[Hut] under the [Sky].[Net]

With the latast Ubuntu 11.10 out, I had to go for something that would be less resource hungry than Unity on my laptop. After considering a downgrade to one of the older releases, or switching to Mint or Debian, I chose Lubuntu as it seemed to combine up-to-date Ubuntu software sources that contain all I’m used to having on my laptop, and a more lightweight desktop environment.

I have to say I took to it immediately as there are no lags or glitches that I experienced before. All configuration was easy to find, with the only exception of adding a secondary keyboard layout. I added Keyboard Layout Switcher to the panel and then went to the general Preferences -> Keyboard and Mouse -> Keyboard section. But there was no way to add another layout, I could only go to LXKeymap application from there and change to another layout system-wide, but not to add a secondary layout.

After some time, I found help on this forum:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=175&t=62681

One has to go to this configuration file:

/etc/xdg/lxsession/LXDE/autostart

and add the following:

@setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,cz

Naturally, you add whatever locales you need instead of us,cz. You can switch between the layouts using Alt + Shift after you’ve logged out and in.

I also prefer qwerty version of the Czech layout so there was one minor thing to change:

@setxkbmap -option grp:switch,grp:alt_shift_toggle,grp_led:scroll us,cz_qwerty

Apart from this small drawback, I have to say I’ve become quite partial to LXDE so far.

One of the few things I really do miss in Linux environment is a proper accounting software.

About a year ago, I managed to convince a friend of mine who owns this local store to try Linux on his office computer. He took to the idea gladly because the computer in his office was used by many various users, his father, part-time workers etc. Every one of them installed an icq toolbar here, a small application there and as a result, we had to re-install Windows quite often since the computer was constantly overloaded with unnecessary applications, spyware and viruses. Yes, we could have set up a Windows account with more restrictive rules, but Linux simply seemed a safer choice. At first I was worried about how people who don’t know much about computers, people who use computers just for browsing, e-mails or editing excel documents would react to a completely different operating system.

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This has nothing to do with my work, but it’s related to computers anyway and life’s not work all the time, is it.

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Sometimes, it happens that when I want to connect to one of my Debian machines over the vncviewer tool, I just can’t type in the password to unlock the screen. (more…)