Steven Rosenberg http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog/linux/xubuntu/ frugal technology, simple living and guerrilla large-appliance repair en http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss your_account@your_domain (Your name) your_account@your_domain (Your name) Xubuntu 12.10 with Xfce 4.10 http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog/linux/xubuntu/2012_1116_xubuntu_1210 Already I like what I see in Xubuntu 12.10.

  • The new Xfce 4.10 desktop environment with a network-friendly Thunar file manager

  • Nice defaults and design (which you usually get in a distribution's "native" desktop environment but not so often without it)

What I don't like:

  • The Alps touchpad in the Lenovo G555 is jumpy

Onto the next ...

]]> Sat, 17 Nov 2012 02:44:48 UTC http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog/2012/11/17/02/44/48/ Xubuntu 12.04 with Xfce 4.8 - one giant leap and a mighty attractive desktop (revised) http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog/linux/xubuntu/2012_0505_xubuntu_1204 So I'm in the live environment for Xubuntu 12.04, which aside from the ugly wallpaper (including every alternative wallpaper on the ISO image) is a great-looking and -working Xfce 4.8 desktop.

My main mission in running the live distro from a USB flash drive: Checking networked-filesystem support in the Thunar file manager.

So far I'm using FTP in Thunar to write this post. And I didn't need the Gigolo helper program to open the FTP site and create and save the file.

That's a win.

After a few false starts, I also got Thunar working for sftp connections.

Another win.

What I "forgot" to do originally when trying to start an sftp:// connection in Thunar was to specify the port number when I opened it up. Here's how I did it:

  • In Thunar, go to "Go" in the menu, then select "Open Location."
  • In the Open Location dialog, enter this:

sftp://yoursecureftpsite.com:portnumber

In my case, that port number is 2222, so it would be something like this (I'm using a "fake" URL for demonstration purposes; use your real URL and real port number to make this work -- I can verify that it does work -- and you don't need Gigolo!):

sftp://yoursecureftpsite.com:2222

  • Once you enter the sftp address with port number following the colon, you'll be prompted to OK the SSL certificate of the server.
  • If you trust that certificate, OK it. Then Thunar will open a window to your server via secure FTP, and you can use the file manager to treat that server like a native filesystem, sorting the files in Thunar and editing them with the application of your choice. I used Leafpad, as it is the default text editor in Xfce (and in Xubuntu).

    Read the rest of this post

    ]]> Sat, 05 May 2012 21:41:40 UTC http://stevenrosenberg.net/blog/2012/05/05/21/41/40/