Emerald Theme

Some time ago I had downloaded a great theme from a site, but soon after the site has disappeared from existence. It is a real shame as the owner created some very good themes for emerald and GTK. It was roberTO studiOS.

I thought I would just share them here if anyone is still interested in the ones I have as I don’t think they are available elsewhere. I am not sure of the license, but I reckon it ought to be O.K. If anyone has a problem they can get in touch with me. The items are in the Box.net widget at the bottom. I really hope he brings his site back up soon as his themes are the best and I like them the most.

Here are the things I have right now:

Solidline (emerald theme)

Synthesis (gtk theme)

Simply Free (gdm theme)

Enjoy!

The Spray Can

Ubuntu installed with less than 3gb space used (Windows struggles)

I installed and am using ubuntu on a partition that is around 3GB with around 300mb free so it’s around 2.7 gigs. My system has all the basics you really would need and more including beryl and wine, all the extra stuff from easyubuntu, pidgin, skype, thunderbird, etc.

If this were Windows, I would struggle to keep the limit at this kind of space. Actually I have experience. My wimdows partition with not much on it just grew and grew from what it should have been, around 4-5Gb upto 12GB and over. Wow it doubled without much effort. Ubuntu remained a small partition even though I added stuff like the above. Just goes to show you how linux can still work on older machines with less resources.

Linux 1, Windows 0

The Spray Can

My Ubuntu Desktop

I love Ubuntu for many reasons. It is open source, free to obtain, it is very stable, etc. The one I did not mention would be its looks, functionality and the blingbling. Beryl and emerald themes for the Linux desktop means that at least some folks might adopt it as their O/S even if it is just cause of the looks.

Here is a look at my desktop

I am using the solidline theme for emerald. The icon set is nuove-XT 1.6. The candido engine and my wallpaper is ‘Hole by cesconetto’.

Links coming soon for the above!

Enjoy!
The Spray Can

Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)

Next month’s release of the new version of Ubuntu is going to be big. The final release day is  18th. Cancel all your downloads, meetings, dates and mark it on your calender cause it is going to be one hell of a day.

Expect server downtimes on the release date just like last time, increased talk about it as the date gets nearer and the excited faces of thousands of Linux fans

Is proprietory software ethical for schools

A long post here.

I had to think heavily about this. I come from a country where most schools would not usually have computers, let alone a good library. Many of the schools which do have computers are in urban centres, rural schools would likely only have one, the one in their office. Schools often seek funding from parents, sponsor companies or simply attempt to fund raise for any projects. Unlike many developed countries computing is offered as a subject in schools and mainly aims to fulfil the basic training to own and operate a computer up till senior high school, around sixth form when basic programming is taught. Only schools who have computers (mainly urban schools) usually offer the subject, rural schools who don’t have any or just have a few may offer but usually teach directly from textbooks, little practice would be given to the students.

The main issue here is that the curriculum is based around Microsoft office and off course Microsoft Windows. This I reckon is totally unfair, many kids probably can’t afford the software let alone what it takes to own hardware to run it properly. Piracy in the country with regards to MS are high, and students are almost certainly  using it. The unethical part is that the government is indirectly supporting it my making the curriculum based on MS software.

Really, I think that the schools and the government should switch to open source software as an alternative, a good example would be Ubuntu, or better yet Edubuntu seeing as some schools probably have some old PCs which they can turn into dumb terminals and for those who don’t, cheap pentium 2s ans 1s are available as well. All they need is a good server. This also means easy management of the network, they can give internet access as well. The library can finally have a system for book management seeing as most schools don’t have that either. Filtering sites would be easier and Linux is also pretty much immune to viruses so that solves that problem too.

Only problem is training, and I suppose a little convincing.

The Spray Can