The Linux Desktop - Paul Shirren
The Meeting 1 slideshow below was exported to Flash from Open Office. Click on the slides to change them.
Here are some links to resources mentioned during the presentation. And some additonal background material.
How I build 2.6 kernels
If you don't want to build your own kernels, you will find them starting to come out in new versions of popular distributions soon.
The first few times you do it you might want to have someone experienced help you out with the config stage. I configure my kernels with make menuconfig
A quick google should find lots of help on building 2.6 kernels if you want to give it a go. Or you can try and follow my instructions.
I download the linux-2.6.x.tar.bz2 file from a kernel mirror into /usr/src.
I cd to /usr/src and type
tar xjf linux-2.6.x.tar.bz2and get a linux-2.6.x directory which, I either rename or create a symbolic link to /usr/src/linux.
As new versions of the kernel come out I download the bzipped patch files into /usr/src. Every time I upgrade to a new kernel, I copy my /usr/src/linux/.config file to somewhere safe, and delete the linux source directory,
rm -R /usr/src/linuxThen unpack the source
tar xjf linux-2.6.x.tar.bz2Then I change to the source directory
cd /usr/src/linux, and apply the patches one by one in order with
bzcat ../patch-2.6.n.bz2 |patch -p1
Then copy my old .config back into /usr/src/linux, type
make oldconfiganswer any questions, then
make; make modules; make modules_installThen I copy the system map and kernel image to their proper locations
cp System.map /boot/System.map-2.6.x cp arch/i386/bzImage /vmlinux-2.6.xThen I update my lilo.conf and type lilo to install it. I always keep an entry in my lilo.conf for my last good working kernel so I can revert back if I have problems.
I also apply Andrew Mortons patches to my desktop kernels. You don't have to apply all the patches for a particular kernel version. If you have kernel 2.6.6 installed you just download and install the most recent mm patch from that directory with bzcat and patch.
Desktop Hardware
Talked about what desktop users expected from hardware support in a modern OS. ACPI, USB, automatic detection, notification and configuration of h/w via desktop.
I am not going to link to all of these. Google or search your distros packages.
- acpid - used by desktop apps to monitor battery status etc & power button shutdown.
- hotplug - removable device support
- ifplugd - automatic network detection - combined with dhcp lets you move between networks.
- powernowd - user space speed processor speed change
- DRI - acceleration for your graphics card
- hddtemp - monitor your hd temp via SMART
- lmsensors - never works for me hardware monitoring
- DBUS - Freedesktop project to allow desktop to get hardware notifications and more
Desktop Software
- Freedesktop - Cairo, xservers and lots more.
- Gnome - Check out the useablity guidelines.
- Mono - .NET for Linux
Cairo's fdclock was demonstrated, as was the Freedesktop xserver with compositing manager to show translucent windows and shadows. Also EVAS was shown and compared.
We had a very brief look at Gnome 2.6 and at the spacial Nautilus.
Other
We mentioned using tail -f to watch log files. Using screen to detach from console sessions and re-attach later - great for remote sessions. And watch was used to repeatedly execute a command - ie watch cat /etc/cpuinfo to watch as powernowd changed cpu speed.
We also had a talk about websites. Capel recommended NVU for editing webpages. For some reason we had a look at Riverland School Websites. and in particular picked on the borken Renmark High site with their backslashes in URLs.
If there is anything missing from the above, you want added, please email me on or off list. Cheers - Shirro.