Best Xfce distro of 2015

The fall of one empire usually signals the rise of another. Five years ago, if you asked a typical Linux desktop user what environment they favored, the answer would most likely be KDE or Gnome 2. But today, the answer is probably Unity, Cinnamon, maybe Plasma. And Xfce. The underwhelming underdog has taken upon itself…

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Best KDE/Plasma distro of 2015

The end of the year best-distro nomination is approaching fast. But before that, let’s narrow it down a bit and focus on what KDE and Plasma had to offer the Linux user in 2015. Undoubtedly, it was a very tough year, with some really awesome distributions released in the spring, some rather awful editions coming…

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Cinnamon: Not all Sugar and Spice

Recently, I have installed and tested Linux Mint 17.2, and found it quite adorable. One of the major improvements the distribution brings to the proverbial Penguin table is a set of stylistic and functional changes to its settings menu, including the way you manage themes, icons, extensions, and the rest of the desktop bits and pieces.…

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KDE Screen Edges

Screen edges are one of the simple yet powerful options introduced in the KDE fourth release series. Screen Edges refer to hotspots on the edge of the screen, each of which is programmable with one of sixteen options and activated by moving the cursor or a window towards them.

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LibreOffice Tip: Automating Notes

Using recurring images can be difficult in LibreOffice. Of course, you can always add the image manually each time, but that can be distracting when you are writing. One way to semi-automate the process is to use a list style that is set up to display a picture rather than a bullet or a number.

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KDE’s tabbed windows

In the first years of the millennium, tabbed web browsing became the norm. Overnight, browsing habits changed. Instead of struggling to manage multiple windows, users could open a dozen or more pages while researching. By contrast, eight years later, KDE’s fourth release series added tabs to all windows on the desktop — instead of just…

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Cinnamon’s applets and desklets

GNOME and Unity may have banished applets from the panel, but Linux Mint has chosen the opposite approach for Cinnamon. Instead of removing clutter from the panel, Cinnamon encourages it, offering over 165 small utilities. And as if that were not enough, for the last few releases, it has also offered 18 desklets — applets…

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LibreOffice Tip: To-Do Lists with Style

Lists are one of the least known types of styles in LibreOffice Writer. If people use list styles at all, they attach them to paragraph styles to create automatic bullet or numbered lists. However, list styles have far more versatility than such uses imply, including the method shown here for creating a To-Do list for…

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Using LXQt

A first look at LXQt

LXQt is the next generation of the Lightweight Desktop Environment, which means LXDE is dead, long live its successor. Yes? Something like that. Perhaps it makes sense. Rebuild the good stuff using a new, efficient framework. But then, reading some more, you will see that the word ‘port’ is used, which could indicate a branching…

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