I have a dual-boot Ubuntu/CentOS laptop that my daughter has been using for the last few years. I'm about to decommission it (is that the proper terminology, decommission?) due to the fact that the laptop pretty much falling apart. Even so, I'm in the process of updating both the CentOS 5.2 and Ubuntu 10.04 installations.

While I do have a Linux/Windows dual-boot on my main laptop (the 2010 Lenovo G555), these days I don't stuff more than one Linux or BSD on a single machine. (For the most part, dual-booting is just not worth the trouble, though I reserve the right to change my mind.)

On the CentOS/Ubuntu dual-boot, the Ubuntu side started out as Xubuntu and eventually morphed into GNOME-running Ubuntu that survived an upgrade from 8.04 to 10.04.

Now that I have the laptop -- the old 2002-era Gateway Solo 1450 -- plugged in, I decided to update the CentOS 5.2 side first, just to see if it would work after years of being neither booted nor upgraded. It's in the process of downloading and installing some 350+ packages and is taking its own sweet time despite a very fast network connection.

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I've been wondering how you adjust the number of virtual workspaces on the Unity desktop in Ubuntu 12.04.

Well, you can add more or take some away. This AskUbuntu.com article shows you how to do it.

Icedove's recent history in the Debian Mozilla APT archive has been spotty.

You can rely on the archive for either the latest stable Iceweasel (aka Firefox) or a development version. But Icedove has been in and out. The "newer" version that the archive offered for quite some time was v.5, and that tended to break iceowl-extension and Google Calendar integration, neither of which were part of the Debian Mozilla APT archive themselves but which limped along from Squeeze itself.

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I really wanted LiVES to work. I installed it in Debian Squeeze, but I couldn't figure out the first thing about how to use it. I figured out how to play a clip, but it wouldn't work -- I just got a blank window on my screen.

It really makes me appreciate how well OpenShot works.

Not that I'm against trying everything, because I'm not. Right after LiVES failed me, I installed the KDEnlive video editing application on my Debian system. While I haven't actually edited anything in it just yet, I have poked around in the interface and imported and played with a few clips.

I hope to try it soon for a full video, but I'll have to do a little reading first so I know what I'm doing.

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We users of Linux are a fickle lot. We flit here and there, from one distro to another, even to a BSD on occasion.

I've been "loyal" to Debian for a couple years now. It works. But it's time for a change.

Given the demise of GNOME 2 in favor of the radically reimagined GNOME 3, I've been "auditioning" everything from CrunchBang (Openbox with Xfce's Thunar file manager) and Bodhi (Enlightenment) to Fedora (GNOME 3 and Xfce), Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Lubuntu and Debian Wheezy.

I go back and forth on GNOME 3 and Unity. Sometimes I think I can be productive in these very different environments. Other times I wonder what's wrong with having a traditional application menu.

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So I'm in the live environment for Xubuntu 12.04, which aside from the ugly wallpaper (including every alternative wallpaper on the ISO image) is a great-looking and -working Xfce 4.8 desktop.

My main mission in running the live distro from a USB flash drive: Checking networked-filesystem support in the Thunar file manager.

So far I'm using FTP in Thunar to write this post. And I didn't need the Gigolo helper program to open the FTP site and create and save the file.

That's a win.

After a few false starts, I also got Thunar working for sftp connections.

Another win.

What I "forgot" to do originally when trying to start an sftp:// connection in Thunar was to specify the port number when I opened it up. Here's how I did it:

• In Thunar, go to "Go" in the menu, then select "Open Location."
• In the Open Location dialog, enter this:

sftp://yoursecureftpsite.com:portnumber

In my case, that port number is 2222, so it would be something like this (I'm using a "fake" URL for demonstration purposes; use your real URL and real port number to make this work -- I can verify that it does work -- and you don't need Gigolo!):

sftp://yoursecureftpsite.com:2222

• Once you enter the sftp address with port number following the colon, you'll be prompted to OK the SSL certificate of the server.
• If you trust that certificate, OK it. Then Thunar will open a window to your server via secure FTP, and you can use the file manager to treat that server like a native filesystem, sorting the files in Thunar and editing them with the application of your choice. I used Leafpad, as it is the default text editor in Xfce (and in Xubuntu).

