My Linux Rig

The Linux Setup - Katherine Noyes, Journalist

Katherine is involved in a lot of great Linux initiatives. I strongly recommend her Twitter feed, which usually has a few interesting links per day. Katherine is also another subject who says her setup is close to ideal, which is always nice, and impressive, to hear. Also, despite the fact that I might seem obsessed with Fuduntu, it’s just a coincidence that Katherine uses it.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

1. Who are you, and what do you do?

   I’m Katherine Noyes, and I write about Linux and open source technology for The Linux Foundation’s Linux.com as well as PCWorld, LinuxInsider, and the brand-new Linux Advocates blog. On LinuxInsider I write the Linux Blog Safari, for which I assume the persona of “Linux Girl.” You may have noticed the new illustrations of Linux Girl on my Google+ and Twitter pages, as well as in the semiweekly column; I’m proud to say my daughter Elinore is the artist who did them!

   Outside of the Linux world I also write about cool new business ideas for Springwise, occasional stories for TechNewsWorld’s Space section, and animal-related posts for Volunteer Guide, where I’m the Senior Editor of Animal Welfare — another passion of mine.

2. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

   I currently run Fuduntu Linux on my main desktop PC. Until just recently I dual-booted Ubuntu and Windows 7, but I finally wiped Windows (hadn’t actually needed it for a long time) and installed Fuduntu, which came really highly recommended. I’m loving it so far. Meanwhile I also have a Samsung Chromebook and an Android phone. We have a bunch of other laptops in my family, but my 12-year-old son is constantly installing new distros on them (he got the Linux Diversity collection for Christmas), so I couldn’t tell you what’s on them at the moment. ;)

3. What software do you depend upon with this distribution?

   I depend heavily on a small but powerful set of software for my work. Besides Fuduntu, that’s Chrome, which links all my stuff together; LibreOffice, where I do all my writing; GIMP for graphical images; tools like Drive and Shutter; and Firefox, which I still use and love. I was a Thunderbird user for many years, but now I’m trying to get used to the Web paradigm. I also use a VPN connection for my work with PCWorld.

4. What kind of hardware do you run it on?

   My primary desktop is an Asus CM5570 desktop with a 2.6GHz E5300 Pentium dual-core processor and 6GB of RAM. In addition, however, I recently bought a Samsung Chromebook for extra flexibility.

5. What is your ideal Linux setup?

   This may seem silly, but my needs are pretty limited, so I have to say my current setup is pretty close to my ideal setup – particularly now that I have a Chromebook as well. More speed is always nice, but beyond that I think my next plans will involve peripherals. More cloud storage may be in my future as well.

6. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

   A screenshot of my current desktop is attached. It’s one of the defaults on Fuduntu, but I like it because it reminds me of Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. :)

Interview conducted February 3, 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 - Meg Ford, GNOME Developer

Meg’s setup reminds me a lot of Dave Neary’s: simple and taking advantage of stock tools, rather than reinventing the desktop experience. Of course, given Meg’s GNOME work, she actually gets to reinvent the desktop experience professionally, so it’s probably a less compelling need for her when she’s not developing. Also, Meg mentions Documents in her interview. I didn’t realize it was the default GNOME document manager, which I don’t usually use, but which seems to be a great dashboard which integrates local documents with cloud-hosted ones. It’s something I might explore down the line. It’s kind of funny how, like many Linux users, I have all of this interesting software installed and at my fingertips, yet I haven’t fully explored what’s available to me. It’s a nice problem to have.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

1. Who are you, and what do you do?

   I am a member of the GNOME foundation and an MS in Computer Science student. I contribute to GNOME’s Documents application, co-organize monthly Linux user group meetups and GNOME hackfests in Chicago, and help out with the Chicago Python Workshop. I’m working as a web developer while I complete my degree.

2. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

   I’m running Fedora 18. I use the GNOME desktop environment.

3. What software do you depend upon with this distribution?

   I run the current version of Documents from git master for managing and editing my Google and local docs and for developing and testing the software itself.

   I use Pidgin for communicating on IRC, Tomboy for note taking, and GIMP and Inkscape for svg and picture editing.

   I usually use Firefox (with HTTPS Everywhere, Ghostery, AdBlock, and GNOME 3 extensions) for browsing the web, and Google Chrome when I need smooth integration with Google services.

