Due to a hatred of the new ubuntu UI (I like a desktop UI on my desktop rather than being forced to use a tablet layout), the time came to switch Linux version (in this case to Mint Linux as it has a nice simple UI but means I can still use all the debian packages)

As it was a complete wipe of the HDD, i noted down all my Linux apps for reinstall and figured that maybe one or 2 others might find the list useful

VMWare Workstation (without which Linux would not be a suitable desktop operating system for me)

Jungle Disk Backup (Desktop Version and Server Management)

Guake Terminal (a simple and persistent terminal on the hot key F12)

Btnx (mouse mapping deamon and GUI)

Thunar File Manager (very powerful file rename accepts regex)

Truecrypt (because only the paranoid survive, and i carry client data)

FileZilla (the de facto Linux FTP client)

EASYTAG (The best audio tager for Linux)

LYX Document Processor (a great GUI for LaTex word processing)

Prey (enabling you to disable/track/find lost electronic equipment)

Streamripper (command line Internet radio ripper)

Mainstream (thankfully ported to Linux)
Skype
Lotus Notes
Spotify
Crome
DropBox

Games
Amnesia and Penumbra Games (quite the most shit my pants scary games ive every played esp Amnesia)
The humble bundle Games (i get them when ever there is a new bundle)

Linux Standard (Normally installed with most Linux distros now, but still used all the time.)
Libre Office
GIMP
GNome Mplayer
Audacious (the best music player for Linux)
VLC (for the rare times Mplayer does not handle media)
Mozilla Thuderbird (for backing up my Gmail)

Old Comments

Bill Malchisky(21/11/2011 03:49:18 GMT)

Nice list and post. Here are a few more apps that I use, which may be helpful as well.

Adobe Acrobat, Flash plugin
Transmission BitTorrent Client
Tomboy Notes
Tetravex, Sudoku, Klotski, gBrainy, Atomix (games)
Remmina Remote Desktop Client (the best)
Archive Manager
WiFi Radar

Mark Myers(21/11/2011 09:32:58 GMT)

Ooo like the “Remmina Remote Desktop Client” that one to use, thanks for the add ones, ill have a look at them.

have you tried the Amnesia game?

Ubuntu has been the king of the hill as far as desktop Linux distros go for a while now, but with the recent UI changes and movement away from the gnome shell many people feel they have fumbled the ball a bit, I was one of them, I considered just replacing the UI with gnome 3 but I would have to do it every time 6 months, and as Bill Buchan often points out that’s a bit “hair shirt”, so i chose Mint Linux instead, as it seemed completely aimed at my kind of usage and is build off Ubuntu (mint 11 is based on ubuntu 11.04),

The install was fast and all hardware worked straight away (on a thinkpad w510), the UI is clean, crisp and very simple to use, it feels how people were hoping vista would be and how Win7 should be.

Good points

• Stupidly fast, too fast in places as screens can change in less than the blink of an eye leaving you a tiny bit confused, but what a perfect way to be confused
• 99% of all the debian/ubuntu stuff works flawlessly (vmware being the most important, Lotus Notes did not but I’m betting that’s an IBM oddity)
• The built in programs are completely up to date, I installed the complete version which contained Media players and codex etc etc, and the issues that i had been fighting with on ubuntu with 10bit video were completely gone
• PAE memory management works straight out of the box
• As its built off ubuntu, if you have your old ubuntu home directoy backed up you can just restore it and all your setting are back in a snapBad points
• The compiz window manager does not handle multiple screens very well particularly multiple xsessions, thankfully there is a fix Here
• The new software manager that they are so proud of is a bit slow and clunky compared to Synaptic Package Manager, but you can use them interchangeably without any problem
• I miss my second panelSooo, conclusion, if you use Linux as I do as a fast host to run your vmware images and do admin/web work then i completely recommend it,

Old Comments

Joe Litton(20/11/2011 17:37:57 GMT)

Doing same here. I fear that Canonical’s desire to massage Ubuntu for mobile may have killed its usefulness for desktop. But as long as the Mint folks can keep basing on Ubuntu and offering such a nice UI, I’ll be happy

Mark Myers(20/11/2011 17:57:13 GMT)

@joe though i would be interested if you could tell me if you can get notes to work, it installs and loads fine but wont render notes database to the screen when you open them

Mark Myers(20/11/2011 17:54:26 GMT)

Cool, im really pleased with it, the speed is blowing me away, hope its good for you as well

Right, i’m finally writing this on Linux, i’ve installed the 8.5 client (no dev or admin in it yet!! booo) and it was much easier than I expected, there are distro packages for all the major formats (debain/umbutu, RPM/redhat ISMP/InstallShield MutliPlatform), and they install as easily as any windows program (easier in fact as you don’t have to worry where the data directory is going to go as it puts it in the root of your current home directory),

Running it is easy as well, though it has that distinctive “I was written in Java UI, what a shame!!” feel about it, also its still a bit slow loading (but not running),so all in all a pleasent experience (pity about them hiding the bleeding spell checker and when I found it, it does not it work!!

