And another year flies by! 16 anniversary?

 

The Linux landscape has changed a lot since I started this humble blog to record my experiences with GNU/Linux and FLOSS in general.

Today, I visited Distrowatch and CachyOS is distro #1. Ubuntu, which used to be the top dog back then, is #10.

Linux Mint and MX Linux, distros that once held the top position, are now #2 and #3, respectively.

Mageia, my main distro, is #51! I am using Mageia 9, which was released in August 2023. I can see that they have been busy this year as they released Alpha 1 and Beta 1 and there will be another general extraordinary assembly this coming May 7 because the required quorum was not reached to vote the constitution changes. I hope everything goes well this time. 

OpenMandriva sits at #94. They have been releasing more frequently (both Rock and ROME are now in version 6!). Unfortunately, when my pentaboot laptop died, I had to stop using that distro along with Manjaro and Elive.

Elive, by the way, released a new version at the end of March this year. I might try it, who knows? I really liked the last version of that OS... Thanatermesis really produces art with the OS. 

But where do I put it? Can I run it smoothly from a USB drive to work with it? 

The thing is that I do not want to buy a new laptop to run new distros. The prices they are charging are ridiculous for the specs that they offer.

I do not want to deal with the TPM chip nonsense, to be honest.

And then there is the age verification debacle and the controversy with LibreOffice!

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Even so, I can say I am happy I have been working all this time with Linux: MX Linux in classrooms and Mageia in my work and home offices.

That is good!

 

 

 

Happy Belated 15th Anniversary!

Wow!  Another year flew by! 

Yes, I have not been very active posting on this blog for some time now. In fact, the last post was precisely on the 14th anniversary of this humble space.

These are the major changes since last year:

1.  My ZaReason Strata laptop is dying

The system I purchased from the now gone ZaReason company in 2014 is finally on its last breath. The battery malfunctioned six years ago and there is no replacement, so I had to keep it connected to a backup battery to be able to use the machine.  However, because its speakers started producing strange noises, I have not used this machine since 2022. 

When I tried to use it last month, it would not start at all. I thought it was finally out, but then changed the power brick and the laptop booted normally. Manjararo, OpenMandriva Lx, Mageia, Elive, and MX Linux are still there, fully operational.

However, the lid is showing signs of wear and the cables of the screen are now showing in between the broken hinges.

Well, it is, after all, an 11-year old laptop. 

I remember how, during the pandemic of 2020, the ZaReason people issued a statement concerning their closing of operations. Those were troubled times and, the message, with an apology to clients, made me very sad.

Yet, your product is still here... Battered after a long time, but working.

No, ZaReason people. You did not disappoint me. 

2.  UEFI mayhem and portable Linux machines

Last year, I wrote:

In the university where I work, they did a suspicious full 180 turn and switched to Microsoft products.  However, that has not stopped me from using Linux for my work every day: I always use USB drives, which I made portable Linux machines, to stream my virtual lessons and teach in class as well.

As the classroom computers have low specs, MX Linux is my distro of choice.  In my office computer, I generally use Mageia 9.  If fact, I am synchronizing my portable Mageia machines right now following this old post here.

Well, turns out that, at the beginning of this year, the university decided to replace all HDDs for SSDs. This created a problem for me since all my portable Linux machines booted using legacy mode.

I had to reinstall all systems into the USB drives from the physical computer at the university office to make sure that no UEFI or secure boot setting prevented me from booting the devices.

It was a somewhat slow process, but everything worked. So, I am still doing all of my job from those portable machines.

3. The new laptops 

I had to find a Windows 11 laptop for my daughter since she needs Windows and office for a high school class.  I decided to get second-hand laptops and, thus, I bought an HP slimbook for her and an HP ZBook for me.

I dual-booted hers with Mageia 9 and wiped Windows from mine entirely to also boot Mageia 9. The two laptops work great, but I miss the wired internet connection.  I am posting this from the ZBook with Mageia.

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So, this is what has been going on.

I wish I could have more time to post, but family and work responsibilities keep me busier and busier every year.

 

My Linux journey has not ended!

 

 

14 Years?! Happy anniversary, Mandriva Chronicles!

 Yes, today is the 14th anniversary of this humble blog, which I created to register my experiences as a Linux user.

What has changed since last year?

1.  Stability and fewer posts

Well, the Linux distros I use have become so stable that I rarely face a challenge.  This has reduced my post quantity.

Plus, where I work, they have decided to keep people extremely busy, so free time is rare.