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Google Drive just made its public debut, so I'm testing something totally different: SpiderOak.

You can file SpiderOak under, "everything's encrypted, unlike Dropbox and Google Drive they can't see ANYTHING you do, more geeky and more powerful."

I've been meaning to try SpiderOak for years. Today I downloaded and installed the client software on my Debian Squeeze laptop, and right now I'm backing up the exact same files I have in Dropbox.

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You know what I'm doing? Using the Epiphany Web browser that ships with GNOME. In my case, that's GNOME 2.30.2 in Debian Squeeze.

Why? I've been having trouble with one of my most-used web-delivered apps in Firefox and Google Chrome.

So I decided to try Epiphany.

Sure it's slower than Chrome. But it compares well with Firefox. And I've solved a few lazy-developer issues (i.e. things that work well in some browsers but not so well in others).

I'll continue testing this over-the-web app with Epiphany. I hope it does more things well. If not, I'll go back to Firefox and Chrome. But if it does, I'll have some nice time ahead of me running Epiphany until GNOME 2.x bites the dust (which could be a very long time in my Debian installation).

One thing I'll be looking at is how Epiphany performs over time. Most browsers bog down in terms of memory usage and processes as the session continues. Both Chrome and Firefox can try one's patience in this regard.

I can't imagine that the Epiphany browser, known by some as the generic app name Web, will be anywhere near the same in GNOME 3. I could be wrong. It could be a whole lot better.

People are always talking about how long they've had a particular Debian installation, some upgrading the same box through many subsequent releases.

On the desktop anyway, restless, tinkerish people such as myself have a habit of blowing out their OSes for one reason or another -- usually extensive modification/experimentation that breaks things. Others can't go more than a month without either distro-hopping to the next new release.

Since Linux distributions and BSD project releases and the thousands of software packages that are available in affiliated repositories don't cost anything, there's no incentive to hold onto an installation for years and years like with Microsoft Windows or Mac OS.

I think those with proprietary OSes hold onto their installations more to preserve their stash of pirated applications than the system software itself, which usually can be reinstalled easily from the discs that came with the computer. But that's another matter for another day.

In my case, the reasons for keeping this particular Debian laptop running uninterrupted include maintaining productivity (which I want) and not messing with stability (which Debian Stable has) coupled with my current lack of taste for distro-hopping and repeating the work involved in setting up things the way I like them.

I've been careful with this particular Debian Squeeze installation on my Lenovo G555 laptop, and it's been running pretty much every day since late November 2010. And it's now April 2012.

That's a long, long time for me. I thought I "broke" the system today during some OwnCloud client testing, but it turns out I just clicked something I don't normally click in Gthumb, making it impossible to shrink images while preserving their aspect ratio.

But I figured out what went wrong, Gthumb is working again, and this Debian Squeeze install continues to run.

Not that I'd swear off fixing what I could if I had unlimited funds, but I don't. So I fix things.

A few weeks ago I did the latest rebuild of the hot-water valve in the shower. It goes more than any other as it is a Price-Pfister valve with a rubber washer, gets a lot of use and is very close to the water source and hence gets more pressure despite the new pressure-reducing valve we had installed (by Philip the plumber; I know my limits, or at least I think I do).

The valve seat was OK, and the valve stem was replaced (by me) the last time I rebuilt the faucet. Despite the pressure-reducing valve, a whole lot of pressure builds up in the system when the water is off for any length of time. I might need one of those little tanks above the hot-water heater that helps even out the pressure. Or something else. I'm open to suggestion.

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