Never mind, off to install the server

On a more interesting note pop over to Adam Gartenberg’s Blog and look at the his link for popping your CV in wordle, a fab idea, but produces a worrying result, think its time I re-did it. (ick!!)

This is not a ASW title, but the name of a skillsmatter evening talk, unlike most skills matter presentations this was only 10 mins long (presented by Ryan Duffield @rduffield ) , which allowed for a good bit of discussion before we piled down to the pub, anyway you can see the presentation HERE.

I took a load of notes during the talk and the discussion afterwards, but have decided not to put them down here in the end, as to me the real differences between the 2 databases were down to their origins and usage cases rather than direct comparisons, yes they are both NoSQL dbs but they are very very different beasts, MongoDb is a noSQL db designed to appeal to relational DB developers, its interfaces are the same, a lot of its behaviours are the same and one of its main roles is to overcome the scaling issues that traditional relational dB’s suffer from in this Internet age, a challenge that it is proving its self more than a match for, where as Couchdb (and its enterprise evolution couchbase) was designed to fulfil approximately the same role as one of its inspirations ‘Lotus Notes’ (though without its limitations), in that is is designed for robustness, security and replication rather than speed, able to survive on large and small devices alike and able to carry its applications with it.

Soooo basically, if you want good replication and serious horizontal scaling where fault tolerance is more important than performance then go for couchdb, but if your looking for a high performance NoSQL replacement for a relational db like MySQL where scaling to massive size is your primary requirement, then go for Mongo

(waits to be flamed)

Old Comments

Sean cull(11/10/2011 22:37:24 GDT)

I must admit that using xpages is highlighting the limitations of the underlying NSF much more.

Adding 3 drop down filters to a repeat /view means a view with 3 key columns and many times more rows of data if a ft search is not possible.

Yes I know this wasn’t possible with notes but in xpages you want to match the feature sets on other modern web application.

Similarly my rule of thumb of <100k records in an NSF is severely challenged by the apps that I want to write now.

Xpages is cool but now the NSF ( which I need for replication ) is felling old.

Richard Moy(11/10/2011 16:04:12 GDT)

I have tried Coucbdb. It is a good analogy to NSF with one exception which I think is great, there is a true separation of form and data.

Mark Myers(11/10/2011 16:10:18 GDT)

Cool

Mark Myers(11/10/2011 23:46:47 GDT)

@sean – i could not agree more, the 32k limit and performance problems are really starting to cause issues, making me start to doubt notes as a platform or find it hard to justify, i reckon it should be IBMs next port of call, we have xpages, we have xwork server, time to update the data store

Simon Letourneau(15/12/2011 16:31:55 GMT)

In Domino there is the 64k limit of any @formula result.

-workaround easy with generating an evenly distributed index and using it as a key in lookups. In kiwi hoop we do a modulo X of the lenght of a field. We then make X lookups and merge the results. Once you code the layer in lotusscript it goes fine.

There is the 32k limit in a field. You can set the isSummary = false on the item. You can also use a wrapper class that will split the setValue and then merge the getValue.

We have solved these limits so there is really no advantage to drop domino. We still benefit from so much good features that will never see the light in couch or mongo.

Mark Myers(22/12/2011 14:44:57 GMT)

@simon your dead right, its one of the thinks i have mentioned to the mongo guys, that IBM have been fighting these problems for ages so learn from their lessons

Another night, another Skills matter freebie, tonight’s dish is on practical Scalaz (which is a bolt on to normal Scala ). Served up by Chris Marshall ( @oxbow_lakes), This was a very sane and straight talking presentation dealing with both the good and bad of Scalaz. Covering the following topics:

-Data types
-Kinds
-Monoids
-Not having to do java folds
-Filters
-Conjunctions
-Endo types
-Validation

it was a very heavy talk, strong on the pure code and maths, more than once I had to go look up a word that was being used to get its precise definition, I was grateful that skills matter record all of these sessions as I really had concentrate rather than take notes (in fact I will have to go back and have another go at it as there were some parts that were beyond me).

The audience seemed to be split 50/50 on people that knew the stuff and those that were struggling to follow, a pleasant change to the normal “introduction To xxx” that assume every body is a idiot.
All in all the talk was very well given and was as clear as was humanly possible given the subject matter, i would advise people to go and watch it here, even if you don’t want to understand Scala or Scalaz, because if you have ever seen the programming roles on job sites with huge pay rates but demand “investment Banking experience” being able to follow this kind of stuff is why!

P.S. a good introducton to Scalaz can be found here