2.  Portable Linux machines: always reliable!

In the university where I work, they did a suspicious full 180 turn and switched to Microsoft products.  However, that has not stopped me from using Linux for my work every day: I always use USB drives, which I made portable Linux machines, to stream my virtual lessons and teach in class as well.

As the classroom computers have low specs, MX Linux is my distro of choice.  In my office computer, I generally use Mageia 9.  If fact, I am synchronizing my portable Mageia machines right now following this old post here.

3. The new exam notification system  

This week, they sent an email about a new oral exam notification system.  The funny thing was that they said that it only worked on a Windows computer and urged us NOT TO USE MACs.  Many of my colleagues are Mac users, so I grew curious and decided to test it from my Linux station.  It worked perfectly!

I then replied informing them that the system ran flawlessly from Linux, he,he.

4.  My laptop distros

I upgraded most of the distros and my old ZaReason Strata runs Mageia 9, OpenMandriva Lx 5.0 ROME, Manjaro 23.1, MX Linux, and Elive 3.

I do not use this machine often because the battery is dead and I could never get a replacement.  So, I must keep it plugged to UPS all the time.  

5.  A nephew's migration

My sister in law's son called me once because he installed Linux Mint to a laptop and ran into a problem.  I tried to help him to the best of my abilities and the piece of advice I gave them worked: he could solve his first Linux challenge.

6.  My wife's English course

My wife took an English course and she was very worried because all the software was Microsoft's.  Or so they said.

However, the platform was Moodle and she could work from my Mageia desktop.  Las Monday was her final exam. Everything went fine because Firefox played the audios for the listening exam without a problem.

And that's that.  My productivity has not been affected because of the stability of Linux this year.  So, I am focusing on my health, my daughter's high school matters, and my family in general.

All is good!

Artificial intelligence, education, and the forgotten 13th anniversary of this blog

Maybe it's just me... Who knows.  The thing is that I feel that my workload this year is going through the roof in a nice tower that reminds me of those gigantic toothpicks piercing the landscape, all in the name of cellular signal and communication.

Yet, even 5G seems like a foggy dream of a distant past.  The new technological wave that everyone is surfing is AI.

So, in addition to my normal work activities and my family responsibilities, I have been interacting with the chatbots in www.poe.com.  Hey, if they are going to steal my job eventually, at least I want to meet my replacement!

I have devoted a significant amount of time to talk to Sage, GPT-4, Claude-plus, Claude-instant, Dragonfly, ChatGPT, and NeevaAI.  Somehow, I am beginning to sense their different "personalities" as I read their outputs, be it to simple or more sophisticated questions.

I have even "created" my own bots to see if they are capable of providing a distinct response, something that makes them unique.  

In any event, I have been so busy with all of this that I missed the 13th anniversary of this blog!

And then I got this poem:

 

 

BoingoPlus (yes, it IS a JoJo reference!) is the chatbot that my brother created in www.poe.com.  This bot answers with riddles and poetry. I must say that I really liked the poem that BoingoPLUS wrote.

 

For fun, I even made a simple YouTube video about this experience.

I believe that the pretty-much-undisturbed educational world in which we grew up is changing abruptly.  It's like Pangea dividing.

And I am afraid that, as is usually the case, people in the education sector are not paying enough attention. I hope we do not miss this second opportunity to shift our Victorian-inherited teaching practices (and evaluation!) to something that is more humane and congruent with the realities of the Information Age... 

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P.S:

I ran this blog post through the chatbots to see how they analyzed it.  

"The world has changed, Johnny.  You wouldn't believe how much the world has changed"  (Jake Tremont, Dad, 1989)

 

Happy 12th Anniversary, MandrivaChronicles!

On May 2, 2010, I started this humble blog as my personal project to record what I was learning regarding Linux.

Back then, I never thought of the many changes that would occur in the world, in the Linux landscape, and in me as a person.

Due to COVID-19, my ever-increasing workload has kept me away from posting.  Also, health issues in the family and my daughter's return to to in-person school classes required my attention.  All this has kept me away from here.

It is time to pause, then, and revisit the blog.

This is a quick summary of the major events:

1.  The university where I work decided to roll back and ditch LibreOffice to favor MS Office.  This is sad, but expected, mainly because the personnel's recalcitrance to use LibreOffice.  Interestingly, this same recalcitrance was at place when we were required to telework using Zoom, a paradigm change that many professors hated.  Now the complaint is that, after investing more than two years in Zoom, they will have to learn how to use MS Teams.  This feels full Samsara...

2.  My country has been under intense cyberattacks.  The generalized security-uninterested attitude in which people use their Windows computers has finally came back to bite them.  Now we see the "recommendations from experts to protect yourself against cybercriminals"...

