martes, 24 de febrero de 2015

MX-14: Playing with Snapshots

At last I ventured into the land of snapshots on my MX-14.3 install, thanks to its MX-Snapshot tool.  This one is so user-friendly that I was able to actually produce a live copy of my system the first time I tried.

The good part is that the snapshot is also installable.  You can make one with your accounts preserved (this one keeps all your configuration) or one with the default accounts (if you want to give copies of the snapshot to other people)

Thus, I decided to experiment a little.  Since XFCE is not precisely my favorite DE, I installed KDE.  After all, a little eye candy won't kill me!


I also installed LXDE.  Pushing my luck a bit more, I installed Compiz and configured it on that DE...

MX's native XFCE gave me more trouble to run Compiz, but I finally got it working...
(And then I realized that I could configure Compiz to use Kwin on XFCE!)  :P

Anyway, I was able to have a copy of my entire system, fully configured, running on a USB thumb drive that I can also use to store data. 

Let's see what else I can learn...


viernes, 20 de febrero de 2015

Opening Dolphin as Root

For some people like me, the file manager is the simplest way to find, open and edit files.  KDE 4 distros normally use Dolphin for that.

However, Dolphin does not come with Root access (normally).  What can then users do to open the file manager with super user privileges?

1.  Pressing Alt+F2 to open the application executing prompt.  Then, you type "kdesu dolphin".  It will ask you for your root password and then you can ravage your system at your heart's will.

2.  Opening a terminal as super user to start Dolphin from it.  Then you can storm the gates of your files.

3.  Opening Kmenu Editor (Kmenuedit) and then, you add a new entry in the "System" category (or the one you prefer).  You will need to add this information to the new entry:

Name:  Dolphin as Root
Command:   kdesu dolphin %i -caption "%c" %u

Don't forget to assign a distinctive icon to it.  Something red or with a skull might work!  :P

lunes, 2 de febrero de 2015

Blow the Trumpets! Windows 8.1 Gained 0.55% Market Share in January!!

This is a time of celebration for Windows 8.1 fans! According to Netmarketshare, the new warhorse of Microsoft, Windows 8.1 got an enormous, sizable market share chunk of 0.55% in January.  That went well and was very much needed, especially after the horrible beating that the OS got in December and that "tech journalists" decided to hide.

But January is another story.   It is a turn of the page.  Windows 8.1 got a gain of 0.55% and that's amazing!  The only problem is that the stubborn XP got more than that. XP got 0.67%!

Let's correct the title, then...

"Blow the Trumpets!  Windows 8.1 Gained 0.55% Market Share in January and almost Reaches the 0.67% that XP got!"

This is extremely interesting... so far, no tech journalist has written about it.  Was Ed Bott's claim for silence so effective?  It seems so.

Why is adoption of Windows 8.1 going so slowly?

Windows 10 is about to be released, of course!!

The problem is that Windows 10 also lost some of its market share...

Oh, well!  I guess this somehow explains the silence.  Not even crickets are heard...

No wonder why Microsoft now apparently wants to do Android with CyanogenMod...