My First Act from Outside the Proprietary Fence
January 14, 2007
3:35 p.m., MT

Hi again. Things don’t look any different around here to you, but there’s a world of difference to me since I last rambled at you this morning.

This is my first action on my new machine that MAL built for me. It’s running Kubuntu Linux. I am so happy to be outside the Windows/proprietary fence!

But ... oh shit, do I have a lot to learn in the next few days! (And a lot of stuff to transfer over from the old machine, which will—we hope—be able to be converted from W2K into a Linux machine for the snolfs to use once I’ve gotten my stuff cleared out.)

Tips, URLs for good tools/information, software recommendations ... I welcome it all.

(And yes, I know how fortunate I am to have someone as wonderfully competent as MAL doing all the really hard work for me. He will be amply rewarded.)

Sunni

Comments: 15 people have contributed to the conversation

On Sunday, January 14th, at approximately 4:57 p.m. Mountain time, Xpat said:

Congratulations Sunni!!!

Lots to learn for sure but at least it's something worth your time. Leaving the "safety and security" of gates land is pretty scary for most and you'll have some rocky times. Don't hesitate to ask questions, there are lots of us bitheads out here that are willing to help.

On Sunday, January 14th, at approximately 9:01 p.m. Mountain time, Presto said:

Congrats for making the move to Kubuntu! Welcome to the club! I've been running it for a while now, and any help I can give, let me know. You will discover that most people in the Kubuntu community are very helpful. Enjoy your new system!

On Sunday, January 14th, at approximately 11:36 p.m. Mountain time, Presto said:

By the way, what kinds of software are you looking for? It'd help in giving recommendations.

On Monday, January 15th, at approximately 7:08 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Thanks! We had some startup excitement this morning, but recovered fairly smoothly.

As far as software goes, two things are uppermost in my mind: graphics and html coding.

I tried the GIMP under W2K and hated it (but in all fairness, it wasn’t much of a try); I’m willing to give it another go if it really is the best package out there.

I have long been an ardent fan of Arachnophilia, because it is clean and highly customizable. It’s the only program to date where I’ve set up and used bunches of hotkeys. It is a splendid program, but I don’t know if the Java version will work as well as the old Windows-based one. So I’m interested in other options.

On Monday, January 15th, at approximately 12:22 p.m. Mountain time, Presto said:

Sunni, after trying lots of apps for graphics and html, I have settled on these few apps for the time being.

For image editing, I use Krita. For HTML, I use Quanta Plus. For vector graphics (drawings and web graphics), I use Inkscape.

I can't remember if Krita is installed by default in Kubuntu, but if it is not, you can install it using the Adept package manager. Quanta Plus and Inkscape are installed through the package manager as well.

Regarding Adept, I am not a big fan of it, so I installed standard Ubuntu's Synaptic package manager through it to make package search and installation easier for me. Of course, if you don't install packages as often as I do, Adept may work just fine for you.

My biggest recommendation, though, is to poke through the repositories and try lots of apps, since there is such a large selection out there. Be sure that the Multiverse and Universe repositories are available in your package manager.

Other recommendations:
Rss Reader: Akregator (I'd use Sage, but it doesn't like twitchy web connections like mine)
Bittorrent client: Azureus
Office Suite: Koffice
MP3 player(iTunes replacement)): JuK.
Movie player: Totem

On Monday, January 15th, at approximately 12:30 p.m. Mountain time, Presto said:

I forgot to add, if you install Quanta Plus, be sure to install the kdewebdev package to make sure all the dependencies (parts) are there.

On Monday, January 15th, at approximately 4:39 p.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Thanks very much, Presto! Krita is a default install. I will be poking around the repositories some, once I get a couple of remaining fundamentals taken care of.

On Monday, January 15th, at approximately 7:52 p.m. Mountain time, Ian Scott said:

Well, welcome to Linux!

One of the nice things about Linux is that there are so many ways to accomplish things, and enormous number of programs and applications.

I tried Krita this evening, after reading Presto's comments but I couldn't find any way to adjust the quality of a jpeg in order to reduce file size. So for most of my graphics work, I'll continue to use Gimp.. although Krita does have a somewhat familiar interface for folks that are used to Windows type graphic applications.

Quanta Plus is awesome for programming or HTML work!

For an office suite, I'd have to go with Open Office rather than Koffice though. OpenOffice can both open and SAVE documents in the all unfortunate too familiar .doc format.

As far as Bittorent, I just use Ktorrent, which is available with KDE.

And if you've installed Kbuntu, then your system is KDE desktop based.

But don't shy away from installing Gnome - there are some great programs that are Gnome based - and they don't require you to use Gnome - just have it installed.

I also like Kaffiene for BOTH movie and mp3 playing. Kaffiene will look after both for me.

For an RSS reader, I just use what is built in to Kontact. Kontact, in my opinion, is a great app, with Kmail, a calendar and scheduling function, Contact list, News Reader, and syncing to a Palm using Kpilot all integrated.

For a file manager, I really like Krusader - although Konqueror works both as a file manager and web browser, I prefer Krusader and Firefox.