3.  My telework comes to end tomorrow.  The Windows office computer is going to be watched closely.  The institution will  operate on the assumption that the university is a target and that our computers are vulnerable.  I guess that is correct.  The good news?  They offered both my brother and I to install Linux to our workstations.  I must admit that cheered me up!

4.   After the migration from Windows 10 to Windows 11, my daughter's laptop was fine.  Then another batch of updates came and broke it.  Good job, Microsoft!  I had to fix it and it took me two days to have the system operational again.

5.  I have been working all this time from a desktop with Mageia and a laptop with Mageia, Openmandriva Lx, PCLinuxOS, Elive, and MX Linux.  I switch OSs and computers to disrupt my patterns of work.  It's good brain exercise, hehe!

6.  Mental health-wise, I have kept a consistent exercise routine that includes jogging, body weight movements, and QiGong meditation.  This has been beneficial both for my body and mind.

7.  This last week, I created a USB stick with MX Linux to plug it to the office computer and work from there.  I will cover the process tomorrow.

Overall, I feel satisfied and calm with everything.  Let us see what this new stage brings!

It's Been 10 +1 Years Now!

Yesterday, Megatotoro gave me a present.  It was a funny T-shirt that I really liked:

Today, while I was wearing it, I realized that tomorrow is the anniversary of my blog.

So, after 11 years, I am still a Linux user.

Who would have thought?

My walk started almost by accident, with a modest Asus Eee PC with Xandros preinstalled (The legendary MiniMe!)  I never thought that such a humble machine with change the way I use computers in such a profound way.  

I was re-reading the first entry that I posted on this blog and a bitter-sweet wave of memories made me smile.  

So much has changed since then!

I listed there some programs that I do not use anymore... Frozen Bubble, for example.  How come I do not have that game any longer?  THAT cute game was the deciding factor in ditching Windows!

But the world changes and so do people.  New games come (Steam powered, he-he) and even the distros that I started using are different now.  Everything changes.

Yet, I am glad that I can rely on my Linux computers, just in the same way like the day I quit Windows.  Linux  has truly made my work easier and less worrisome... (Boy!  I've been online without an antivirus for 11 years!)

I should make the anniversary picture to decorate this entry.  Yes, I should. Something with a cake and clapping hands.  A celebration picture! (Or I could...)

HAPPY 11TH ANNIVERSARY, MANDRIVA LINUX CHRONICLES!!!

 

 

COVID-19, Telework, and Linux! Happy Anniversary, Mandriva Chronicles!

With the present sanitary emergency created by COVID-19, I've been away from this blog for two months already.

It's not that I have not had the motivation to post, no.  Actually, my work load blew up to three times its normal size because of the mandatory teleworking policies of the university where I work.

In the course of three weeks, I saw everyone move to cyberspace (willingly or reluctantly).  Anxiety, contradictory policies, and uncertainty became the new educational environment for many.  And, with this, I forgot that last Friday was the 10th Anniversary of this humble blog.

 What can I report?

1.  Well, the idea of the younger generations being "digital natives" shattered into a million pieces; as I had always suspected, it was nothing but a myth.  This crisis forced students to use the Web to study and, in great numbers, they are admitting defeat.  It turns out that their online skills seem nothing else that proficiency for using social networks: they cannot read and concentrate, have problems understanding how to post in forums, and become confused when submitting their assignments in an online mailbox.

2.  Linux has been up to the challenge: even though I have been forced to install programs such as Zoom and (yuck!) MS Teams on my laptop and my daughter's desktop, PCLinux OS and Mageia have been reliable, helping me attend meetings and helping my daughter continue with her elementary school classes.

Megatotoro and I decided to ditch Zoom and favored a more flexible online approach.  This idea implied producing lots of audiovisual material --something that we have no training on.  Thus, we had to learn how to produce videos in Linux for our courses.  In a week, I taught myself Kdenlive and Openshot, became more proficient with Audacity, and relied more in the image-editing of the always trustable GIMP.

In the meantime, other professors have been struggling trying to adapt their lessons to something they can deliver through Zoom meetings.  How successful that attempt is I cannot say.  Students claim that Zoom sessions generate anxiety and make them very tired, which has been confirmed in this article.  

So, yes, it has been a busy time.  But, all, in all...

Linux truly saved me from this technological virus that seems to be eroding the mental health of my colleagues...

HAPPY BELATED ANNIVERSARY, MANDRIVA CHRONICLES!!

The 9th Anniversary

Wow... Today is the ninth anniversary of this blog, which has its humble origins as my personal attempt to record my experiences as a Linux user when I migrated.

