Für Hotz dient Hacking nicht dazu, etwas zu bekommen, wofür man nicht gezahlt hat, sondern dazu, sicherzustellen, das zu bekommen, wofür bezahlt wurde.

Zitat golem.de

Der Artikel zeigt das eindrucksvolle Engagement eines Programmierers, der sich gegen die restriktiven Bemühungen eines machthungrigen Herstellers stemmt.

I’ve been looking for a fast and easy to use desktop environment forever. XFCE was a bit too heavy and Fluxbox too minimalistic. The guys from Fluxbuntu did a good job on a minimalistic and easy to use distribution, but you have limited possibilities of adding all these features to a running installation.

A few month ago I heard about LXDE. LXDE is exactly what I’ve been looking for, it even seems familiar for Windows users. It’s easy to install on every running installation, like any desktop environment.

Here we see the PcMan file manager, the Gpic image viewer and the standard text editor leafpad. The startmenu is very small and easy to overlook

Through a middle click we can view all applications opened on all desktops. The graphical theme chooser of openbox, lxde’s window manager and a classic shell (lxterminal).

So the most basic LXDE apps are:

• PcManFM, should look familiar to windows users
• Openbox, combined with the panel a very need window manager
• Gpicview
• LXDEPanel
• LXDETerminal, simple terminal without many effects, but with tabs support

With Gpicview I’ve found a new favourite image viewer, it’s really quick and functional.

Beginners might need a bit help with language and keyboard layout functions, I’ve not found build-in options for that yet. Maybe a small app for that would help. If you don’t know how to change your keyboard layout, have a look at the setxkbmap command.

I’ve just tried out Linux Mint today, because I’m writing a FAQ (frequently asked questions) like thread for the deviantART linux forums. I wanted to test it and see how beginner friendly it is. In my opinion it’s very user friendly. It comes with nice hardware support and on my laptop (Thinkpad R51) it even comes with XGL out of the box. I think this could kind of be my new favourite distribution, because it uses Gnome and is using apt (with Ubuntu repositories) as the packet manager. My impression is, that Linux Mint also focusses on making it easier for people to use proprietary drivers and codecs. I’ve found Envy on the LiveCD and options to install Nvidia or ATI drivers with few clicks. That, in my eyes is a good thing. Userfriendlyness is a very important point. I even played with the thought of installing it and will maybe do so tomorrow.

Edit: I have installed it, like announced and I’m very satisfied so far.

Screenshots:

This is the main menu of Linux Mint

Here XGL and some apps like Firefox 3, installation dialogue and packet search running

Links:

• LinuxMint.com
• Torrent for downloading Linux Mint 5