Alternatives to Macs : WeAreTheMusicMakers
This is one of those fantastic reddit threads with lots of great information and interesting, respectful perspectives. The thread is about if you need a Mac to make music. It features some solid commentary — both in favor of and against using Linux for music production. I’ve written about my experiences using Linux to make music here. The reddit thread is definitely worth a read.
The Linux Setup - Gregor Herrmann, Debian Developer
You’ll notice something different about this interview. I’ve changed up the questions a bit, just because it seemed like we were just getting to the point where some of the same ground was being covered each week. These questions are a bit more Linux-specific, getting to why people use Linux and what kind of desktop environment they use, but also what that one piece of essential software is. Gregor’s interview shows the value from digging a little deeper. It’s also funny that the first time I specifically ask about desktop environments, I’m asking a guy who only uses the awesome window manager…
You can find more of The Linux Setup here.
You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.
Who are you, and what do you do?
I am Gregor Herrmann. In my free time I’m a Debian Developer, i.e. I’m one of the many volunteers around the world who try to produce a free operating system.
Why do you use Linux?
I value the freedoms that Free Software gives me; it’s fun to be able to improve one’s software; and it often works better than proprietary alternatives.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
Debian Unstable.
What desktop environment do you use and why do you use it?
I don’t use a desktop environment, and my window manager is “awesome.” It’s quite minimalistic and configurable, doesn’t get in my way and can be used with the keyboard alone.
What one piece of software do you depend upon with this distribution? Why is it so important?
Probably urxvt, because I have many terminals open in parallel, running mostly console applications (mutt, slrn, newsbeuter, irssi, …).
What kind of hardware do you run this setup on?
A Thinkpad X220 with a docking station for a real keyboard and a bigger screen.
Besides that, I currently have two small Linux machines on my desktop running Debian derivatives: a Raspberry Pi (with Raspbian) and a Nokia N900 (with Maemo5).
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Not sure screenshots of terminals are so exciting :) Anyway, here are three:
- one with Mutt, slrn, Newsbeuter
- one with irssi and IceWeasel
- and an “empty” one with my wallpaper (which I usually don’t see due
to awesome).
- one with Mutt, slrn, Newsbeuter
Interview conducted May 6, 2013
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.
What Linux Taught Me About Productivity
I’ve spent the past two years interviewing people about their desktop Linux setups, asking them about the Linux distributions they chose, the desktop environments they use, and the software upon which they rely. Over the past 73 interviews, a number of common lessons have emerged. Most of these apply to anyone who relies on a computer to do their work, Linux user or not. Here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned from these interviews…
My Linux Rig
I got the idea to post up the computer setup I’m using from MyLinuxRig, which is itself a derivative of The Setup which outlines what successful people use to get things done. So without too much f…
Macs No More: After Edward Snowden, Time to Come to the Penguin
What’s interesting is how different the glitches feel from how they felt on a corporate OS. When the thing crashes, as it might somewhat frequently, it’s less aggravating. One actually starts to get more philosophical about the glitches; we’re not quite there yet as a society, as a species. They’re the people’s glitches — the temporary byproduct of democratic and collaborative processes among autonomous geeks, pursuing their own obsessions and curiosities. You don’t have to yell at the screen because, in a lot of cases, you can just write to the people making the program, and someone with an amazing amount of time on their hands will write back long, detailed replies.
Let's Reinvigorate the water cooler - Jorge's Stompbox
Why do we plaster things like Ubuntu developers do not usually read the forums everywhere? What does that say about us as a project? We might as well say “Hey man, welcome to the community, half of it is missing, no worries!”. We could probably save the poster some time and just punch him in the face. And yet you’ll find plenty of Ubuntu developers on the subreddit, and you’ll find them on Disqus and Google Plus. It’s pretty much unacceptable to me that there is a rift between what is supposed to be a unified community. So I’m thinking … let’s fix that.
Really great post from Canonical’s Jorge Castro. I’m super psyched I’ll be posting an interview with him this month.
