Ubuntu Musings

Recently, I started trying to learn Python. And, no, not because everyone seems to be learning to code this year. Doing this has been on my back burner for a while, and I’ve finally decided to take the reins.

I don’t expect to become much of a coder or scripter, but picking up some Python is something that has interested me for a while.

As part of the whole process, I decided that I needed to code in an IDE. A text editor is fine, but I need a bit more.

That said, most IDEs are overkill for me at the moment. I’m not, as I pointed out, a hard core developer and I don’t need all the bells and whistles.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve tried a few Python IDEs and decided to focus on two. Let’s take a look at them.

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Variety. It is, as the saying goes, the spice of life. And where can you get more variety than with a Linux distribution?

When I test drive (or do more) with a new Linux distro, I’m usually exposed to some software that might not normally look at. And that’s what happened when I recently switched back to Xubuntu. I started using four small applications that I probably wouldn’t have normally taken a look at otherwise.

Here’s a quick peek at them.

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It’s been a while since I last used a Linux distro with xfce. Several years, in fact. Back then, it was a version of Xubuntu running on a Thinkpad T40 laptop that I’d bought via Craigslist.

The Thinkpad packed 1.5 GB of memory, a 1.5 GHz processor, and a 40 GB hard drive. Not the biggest or baddest machine around. But as I recall, Xubuntu was quite zippy on it.

Recently, I came full circle and started using xfce again. Why? I did something smart in a really stupid way. To make a long story short, I somehow hosed my Ubuntu 11.04 desktop. When I logged in, neither the panel or Unity loaded. Pressing ALT+F2 wouldn’t bring up the Run dialog box and I couldn’t get to the command line.

The funny thing is that my daughter’s account on that computer was fine.

So, I decided on the spur of the moment to install Xubuntu 11.10. Using the magic of su and sudo, along with a couple of USB flash drives, I was able to back up my important files. Then, I used another one to create a bootable USB drive.

Twenty minutes later, I had a new desktop on my nearly five-year-old ZaReason laptop.

So far, I have no complaints. My computer runs faster than it has in a while, and I’m sure that I can find a way to tweak Xubuntu to go a bit faster.

I’m still trying to find a desktop theme that I really like but that’s not a major concern.

Overall, though, I’m finding Xubuntu 11.10 to be a big improvement over the version that I used a few years ago. It’s keeping my old laptop alive a bit longer and saving me a bit of money.

Stay tuned as this adventure continues.

If you have an idea for a book, you’re no longer at the mercy of an editor at a big (or even small) publishing house somewhere. Thanks to computers, we can all be publishers — and for more than just one day.

Yes, you guessed it. ebooks are the great leveler. Or, at least, they can be. If you have a fairly recent Linux distro and LibreOffice Writer you can publish your own ebooks quickly and easily.

OK, you’re probably thinking: using a word processor as an ebook publishing tool? There’s no reason why you can’t. People have written and published ebooks using LibreOffice Writer (and OpenOffice.org Writer) in the past. Admittedly those ebooks were PDFs but …

Thankfully, PDF isn’t the only ebook format in town. An arguably better one is EPUB. Thanks to an extension called Writer2ePub, you can use LibreOffice Writer (and OpenOffice.org Writer, too) to publish ebooks in EPUB format.

Let’s take a look at how.

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If you’ve been reading this space for any length of time, you know that I’m a heavy user of Markdown. I do a lot of writing with it. In fact, about one-third of my writing is done with a text editor and Markdown. Mainly articles and blog posts.

While I use and like Gedit, I’ve been looking for a dedicated Markdown editor for a while now. I found a promising one a few years ago, but it’s abandonware now. Since then, nothing.

Well, until I stumbled upon ReText a couple of weeks ago. While it’s not 100% there yet, ReText is a solid and capable editor with some useful features.

Let’s take a closer look at it.

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As you may or may not know, about a year ago I hosted a FLOSS Manuals book sprint. In the space of two days, the team I worked with put together a very nice manual for the Thunderbird email client. You can read the manual here, and about the sprint here.

But a lot changes in a year. It’s time to update the manual. And I’m looking for some help. I’m going to try to get as many of the band who did the original manual back together for either a book jog or a book sprint sometime in November. But a few more hands would be appreciated.

So, if you’re interested in helping out contact me. Or, if you know someone who might be, put them in touch with me. This is a great opportunity to stretch yourself and help out a very worthy Open Source project. And if you’re an aspiring technical writer, here’s your chance to do some real-world work.

One more thing: you don’t have to be in Toronto to join in. You can do take part virtually.

I’ll be putting together a list of what needs to be updated in the next couple of weeks. That list will be posted here and on the FLOSS Manuals discussion list. From there … well, we can get started!

Hope to hear from you!