Notes from the Mousepad

Cody Somerville has been writing quite a bit lately about what’s going on with Xubuntu, focusing a lot on the strategy document and some technical goals for the next release, but we also have a couple of other things in the works – some items that are kind of on the fringes of the distro, but important nonetheless.

One item is an update to the website.  Xubuntu.org is in need of a refresh!  We’ve had a couple of starts and stops on updating it over the last two releases, but nothing noteworthy ever came of it, so this time I’m putting together a project plan that will break the tasks down into smaller chunks with a clear plan for getting things in place.

I’m not going to guarantee that things will work like clockwork, and I’m not even sure who we’re going to get to help out with the website, but I figure that setting a plan with individual bits that people can do one-by-one is more likely to garner success than handing someone the keys to a base Drupal installation and saying, “Have at it!  Let us know when you’re done!”

I’m sure I’ll have more news on that once I’ve got the basic project plan in order, and (of course) we’ll be seeking out help with the website then, too.  If you think you might want to help out, please make a note of it – place a bookmark in the Firefox 3.0 of your mind.  :]  Or you can just read this blog aggregator thingy, and look for more info about the website project plan when I write about it.  Perhaps that would be better than trying to integrate Firefox 3.0 with your brain.

For now, though, work continues on adding poetic, beautiful content to the wiki, and a few documentation ideas are being tossed around amongst Xubuntu folks.  It’s kind of hard(y) to believe that the first Alpha release for Intrepid is less than a week away, but I suppose it’s how things go.

With the successful Beta release of Xubuntu 8.04, I got to thinking of some of the qualities that have always drawn me back to using Xubuntu.  I know that people have spirited feelings about their desktops of choice in the Linux world, but I thought I’d present a few reasons (8.04 reasons, to be exact) why Xubuntu (or Xfce in general) makes a good desktop environment choice, and why Ubuntu or Kubuntu users should consider using Xubuntu in place of their Gnome or KDE environments.

So, with all due respect to my Gnome- and KDE-using brothers and sisters, here they are:

1) Relative lightness – The Xfce desktop loads more quickly than Gnome or KDE desktops, and Xfce applications are built with an emphasis on lightness.  Xubuntu does have a handful of Gnome-based applications (and hence, some Gnome dependencies), but the developers avoid Gnome-lib heaviness where they can, and applications that require Gnome libraries have been only been chosen because they provide vital end-user functionality.

2) Xubuntu is extensible – I used to work at a deli when I was in college, and my boss used to tell me, “You can always add more, but you can never take away.”  He was referring to putting ingredients onto sandwiches, but his statement can also apply to Xubuntu.  You can use the breadth and depth of the Ubuntu repositories to add extra features and functionality that you may want, but the heavier Gnome or Mono libraries aren’t built into Xubuntu’s core, so you can also stick with the lighter choices if the default Xubuntu system suits your needs.

3) You know what you’re doing – Let’s say you’ve been using Ubuntu or Kubuntu for a while, and know your way around a Linux environment.  You know mv, cp, ls, grep, what a “.whatever” file is for . . .  So you don’t need a distro that’s going to hold your hand quite as frequently.  Xubuntu provides you with most of the same features of Ubuntu, but also doesn’t get in your way with a GUI for everything.  This may not be an advantage for some, but may not be a nuisance for those who are knowledgeable about their systems. Continue Reading