Tech Smartly

During spare time, when I’m bored and trying to put off writing my next blog post, I often stumble. Sometimes I get a few gems like this insulting source code, or several other many things. One of these such gems, is a Linux distribution chooser. One of the things that I often hear people talk about when they’re trying out Linux is what distro to choose. This is actually quite a big problem for many new Linux users. Some go to Ubuntu, a good OS for Linux newbies. After all, it is considered one of the most user friendly Linux distributions and the most widely used. However, for those who choose to be a little different, or don’t like Ubuntu, there are hundreds of different distros to choose from. Perhaps you would prefer Mandriva? Or maybe OpenSuse? If you’re up for a little challenge, try Gentoo. Or try all the Ubuntu flavors like Kubuntu, Edubuntu, Xubuntu, Gobuntu, Ubuntu studio, Fluxbuntu, UbuntuME, Mythbuntu…Ok, you know what I mean. There are just so many different distros to choose from, and it can be really hard for someone with little technical skills, or even with quite a bit of technical skills to choose the “right” distribution. Here comes Polishlinux.org with it’s Linux Distribution Chooser.

The distribution chooser requires only several simple questions. It simple and easy. Due to the simplicity however, it does not say exactly why a distribution better, or what it has over other distributions. It shows several distros that fit best the criteria, with links explaining each on in depth. However, it can be a bit hard to compare them like that. Here comes in another tool to compare them. From the same website, you can easily compare two distros, comparing them in different categories and each distro is given a rank in each category.

With these two tools, I hope it will be easier for other people to choose a distro, especially those new to Linux. If the quiz is too hard for you, there is also another one which is easier to answer, and gives help if you don’t know what it means. Made by zegenie Studies, you can find it here.

If this has helped you jump the ship and start using Linux, then good luck to you. You won’t need it though, it should be pretty easy since you will have found a newbie friendly distro.

Let me start by introducing myself, seeing as this is my first time posting. My name is Jonathan Robertson, and I’m an IT specialist and Linux user. I am an old friend of Joe, which you of course all know. I will be writing a few articles on Linux for this blog, starting with my kLife series. I’m sorry if some articles come at a delay, I’ll try my best to keep writing whenever possible, but due to recent events, I know that I will be busy for a while.

Some stuff about me: I’m a Linux user! I have successfully deleted Windows from my machine, mainly because I don’t have the time for games these days so I don’t have anything to loose :-P. I use the openSuSE Linux distro, and am an active activist for Linux and Open Source. I truly believe in the potential of open source and Linux in particular, and the potential it has (with time, not overnight of course… but give it 10 or so years…) to challenge Microsoft Windows in the OS marketplace. To show Linux’s readiness today, I’m writing these articles that will cover the apps that we would use for the main uses we have for our computers. Namely: Music playing, photo management, picture editing, movie editing, movie playing, web designing, instant messaging, email and groupware and of course simple web browsing and basic office uses. The programs I plan to review for each of these (suggestions for changes are welcome of course)

Music player- Amarok
Photo manager- DigiKam
Picture editor- Krita
Movie editor - KDENLIVE
Movie player - Kaffiene
Web design - Quanta Plus
Instant messaging- Kopete
Email and groupware - Kontact
(Web browser - Firefox)
(Productivity suite - OpenOffice.org)

I will of course talk about the shortcomings of each, but I think I will prove that for anyone which only needs to do the basic tasks listed above, Linux is a viable option.

I’ve been looking for a new host, since I am not happy with network solutions. There are so many other companies that give so much more for a cheaper price. I’ve been searching for new hosts to choose from, and it’s not easy. It seems like every host has at least one horror story, so it’s not easy what everywhere you search someone says that the host is terrible. Well, I’ve chosen AN hosting, for their cheap price and many other features, and hopefully now the website will be much faster. Supposedly, the changes will be in effect in 2 days. If you were ever frustrated with my site being slow, hopefully this will happen never more! Once everything is sorted out, everything will be at 100%.

Alrighty, here is another podcast for all of you to listen to. Security Now! by Leo Laporte and Steve Gibson. If you want to listen to the podcast right now instead of reading the whole blog, here is the link to the podcast.

If you’re still here and wondering whether or not to listen to this podcast, I shall explain what it is. It is part of the TWiT network, with Leo Laporte (of course) and Steve Gibson as the security expert. If you haven’t guessed by now, the podcast deals with security. To be exact, computer security. I’ve been listening to this show since episode 122, and listened to all his shows since 102. The podcasts range from Drive encryption to Perfect paper Passwords to Firewall Leaktesting and many other things. There has never been a missed show, and they always make an effort to record a second and sometimes third podcast for those weeks that they are unable to do one. It usually lasts for an hour, sometimes more, and some times less.

I can tell that Steve really knows what he is talking about, and listening to this podcast has helped me learn more about computer security. This is not just about things like how to properly set up an anti virus in windows. This is also about other security related topics like RAM hijacking, and the paypal and doubleclick fiasco. Whether you use Linux or Windows, it does not matter. This is about computer security in general. I have learned many new things about computers, and I owe some of my knowledge to this podcast, this very podcast which I am writing about now. It is quite a serious podcast, not like geeknights in which there is much joking about going on. If you need to laugh while you learn, or you just want to laugh, you can listen to geeknights. If you can learn without needing to laugh or be entertained, this is the podcast for you. This doesn’t mean there isn’t any entertainment though. This is not like a college lecture that has been recorded and released. This is done as sort of a conversation between Leo and Steve, like geeknights. There is the occasional joke, as well as humorous situations. It’s a different type of humor, not like those you would hear on geeknights. it doesn’t make the podcast any less valuable, and it certainly thought me a lot.

I really do like this podcast, and I recommend this to all my geeky friends. Now I recommend it to all of you, all my geeky blog readers. And while you’re download the podcast, you should also take a look around the website for other interesting things. The only problem I have with this podcast is the frequent testimonials of his product spinrite, which he talks about every show. The testimonials which he reads are usualy 5 minutes only, so it’s easy to just skip through. It will get on your nerves after a while. But even still, you should still listen to Security Now! by Steve Gibson and leo Laporte.

I was wondering why I didn’t have RSS working before, but it turns out I had to use something different from the default permalink option. If you like this blog, you can now subscribe to my feed which should appear on the sidebar any time now.