April 2015: A great month for Linux!

What can I say. Pigs are flying and monkeys are vivid. (I know, my sense of humour stinks, just trying my best...)

First, Ubuntu 15.04 was released (I prefer the April releases, I always get the feeling that the October ones are rather interim/testing/preview ones, although usable and functional, of course), with the highlight of a MATE desktop official version. It's like Ubuntu going back to its roots. Fast, stable, nice interface but no so over the top as to slow down or require a powerful machine to run well. Kubuntu has never looked and felt better, although I haven't had time to test it more extensively than taking the live DVD for a spin. Ubuntu Gnome has improved a lot and I'm using it at work, only missing more options to tweak it to my heart's content. The included (Gnome) tweak utility is great, but I still wish for more options, like controlling the size of the favourites dock, for example.

Link to Ubuntu Mate 15.04 release announcement

And that's not all! Debian 8!!! Better than ever, but of course still not for beginners. Or maybe for beginners with a lot of spare time and interest in one of the "founding distros" of Linux (the other still active ones being Slackware, Fedora and SuSE IMO.) The highlights of this release for me? Cinnamon and Mate desktops. Live DVDs. Heaven.

Link to Debian 8 "Jessie" release announcement

Happy OS-hacking and keep cheking Distrowatch for all FreeBSD & Linux news!

IB Computer Science Exam Revision

Hi there!

I will be using this blog to save and manage my resources for the computer subjects I teach. I may transfer them later to a wiki, which in my opinion is the ideal format for this, but I want to try the blog format first, as I will do my best to post every time we are meant to have a lesson (both standard and higher levels). If you subscribe, you should get notifications as soon as I post an entry, and perhaps this way you can also study "on the go"/wherever you are.

A full list of topics for IB Computer Science can be found here.
A couple of glossaries of Computer Science terms can be downloaded from our school's online class resources.

Hope you will find this useful. Mainly for my awesome IB Computer Science students, but this may also be useful if you're taking (I)GCSE ICT/Computer Science and similar courses.

I will be working on a "Table of contents" blog entry as well, which I will post separately and link to this entry as well, so if you're interested, keep an eye on this blog!

Thanks for reading and best luck!

tM.

VPNs

On the concept, advantages and disadvantages of VPNs:

• http://computer.howstuffworks.com/vpn.htm (excellent explanation, but no need to read beyond page 5)
• https://youtu.be/DhYeqgufYss (a good video explaining VPNs)
• https://youtu.be/IWcgvOPYPgw ("infomercial" about VPNs, nice animations, but more of a commercial than a source of information, beware)

IB Computer Science Topic 3: Networks - Types of networks

Bits and stuff

A set of interesting links on the impact and application of bit width/resolution:

• http://webstyleguide.com/wsg2/graphics/displays.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth
• http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question487.htm Analog vs Digital Audio
• http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/86886-32-bit-vs-64-bit-comparison.html
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit_computing

IB Computer Science Topic 2: Computer Organisation - Binary representation

Bash vs DOS

Best link I've found contrasting Unix-Linux Bash commands vs. the DOS command prompt

• http://www.yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/unix_for_dos_users.html

Unix permissions

I was looking for a nice, simple and straightforward tutorial about unix permissions, and came across these pages:

• http://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix/unix-file-permission.htm
• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rc/help/faq/permissions.html
• http://www.perlfect.com/articles/chmod.shtml

Gnome 3 Window Buttons

Ah, the polemic, the flame wars... Whatever.

I'm using XFCE, Gnome, and Unity at the moment, while keeping a close eye on KDE (my first and most loved desktop, until they released version 4 (which now looks like it's ready for mass consumption, but I'm still nostalgic about the power and speed of KDE 3) and Gnome 2.

I actually find Gnome 3 nice, but not "tweakable" enough. I hope it won't take too long until it's as customisable as Gnome 2 used to be... Talk about fixing what's not broken and breaking it in the process...

Anyway, what I hate the most about Gnome 3 and its Shell:

1. The (lack of) window buttons: why remove the maximise, minimise, and menu? Doesn't make sense to me...
2. The lack of themes, colour sets, font configuration, etc... customisation and personalisation out of sight.
3. It isn't as light as Gnome 2 (at least it doesn't feel as light and nimble as its predecessor IMO)

So what to do?
Number 3: Use XFCE, LXDE, or Ubuntu 11.04 in Gnome classic mode.
Number 2: Wait until the stuff is available. :(
Number 1: Check this out --

You'll need to install (if you haven't got it yet in your system) gconf-editor first.

Invoke it within the terminal or press the ALT and F2 keys simultaneously, and type gconf-editor at the prompt.

Now navigate to desktop > gnome > shell > windows and change the button_layout key to menu:minimize,maximize,close as shown in the screenshot below:

After you log out and log back in, your windows will have the proper buttons. Of course you could make whatever changes as you see fit. The long description is very useful.

Screenshot taken on openSUSE Edu Li-f-e 12.1, yours may differ. It's a brilliant distro that is enticing me to go back where it all started for me (in terms of Linux addiction): SUSE.