If you’ve chosen one of the major Linux distributions chances are (unless you’re a Mint user) you’ve come across the three big Linux Gui’s KDE, Gnome 3 and Unity.

The problem with any post like this is it’s an opinion piece, and with out a shadow of a doubt my opinion is probably going to vastly different to a lot of people out there. Linux users can be ferociously protective of not just their choice of distro, but their choice of Desktop as well.

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We haven't had a donation drive since 2011 and now is a good time. As some of you know, I recently lost one of my gigs and I've yet to replace that income. After a protracted illness, I'm feeling much better these days and have tried to ramp up my work around here. If you'd like to help keep TM coming to you, please see my donation page for details how to help.

There is functionality in OSX called Airdrop which Linux Desktops could do with as a replacement of the SMB/NFS shared files sharing system. There are some options out with but they are seemingly stale projects which however can provide the functionality which is needed in Linux

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asking this very simple question which is the best Operating system in some corners of the Internet, is like throwing a slab of raw meat into a wild animal enclosure and watching as the question gets ripped apart. Its tantamount to asking which religion or political system is the best in the way some will tear strips off others

The rest here...

There’s lots of forums and even 3 or 4 releases in I still hear people talking about how much they dislike Unity, which is a shame because it’s turning into quite a nice Gui from where i’m sitting, however one thing Linux has is choice. If nothing else there are other solid, stable distributions out there which offer a user a good solid alternative. Once such example is maybe OpenSUSE.

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I've been having a problem all week stopping some insane screen tearing on an Acer Aspire S3, I've got to a point where its better, usable, but not perfect, so i've posted what I've done and it might help someone else.

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I found this article on the osxdaily website, the article refers to running nettop on OSX however it’s a *nix command so will also be in the package repository (if not preinstalled) on your favorite distro. I’ve tested all of the command options on Sabayon and they work fine..

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I’m really starting to appreciate the benifits of dual factor authentication across the board, so this Howtoforge article is of interest to anyone who wants to secure SSH access on thier Linux systems. I previously posted about using your mobile phone as the something you have bit, well this is another method.

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While you may have your Ubuntu install locked down with Full disk encryption incase you loose the laptop, UFW locking down the network with a firewall, there is no point if you have a poor password. Dual factor authentication using One Time Passwords may be an option for you, if they are this great howtoforge article might point you in the right direction.

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With prism being the story of the week, I'm just asking a simple question

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I've been playing Half-Life recently, something to which I've looked forward for quite some time. I did get it playing under Wine years ago, but I thought I only got a little ways. I'm stuck In the Rails right now, but I remember this level.

This is a bit old school however if you are a Sysadmin you might need to get a console up for a Cisco or other device. I hope this helps

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I’ve had a need to get a local squid proxy to perform local filtering based on AD Security groups because it’s not something websense can do. I found this wonderful howtofoge guide online and Used it to setup the base system. This howto is a work in progress as the next stage is to get it working with DansGuardian or SquidGuard.

Prerequisites
Client Internet Explorer Browsers need to have “Enable Integrated Windows Authentication” ticked in Internet Options :: Advanced settings as well as Proxy Auto detection enabled – google these if not sure. All modern web browsers will support proxy auto detection. Firefox and Chrome also support Windows Authentication.

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A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on using a Chromebook to develop on a cloud platform. Its based on a Digital Ocean remote server and like most people who wish to attach to the command line interface on a remote server I use SSH. It’s an encrypted connection over the network/internet from end to end. However being a cloud server I was wondering if it was possible to secure this a little bit more?

A chat with a friend on the way into work provided me with a solution.

The solution is Two Factor authentication a system beased on a simple premise, something you know (the SSH password in this case) and something you have (your mobile phone in this case, but it could be a secure token) which will deliver a random number.

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Most of the guides you will see using this utility mine included cover how to get Ubuntu 12.04 the LTS version working, however there is also scope within the command line to get the latest and greatest up and running. specifically the -r switch. Issuing the following command will provide you with a bare bones Ubuntu 13.04 install

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Being a few months in with my Acer C7 Chromebook as my only laptop i’ve very pleased with what it does, I do have the Crouton Ubuntu chroot installed and upgraded the device to 16Gb of Ram, however there is one core thing I miss with this setup. VMWare/Virtualbox. I find i’m often building virtual machines, usually Ubuntu to test bsh scripts or build LAMP Environments to test some PHP out with. That isn’t something i’m able to do even on the CHROOT Ubuntu environment.

All however is not lost, and i’ve found a way to get round this..

Read my ChromeOS virtual soluton

Will the believers in the desktops ever stop making this year is the year of Linux on the desktop...

They say a week in politics is a long time, well a year in the mobile phone industry is an eternity and what huge changes the industry is going through. A year ago the roost was ruled by Apple and Google, 3G was the fastest we can go and handsets were finding a stock size at 4.5″.. The world however of the mobile device is now a very different place and very much in a positive state of change..

What does the Ubuntu Phone need to succeed?

After being retired (for four years) from teaching high school Computer Science, I decided to get back into programming again. I once taught a beginning programming class using the Ruby language, and I thought that would be a good way to get back into programming. So, I decided I needed a “Ruby refresher”, and I wanted to learn more about that language than I taught in the classroom.

It’s always a pain when you forget your password, and i’ve often done it on an Ubuntu install. All however is not lost as a stock Ubuntu install its quite easy to reset your password

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