trollboy
It's not long enough for
United Kingdom
I'm a long time Linux user, well eight to nine years worth and during that time I have been a major distro-hopper. I've tried distros as varied as Ubuntu, CentOS, openSUSE, Debian, Slackware, Fedora and even FreeBSD as well as many, many more but I've never really found that felt right until now. LMDE (XFCE) ticks most of my boxes and even after a few months feels like home. I have the attention span of a hyperactive mayfly so it will be interesting to see how long the feeling lasts
Despite my years of using Linux, I do not consider myself an expert or guru; in general things have gone way to smoothly to aid the learning curve. I can usually fix any issues when the computer is in front of me, even if I have to spend quite a bit of time swearing while looking through Google! It's much harder diagnosing problems remotely when on a forum -_-
I call myself trollboy as one of my hobbies is making complaints about something silly in an advert; for example complaining to Alpen that their ladies doing aerobics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kyIRIDQbug) advert wasn't long enough! well, it keeps me off street corners and customer service departments busy. And just occasionally, I get a gem of a reply.
Outside of computers, I like quite a range of music, cats and have a large collection of cacti.
--- UPDATE ---
I've been away from Mint for a while as the ADHD kicked in and I have installed and tried many different distributions while I have been gone including Fedora, Scientific, Ubuntu 11.10, openSUSE, #! and Salix. They all have things I like but I'm back so read in to that what you will ^-^
Tutorials
| Title | Score | |
|---|---|---|
| 13 years ago | How to make software open much faster | 65 |
| 13 years ago | Embedded terminal | 11 |
| 12 years ago | Flexible web development using name based virtual hosting | 10 |
| 13 years ago | Automatically store files on a remote server | 9 |
Software reviews
| Software | Score |
|---|---|
| banshee "I used to hate this but have grown to really like it over time." |
4 |
| kompozer "A handy tool for working up a design before building it" |
4 |
| opera "I have revised my opinion of Opera upwards since using the latest version from their website. With an ad block extension and a javascript blocking extension it is a much better experience. And good grief it's fast! It may even replace Firefox as my default browser. Well, after a few weeks, Firefox still feels like home." |
4 |
| gnumeric "Very nice and light spreadsheet. Number one if your computer can't handle LibreOffice." |
4 |
| guake "I used to love this but having gnome terminal embedded in my desktop using Compiz is soooo much cooler" |
3 |
| scribus "4.5 only because my favourite software list is getting too long! Brilliant at it's job." |
4 |
| gnome-mahjongg "Fun for a little bit of time wasting. Can make your eyes bleed though." |
4 |
| lbreakout2 "Simple and fun" |
4 |
| monodevelop "It's a competent IDE but mono encumbered" |
1 |
| mysql-server "A web server is not really whole without this. While there are other data storage mechanisms for dynamic sites, none scale as well or as easily. Maria DB is better but not in the repositories" |
4 |
| gufw "Excellent firewall GUI" |
5 |
| emacs "It's all right but there are many better editors" |
3 |
| sauerbraten "Superb and in slo-mo mode you can actually win :D" |
5 |
| gimp "The interface takes a bit of getting used to but this is an awesome application" |
5 |
| ghex "Does what it is supposed to with a minimum of fuss" |
4 |
| meld "This is a great tool. Doesn't seem to be able to create a patch though." |
5 |
| krusader "I wish this was available for Gtk" |
4 |
| htop "Nicer than plain old top" |
4 |
| unetbootin "Don't use it often but it's never failed me when I do" |
4 |
| mousepad "Nice editor. Simple and fast. I prefer this to gedit when using a GUI." |
4 |
| eclipse "I use Eclipse at work for PHP / Javascript and it works very well." |
4 |
| gthumb "Tried many other image managers and always end back with gthumb. It works beautifully under XFCE also." |
5 |
| emerald "I love this. You can get osme of the nicest Window decorations on any platform and if you have the time and skill, you can build your own theme." |
5 |
| exaile "I do like this and it's currently vying for my affections agains gmusicbrowser" |
4 |
| joe "Changed my score from 3 to 5 as I really like this. Now I have three choices for command line editing. vim, nano and joe" |
5 |
| synaptic "The only way to install if you're using a GUI. apt-get is still better ;)" |
4 |
| subversion "Greatest version control system but has an unfortunate habit of breaking backwards compatibility and yep, 1.6 does it again" |
4 |
| build-essential "A must have if you want to compile software with as few headaches as possible. This does not include headaches caused by writing software...." |
5 |
| gcc "Awesome compiler." |
5 |
| crawl "Superb timewaster" |
4 |
| keepassx "Been using this for a litle while and it seems to work with no problems. I like the fact I can keep the DB on my USB key and therefore in my pocket at all times!" |
4 |
| geany "I use Code::Blocks or Eclipse for serious coding bouts but for quick edits not much beats this" |
4 |
| torcs "To call the computer controlled drones AI is to insult those working on real AI. The cars will be at this point on the track, at this speed pointing in this direction at this time. Should one of the computer controlled cars brush against you with the force of a butterfly, your car will go into a spin, yet it would take a nuclear bomb to make the computer cars deviate from their path. The graphics do convery a good sense of movement but I am usure of the physics as all the cars seem to accelerate at nearly the sme rate, have an identical top speed, except for the obviously slow cars. I should hate it. And yet it's fun. Why is that?" |