The Linux Setup - Tony Baldwin, Translator
Tony’s take on Linux is great because it comes from a political perspective, but also a practical one. He makes a strong effort to use free and open source software, but at the same time, he uses these free tools to earn his living. So he’s taking a stand, but he’s not compromising anything in terms of his career. It’s all the more impressive given that translating seems to rely on a lot of proprietary software. Also, Tony and I connected through Tumblr, where we follow each other. If you’re running Linux on your desktop, I hope you’ll drop me an email, hit me up here, or get me on Twitter/G+, and allow me to interview you.
You can find more of The Linux Setup here.
You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.
Who are you, and what do you do?
I am Tony Baldwin! I work as a professional, freelance translator, translating patents, contracts, technical specifications and documentation, localizing websites, and other materials, from French, Portuguese, and Spanish to US English.
In my industry, as so many others, proprietary software is ubiquitous, and it is pretty well assumed that translators work on Windows, using one of a few dominant CAT (Computer Aided Translation) programs, such as Trados (from SDL, the most popular and most used), Wordfast being the most common. Also, of course, the vast majority of documents are sent to me in MSOffice formats.
I have been working in this industry for near eight years now, but I’ve been using 100% Free/Open Source Software for 13 years, so, clearly, it IS possible to work in this job without proprietary software. I have a page listing many of the tools I use here: baldwinlinguas.com/freesoftware.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
I currently use Debian GNU/Linux, Stable, on my main workstation, as well as on my laptop, and all my servers (I also do web development and design on the side, and hosting, and have my own webserver in my office, on which www.baldwinlinguas.com, the site for my translation business, is hosted, as well as www.tonybaldwin.me, and others). I started out using GNU/Linux back in c. 2000 with RedHat 7.0, and stuck with it until it became Fedora, and then used Fedora until FC4, at which point I left Fedora, tried Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, and a few others for while before moving to Debian, at which time Lenny was the Stable release.
I’ve grown to really LOVE Debian. I know I can depend on it. Nothing ever breaks, allowing me to spend my time working, earning from translating stuff, rather than fixing my computer, troubleshooting and resolving errors. In four years of using Debian’s Stable releases, I haven’t had any technological interruptions of my work, period. I’ve played with or tried many distros, and many of them are pretty cool, but I just stick with Debian now. It’s reliable; the Debian project is committed to the principles of the Free Software movement, and I the Debian Way of doing things makes sense to me. Plus, it’s a great community! I got to be part of translating Raphael and Roland’s Debian Administrator’s Handbook last year, even. It feels good to be part of the community.
Ed.note: Here is my interview with Raphael.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
The most used applications on my work computer, for my translation work, are OmegaT, a Free/Open Source CAT program, my web browser, Iceweasel, and OpenOffice.
I must say, however, that I use the current “upstream” release of OmegaT, rather than sticking with the Debian packages, which are sometimes as much as two years behind the current OmegaT release. I do stick with Debian packages for most software, however.
There are other programs that I use regularly, and I also have a bunch of bash scripts that I’ve slapped together that help automate some of the menial tasks in managing documents or preparing them for translation, file conversion, and even stuff like tracking financial aspects of the projects I take on.
I also use Vim a lot, for writing my scripts, but also sometimes when cleaning up converted documents. For instance, I’ll get documents in PDF format, convert them to text with pdftotext, and then use Vim and its powerful regex fu to clean the document up (since conversions sometimes place line breaks where I don’t need them, split sentences between pages, etc.).
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
My current work computer is a 4x2.8GHz AMD APU with 16GB RAM and a 2TB HDD. I put it together from parts purchased from tigerdirect.com.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
Well, I’m pretty happy with the machine I have now! Of course, as things progress, I’ll eventually probably want more power, I suppose…the endless search for MORE POWER!!
But, honestly, I use Debian with Openbox, keep my system lean and free from bloat, and with my current system, I have plenty of room for advancements in software without anticipating a need for more hardware.
