James'Techblog

The Linux kernel recently had a 5.0 release. This is the newest kernel signed off by Torvalds and friends. Linux 5.0 includes a plethora of changes and security fixes as is the case with any major release for the kernel. 4.20 was released around the holidays. That was a good release and I’ve been using it without issue for a while now, but Linux 5.0 has some things that might interest you. According to OMGUBUNTU, Linux Mint is getting a logo revamp as well. This is actually not something new to me, but before I assumed they were mere rumors. The new Linux Kernel’s changes are mostly hardware stack related with Raspberry Pi and Intel getting some support among other systems. This according to OMGUBUNTU. The newest kernel is already available on kernel.org, but you’ll have to compile it yourself. It is recommended to stick with the latest kernel with your distribution to retain support. Kernels are those pieces of the overall operating system that don’t really need to be updated jus...

Pale Moon is a web browser once forked from Mozilla code. As such, the browser shares many similarities with Firefox as far as style and feel. While built around older Firefox code, it is actively maintained and patched with security fixes that pertain to Pale Moon and only Pale Moon, which decreases the chances of incompatibilities and improves on code that is no longer being maintained by Mozilla anymore. Mozilla went a different direction and while on XUL they may have implemented some of the same features that Pale Moon does as of now, it is now up to Moonchild(MC Straver), to maintain this project himself with his team of developers. Pale Moon works with XUL and XP COM, both technologies no longer being supported by Mozilla, so much of the underlying code that gets implemented as security fixes in big updates, gets separated from other Mozilla code by Moonchild himself and instead he adds his own workarounds and code to patch other portions of the browser. Most people fail t...

Vivaldi recently released a new snapshot, and though I don’t often comment on the development of that version, I saw a brief overview of it on Ghacks and thought what the heck?! I’ve been using the snapshot build within Linux for some time now. I’m currently running it on Solus Mate and it feels a bit faster than Google Chrome on that particular desktop environment. I have mentioned updates from Vivaldi’s stable branch before, even did a review on the browser in general, but nothing to do with the snapshot version as it is beta software and most general users probably won’t even bother with it. The snapshots were the first to include Vivaldi’s own sync engine and a host of other features which now are included in the stable. Vivaldi recently added user accounts to their browser which allows multiple users to use separate profiles in the same browser tied to separate accounts to the sync server. This would allow users to have guests over to surf the web for a research pro...

The Swap partition is something that is debated by computer enthusiasts today within Linux. The Swap partition allows the system to suspend when not in use, hibernate, and it is instrumental in swapping out pages when RAM space is sparse. Swap is the block of space reserved on a hard drive/solid state drive that allows caching when the memory is filled during heavy read/write jobs or during normal use when such an event occurs. Regardless of how much RAM you might have, it is a good idea to at least have one an half times that in swap, however, it is possible to run your computer just fine with the bare minimum of 2GB of swap. Swap is reminiscent of the Windows Page file, however, Windows usually creates a separate file for hibernating and suspend called Hiberfil.sys.  Swap is also known as virtual memory. Swap files are small portions on the hard disk which do not count as a separate partition, however, they are bits of space cordoned off by the command fallocate –length ...

By now, most people have probably read the articles on OMGUbuntu, if you haven’t, go check them out at omgubuntu.co.uk . It talks about 5 big improvements coming to the browser Epiphany that might just make people reconsider it as a daily browser. The browser is based on Webkit or Webkit 2 as it is now known. The rendering engine Webkit is used by Midori and Apple Safari to just name a couple. Webkit is still in development, however, many developers broke off from that years ago to fork it into the now well known Blink engine used in Chrome and many others. QTWebEngine is another fork that is more a fork of the Blink engine than direct fork of Webkit. QTWebEngine does offer more advanced features, however, Webkit has recently been getting better and better at handling newer web standards. The browser itself offers similar look and feel to Safari, also a native integration with Gnome or GTK environments much as Safari integrates with MacOS. Epiphany is a browser based on the ...

As of Linux Mint 19.1, the new panel layout is more Windowsesque and similar to KDE’s icons-only-task-manager. The new layout increases the size of the panel to a more readable setting and gives users grouped applications. When you open an application, it will show up on the panel as an icon only and will be highlighted to alert the user that it is in use. This is a nice feature that reminds me of Windows 7. Before, you could set this up in Cinnamon, but as of Cinnamon version 4.0.8 Cinnamon has made the setup for you. Prior to this, you have a more Windows XP or older layout which is fine, but for most users who have the screen real estate, this new layout will work better. As I said, you can also get this functionality in KDE by going to panel options > Task List > Right click > click alternatives and click on icons-only-task-manager. Booting up Cinnamon in Manjaro live right now offers Cinnamon 4.0.1. You can still set that feature up by adding grouped applicatio...

Solus, a descendant of SolusOs, is a Unix-like operating system focused for newer users who want a truly rolling release model. Being independent now(was previously forked from Debian), it offers an Arch-like experience having to only be installed once for most users. It aspires to be a one stop shop for its user base and promises to not constantly have major point releases to get the latest software like in other distributions. The current version is 3.9999 at time of writing this. Solus uses the Adapta-gtk theme by default with Papirus as the icon set. Users who wish to change this in Gnome will have to go into Gnome-tweaks which is readily available and installed on the Gnome desktop version by default. It should also be noted that the default desktop is Budgie and Budgie itself is a derivative of Gnome. Solus uses current packages at least up to the last point version. I noticed on a recent Arch build that I was using kernel 4.20.3 whereas this build was using 4.20...