For my Introduction To Linux course (https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:LinuxFoundationX+LFS101x+1T2020/course/) offered by Linux Foundation through the edx learning platform (https://www.edx.org/), I had to install three different distros (as VMware guests) representing the families of Linux Distros - CentOS (https://centos.org/), Ubuntu (https://ubuntu.com/) and OpenSUSE Leap (https://www.opensuse.org/). They're all using Gnome (https://www.gnome.org/) although for CentOS I used the older 2.x version of Gnome (screenshot below) because that's what they use in the course. Lately, I've been doing a lot of stuff in the shell so I'm just using Ubuntu.
Now I'm starting to like Gnome; it's very pretty and not nearly as customizable at Plasma but sometimes simple is good. I still hate the the program picker. These two feelings are putting me in a state of cognitive dissonance. I blame Fox for this.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on July 23, 2020, 01:23:48 PM
....
Now I'm starting to like Gnome; it's very pretty and not nearly as customizable at Plasma but sometimes simple is good. I still hate the the program picker. These two feelings are putting me in a state of cognitive dissonance. I blame Fox for this.
I'm happy to take credit for your enjoyment of Gnome; it's about time! But what is a program picker? Do you mean Gnome software? If so, I don't care for it either and I don't use it.
Nah, I mean the huge screen full of icons to pick the application you want.
"Now I'm starting to like Gnome"
Gnome's gnot for gbuster!
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on July 23, 2020, 03:41:43 PM
Nah, I mean the huge screen full of icons to pick the application you want.
That's not the way I start an app. The ones I use most are in the doc. For others, I hit the super key and type the name of the app. When it comes up, click on it. Very fast.
Quote from: fox on July 23, 2020, 09:01:09 PM
That's not the way I start an app. The ones I use most are in the doc. For others, I hit the super key and type the name of the app. When it comes up, click on it. Very fast.
Plasma has the same thing. I'm talking about the way it looks now how it's used. I can't stand those giant icons. If I wanted Android on my computer, I'd have Android on my computer. :)
To each his or her own, but one would never see those large icons if they don't use the Show Applications view. The size of the icons can be set in the dock in Settings/Appearance. My setting has the dock icons at probably half the size of that shown in the Applications view. Of course if you don't want a visible dock, you wouldn't have that option.
Over a year ago the three of us had a long back and forth on Gnome -very civilized and pleasant. During all 3 pages, I never mentioned that for a virtual, Gnaome always felt 'heavy' compared to Plasma. Anyway, if you wish to look at it, here's the link:
https://beta.plugintolinux.ca/forum/index.php?topic=701.0
Quote from: fox on July 24, 2020, 07:36:58 AM
To each his or her own, but one would never see those large icons if they don't use the Show Applications view. The size of the icons can be set in the dock in Settings/Appearance. My setting has the dock icons at probably half the size of that shown in the Applications view. Of course if you don't want a visible dock, you wouldn't have that option.
I never thought of making them smaller. Thanks for the suggestion! I actually like the dock. They've done a much better job than in the past in making the icons look good on the dock. I just don't like that kind of menu but I don't hate it now. Plasma has the option to have that kind of view and I don't care for it there, either. I'm old and less open to change. :P I'm getting crankier every year and I was pretty cranky to start with!
But we're all different. Difference makes the world go around. I think most in the club use Linux Mint Cinnamon as their regular distro, you use Ubuntu, and Buster and I are pretty avid Kubuntu users. Oh and Brian uses Arch but he's an odd fellow (I'm kidding, Brian). If I've missed anybody, let me know! It's good to have us using different desktops/distros so we can help one another. You never know when one of us is going to switch.
I was curious, can you get more themes in Ubuntu? I see they have a dark theme now which looks similar to the Standard theme mostly. Do you use the Tweak tool to get them? Or are you happy with these choices?