   When I program for GNOME I use gedit and the terminal. For web development I use Bluefish. In school my primary language is Java, so I use Eclipse and JGrasp. I just started learning C this semester, and I’m going to try using Emacs. There’s a steep learning curve with Emacs, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to invest the time to learn it.

4. What kind of hardware do you run it on?

   I have a Thinkpad T61.

5. What is your ideal Linux setup?

   I think I work on GNOME in order to help create the “ideal” Linux. It’s really exciting to me to try out new features as they are built, and contribute to the vision and development happening in our community.

6. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

Interview conducted January 25, 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 us on Google+ here and subscribe to our feed here.

Newsblur Reminds Us That Choice Breaks Ruts

Like pretty much the entire Internet, I was pretty bummed/blind-sided when Google announced they were shutting down Google Reader. I’m a fairly simple Reader user. I have a ton of feeds that I use daily, but I don’t do anything with them other than reading them. I don’t star or tag. If I see a link I want to use, I either bookmark it, mark it to be read later, email it to myself, or put it on my calendar as a reminder to post it.

So while I knew I’d need to find a new web-based RSS reader, I didn’t have a long list of features I needed and I didn’t have to worry too much about moving anything other than the feed links out of Google Reader.

Like pretty much the rest of the Internet, I looked at Feedly, Newsblur, and The Old Reader. And like pretty much the rest of the Internet, I had to wait a bit to play with them, since the announcement of the impending death of Google Reader ground those sites to a halt.

When I started looking, I gravitated toward Newsblur, since I wanted to actually pay for a product, Google Reader’s demise having been a strong illustration of getting what you pay for. Newsblur had some scaling issues, so while I was waiting for it to come back up, I played with Feedly a bit.

Feedly doesn’t have a pure web interface. It requires you to install browser plugins, which felt like a bit of a barrier to me. I know it takes a moment to install something like that, but I don’t want to do it on every browser I’m using, every time I want to read some news.

I also wasn’t knocked out by the interface, which is either Flipboard-esque or overly simple lists of items. It worked two design extremes when I was trying to hit the middle.

Feedly is also built on the Google Reader API. I know they have a plan B ready to roll, but I was still a little nervous about what might happen when Google shut off Reader.

Around this time, Newsblur scaled up and became more available. The interface was much more familiar to me and I was able to seamlessly import my Google Reader subscriptions. It uses a lot of the same keys, like j/k to move up and down. Instead of using m to mark something read/unread I now have to use u, but my fingers are slowly adjusting.

Newsblur has a social component that interests me, but that I haven’t really touched. The feature that I love is what Newsblur calls training. Training allows you to tell Newsblur elements of a story or feed that you like and dislike. It can be a title, tags, author, or even publisher. When a story with any of those elements comes through your reader, it’s indicated with a green mark if you like it, a red if you don’t, and yellow if you’re indifferent. You can choose a view where you only see stories you’ve indicated you like (it’s called the focus view), or you can just use the green as an indication that something you like is somewhere in the entire feed. It’s a great way to get stuff you want to see called out before you go through a feed. It’s a killer feature for me, in terms of making sure I don’t miss things in my hurry to clear through a long feed, like the daily New York Post sports feed.

I liked Newsblur so much, I quickly signed up for the paid premium account (as did my wife). It’s a great tool and I haven’t been tempted at all to return to Google Reader. Not only do I prefer it to Google Reader, it’s got me thinking about what other Google Services are replaceable. I never thought I’d leave Reader, just because it never occurred to me that something better might exist. But now that I’ve seen there are a lot of solid non-Google services, I just might see what else is available. For instance, Outlook.com says IMAP support is eventually coming. Microsoft has lost enough prestige and marketshare that I’d give their new email interface an extended look without feeling like I was selling my soul to the devil. Or at least not selling too much of my soul…

What does this have to do with Linux? Well for one thing, Newsblur is open source, so you can build your own version of it if you don’t want to pay for it. But also, it’s another reminder of how important choice is in our digital work. The more we explore tools, the more we learn about our own work and work preferences. Choice isn’t just good from a political and economic perspective, but also from a creative one. Choice breaks ruts and helps you see familiar tools and services in new ways. Ultimately, the death of Google Reader turned out to be a good thing for me.

You can follow My Linux Rig on Google+ here and follow me on Twitter here.

