Windows to Linux blurb
Cue a Windows 10
upgrade. Add some random hard drive failure. A bit of frustration
mixed with a mild resentment towards some of the new Windows
features. Like restarts without permisson. All ended with an interest in
replacing Windows with Linux.
Popped in a refurbished drive with less capacity
than the previous. Installed Ubuntu 16.04 minimal via USB. Then loaded up
Gnome as the desktop.
First impressions.
Very nice presentation. Quickly ran through some “first step”
guidelines and started up a number of applications to get a feel for
the environment. For this average
user: Document
editing (Libreoffice),
email
management (Evolution),
graphic
design (Gimp, Krita,
Inkscape) and
video
editing tools (Lightworks , Openshot)
work very
well.
The Gnome Nautilus file explorer felt a bit weird and
would take some getting used to. Also noticed that the machine ran noticeably
quiet during testing. A refreshing change.
Immediate
problems. No black
background color or wallpaper. Gnome does not appear to offer the
option to customize background colors with system tools. One can
select from an assortment of predefined pallets. One can also run a
number of shell commands to resolve this. Regardless, black was not
readily available. There are no icons on the desktop though there is
this Irritating “pop out” tray located at the lower left. The
immediate reaction was to switch to another desktop. A simple task at
best. Instead the INTERNET was queried which resulted in an Ubuntu
Tweak Tool implemented to some degree of success.
linux desktop pr0n
The
repository
version of the Eclipse
programming IDE was uncooperative at best and the available solutions did not
help. Lost a bit of time on this one. After a bit of research, a Neon package was downloaded and implemented instead.
Regarding
audio
editing, mixing and
recording. The
recommended solution is to install the Studio version of Ubuntu desktop. Instead the
INTERNET was queried. Long story short. Open source audio tools are
not as “user friendly” as expected. This will require more time
to resolve.
There are quite a
number of native Linux games available. Services like Steam offer
quality games that run on Linux. It may be possible get a number
of modern triple A games to run. Older game titles are likely to find good support under Wine. That said, gaming on Linux is not good. Sony
Six-axis controller support is frustrating. Having a crippled gaming rig really hurts.
Linux as desktop
environment so far is good. The average PC user should find it a productive operating system to work with. Media savvy and hardcore
gamers will find it a challenge but there is always hope.
As for this fool.
Struggling to love Linux. Challenge accepted for now.
EDIT
Better way to set gnome desktop background color via terminal
EDIT
Better way to set gnome desktop background color via terminal
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background primary-color "#000000"