A Bit More On Ultima Linux

[vakkotaur]

Changing back to text log-in and using startx to start X took care of at least one problem. Virtual consoles are back like I expect them to be. Root can now shut things down from Xfce, though a normal user cannot - at least not without some more work which I have not yet done. Another thing I haven't gotten around to yet is customizing the look of xterm. These are covered in the Xfce FAQ (questions 15 and 9, respectively).

This morning I also tried the other window managers (except for twm, which is best avoided) and while Enlightenment, Fluxbox, and WindowMaker have their points, Xfce seems to be the best (or least objectionable) to me. I still might try to add icewm though it looks like a couple tweaks to Xfce will get things as I prefer them to be.

One nice discovery is that Dillo now supports tabbed browsing. Another was that even with a few tabs open, top reported that Ultima hadn't dipped into swap. It took launching Firefox to get it to do that.

Overall, I'm fairly impressed. I'm even starting to consider putting Ultima on the laptop.

Comments

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I like xfce best too. Getting it to let your ordinary user account shut down or reboot is easy enough.

As root, run visudo

Add your user account in the #user privileges section, and give it permission for /usr/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper

The line looks like this:

username ALL=/usr/libexec/xfsm-shutdown-helper

Save the sudoers file and exit. Now log in as your regular user and test it. You should be able to shutdown or reboot as you exit xfce. It will prompt for your password when you do so.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I got a bit more involved than that, but with a similar result as can be seen in my next LJ post.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Another shutdown trick I like is changing the shutdown command in /etc/inittab by adding the -a option. Then add your username to the /etc/shutdown.allow file. Now you can restart (or shutdown) by doing a CTRL-ALT-DEL. Not that you normally would, but it usually works if you get locked up otherwise.

[fiddledragon]

huh - you know going through everything - XFCE on top of Ubuntu handles pretty much everything you did except for the changes to dillo - well, other than sudo - but I didn't want just anyone to shut it down anyway (since sometimes the kids use this box) I did, however add a group that had shutdown access, and added all the adults to the group.

But all of the term consoles are black on white by default :)

[fiddledragon]

Oh, and I like vi ;)

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Someone has to. I'm not a fan of modal editors. I do expect vi (or vim, or something) to be there so I can edit stuff to the point where I can get another editor somehow. And I prefer white text on a black background, myself. To each their own.

[fiddledragon]

*nod* I prefer white text on a black background -b ut that's what I get with vi - don't like vim, though...

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Ah, well here it was xterm that had black text on a white background and that simply had to be rectified.

[fiddledragon]

*nod* that would be the first thing I would fix as well :) (hrm, and has) i'm even willing to go with variations in colors - as long as the background is dark and the text is light :)

[fiddledragon]

side note to the browser conversation of yesterday - have you looked at Amaya at all?

[fiddledragon]

nevermind *grr* looks like there's no js support.

Looks like I want is a combination of Links-Graphic and Amaya :P

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

If I may ask, what is the target hardware for this?

And you need low-impact browser that:
1) is graphical
2) can handle css
3) executes javascript

Anything else?

[fiddledragon]

that's about it - I refuse to use Java applets or Flash objects as they take too long to load and too many people have those options turned off. I figure the servlet/jsp can handle all final rendering.

I dislike frames (liked them for a while, did my website in them, and now I need to redo the whole thing because I hate them anymore, especially since I can get css to do what I want anyway) so it doesn't need frame support.

I can't remember the exact specs on the laptop that I"m using but it's an older PII Sony Vaio w/ 64 MB RAM.

Firefox works, but it's a bear to load and I think that's part of where my memory leak is - actually - I think there's a memory leak that uses anything with the Gnome libraries, so I'm trying to avoid those apps (not using Gnome itself - rather using XFCE) Gnome is *way* too resource intensive for me.

I *liked* the responsiveness of Dillo, which was what was annoying about the whole experience last night *chuckle*

Now to remember how to uninstall all the extraneous packages *laugh*

[fiddledragon]

Now to remember how to uninstall all the extraneous packages *laugh*

found it :)

Well, I'm definitely happy

[(Anonymous)]

So am I really seeing what I think I am? An entire section dedicated to Ultima? I'm honored :-) Just an FYI, Dillo itself doesn't support the tabbed browsing alone, Ultima (the distribution) uses a patched version that I found which makes life so much easier. I'm a Dillo fan.

Re: Well, I'm definitely happy

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Ultima Linux is what I've been learning and trying to use lately. And unlike the other distributions for low-end machines, it actually works. I did that the standard release of Dillo doesn't have everything and that the Ultima package of Dillo is a patched/experimental version. I really hope the Dillo developers see fit to roll that patch into the main version. Thank you for including it in the form it is in Ultima.