4 |
| compiz "Paired with Emerald, this is truly awesome and pretty. With light use of effects, it can improve your work flow. With heavy use of effects it can give you a migraine!" |
4 |
| codeblocks "It's amazing what gems you find when browsing round this community. Code::Blocks is one of them. As a beginner to c, I need an IDE that helps me but doesn't do all the work for me. I've found it." |
5 |
| ttf-mscorefonts-installer "Verdana is a must have if you are on the Internet... or at least it is if you're me :)" |
4 |
| mint-search-addon "Raises revenue but I suspect there is limited scope for styling. If you hate this addon so much why not make a small monthly donation instead of using it?" |
5 |
| lazarus "I have just had a shiver go down my spine. In a good way. This reminds me of Delphi (Kylix on Linux) from Borland. I'll have to look into this as I may have found my primary programming home, along with C. Ah nostalgia :)" |
4 |
| firefox "Still the best browser. A bit of a memory hog though, particularly with certain extensions installed. The wonderful No Script seems to be one of the main culprits." |
5 |
| wine "I have mixed feelings about Wine. On one hand, I can play the 10+ year old Windows games that I used to love but on the other hand, I'm still running some Windows software. I think I have to say that I like it purely for the ability to play things like Hardwar and Privateer 2: The Darkening." |
4 |
| abuse "This is good. I wish Linux Format hadn't reviewed it because then I wouldn't have known about it" |
4 |
| homebank "Poor import facilities and no way to set up direct debits. Shame as it is so close to getting a 4" |
1 |
| thunar "Very lightweight especially when you consider the features, but on LMDE, I have a strange issue when opening the first window after booting. It takes a long time, gives a failure message and then opens the window." |
4 |
| xfce4-terminal "It's a fully featured terminal that works as well as any other" |
4 |
| xfce4 "This was always my number 2 after Gnome; but since Gnome 3 / Shell, it's my number 1! Slap on Compiz, Emerald and Mint Menu and it's as slick as Gnome ever was" |
5 |
| kde-full "I don't actually know why I don't like KDE. I just don't like it. It can only be the overall feel of the thing in use." |
2 |
| aisleriot "A great time waster" |
5 |
| thunderbird "I used to use Evolution but then I gave this a try. It's very fast but lacks some of the features such as the calendar. The lightning extension isn't compatible with Thunderbird 3 which is a shame. Thunderbird is awesome but I wish there was a 4.5 for the lack of lightning!" |
5 |
| gmusicbrowser "Doesn't have the playlist annoyances of Rhythmbox. Isn't mono encumbered like Banshee. Works better than Exaile." |
5 |
| rapidsvn "I like this GUI but svn is a lot easier to control from the terminal. " |
4 |
| bluefish "This is a nice app, but it's no Geany" |
3 |
| mintmenu "I'm not normally a fan of these "extended" menus, but this one is slick and simple. It is definitely a selling point for Mint." |
5 |
| filezilla "Excellent FTP package. Fast and reliable" |
4 |
| gparted "This makes partitions very easy indeed. If it has one drawback it would be that it is so intuitive that it can make you think you don't need a backup before going ahead!" |
5 |
| mono-complete "There is no doubting the quality of what has been produced by the Mono project but... it's based on a Microsoft technology even if it an open standard" |
2 |
| gnote "Excellent. Like Tomby but no Mono. It's lighter and faster. This should be the default rather than Tomboy" |
5 |
| tomboy "It's actually not a bad program. If only it wasn't written using Mono" |
2 |
| f-spot "Not great. Slow and clunky. Always immediately replaced by gthumb" |
2 |
| chromium "It's a good browser but the way it allows ad blocking is clunky. Also I really dislike the fact that I can't have my menu bar at the top where it's meant to be. I know it's daft, but that's why I don't use it!" |
3 |
| openoffice.org "It's not a bad office suite, but the Libre Office fork is faster, smoother and truly free (as in speech as well as beer). I think that Libre Office is the default in Mint 11" |
2 |
| cssed "Always installed but not often used these days. A super tool when you are stuck with CSS syntax" |
4 |
| gambas2 "A nice BASIC implementation; can achieve very professional results and also ideal for a new programmer." |
4 |
| backintime-gnome "This is so easy to use that there is no excuse for not taking backups. It doesn't compress the backups but I like that as I can navigate the directory structure if I wish. It uses hard links to present a full directory structure in every backup while only actually copying any changed files. Take a backup every hour. You're worth it!" |
5 |
| brutalchess "It's not as strong as many other chess games which is ideal for me. It also looks great" |
4 |
| transmission "Very good lightweight client but is less suitable if you have many torrents" |
4 |
| oolite "If you loved Elite, this is for you. Trade, bounty hunt, salvage or pirate your way to the rank of Elite in this open ended game in which the word "Harmless" is the greatest insult! But, please devs can we have the latest version in the repositories as it has come on a long long way?" |
5 |
| virtualbox-ose "This is one package where getting the non-free version is very much worth it. Ose is fine if you are trying to run a completely free box." |
3 |
| supertuxkart "Fun multi-player game. Almost as much fun single player!" |
5 |