In this journey, I wrote about the different problems that I encountered and how to solve them.  Linux has grown so stable, however, that, as a non-technical user, I barely find problems with my computers, so the quantity of my posts has reduced.

Truly, this has been an awesome path and I am glad I took it!

 

The 8th Anniversary

Today is this blog's 8th anniversary.
I still remember the first day I touched a Linux computer (my Asus Eee PC 900 with Xandros!) and, from that point, my journey of learning that was recorded in the entries of this blog.

The world has changed a lot since then:
Megatotoro and I are not the only Linux users in the university where we work any longer. 
LibreOffice is the official productivity software there. 
We have met other Linux users in public events. 
Android is a huge thing.  Windows phone is gone...
And there are many games to play on Linux!

My perception has changed, too.  I used to wait anxiously for each of the two Mandriva yearly releases because they would fix problems and, in so doing, my computer became more stable and reliable. Then I tested more distros, liked some, started waiting for Elive 3.0.   Mepis, Pardus, and even Mandriva disappeared from my HDs, replaced by Mageia, Openmandriva, PCLinuxOS, PicarOS, Elive (a beta!), Pisi, and Fedora.  The distros are so good that even betas outperform the final releases of the old times.

And the release cycles of the non-rolling distros have become more distant from each other.  Only Fedora keeps the pattern and I find that the new releases are coming too soon.  For example, Fedora 28 was just released today and I was not even ready!

Sometimes, I feel I do not have much to record here anymore. Oh, but I am still waiting for Elive 3.0!

I would like to express my appreciation to everyone who takes a moment from his or her busy life to read my entries.  Really, thank you very much!

Another Year on the Blogosphere

This blog came to life on May 2, 2010, as my humble attempt to register each step, however minimal, that I took in my journey as a new Linux user.

I had started using Linux a bit earlier (2009), thanks to an Asus Eee PC 900 that came with Xandros Linux pre-installed.  I did not like the OS, but decided to give Linux a chance after the complete failure Windows was on that tiny netbook.

I changed the OS to Mandriva 2009 and so I became a full time Linux user.  No one asked me to migrate; I came to Linux by myself.

Mandriva 2009: Default wallpaper

Seven years have already elapsed!  Seven years in which I have used my computers without worrying about viruses, of seeing computer myths exposed, of watching the world spin from a different standpoint.

Distros have risen and fallen; desktop environments have evolved, forked, and gone are certain bugs that annoyed me, along with features that I loved.

People that came across in this virtual world have died, too.  And projects that inspired me are disappearing, swept away by the ceaseless tide of time.

In the middle of all this, hope springs eternal: I have seen other non-technical computer users like me abandon their fear when they sit in front of a Linux-powered system. Ah, and there's also this girl who was born six years ago, surrounded by Linux computers... If OSs were languages, she would be trilingual!

Seven years of learning...

Happy 20th Anniversary, The GIMP!

On November 21, 1995, the announcement that there was a program for image manipulation was made.

This program, originally named The General Image Manipulation Program and now known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program (The GIMP), in my opinion, is the best software I have ever used to work with images.

I am not a professional image designer.  However, as a teacher, one frequently needs to modify or enhance a particular image for a presentation.

Adobe Photoshop is heavy and too expensive.  I used to resort to an assortment of programs that included Irnfanview and Satori, which I could use for free and that satisfied my humble needs.

Then I migrated to Linux and discovered The GIMP.

With it, one can resize images, modify colors, change backgrounds, enhance pictures, create effects, you name it... It is, truly, an amazing program.  In general, every time I have to work with images, I look for this reliable software.  Perhaps batch conversion is the only operation that I prefer to do with other software (Gwenview).

And I've noticed that The GIMP has two points of controversy:  first, many people object to the acronym because of the offensive connotation of the resulting word.  Second, there seems to be an ongoing debate between the Gnome and KDE communities concerning "the way of the desktop" and The GIMP is in the middle.  Gnome strives for simplification while KDE presents lots of options...and The GIMP does not seem to follow Gnome's motto.  

But let's not spoil the party.   The GIMP is here and that's the reason for the celebration!

HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY, THE GIMP!!!

Happy Belated Anniversary, LinuxMigrante!

Oh, no, I missed the fifth anniversary of Megatotoro's blog, La Esquina de Un Migrante a Linux!

This blog was created on May 21, 2010.  Because of the author's commitment to sharing his knowledge about Linux, I have learned many useful tricks.

Thanks to this blog, among other things, my daughter enjoys a computer with PicarOS, my wife played games like Passage, and I learned how to configure GRUB for multiboot.


