Garuda Linux is an Arch based distribution that provides an easy GUI installation of an Arch system with the widely used Calamares installer. But unlike the numerous other distributions that offer such an easy installation of an Arch system and some custom convenience tools, such as a welcome application, Garuda Linux is more ambitious. It provides installation on a Btrfs filesystem that incorporates Snapper to manage snapshot and rollback capability, as well as distribution developed …
Ultramarine Linux is a Fedora based GNU/Linux distribution developed by Fyra Labs, a professional services provider in various information technology areas. The distribution strives to be easy to use, stable, and secure with features that benefit developers as well as casual users. Some of the value it adds to its excellent Fedora base is the inclusion of additional repositories for software not distributed by Fedora, such as the third-party RPM Fusion, which provides among …
Garuda Linux is an Arch based distribution that provides an easy GUI installation of an Arch system with the widely used Calamares installer. But unlike the numerous other distributions that offer such an easy installation of an Arch system and some custom convenience tools, such as a welcome application, Garuda Linux is more ambitious. It provides installation on a Btrfs filesystem that incorporates Snapper to manage snapshot and rollback capability, as well as distribution developed …
Red Hat Enterprise Linux is the leading Linux distribution used by enterprises. Red Hat, its developer, has built a very successful FOSS business using this core product, generating revenue from RHEL support subscriptions and other large scale technologies built with RHEL at their core.
In 2014, Red Hat took control of CentOS, a community developed clone of RHEL produced by recompiling Red Hat source. In 2020 it changed the CentOS development model and purpose from …
Garuda Linux is an Arch based distribution that provides an easy GUI installation of an Arch system with the widely used Calamares installer. But unlike the numerous other distributions that offer such an easy installation of an Arch system and some custom convenience tools such as a welcome application, Garuda Linux is more ambitious -- offering much more such, as installation on a Btrfs filesystem with a fully configured system snapshot and rollback capability and …
The Lenovo Legion 5i Pro is an excellent laptop. Performance is good -- near the high end for a consumer laptop -- thanks to the Intel Core-i7 with 24 MB of level 3 cache. It also has some surprising outstanding features, such as the excellent 16" 2560x1600 IPS HDR screen. Other outstanding features are the excellent build quality, the plethora of ports, all at the latest standards, including two USB-C ports, one supporting power delivery, …
Multiple monitor computer display configurations have become the norm in recent years. Such setups greatly improve productivity, especially for certain workflows. Multiple monitor setups are not limited to those who regularly work from the same location. For those who work on laptops away form their primary locations portable monitors are available to provide the same productivity. These monitors are thin and light for portability and also do not necessarily require an additional power adapter that …
The PI3 is an around-the-neck in-ear Bluetooth headphones from Bowers & Wilkins -- maker of high end audio equipment since the 1960s.
The Bowers & Wilkins PI3 are high performance in-ear headphones designed to deliver the highest quality mobile personal audio experience combined with the convenience of wireless operation in a compact easy to wear design.
And they in fact deliver. Of the other headphones I currently use -- an Audio Technica ATH-m50xBT, a Sony …
The ATH-M50xBT is an over-ear Bluetooth headphone by Audio-Technica -- a maker of professional audio equipment. In making these headphones Audio-Technica began with the design and sound signature of the M50x wired monitor headphones from its Professional line and added the convenience of Bluetooth connection capability. According to Audio-Technica:
The ATH-M50xBT harnesses the legendary M50x studio sound for an exhilarating wireless listening experience, with exceptional clarity and deep, accurate bass response. Utilizing Bluetooth wireless technology …
NVIDIA provides a proprietary driver for Linux, which generally provides better performance compared to the alternative FOSS driver -- Nouveau, as well as better functionality for newer models of its GPUs. For desktop computers, enabling the proprietary driver is straightforward. However for Optimus laptops running Linux, the situation is …
For Linux users with NVIDIA/Intel hybrid graphics laptops, having everything working perfectly or at least to the extent that their needs are met from the computer sometimes requires intervention by the user if the chosen distribution does not set it up. Sometimes this includes adjusting the system configuration to prevent …
Firefox is an excellent browser with many useful and innovative features that is created by an organization that respects and strives to protect its users' privacy. It is also a GTK based application which means that it will use GTK elements in dialog windows for browsing files to upload to …
KDE's Dolphin file browser is widely regarded as the most customizable. But it also has a lot of advanced built-in functionality and is extensible to add even more capability. Among its most useful functionality is the ability to access and manage remote files directly in the file browser using the …
The ext4 filesystem -- and its preceding versions, known for its stability and reliability has long been the default filesystem used by most Linux distributions. However, the Btrfs filesystem, due to its scalability and next-generation fault tolerance and self healing features have helped it gain popularity.