Quote from: buster on July 24, 2020, 11:13:05 AM
Over a year ago the three of us had a long back and forth on Gnome -very civilized and pleasant. During all 3 pages, I never mentioned that for a virtual, Gnaome always felt 'heavy' compared to Plasma. Anyway, if you wish to look at it, here's the link:
https://beta.plugintolinux.ca/forum/index.php?topic=701.0 (https://beta.plugintolinux.ca/forum/index.php?topic=701.0)
Thanks for the trip down memory lane as I had forgotten much of that post. You sure it wasn't too heated? I believe gauntlets were dropped, swords unsheathed and shields were readied. Or maybe that was Game of Thrones, I forget. :)
I'm using Ubuntu 20.04 with Gnome right now as a guest and it doesn't feel heavy. Programs seem to load as fast as in Kubuntu which has much more RAM. The Ubuntu guest does have 4 GB RAM and 2 processor cores allocated to it so maybe that's the difference that with you. It uses more RAM than Plasma (1.7 GB to 0.9 GB) but that doesn't seem to affect performance. And the difference in RAM disappears once you start opening programs. With Brave browser open with 3 tabs in Plasma and 3 tabs in Ubuntu, they both take up 2.1 GB of RAM.
I'd also like to take any readers even farther back in time, to the late 1990's, when the quite different Linux club used Red Hat, with Gnome, and Mandrake, with KDE. Jason, you may have also used SUSE, but I can't remember the desktop.
I do remember the forum was a series of emails that went to all members, and I especially remember the arguments about KDE and Gnome went on even then, in 'the old days'. As you can imagine, I supported KDE.
Quote from: buster on July 24, 2020, 02:51:14 PM
I'd also like to take any readers even farther back in time, to the late 1990's, when the quite different Linux club used Red Hat, with Gnome, and Mandrake, with KDE. Jason, you may have also used SUSE, but I can't remember the desktop.
I do remember the forum was a series of emails that went to all members, and I especially remember the arguments about KDE and Gnome went on even then, in 'the old days'. As you can imagine, I supported KDE.
Yeah, KDE (it was called that then) came out before Gnome. In fact, Gnome was created because the libraries (Qt) used to create KDE programs wasn't considered "Free" by the way that the Free Software Foundation defined it. You could create programs with it but they couldn't be commercial. Free Software (as in speech, not beer) doesn't have any stipulations into how it is used. So the Gnome project was created to offer an alternative modern desktop environment. Up to that time, I remember you had fvwm, icewm, elightenment (very different back then), Afterstep, etc. But none of them other than the last two had much in the way of features, that is, none.
I remember downloading KDE rpms when it first came out and installing them on RedHat 5.2 (or 6?). They didn't even have proper package management back then so you had to install them in a specific order.
And I have SUSE Linux Workstation, which cost money back then. I still have the box and manual. I think it came with KDE and other desktops.
Bill was one of the original members when we used Linux Mandrake as it was called then. I started out with Red Hat.
Bill had placed a free ad in Peterborough This week (or its ancestor) inviting computer enthusiasts to the building in the zoo. So you and Bill were there but I don't remember anyone else.
About 6 months before i had borrowed a Red Hat install and put it into an old computer with a small black and white monitor. You cannot believe the excitement when it booted!
Within the next year Clint found us and became the Treasurer.
Heady days indeed. Like explorers finding a new unknown continent.
I remember the zoo with the stuffed animals in it which I thought was weird to have in a building there but anyway, I didn't realize you went that far back. Before the zoo, we met at the Peterborough Native Learning Program, I believe. That was the beginning of the LUG after it became it's own group from having been a SIG of the Kawartha Computer Club. It was definitely exciting discovering something new and back then Windows really sucked - it crashed a lot unless you had Windows 2000 or NT 4. Linux has come a long way since then.
Speaking of the ole' days... here's an interview from last year with Gael Duval (https://fossforce.com/2019/04/gael-duval-father-of-user-friendly-linux-on-mandrake-and-e-phone/), the creator of Linux Mandrake, the first Linux distribution to come with a graphical installer and a real desktop environment.
One thing I just realized is that Ubuntu doesn't ask for the password when it does updates which is something I think a Linux distro should always do. Even though it's arguably not important as asking when installing software (which it does do), a bad actor could still replace a package in a repo with one with malware.
Jason wrote: One thing I just realized is that Ubuntu doesn't ask for the password when it does updates which is something I think a Linux distro should always do.
I'm pretty sure a few years ago, when I was using OpenSuse a lot, that I was notified of updates, and the download didn't require a password. I always assumed it was delta patches to some software with critical updates needed for security. Never thought much about it except as a convenience. Don't think it did things like Firefox, tho it might have if needed.
