The Linux Setup

February 18, 2012 1:52 PM

The Linux Setup
I love reading about people's desktop Linux setups, so I started sending out interview requests to Linux users, asking them to answer some questions about the hardware and software they use.

This project came out of running out of stuff to write about on my Xubuntu blog (previously).

Here is a list of all of the interviews so far.

It goes without saying that any MeFi members who want to participate should drop me a memail.

Role: editor

posted by puckupdate (8 comments total)

For reasons I can't explain, I voted for your original project, but never subscribed to the blog. Doh! My attempt to upgrade to XFCE 4.8 on Xubuntu 10.04 went very poorly last week. I don't have 4.8 working, and 4.6 is hosed and unusable. Attempting to reinstall 4.6 puts me into dependency hell. So I'm using Gnome with Xubuntu right now...and will probably just deal with it until 12.04 hits the street in April.
posted by COD at 4:06 PM on February 18, 2012

Nice. I really like the original The Setup but it can get very Apple centric at times (rms interview notwithstanding)

Also, you missed your Valorie Zimmerman post in the interview index.
posted by Gary at 7:14 PM on February 18, 2012

I've always wanted a Linux box, but never got around to building one. Seeing how others use it may eventually get me to do it.
posted by cjorgensen at 9:04 PM on February 18, 2012

Nice grouping of interviewees. I periodically try out a few distros (mostly to see which latest versions will still work with some older machines), so it's interesting to see the various responses -- looking forward to seeing more.

Wanted you to be aware of something -- clicking on some of the desktop screenshot images results in an "AccessDenied Request has expired" error, instead of showing a larger version of the image -- in Firefox 10.0.1, I see the error messages in XML format.

I haven't checked all the screenshots, but they include the ones in these posts:

2011-09-24 (URL used for larger screenshot image)
2011-09-17 (URL used for larger screenshot image)
2011-07-31 (URL used for larger screenshot image)

Each URL used for the larger images has an "Expires" parameter.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 12:29 AM on February 19, 2012

Thanks, guys!

Gary: I added Valorie to the index.
rangefinder: I fixed those images
posted by puckupdate at 5:02 AM on February 19, 2012

Cool, thanks, puckupdate. Just FYI, a lot of the oldest posts in the archive also have screenshots that link to outdated image URLs.

(As an aside: it was neat to find in the desktop screenshot for François Marier that he uses Workrave (the little sheep icon), which is something I've used on Windows after finding out about it from AskMe a couple of years ago. I'd forgotten it was available for Linux.)

The non-"Linux Setup" posts of the blog look interesting, too. So far I've especially liked the one on Linux and digital recording/music.
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 6:08 PM on February 19, 2012

Thanks rangefinder! I'm trying to hit a sweet spot for intermediate desktop Linux users. There's a ton of content available for new Linux users and lots of dense, sysadmin type stuff for the experts, but there isn't much online for experienced Linux users who maybe aren't super technical (ie, me).

Also, thanks for the busted links. Those are fixed now.
posted by puckupdate at 10:01 AM on February 20, 2012

Unfortunately, after the last awesome update, the package broke...

Strangely poetic in its summation of the human condition vis a vis tech.
posted by philipy at 9:13 AM on February 21, 2012