This is a Pure Knock Out

Cinnamon on LMDE

Recently the Linux Mint team released 1199 updates for LMDE. Well one of these updates was the upstream release of Gnome 3.2. I really did not care for it at all and I can see why a lot of users don't. If it were a tablet only desktop I might have a different opinion.

So at the first chance, like less than two minutes, the command line was opened and sudo apt-get install cinnamon was entered. A minute or so later I logged out and logged in and the Cinnamon desktop was available.

It really wasn't what I expected but it was better than the one inch icons of Gnome 3.2 default. On my hardware I had to turn off some of the Compiz effects but to me that is a non-issue. Call me old-fashioned but I hardly ever see the desktop anyway and clear window headers are just harder on my eyes. But that is always the beauty of Linux is we have choices. Give it a try you may just like it and it is available for other Mint versions too.

Turn a Windows User Into a Linux User

I had a friend complaining to me about BSOD's. Well I gave my usual speech about what they are and such and offered to analyze them. I pointed him in the path of a utility from Nirsoft, BlueScreenView and he sent me the results. I let him know that most likely it was a driver issue and maybe he could update. I also had given him a USB flash drive with Linux Mint Katya on it and low and behold I received an email that night that he had wiped Windows 7 away and was enjoying Linux.

He had one real issue and that was finding the right wireless driver. Once he connected wired, the driver was downloaded and installed along with other updates and all was well.

Tux clipart
from Clker.com

Chalk another one up for the penguins.

Pensive Penguin Is Now Open

I know I said it before but it really is now. I will post the first post to it later this morning. So if you have followed this blog or stumbled into it new, come visit at the new site Pensive Penguin. The site will be in a state of constant flux as I learn WordPress but I promise for at least a post a week.

WordPress For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Design A T-Shirt Logo Contest

This is a contest I can get behind and support. The Linux.Com Store will be featuring the best design from the contest in its apparel. You only have until April 11th to get your design submitted. Five lucky people will have their design chosen to be displayed on Linux.com. These five will be the ones open for the community vote through June 6th 2010. The winner will also get a trip to LinuxCon in Boston with the Linux.com folks. The store not only has cool Linux stuff to purchase but the proceeds help support the Linux Foundation. Good luck to those submitting designs and for the rest of us let's support the OS we all love and use.

Embedded Linux System Design and Development

The Blog of Helios: Indie Gamers See The Linux Market

This post is for all the gamers out there who are wanting native Linux games. They are coming via Indie Gamers and others willing to port their code to Lynux. The Blog of Helios is highlighting and reviewing one of these games Caster. I am in the same class as he is and my gaming skills leave much to be desired. I left them behind after Doom 2 and really haven't played much since. But for those interested in first person shooters hop on over and read the review. Then I recomend buying the game for the $5 which is more than a reasonable amount to pay. Coding for games takes a lot of time and effort and they should be rewarded for their efforts. I'm sure they would accept more if you like the game. Give it a try and tell us what you think.
The Blog of Helios: Indie Gamers See The Linux Market

One more thing to mention is how it is installed. I asked the developers of Caster and this is the reply from Frank:

"They're installed via an installer, called mojoinstaller, that was developed by Ryan Gordon another Linux game port developer. The main reason for this is that there is to be a distribution neutral as possible with the game as there would have to be a .deb, an .rpm, and at least a tarball or installer for "everyone else" if you did more than just the installer. Having said this the installer plays nicely with all distributions and uninstalls it's stuff gracefully."

This is good news since there are so many distributions the game can be played on installation will be a snap. I want to extend my gratitude to the developers of Caster for responding so quickly to my installation questions.