openSUSE pioneered its use …
In a recent article on this site, a process to convert a Fedora 39 installation on a Btrfs filesystem with a simple subvolume layout to the hierarchical subvolume layout style of openSUSE with Snapper integration, automatic creation of snapshots, GRUB menu integration of snapshots, and other conveniences was presented. Since …
Fedora, in recent releases has used the next generation Btrfs filesystem by default for new installations. Unfortunately, a default installation of Fedora, or Fedora based distributions which closely follow Fedora, such as Ultramarine Linux, do not create a Btrfs subvolume layout which allows some of its advanced snapshotting and rollback …
The Arch wiki suggests a subvolume layout for an Arch system installed on a Btrfs subvolume for use with Snapper that sacrifices the ease of Snapper rollbacks and its full functionality for a simpler subvolume layout and a perceived streamlining of system restoration to a snapshot, but requires manually manipulating …
Git (or another SCM) is essential in collaborative software development. It is also very helpful for individual developers not only for managing software configuration, maintaining a remote backup, maintaining a separate authoritative software configuration on a remote computer, but for allowing the individual developer to work on a project on …
Network File System (NFS) is a system that allows a filesystem hierarchy located on a remote host to be mounted on a local host, allowing directories and files stored on the remote host to be accessed as if they were on the local host. NFS, originally developed for Unix over …
This is the second article in a series of articles on getting started with IBM's Db2 Database, a Relational Database Management System (RDBMS) that is part of a collection of data management and analysis software. The first article of the series -- Getting Started with IBM DB2 on Linux …
In the first three articles of this series of articles on getting started with IBM's Db2 Relational Database Management System, the installation methods were introduced and steps necessary for installation were presented, the installation using the Db2 Setup GUI wizard was described, and the various manual installation processes …
The VirtualBox Type II hypervisor includes a mechanism to share VM host directories with the VM guest through the functionality termed Shared Folders in a VMs settings in VirtualBox Manager. As an alternative to this built-in functionality, for cases when it is impractical, or not possible -- for example, during …
Installation of VMware Workstation Player remains as straightforward as previous version of VMware's free hypervisor for desktop systems. However Ubuntu's recent adoption of systemd in place of Upstart, has added additional steps in installing VMware Workstation Player (previously VMware Player). This article presents the installation process, describing the …
The best distribution of 2020, in my experience is Arch Linux. This is a change from my choice of the best distribution of 2019 when I chose openSUSE Tumbleweed, with Arch as a close second. openSUSE Tumbleweed retains all of its strengths in the areas of system design and system …
The best distribution of 2019 is openSUSE Tumbleweed. This article describe some of the characteristics of openSUSE that make it so, at least for me.
Almost three years after release, the Blackberry Passport and other devices that use Blackberry 10 OS are essentially useless to most people who are used to the cornucopia of apps in the Apple App Store and in Google Play -- especially popular social media apps -- because of the very …
The openSUSE project produces two of the best distributions in the Linux world -- the rolling Tumbleweed and the regular release Leap. It has been my favorite distribution for many years because, in my opinion, it is a technically superior distribution with a mature and extensive infrastructure where rationality is …
The Btrfs filesystem for Linux is believed by some to be the next default filesystem for Linux, replacing the current de-facto standard default filesystem, ext4. It has many advanced features which are not available in the current standard filesystem, such as copy-on-write capability which allows the creation of snapshots, …
The Btrfs filesystem used in combination with Snapper to allow system rollbacks without an external live system was pioneered by openSUSE almost a decade ago. This configuration creates Btrfs snapshots periodically and when package management transactions, such as updates, are performed. When a rollback is required, it can be effectuated …
Besides producing a beautiful Linux distribution by customizing the theme of the Plasma desktop, the focus of Garudal Linux is to optimize the distribution for performance. As a supplement to Garudal Linux Review [KDE Dragonized (D460nized),210621], I thought it would be interesting to see if the optimizations that the …
The TeX Users Group provides a comprehensive TeX system called TeX Live from which Linux distributions build their own system for inclusion in their package repositories. For some time I have noticed some bugs that have caused minor breakage in a long and complex document I have been preparing each …