The other day I started playing with VirtualBox for the first time ever. I had Iceweasel open with like 12 tabs, several terminals (terminator) open, PCMan FM running, htop running in terminal, and I think the GIMP open, while at the same time running Fedora 18, CentOS and Trisquel all in VirtualBoxes, and I wasn’t using 1/3 of my RAM or half the CPU I have. This rig is pretty powerful.
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
My desktop is pretty simple and clean, really, but here’s a recent shot of me hacking on a script for tracking jobs and payments:
Interview conducted April 26, 2013
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.
The Linux Setup - David Burke, IT Consultant
This is a great interview. David has a very interesting setup, creatively using KDE, Ubuntu, and ChromeOS together. It’s obvious he’s put a lot of thought into what works and what doesn’t. I also appreciate his efforts to insert Linux into schools. In general, American schools have money for hardware but usually not enough, or anything, for personnel to implement and customize technology. As a result, a lot of stock hardware and software is purchased, with the idea that it’s easy to get up-and-running, even if the tools are imperfect. Linux offers the opportunity to spend less on hardware and software, and instead, spend the money on programmers to create something that works for an individual institution. This is covered much more elegantly in Decoding Liberation, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in the economics of open source software. David is a pioneer in terms of getting educational institutions to rethink how they use technology. I look forward to hearing about more of his projects.
You can find more of The Linux Setup here.
You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.
Who are you, and what do you do?
I’m David Burke. I run a small IT consulting company, Burke Software and Consulting LLC. We work in schools and non-profits doing everything from our own open source Django-based school information system to setting up a LTSP thin client lab. I started out as a Jesuit Volunteer (think Americorps style year of service) for Cristo Rey New York High School. The school has a unique work-study program which is where I volunteered. As a programmer, I didn’t like seeing paper timesheets so I automated it with Django. That turned into a full school information system and some spin-off tools, all open source on github.
What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?
ChromeOS with Ubuntu 12.04 in a chroot environment using crouton. This is pretty recent. Before that I was using stock Ubuntu.
What software do you depend upon with this distribution?
I’m using KDE because I think it has good ultra high DPI support and touch support. I still think GNOME looks prettier, but that said, I’m glad to have a normal task bar in KDE.
I had an xmonad phase once, too — doesn’t everyone?
Firefox lost me when they introduced that sync system they have where you have to keep track of some huge key. Chrome’s sync implementation is easier to use, and now I’m using ChromeOS some of the time. I’ll stay in ChromeOS if I’m just reading email or watching a movie.
For coding I use Komodo IDE and vim. I’ll usually fire up Komodo if I need debugging or profiling tools. That stuff looks better in a GUI. I use Dropbox for file syncing. I really made an effort to switch to an open source sync program, but I couldn’t find anything as fast and reliable as Dropbox when dealing with the fast edits in programming.
At work I use Crossover, a commercially supported version of Wine, because clients just can’t give up their MS Office. I personally can’t stand Office but I need to make sure it runs smoothly for them.
I do some occasional gaming and am pretty happy Steam for Linux is out. I refuse to purchase Windows-only software to run via Wine. I feel like a vegetarian at an all-vegetarian restaurant suddenly presented with overwhelming choice.
What kind of hardware do you run it on?
The Chromebook Pixel in developer mode. The screen resolution was a big selling point for me. I also have a Samsung Android phone and Nexus 7. I’m excited to try Ubuntu out on one or both once it’s more stable.
Ed. note: Here is David’s review of the Pixel.
What is your ideal Linux setup?
Something that works and annoys me as little as possible. I love ChromeOS auto updates. I can be pretty sure they will just work. Then I just maintain an Ubuntu 12.04 chroot. Not having to worry about drivers is great. Suspend even works!
Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?
Interview conducted April 22, 2013
The Linux Setup is a feature where I interview people about their Linux setups. The concept is borrowed, if not outright stolen, from this site. If you’d like to participate, drop me a line.
You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here, follow me on Twitter here, and subscribe to the feed here.