Doubt this still happens if Gecko is anything to judge it by.
Quote from: buster on July 26, 2020, 12:06:57 PM
Jason wrote: One thing I just realized is that Ubuntu doesn't ask for the password when it does updates which is something I think a Linux distro should always do.
....
Always does for me.
Try checking right now and see if it does if you don't mind. Because that would be really odd.
Update:
It might be just me. I think when I installed Ubuntu in the VM, I enabled the root user so that's why it asks. Can you doublecheck for me that you can't login as root? Try sudo -s in the terminal.
OK, I wasn't quite correct. If I use the Software Updater, it didn't ask me for a password; probably because I have admin privileges. However, I use Synaptic quite a lot, and it asks me for a password before it even opens. And yes, I can log in to root from a Terminal with sudo -s.
Just clarifying But does 'OK, I wasn't quite correct' mean I was wrong? :) :) :)
Yes I know. You use Synaptic. Come on Doctor Fox, own up.
Quote from: fox on July 26, 2020, 05:09:41 PM
OK, I wasn't quite correct. If I use the Software Updater, it didn't ask me for a password; probably because I have admin privileges. However, I use Synaptic quite a lot, and it asks me for a password before it even opens. And yes, I can log in to root from a Terminal with sudo -s.
I believe when you install Ubuntu, the first user is the administrator by default. You could change it later but I don't think you have the option during the install. Some distros like CentOS, Fedora and OpenSUSE give you the choice if you want it that way or to have a separate root user. In Kubuntu, I'm also set as the administrator but it still asks for a password whether I update or install.
It's funny that I never noticed that about Ubuntu before regarding updates.
I wondered if you could login as root because when you're the administrator, I thought the root account was disabled. If you try to go in as root at the login screen or by typing 'su root', it won't work. But 'sudo -s' appears to do so. Odd. I guess root is just disabled for logging in but still there behind the scenes.
Apparently you can turn automatic updates on or off in Ubuntu. Updater settings
You could look in there and see if password-less updates possible to turn off or on.
Yeah, I checked in Software & Updates already. You can't actually install updates automatically, at least not using the GUI, but you can have it auto-install security updates. It also says that with snap packages that updates are installed automatically. But there's nothing about password-less updates.
However, I just booted in Ubuntu again and this time it asked for a password to install the updates. Actually, I didn't so boot it as reload the machine state. So probably, like using sudo, there's a certain amount of time before you have to enter the password again and I had already and forgotten. That's good. I think it's a really bad idea to install updates automatically although I guess if they're signed... maybe it's not that big of a deal. Still, I like to know what is happening on my system that nothing is going on behind my back and that I'm in control.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on July 27, 2020, 07:38:30 PM
.... So probably, like using sudo, there's a certain amount of time before you have to enter the password again and I had already and forgotten. That's good. I think it's a really bad idea to install updates automatically although I guess if they're signed... maybe it's not that big of a deal. Still, I like to know what is happening on my system that nothing is going on behind my back and that I'm in control.
There is definitely a time after running sudo that you don't have to supply a password for another operation that requires root access. On my system, it's either 15 or 20 minutes, and I can't remember whether that time is something one can set. Also, I have no automatic updates set, so I have to be asked before allowing any operation (at least that I know of).
So because my friends are going on and on about Ubuntu I downloaded a massive 2.4 gig torrent (took almost 2 minutes!) and re-installled it. Trying it out for awhile, and I must say it's pretty good except that it really, really sucks. Other than that it's fine.
OK, the Ubuntu 20.04 Software Updater did ask me for a password today before installing updates. It didn't the previous time I checked. It might have to do with how recently I signed in with sudo.
Quote from: fox on July 28, 2020, 02:28:17 PM
OK, the Ubuntu 20.04 Software Updater did ask me for a password today before installing updates. It didn't the previous time I checked. It might have to do with how recently I signed in with sudo.
Somehow I only just saw this post. Anyway, I know that sudo will go for a while not requiring a password after the first time you use it in a session. I think it's 5 minutes by default. You can change this timeout, too (https://devanswers.co/disable-sudo-password-prompt-linux/). I don't know if it's the same amount of time as sudo but the graphical way of doing that is probably similar.