As I’ve continued to use Ubuntu as my Linux distro of choice on my XPS 15, I’ve made some modifications to my setup. I’m describing some of them here.
I’ve written a couple of posts about Linux lately, one about beautifying the GNOME desktop and one about setting up Elementary OS on my Thinkpad T450s. I recently upgraded my primary computer from the great but aging Thinkpad to a new Dell XPS 15. So far, I love the Dell, and a full review of that will come a little later. But now it’s time for a post reviewing the process of getting Linux up and running on my new machine.
Today, Google launched a major refresh to the design of Google Calendar for the web. The update is long overdue, but it’s extremely well-executed and looks stunning. Sometimes you just look at a design and it feels right. This is one of those. After using the new design for a while, I’d imagine it’ll be tough to go back to the old one.
Just a few days ago, I wrote about setting up my GNOME desktop on Linux. Unfortunately, the current state of play in the GNOME world is that it’s just really hard to make the desktop look polished. While there are a lot of themes that look nice, I’ve found a minor issues with almost all of them. I just couldn’t settle on a combination that satisfied me. That may change when Ubuntu adopts GNOME as its default desktop environment; Ubuntu is one of the most-used Linux distros, and it has an active community that creates a lot of great stuff. For now, though, I’ve decided to try Elementary OS for a while.
2017 is the year of the bezel-less smartphone. Ever since the LG Prada was released in May 2007, capacitive touchscreens have become the dominant smartphone interface. Apple popularized them with the original iPhone, and now they’re ubiquitous. But the touchscreen has typically been borderd by unsightly bezels. That started to change this year.
GNOME is a desktop environment for Linux. It’s pretty, intuitive, and feature-filled. By default, it’s not as customizable as some Linux desktop environments, but it’s extensible and has a good-sized library of extensions. After years experimenting with its own Unity desktop environment, Ubuntu has decided that GNOME will be the default desktop environment for its upcoming release, Ubuntu 17.10 Artful Aardvark. Here’s how I like to customize GNOME to make it beautiful and functional.
I’m no Android developer, but since I bought my first Android device, a Motorola Atrix 4G, I’ve always enjoyed customizing my phones and tablets with aftermarket ROMs, kernels, and themes. To this day, I’m partial to devices that are friendly to custom software, such as Google’s Nexus line and OnePlus’s phones. I love installing custom ROMs on my phone for a number of reasons: removing bloat, new features, beautiful themes, and fast updates.