Remind me if you are going to be using Kmail, to send you a nice little app that if you are using Konqueror or Krusader as a file manager, you can right click on a file and have an option to "Email file To.." and it will open a Kmail email composing window and attach the file.

That feature may in fact now be standard on KDE.. I'm not sure.

Be sure to also check out regularly, the KDE website - and some of the additional software that you can download that has been created for KDE:

http://kde.org/

Some of it is junky, but some of it is very very good, too.

And you know where to find me if you have specific questions

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 7:23 a.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

Thanks very much, Ian! After spending yesterday trying to customize Thunderbird in ways that are apparently not possible, I’ll be giving Kmail a try.

I used Gnome during my Red Hat attmept, and liked it well enough, so I will probably play with that some too. Thanks for reminding me.

First things first, though ... like learning how to edit my sources.list, and getting my keyrings working here!

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 11:36 a.m. Mountain time, Presto said:

Ian, To adjust JPEG quality in Krita, try File>Export, save as a JPEG under a different filename, and you'll get the Quality dialog.

For some reason on my system, Ktorrent is very crash-prone.

If I must do .doc, I have a machine with MS Office available to me, but fortunately I don't have to use it often. Even Openoffice.org's .doc features have formatting problems, and so I work in Word if I absolutely have to do the evil .doc(shudder).

Kaffiene is fine for MP3 playing, but does not have the "jukebox"ing features of Juk, and I like using that to manage my hundreds of mp3's and ogg files's. (some people prefer AmaroK for that, but Juk works better for me.) For movie (meaning DVD) playing, Kaffiene skips frames on my machine. That probably is not a problem on a faster machine. For mpg's, etc, I prefer Kaffiene also.

The thing about software selections, though, is that they are very personal. That's why I like open source so much. There are lots of ways to do things, some may be better for you, some for me. Take Koffice. I have used Koffice since the early days with RedHat, and it's like it was written for me. Some people hate it, though. Fortunately, there are many options for office stuff.

The one thing that still is lacking in Linux for me, though, is a good replacement for Mastercook. I have yet to find a good recipe manager for me and my 50,000+ recipe collection. So my old Windows machine is limited to being an electronic cookbook most of the time ;-) If any of you cooks out there have any suggestions, I'd like to hear them. It's past time to retire my Windows machine.

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 1:35 p.m. Mountain time, Ian Scott said:

Presto,

"To adjust JPEG quality in Krita, try File>Export, save as a JPEG under a different filename, and you'll get the Quality dialog."

I have Krita V. 1.4.1 installed - and I'm not seeing any Quality dialogue - just a warning that saving as a jpeg may cause loss of formatting.

Strange. Maybe there's an option I need to set. What version do you have, Presto?

"Kaffiene skips frames on my machine. That probably is not a problem on a faster machine."

I have a relatively fast machine - AMD 1500 mhz.

"The thing about software selections, though, is that they are very personal. That's why I like open source so much. There are lots of ways to do things, some may be better for you, some for me."

Absolutely!

"The one thing that still is lacking in Linux for me, though, is a good replacement for Mastercook."

Hmmm.. I don't know what Mastercook is, but I wonder if something couldn't be easily created with PHP and mysql database? Does Mastercook have a website? What are the features if any that you like about it?

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 1:37 p.m. Mountain time, Ian Scott said:

Sunni,

"I’ll be giving Kmail a try."

Once again, if you need help, let me know. I've been using kmail for years, and love it.

"and getting my keyrings working here!"

Have you found Kgpg yet?

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 3:20 p.m. Mountain time, Ian Scott said:

Another thought Presto, have you tried running Mastercook under Wine?

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 4:05 p.m. Mountain time, Sunni said:

No, Ian, I haven’t. I got my keyrings imported successfully earlier today, though.

Downloading Gnome now, too ...

On Tuesday, January 16th, at approximately 5:19 p.m. Mountain time, Presto said:

Ian, I have Krita 1.5.2 installed. The feature must be in the new version.

Mastercook is a proprietary program available from Valusoft here. My version is not the current one. Actually, it is a very old one, from back when the program was owned by Sierra Home. I like the way it organizes recipes into cookbooks and cookbooks into collections. It's a fun way to browse recipes, just like looking at Grandma's old cookbooks. Just with super-powered search functions.

The screenshots for some reason will not open on Firefox without allowing popups on their site. There is a manual available for download on the Yahoo group list, but you have to join the mailing list to get to it.

Most of the current Linux cookbook programs I have tried have two problems. They do not handle large collections well, and do not have good import/export functions. Mastercook's import function is very good, but not perfect. But it is the best out there.

Other features I like include the excellent search functions, and the ability to generate a shopping list from recipes. I don't care about videos, or a lot of the planning features. I don't need a recipe calendar. I don't plan that far ahead. Mail features are cool, though.

An enterprising programmer could write something like it, but the import/export functions may be challenging. I'd like to see something like it in Linux.

My machine is very old, and I have had problems trying to run stuff under Wine. It slows my system to a crawl. Maybe after I get a new machine, I can try again.

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