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Can XFCE Desktop Environment,be an alternative to Gnome and Kde ?

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:15:53 +0000

In the Linux world with Ubuntu dominating the market to discuss about the comparison of Desktop Managers available for Linux is of good importance . By default Ubuntu comes with gnome desktop environment and Kubuntu comes with kde as the desktop manager . Considering the case of someone who is interested in trying out something different xfce might be fun . Xfce is a new desktop environment aimed at unix like operating system , providing nice features at smaller size and resources . Xfce can be installed in many platforms like freebsd , linux , solaris , cygwin and even macos . Xfce is definitely worth a look for users , who is interested in nice look and feel without sacrificing system resources . xfce is based on gtk 2 + just like gnome . It uses xfwm window manager . As it is always better to show something than to describe it , here I present you with some screenshots .

Also have a look at how xfce performs with compiz in Ubuntu 9.10 distribution .

Click here to view the embedded video.

The latest available version of XFCE is XFCE 4.6 . Visit xfce website for more details .

Applications like Mousepad text editor, Xfmedia audio player, Orage Calendar and Terminal are available by default for xfce environment . Printing tasks in xfce are managed by Xfprint . Xfburn is the cd/dvd burner program available for xfce . The default media player is Xfmedia player derived from Xine movie player . Thunar is the file manager for xfce .Xfce has almost everything needed by a normal user . Xfce but doesnot offer the flashy and eye-candy appearance of kde or large amount of applications like gnome .

Considering the progress xfce made in the following years , one day xfce may replace kde and gnome from our distros .Also connsider reading the comparison of kde vs gnome .

How to overclock your Ubuntu Linux System

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:17:15 +0000

Overclocking is sometimes essential for your computer . Here are a few tools which enable you to overclock your Linux systems . Overclocking nvidia based video cards can be done with a small tools named nvclock and Perlmon . To install nvclock for your ubuntu linux , issue the following commands .

$ sudo apt-get install nvclock-gtk

Now your program is installed and to start it use the command “nvclock_gtk”

After installation , you can change parameters like GPU clock and Memory Clock

screenshot of nvclock

Perlmon is another utility which is used for overclocking . Perlmon can be downloaded from here and unpack the file .

Now install the perlmon 0.2.0 by the following commands

$ cd /path/PerlMon-0.2.0
$ sudo perl Installer

To start perlmon type “perlmon”

Perlmon screenshot

Empathy .. the best chat client for Linux. Support both voice and video chat

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:05:09 +0000

Empathy call log

Empathy is a IM/voice /video client that uses Gossips’s UI and Nokia’s MissionControl

The main goal of empathy is is libempathy and libempathy-gtk libraries which permits desktop integration. The widgets made in libempathy-gtk can be used to embed into any GNOME application

Empathy is one of the chat clients that uses various libraries of the known Telepathy . If You have a MSN chat account setup in and have a telepathy aware client then it automatically transfer your information across the client which is pretty cool.

Empathy is a multiple protocol client that includes Jabber , Gtalk, MSN , IRS , Salut and all the protocols supported by pidgin

Making call using Empathy

The various features are

1. Provides specialized user interface for all protocols for ex the account editor

2. Auto away protocols using the gnome screen saver tech.

3. Asks the network manager to automatically re-connect if the connection gets interrupted.

4. It allows both private and group chat.

5.Allows you to add themes for the chats.

6.Allows you to keep a log of your chat and even backup your chats.

7. Provides an interface for viewing and editing contact information.

8.Allows voice and video calls

9.helps in establishing a collaborative work using the tubes