better, you don’t need Linux installed to create it, you can leave the data on your thumb drive untouched, and any files you create or settings you tweak remain in place the next time you boot up. After the jump, let’s create a fully-functional desktop-to-go using a simple Windows program and a 1GB or larger thumb drive.
Head over to Lifehacker for the complete article.
It’s the season of Linux distribution releases! Ubuntu was released about 3 weeks ago, and now it’s time for Fedora 9, aka “Sulphur”. So What’s new?
Much Like Ubuntu’s Add/Remove Programs, Fedora gets a similar one, known as “PacakgeKit”.PackageKit is a cross-distribution package management solution that has a complete yum backend. It has been designed to make installing and updating software on your computer easier, and aims to unify all the graphical package management tools used in different distributions.
As with Ubuntu 8.04, GNOME 2.22 will power Fedora 9. GNOME 2.22 features lots of new features and improvements, such as a new Nautilus that uses GVFS as its backend. GVFS makes it possible to fix shortcomings of Nautilus such as the inability to restore files from trash, pause and undo file operations, and will make it possible to escalate user privileges for certain operations using PolicyKit for authentication. It also brings a significant performance boost to many operations.
KDE 4.1 Alpha 1 was just released, and it looks very promising indeed! Here’s what bastion of PolishLinux had to say:
Desktop
First thing worth noticing is the new looks of KRunner. Unfortunately, on the current stage, it behaves in an unpredictable manner. In some cases after typing one letter I had to wait a few seconds for KRunner to catch it and prompt me with a list of available choices. What is more, it randomly hung up completely, exceeding the maximum response time, forcing KWin to kindly ask me to kill it.
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