Full Circle Magazine FR

XFCE has grown in popularity as a desktop environment since the release of the GNOME 3.x series and the controversial changes it has made to a well-known and heavily used DE. Debian is rumored to be considering XFCE as the default desktop for the upcoming 7.x release Wheezy. Respins (Re-Spins) and remasters featuring XFCE are becoming increasingly common, due to XFCE’s intuitive interface, stability, flexibility, and ability to conform to a wide variety of contemporary and legacy hardware platforms. Roberto Dohnert, Brian Johnson and Sebastian Wells created the first version of what would evolve through several iterations into OS4 OpenDesktop in 2005—it was called OS4u and based on Gentoo Linux, backed by a commercial developer. Fast-forwarding to 2008, after the dissolution of that partnership, Dohnert and PC / OpenSystems LLC created the first version of their take on the Linux desktop, PCOS 8.04 in 2008. Moving from Gentoo to an Ubuntu base offered the vast array of Debian apps and advanced toolset as well as Ubuntu's well-known ease-of-use and growing popularity. Ubuntu was innovative and well-regarded. Fast-forward again to 2012: Dohnert will be releasing OS4 OpenWorkstation 13 Update 1 on December 1 2012, which will be based on Xubuntu 12.04 and the Linux 3.5.x series kernel. In these four years, the name may have changed, but the important elements have stayed the same for this distro: an adherence to XFCE, ease of use, great hardware compatibility, a simplified but innovative interface, and an excellent set of default applications.

Most recent Canonical derivatives and respins have a similar feel and generic look; Dohnert's vision for the desktop has always been unique and idiosyncratic. His first choices for a GUI were variations on interfaces popular at the time: NeXTStep, BeOS, AmigaOS and SGI Irix. Although the first versions of PCOS in 2008 had a BeOS-style layout and theme, OS4 has moved towards NextSTEP in its appearance and overall theme. In an interview published on the distro's website—part of which was published online on Distrowatch.com—Dohnert mentioned his history with the venerable OSX precursor and his hopes to leverage the stability of the Linux kernel to bring “ease of use to the desktop.” And a recent problem with some members of the Amiga user community has been resolved; OS4 13 OpenDesktop includes integrated modules for mounting AmiFS media, and the team has assisted AmigaOS in improving its ext4 driver. According to the newly created installation guide, OS4 OpenDesktop runs best on machines of at least these specifications, and better on the recommended hardware : 32 bit system requirements / recommendations: Processor PIII 800 MHz / Intel Core Duo or higher RAM 512 MB / 1 GB + Hard Drive 10 GB / 15 GB + Standard VGA adapter / 3D Graphics Card 64 bit system requirements / recommendations: AMD64 or Intel 64 1 GHz Dual Core RAM 1 GB + / 2 GB + Hard Drive 10 GB + / 15 GB + Standard VGA adapter / 3D Graphics Card

The ISOs for the OS4 OpenDesktop 13 32-bit and 64-bit editions weigh in at 1.3 and 1.4 GB respectively. Once burned to a flash drive or DVD, the OS4 Live session should prove familiar to an experienced Ubuntu user, and intuitive to the newbie – booting quickly to a serene blue desktop decorated with the OS4 logo in the upper left hand corner. Dohnert calls this environment the OpenDesktop Workspace Manager. While the usual XFCE icon sets and themes are available, two custom themes, Graphite (the default) and Sky, are included, and a custom icon set, OS4 Visual Subsystem. The bottom panel, with a left-hand notification area and window menu, workspace switcher (2 workspaces by default) in the middle, and Orage clock on the right is called the applet bar. The vertical, opaque panel on the upper right-hand side is called the Shelf: it features a Trashcan on the bottom, Menu with icons that can be dragged to the panel, and File Manager launcher on the top. The system, based on Xubuntu 12.04, is generally quick, responsive, and very stable. Thunar is the default file manager and handles the desktop: the XFCE Task Manager shows typical resource consumption (like its parent, OS4 is very lean, averaging about 11% processor usage on single-core Pentium 4 and 15% memory useage on 2.5 GB of RAM while writing this article on Libreoffice Writer with five tabs open in Google Chrome), and, at the epicenter, the Settings Manager for under-the-hood changes. The application selection is typical, with a few interesting wrinkles: Nokia Maps is included, and the Nixnote Evernote client (a personal favorite). OS4 includes the Illumination Software Creator, designed by Brian Lunduke for the novice programmer, and Eclipse and Netbeans for the more advanced coder. But the typical array of productivity software is included out-of-the-box, and the average user will find him-or-herself able to get to work almost immediately with an enhanced suite of Office-compatible and Web-capable apps: Google Chrome, the Evolution email and groupware client, Abiword, Gnumeric, Orage. The inclusion of Remastersys, to allow the creation of customized OS4 configurations and full system backups, is another welcome inclusion.

There are some differences between OS4 and a typical XFCE desktop : the top-level menu is absent—right-clicking on the desktop brings up the Applications menu. Additionally, although there's a minimized-window menu in the Applet bar, open applications also iconize to the desktop. Right-clicking on iconized apps brings up the usual context menu, but these can't be moved to another workspace or closed. Dohnert says that this is an upstream XFCE bug that will be addressed in Update 1. After examining the Live session, and moving forward to installing the system, the steps are, again, familiar and intuitive: selecting a timezone, configuring the keyboard, partitioning the disk(s), creating a user account. After these steps are completed, the new OS4 user is ready to get started browsing the Internet, enjoying their music libraries with gtkpod and Banshee, tweet with Hotot, and get organized with Evolution. The company is progressing. It has a wide user base and a new four-man development team—Dohnert, Cristobal Molina, Seth Forstal and Mike Vail. They offer OS4 OpenDesktop as a free download, but also provide paid support for customers through the OS4 Store. They have also diversified from XFCE, offering a KDE version for European users who demanded that particular desktop environment and suite of QT-based applications. OS4 OpenServer is available also for the small-business and home server market, and soon-to-come, Trusted OS4 1.0, featuring the NSA's Linux initiatives, DoD level drive wiping and encryption software, and access card controls. The team and their OS4 storefront are responsive to their user base, offering custom installs for particular hardware configurations, and, for the purposes of this article, Dohnert himself was very helpful and accessible. The main version will not be ignored of course: plans to increase compatibility with Apple hardware and with recent updates to the AmigaOS, should make the future of this distro bright.

CRITIQUE RAPIDE par Peter Liwyj It isn't often that a program totally suprises me. Mnemosyne really did. I thought it was a basic flash card program but the way it presents the cards actually forces you to learn and retain information. Cards that you do know well are pushed to the background and cards you do not know will show up more often. Mnemosyne will not waste your time on things you know but will check and make sure you haven't forgotten anything. Probably the most useful feature is that you can flip cards to make the questions become answers, and answers become questions, effectively doubling the card set and making you learn things backwards and forwards. Mnemosyne is a flash card program that may appear very basic when you first look at it, but it actually has some very useful features. It supports different scripts so you can use it to learn languages with different alphabets, three sided cards are supported, you can use LaTeX to write out math formulas and, if you need it, pictures, sounds and HTML can be attached. It can also run off a usb stick and can cross platforms including Android and Blackberry devices, you don't have to waste your bus commute to school anymore. There is a small community who have made card sets and posted them on the Mnemosyne site for free download. Personally I have found the act of making the cards helps you to better learn the information. So if you find yourself struggling with Latin and medical terminology, or need to learn the hot key shortcut commands for Blender, give Mnemosyne a try. I think you will quickly learn to respect this well hidden and little known program with the strange name. http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org