Multiple Linux Articles I've Been Saving

Multiple Linux Articles I've Been Saving:

 xda-developers.com: This free and open-source tool is great for monitoring your network traffic with ease: https://www.xda-developers.com/this-free-open-source-tool-great-for-monitoring-network-traffic-with-ease/

PCWorld: Windows 10’s end of life looms. A security pro dissects your only options: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2849972/windows-10s-end-of-life-looms-a-security-pro-dissects-your-only-options.html

XDA: 3 free OBS plugins I use that turn it into the perfect webcam management software: https://www.xda-developers.com/obs-plugins-to-manage-webcam/

Another blow for MS Office? LibreOffice brings feature MS Office has had for almost 10 years: https://www.neowin.net/news/another-blow-for-ms-office-libreoffice-brings-feature-ms-office-has-had-for-almost-10-years/

Phoronix: Linux 6.16 Ready With Fixes For Old AMD Hardware "Which Wasn't Even Supposed To Run Linux": https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linux-6.16-rc6-x86-urgent

XDA: I dual-booted Linux to try it out, and I forgot I had Windows installed: https://www.xda-developers.com/i-dual-booted-linux-to-try-it-out-and-i-forgot-i-had-windows-installed/ 

XDA: I run these 4 commands first on every fresh Linux install (My first command is always "sudo ufw enable" - Dan S): https://www.xda-developers.com/run-these-commands-on-fresh-linux-install/

XDA: I don't care that Microsoft is extending Windows 10's support, I'm still moving to Linux: https://www.xda-developers.com/dont-care-microsoft-extending-windows-10-support-moving-linux/

PCWorld: How to switch from Windows 10 to Linux: A technical guide: https://www.pcworld.com/article/2800286/how-to-switch-from-windows-10-to-linux-a-technical-guide.html

Windows Central: A Microsoft engineer made a Linux distro that's like a comfort blanket to ex-Windows users — I finally tried it, and I'm surprised how good it is: https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/a-microsoft-engineer-made-a-linux-distro-thats-like-a-comfort-blanket-to-ex-windows-user

* Note from Dan: There are a lot more of these, but this is a good start, and probably more than enough for one blog post. FYI, I started with dual boot at first, too. I find that I use Ubuntu Linux 99.999% of the time. Enjoy these great reads! - Dan

Wow! What A Pain!

Multiple sites are reporting that Microsoft is blocking Google Chrome via its parental control feature in Windows.

Here's The Verge's take on it:

https://www.theverge.com/news/690179/microsoft-block-google-chrome-family-safety-feature

Ubuntu doesn't come with Chrome, but it's possible to install Chrome via a few terminal commands. Here's an article that details the necessary commands to install Chrome in Ubuntu:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1514599/how-do-i-install-google-chrome-on-ubuntu-24-04

This one is a bit complex looking, but I've used the WGET method successfully on multiple machines.

This video makes it even simpler:

Happy computing (Again)!

Dan

Used Microsoft Office Forever, But Don't Love Buying Subscriptions? Ubuntu Has A FREE Full-Blown Office Suite.

Ubuntu Desktop typically comes with Mozilla Firefox (web browser) and Libre Office (full office suite) installed right out of the box.

Both of these are world-class software that is completely free, and Libre Office is open-source.

This video has a lot of tips on how to tweak the Libre Office settings to make it fairly closely resemble Microsoft Office.

Happy computing (Again)!

Dan

Some Seriously Helpful Articles On Making The Switch (From Windows To Linux)

 I've been watching for some great articles on the whole "end of support" thing (EOS, from here forward), and reasons why switching to Linux is a fantastic thing to do.

Here are some of my favorite ones:

• ZDNet doing a write-up on the "End Of Ten" project: https://www.zdnet.com/article/ready-to-ditch-windows-end-of-10-makes-converting-your-pc-to-linux-easier-than-ever/ ... End of 10 is a group dedicated to helping people make the move to Linux, and they have real support behind the project. Give ZDNet's article a read for for the deep dive.
• Also on ZDNet, Another governmental unit (And the entire government of Denmark) are switching from Windows to Linux, for a lot of good reasons: https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-german-state-schleswig-holstein-uninstalls-windows/

(A short video on the topic)

• Now there's an article here on how to install and work with Ubuntu Linux from It's FOSS (Free Open Source Software) There are a ton of linked support articles for installing and customizing Ubuntu Linux to your liking. (I'm using Ubuntu as I craft this post, and indeed, to create this entire blog, and 99% of my daily computing. Did I mention that Ubuntu is FREE?) Check it out here: https://itsfoss.com/getting-started-with-ubuntu/

This is probably enough for one post / article, and there's a lot of ground to cover here, so I'll end this one on a high note.

Happy computing (again, finally)!

Dan

What It's Like To Work In Ubuntu Linux

 

This was the last episode Matt & I did together, but it's a pretty important one. 

If you've just installed Ubuntu, there are a few simple commands you want to run to enable basic security features, and we show you exactly what those are. (It's only three commands, and once done, you don't have to do them again.)




One if the things I wish we had thought to include in this episode is Libre Office, which is a free, open-source full-on office productivity suite. 

Libre Office has its own native file formats, but it will work with Microsoft Office files as well. I'll have to find a good video that covers that later.

Thank you for watching, and for reading.

Dan

Talking About The Coming End Of Win 10 - And Installing Linux - Three Years Ago

 

So a friend of mine, Matt, and I started discussing the end of Windows 10 a few years ago. We were both just wrapping up jobs being IT instructors at the time. 
Here we discuss the upcoming Windows PC apocalypse, and then proceed to install Ubuntu Linux on an old, low-end PC that was a budget model in its hey-day.



Did you make it all the way through? Thank you for watching.

Dan

Ubuntu & Linux Lite Software

Over time, we'll end up building up a library of posts about our favorite software for Ubuntu.

As an example, I love Cool Retro Term.

Cool Retro Term is a beautiful work of art that can emulate the look and font of old mainframe "dumb terminals," which displayed on CRT screens in a single color, or "monochrome."

There are multiple dumb terminal emulations available in Cool Retro Term. Some are amber monochrome, others are green monochrome, like the text in the Matrix movies. There are also silver-white on black monochrome terminal emulators.

To change the settings, you right-click on a corner of the terminal frame.

Here's an example of the default amber monochrome dumb terminal emulator:

Amber Monochrome Terminal

If you do find yourself winding up using the terminal for something, it might as well be pleasant to look at.

More posts about software and terminal later. For right now, I'm creating the categories with this post.

You can find out a great deal more about Cool Retro Term on It's FOSS at this link: https://itsfoss.com/cool-retro-term/

* NOTE: You do not have to use the terminal to install it anymore. It's available in the Ubuntu Software App. (GUI Snap store)

Dan