04Dec

Securing MySQL in Fedora

Ubuntu users must be spoilt because any MySQL installation asks you for a root password, a very good thing in my opinion. With Fedora, it just pops the thing on there with you needing to set up a service and setting the root password yourself; if I remember correctly, I think that openSUSE does the same [...]

02Dec

Command Line Software Management

One of the nice things about a Debian-based Linux distribution is that it is easy to pull a piece of software onto your system from a repository using either apt-get or aptitude. Some may prefer to have a GUI but I find that the command line offers certain extra transparency that stops the “what’s it [...]

16Nov

When buttons stop working…

One of the things that stopped working as it should after my recent Ubuntu 9.10 upgrade was the Eclipse PDT installation that I had in place. Editing files went a bit haywire and creating projects had me pushing buttons with nothing happening. Whether this was a Java or GNOME issue, I don’t know but I [...]

27Oct

A multitude of operating systems

Like buses, it seems that a whole hoard of operating systems is descending upon us at once. OS X 10.6 came first and it was the turn of Windows 7 last week with all of the excitement that it generated in the computing and technology media. Next up will be Ubuntu, already a source of [...]

20Jul

A first look at Ubuntu 8.10

I must admit that my curiosity got the better of me when screenshots of Ubuntu’s 8.10, otherwise known as Intrepid Ibex, started to make their appearance. It is only at alpha2 stage so it’s definitely a no-no for production systems. However, it does run surprisingly smoothly even at this stage. Yes, I have seen rough [...]

25Jan

Mucking about with WINE

It was the prospect of having Photoshop Elements going on Linux that got me thinking about working with WINE. The cause of that was Elements’ inability to edit, create and save files to a VMware shared folder. As it turned out, there was more to my WINE adventures than getting Elements working. Because I was [...]