TOPIC: LINUX MINT
Moving from Ubuntu 10.10 to Linux Mint 10
23rd April 2011With a long Easter weekend available to me and with thoughts of forthcoming changes in the world of Ubuntu, I got to wonder about the merits of moving my main home PC to Linux Mint instead. Though there is a rolling variant based on Debian, I went for the more usual one based on Ubuntu that uses GNOME. For the record, Linux Mint isn't just about the GNOME desktop, but you also can have it with Xfce, LXDE and KDE desktops as well. While I have been known to use Lubuntu and like its LXDE implementation, I stuck with the option with which I have most experience.
Once I selected the right disk for the bootloader, the main installation of Mint went smoothly. By default, Ubuntu seems to take care of this, while Mint leaves it to you. When you have your operating system files on sdc, installation on the default of sda isn't going to produce a booting system. Instead, I ended up with GRUB errors and, while I suppose that I could have resolved these, the lazier option of repeating the installation with the right bootloader location was the one that I chose. It produced the result that I wanted: a working and loading operating system.
However, there was not something not right about the way that the windows were displayed on the desktop, with title bars and window management not working as they should. Creating a new account showed that it was the settings that were carried over from Ubuntu in my home area that were the cause. Again, I opted for a less strenuous option and moved things from the old account to the new one. One outcome of that decision was that there was a lot of use of the chown command to get file and folder permissions set for the new account. To make this all happen, the new account needed to be made into an Administrator just like its predecessor; by default, more restrictive desktop accounts are created using the Users and Groups application from the Administration submenu. Once I was happy that the migration was complete, I backed up any remaining files from the old user folder and removed it from the system. Some of the old configuration files were to find a new life with Linux Mint.
In the middle of the above, I also got to customise my desktop to get the feel that is amenable. For example, I do like a panel at the top and another at the bottom. By default, Linux Mint only comes with the latter. The main menu was moved to the top because I have become used to having there, and switchers for windows and desktops were added at the bottom. They were only a few from what has turned out not to be a short list of things that I fancied having: clock, bin, clearance of desktop, application launchers, clock, broken application killer, user switcher, off button for PC, run command and notification area. It all was gentle tinkering, but still is the sort of thing that you wouldn't want to have to do over and over again. Let's hope that is the case for Linux Mint upgrades in the future. That the configuration files for all of these are stored in the home area hopefully should make life easier, especially when an in-situ upgrade like that for Ubuntu isn't recommended by the Mint team.
With the desktop arranged to my liking, the longer job of adding to the collection of software on there, while pruning a few unwanted items too, was next. Having had Apache, PHP and MySQL on the system before I popped in that Linux Format magazine cover disk for the installation, I wanted to restore them. To get the off-line websites back, I had made copies of the old Apache settings that simply were copied over the defaults in /etc/apache (in fact, I simply overwrote the apache directory in /etc, but the effect was the same). Using MySQL Administrator enabled the taking of a backup of the old database too. In the interests of spring-cleaning, I only migrated a few of the old databases from the old system to the new one. In fact, there was an element of such tidying in my mind when I decided to change Linux distribution in the first place; Ubuntu hadn't been installed from afresh onto the system for a while anyway and some undesirable messages were appearing at update time though they were far from being critical errors.
The web server reinstatement was only part of the software configuration that I was doing, and there was a lot of use of apt-get while this was in progress. A rather diverse selection was added: Emacs, NEdit, ClamAV, Shotwell (just make sure that your permissions are sorted first before getting this to use older settings because anything inaccessible just gets cleared out; F-Spot was never there at first in my case, but it may differ for you), UFRaw, Chrome, Evolution (never have been a user of Mozilla Thunderbird, the default email client on Mint), Dropbox, FileZilla, MySQL Administrator, MySQL Query Browser, NetBeans, POEdit, Banshee (while Rhythmbox is what comes with Mint, I replaced it with this), VirtualBox and GParted. This is quite a list and while I maybe should have engaged the services of dpkg to help automate things, I didn't do that on this occasion, though Mint seems to have a front end for it that does the same sort of thing. Given that the community favours clean installations, it's little that something like this is on offer in the suite of tools in the standard installation. This is the type of rigmarole that one would not draw on themselves too often.
With desktop tinkering and software installations complete, it was time to do a little more configuration. To get my HP laser printer going, I ran hp-setup to download the (proprietary, RMS will not be happy...) driver for it because it otherwise wouldn't work for me. Fortune was removed from the terminal sessions because I like them to be without such things. To accomplish this, I edited /etc/bash.bashrc and commented out the /usr/games/fortune line before using apt-get to clear the software from my system. Being able to migrate my old Firefox and Evolution profiles, albeit manually, has become another boon. Undoubtedly, there are more adjustments that I could be making, but I am happy to do these as and when I get to them. So far, I have a more than usable system, even if I engaged in more customisation than many users would go doing.
Let's finish this with some of my impressions of Linux Mint. What goes without saying is that some things are done differently, which is to be expected. Distribution upgrades are just one example, while there are tools available to make clean installations that little bit easier. To my eyes, the desktop looks very clean and fond display is carried over from Ubuntu, not at all a bad thing. While it may sound like a small matter, it does appear to me that Fedora and openSUSE could learn a thing or too about how to display fonts onscreen on their systems. It is the sort of thing that adds the spot of polish that leaves a much better impression. So far, it hasn't been any hardship to find my way around; it helps that I can make the system fit my wants and needs. That it looks set to stay that way is another bonus. We have a lot of change coming in the Linux world, with GNOME 3 on the way and Ubuntu's decision to use Unity as their main desktop environment. While watching both of these developments mature, it looks as if I'll be happily using Mint. Change can refresh, while a bit of stability is good too.