The Linux Setup - Dave Neary, Red Hat

Dave’s setup is pretty standard, but it makes sense when you read how he described his ideal Linux setup: “The less time I spend thinking about what my desktop is running, and the more time I spend doing stuff, the better.” That wonderfully summarizes how I think about Linux. I turned to it because it was customizable, which allowed me to make it run more effectively for me, but now I run it because it works well, without a lot of fiddling. The customization angle might be less important to me because I now have a handle on what I like and dislike in a desktop experience, or it could be that the desktops are getting better. Either way, this interview is another example of how Linux is a great path for anyone looking to have a machine that just works.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow us on Google+ here.

1. Who are you, and what do you do?

   Dave Neary, Open Source and Standards, Red Hat. We’re a team of people working to make all the Open Source projects Red Hat works with better.

2. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

   Fedora 17.

3. What software do you depend upon with this distribution?

   I use Thunderbird for email, Firefox for web, Empathy for IM, XChat-gnome for IRC, LibreOffice for office productivity, Simple Scan for scanning, Shotwell for photo management, Gnote for note taking, and then terminal for other stuff.

4. What kind of hardware do you run it on?

   A Lenovo Thinkpad X220. Nice and light for travel, with a dock and bigger screen for when I’m at home.

5. What is your ideal Linux setup?

   Whatever works :-) There are some pet hates I have, which are more integration and polish issues than anything else.The less time I spend thinking about what my desktop is running, and the more time I spend doing stuff, the better.

6. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

   Sure! (With extra blurring of email client window).

Interview conducted January 28, 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 us on Google+ here and subscribe to our feed here.

The Linux Setup - Mark Anderson, Teacher

I owe this interview to my wife, who spotted Mark at a meeting and immediately picked up that he was using Linux. She put me in touch with him and here we are with a great interview. Mark uses a lot of interesting software in a very smart way. For instance, you’ll see he uses a variety of feed readers, which is even more impressive, given that the interview took place before Google announced it was killing Google Reader. His thoughts on open sourcing curriculum development are also interesting, as is the workflow he’s developing.

You can find more of The Linux Setup here.

You can follow us on Google+ here.

1. Who are you, and what do you do?

   My name is Mark Anderson, and I am a currently a special education ELA teacher and coordinator at a public middle school in the Bronx. I write about education matters on my blog Schools as Ecosystems as well as on GothamSchools. I am a big fan of Linux-based systems and of the open source movement. I have written about the potential that open sourcing curriculum development holds in the field of education. You can also find me on Twitter @mandercorn.

2. What distribution do you run on your main desktop/laptop?

   On my main laptop, my trusty old Dell Inspiron B130, I run Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. On my old Acer Aspire One netbook, I just recently switched from Ubuntu to Peppermint Linux 3, which has injected much needed speed on that machine. It has become the tool I use for writing.

   I also use an Asus Transformer TF101 running EOS, to keep up with newsfeeds, and a Google Nexus smartphone. I’m looking forward to giving Ubuntu for phones a spin when it is finally released.

3. What software do you depend upon with this distribution?

   I do my lesson planning using Google Drive on Chrome. I’ve become pretty reliant on Google over the years, as it neatly centralizes my documents and lessons and allows me to share them easily. I originally sought to use LaTeX to open source curriculum, but found it way too technical for my abilities, so I now share my lessons for modification or reuse via Google.

   I use Polly for Twitter when on my laptop, Lightread for feed reading, LibreOffice when I’m not using Google Drive, Spotify for Linux, and Dropbox to coordinate my files on my different platforms. On my netbook, I use GWoffice for writing and Chromium for browsing. On my Android tablet and phone, I use Tweetcaster, Pocket, Google Currents, Feedly, Press, and Pulse to read articles and skim for information. I like to utilize a diverse selection of feed readers because it seems like they each expose different sorts of information.

4. What kind of hardware do you run it on?

   I’m using a Dell Inspiron B130 and an Acer Aspire One netbook as my main productivity machines.

5. What is your ideal Linux setup?

   Eventually, when my old laptop finally gives up the ghost, I fantasize about getting a Dell XPS 13 and running Ubuntu on it.

6. Will you share a screenshot of your desktop?

Interview conducted January 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 us on Google+ here and subscribe to our feed here.