Megatotoro writes about fun and crazy stuff, as having a Buddhist cow in your computer, or about bold experiments with Linux in stressing situations.  One thing is sure: the writer in the corner of migration to Linux has never been afraid to toe the line when trying the new resources that FLOSS offers.

May you continue posting for many years to come, Megatotoro! 

Happy Anniversary, LinuxMigrante!

Tomorrow Megatotoro's blog, La Esquina de un Migrante a Linux, will celebrate its 3rd Anniversary.

Although Megatotoro migrated to Linux a bit later than I did, he took his migration seriously and learned a lot of Linux tricks before I did, all thanks to Mepis, Pardus, and AntiX, his distros of choice.

I have learned quite a bit reading his entries.

Thank you and happy anniversary!  Keep up the good work!

A Journey of Three Years.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of this blog.  Three years already?  Time surely flies by!

I created mandrivachronicles almost a year after I first encountered Linux.  The idea was to record my experiences with the OS and to use them as reference material.  After all, I migrated to Linux on my own: no Linux fan persuaded me to start using this great OS, nor I had used it before.  I had no technical knowledge (I was a long time Windows user).  To be blunt, before migrating, all I knew about Linux was that it was an operating system other than Windows and that it used a penguin as a mascot.

However, after having used Linux daily for a year on my netbook, I decided that it was time to install it to my main desktop computer and to say good-bye to Windows. And so this blog was born.

I never expected my entries to be read by many people and I really did not consider that my experiences could help others.  It was great to see other people also enjoyed reading about my humble steps into Linux land.

I have also discovered that:

• Through this blog, I met people who inspired me with their tales of courage, knowledge, talents, and efforts.  And it was painful when some of them passed away (R.I.P. Eugeni Dodonov, Mandriva) or got sick (Texstar, PCLinuxOS).

• Linux interest, despite FUD, is on the rise.  You can take a look at the numbers in Distrowatch.  When I migrated to Linux in 2009, it took Ubuntu 2249 visits to be the first distro ranked.  Today, the 3rd position has 189 visits more than that.  Back in 2009, the last distro had 73 hits. Today, the 100th position is counted with three digits and has almost two times that number of visits.

Source: www.distrowatch.com

•  It's OK to use the OS that you like, but you must embrace your choice and live with it.  I know that some people get annoyed when they overhear me speaking of free software; it's more annoying for me when they come to me to complain about the poor performance of their Windows computers or want me to fix them.

• The fate of Linux distros (even those who are relatively strong) is uncertain. When I migrated to Linux, I chose Mandriva, which was #6 back in 2009.  Today, that distro is #46.  Ubuntu and Gnome had their own bumps.  Sadly, Fuduntu disappeared this year.

• Linux is addictive.  I started using Windows and Mandriva.  Then, it was only Mandriva.  Today, I regularly use Mandriva, Mageia, PCLinuxOS, Mepis, AntiX and, occasionally, Pardus.

• For non-technical computer users, it is perfectly possible to abandon Windows and MS Office; it only takes an open mind.  I personally know five people who have done it without any problem. Besides, most smartphone users have already done so, but they haven't realized it.

This blog has been a journey, an ongoing learning process in which I changed, adapted, laughed, suffered, and rejoiced.

I did notice one thing.  Since I abandoned Windows, the frustration associated to using my computers has vanished.  The only reminder I've got of that once-too-familiar feeling is the multiple complaints I hear from my colleagues at the office, as they try to work on a non-Linux desktop computer.

Happy Birthday, MAGEIA!

Mageia was celebrating its first anniversary yesterday.

A year! That was fast! Just like my daughter, baby Mageia is "a proud, promising and exciting toddler!"

All I can say is that I am very pleased with the way Mageia performs in my netbook and I hope to see more releases of this wonderful distribution that today feels more Mandriva-like than Mandriva itself.

Happy birthday, magic baby!

@Megatotoro, No, I'm not going to post that crazy Mageia poem :-P

Happy Birthday, Esquina de un Migrante!

Megatototoro's blog, La Esquina de un migrante a Linux is celebrating its first anniversary tomorrow.

This blog has brought unforgettable stories, such as "Planning to migrate to Linux? Beware!!!", or curious images, such as the GNU/Linux & BSD Zoo.

I, for one, have profited from the accounts and experiences recorded there. I learned Linux tweaks and about viruses from Megatotoro's blog. And I have had a lot of fun reading his humorous stories, too.

Congratulations and keep up the good work! May this Linux Corner remain among us for a long time!