Looking at a few Operating Systems
19th February 2011The last few weeks have seen me poking around with a few different operating systems to see how they perform. While I am too sure what exactly has kicked off all of this curiosity, all the OS's that I have examined have been of the UNIX/Linux variety. With the inclusion of Unity in the forthcoming Ubuntu "Natty Narwhal" 11.04, I am mindful of the need to be keeping an eye on alternative options should there ever be a need to jump ship. However, a recent encounter with an alpha version has reassured me a little.
Forgetting the Ubuntu password (a silly thing to do, I know) for my Toshiba laptop meant a reinstallation that allowed these explorations to happen. Only for that, I may not have looked in amazement at the impressive minimalism of CrunchBang Linux before settling on Lubuntu to see how it did. Since these were Live CD runs, I was trying things out before committing to any installation. Since Lubuntu is based on Ubuntu as its name suggests, I wasted little name in finding my way around the LXDE desktop. By default, everything supplied with the distro is lightweight, with Chromium coming in place of Firefox. There's no sign of OpenOffice.org either, with offerings like Abiword coming in its stead. For the sake of familiarity, I started to add the weight of things without reducing the speed of things, it seems. Well, the speedy start-up wasn't afflicted anyway. Being an Ubuntu clone meant that it didn't long to add on Firefox using the apt-get command. LibreOffice was downloaded for installation using the dpkg command, and it seems much more fleet-footed than its OpenOffice.org counterpart. As if these nefarious actions weren't enough, I started to poke in the settings to up the number of virtual desktops too. All in all, it never stopped me going against what be termed the intent of the thing. Despite what Linux User & Developer has had to say, I think the presentation of the LXDE desktop isn't unpleasant, either. In fact, I reckon that I quite like it, so the next thing to do is to restore the entry for Windows 7 on the GRUB menu. Well, there's always something that needs doing...
While I may have learned about it after the event, the release of Debian "Squeeze" 6.0 was of interest to me too. The new release comes on two kernels: GNU/Linux and FreeBSD. Regarding the latter, I did try having a look, only for it to lock up my main home PC when I tried booting it up in a VirtualBox virtual machine. Given that it's a technical preview anyway, I think it's better to leave it mature for a while, no matter how fascinating the prospect may be. Or is it VirtualBox 4.x that hasn't around long enough? Debian's latest Linux incarnations showed no such inclinations, though I found that the CD ISO image that I'd downloaded didn't give such a complete system when I fired it up after doing the installation. Being someone who knows his way around Linux anyway, it was no problem to add the missing pieces using apt-get, though that'd stop it being an option for new users unless the DVD installation yields more complete results. Other than that, it worked well, and I quickly became comfortable with the OS, which has a much fresher feel than version 5.x ("Lenny"). In summary, I look forward to continuing my investigations of the new Debian release.
To round up my explorations of different UNIX/Linux operating systems, I have updated my test installations of Ubuntu 11.04. While initial looks at the next Ubuntu release weren't so encouraging, things are coming along by all accounts. For one thing, Unity can be switched off in favour of the more familiar GNOME desktop that we've had for the last few years. Messages warning about the lack of 3D graphics support have been replaced by graceful degradation to GNOME, which is definitely an improvement. In case it hasn't been so obvious, I am one of those who needs convincing by the likes of Unity and GNOME Shell, so I'll sit on the fence for a while. After all, there are always alternatives like LXDE if I want to decamp to something else entirely. One of the nice things about Linux is the amount of choice we all have; while it might be difficult to choose sometimes, it's always good to find alternatives when someone makes a decision that doesn't suit you.
Ubuntu 10.10 and Citrix
15th January 2011Many of us with the opportunity to work from home will have met up with logging via a Citrix server. With that in mind, I set to getting an ICA client going on my main Ubuntu box at home. There is information scattered about the web in the form of a question on the Ubuntu forum and a step-by-step guide by Liberian Geek. To summarise the process that I followed here, you have to download a copy of the Citrix Receiver installer for Linux from the company's website. There, you'll see DEB and RPM packages, along with a tarball for other systems. The latter needs a bit more work, so I got the x86 DEB package and installed that in the usual way, using Ubuntu's Software Centre to do the installation following the download. Needing to start the Citrix connection via a browser session meant that a browser restart was needed too. That wasn't the end of the leg work because Thawte certificate errors were to stop me in my tracks until I downloaded their root certificates from their website. Once the zip file was on my PC, I extracted it and copied the required certificate (Thawte Server CA.cer from the thawte Server CA directory) to /usr/lib/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts on my system; it helped that the error message had told me which was the one I needed from the collection in the zip file. With that matter addressed, the connection happened without a glitch, and I was able to get to working without recourse to a Windows virtual machine. For once, Linux wasn't to be excluded from one of the ways of using computers that has been getting more prevalent these days.
Update 2012-04-14: On an equivalent installation on Linux Mint Debian Edition, I found that the installation location for the certificate had moved to /opt/Citrix/ICAClient/keystore/cacerts. This was for the 64-bit edition.
Update 2012-12-17: The above applied to an installation of version 12.10 on 32-bit Ubuntu GNOME Remix too.