[My Views] Ubuntu 17.04 and future versions

Hi, guys it's been quite a long time since I last talked (rant) about random things while just having a relaxing day. Well, I will be ranting (i mean talking) today about some interesting stuff going on in Ubuntu world. So let's just sit back, relax, get comfy and talk about recent changes and future changes in Ubuntu.

After the release of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, lots of people were frustrated because AMD dropped their driver support for legacy hardware. That mean that legacy GPU won't be running on fglrx frivers anymore. One of our PC is also running with Radeon GPU and we were also frustrated with this move from AMD. We did run Ubuntu on that machine on minimal UI and without driver support. To save the day, there were some open-source alternatives, but those weren't giving enough performance. This was just the same in 16.10. Only newer hardware got supported from AMD with their AMDGPU-PRO drivers. What about the older and legacy hardware??? We lost hope on our AMD machine, but then 17.04 got released. This new version brought new light or AMD GPU users, as also brought support for legacy hardware with its AMD-Radeon drivers. Now Ubuntu works excellent on our AMD machine.

Though it is now running smoothly, but we are still not a big fan of Mir and Unity. Most of the time our team is divided in two when it comes to desktop environments and Ubuntu. One part of the team goes in favor of Unity, while the other on goes for KDE or GNOME. To be honest I loved to GNOME as a desktop environment. It was my first time using a Linux distro and I installed Ubuntu Lucid 10.04 LTS which had GNOME as it's default desktop. I really enjoyed Ubuntu a lot at that time but I was all gone in Ubuntu Natty 11.04. Though initially I wanted to try out Unity a lot but faced disappointments when it came down to performance. From that time I slowly began to lose my interest in Ubuntu and got more attracted to Fedora, SUSE, and Arch. I loved OpenSUSE more than any other distro and I still use it as my primary distro. But now, there was an announcement from Ubuntu team that Unity will be dropped and GNOME will use as it's default desktop again in future versions. This is what made me excited enough to try out Ubuntu once again. It was the decision that I personally liked and appreciated. So now Ubuntu team and Ubuntu GNOME team will just merge and make one single product that will be beautiful and fun like old days which made Ubuntu so good and made a vast community. Well after dropping Mir and Unity, let's see how Ubuntu change the tides with GNOME and Wayland.

Well, there is a lot more I have to say but that will just make this post longer and it will be too stupid to read it all. I will make sure to rant again about more different things in future and present my views in front of you guys. If you agree with me on above thing or disagree with me or just want to say something to enlighten our knowledge, please feel free to use the comment section and let everyone know what you think and feel.

Manjaro 17.0 Gellivara review

Hello guys, there is certain hype with the recent release of Manjaro 17.0 Gellivara. We also tried out the latest release and it just surprised us so we decided to write some good and bad things about it. Let's see what Manajro 17.0 has to offer us.

• The Base - Manjaro 17.0 is based on Arch Linux. But we think, Manjaro is on comp[letely different level from any other Arch-based-easy-to-install type of distribution. Manjaro clearly maintain it's own repositories while giving advantage of utilizing AUR too. Manjaro repositories have some exclusive packages which can't even be found in Arch repositories. 
• Rolling Release - One more interesting thing is Manjaro supports rolling release just like Arch. You don't have to make clean installation every time, you can simply stay updated within the system.
• Look and Feel - Manjaro 17.0 KDE edition is just beautiful. The look and feel is simply eye soothing. While it looks good, it also works in the same manner.The icons, theme, artwork is beautiful.
  
  
  

  

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• Customization - Manjaro 17.0 is highly customizable. You can simply customize deepest part of your Manjaro system. There are various choices of themes to choose from. You can separately customize desktop theme, login screen, cursors, fonts, window manager, etc. To add more fun to this thing, Manjaro team had made it possible to download other themes from online repositories.

  

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• MSM - Manjaro Settings Manager (MSM) is great way to satisfy your kernel needs for system. From MSM you can find a suitable kernel according to your system. You can variety of kernel here raging from 3.10 series to latest 4.10 series. Languages, drivers can also configured within MSM.

  

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• Notification Center - Manjaro 17.0 ships with KDE plasma 5.9. It includes a beautiful notification center to keep you notified of all the things going around your system. It includes KDE connect which easily connects your mobile phone to PC.
  

  

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• Applications and Availability - Manjaro 17.0 includes lots of applications and utilities by default. But there is octopi, a graphical installer for all the applications available in repositories. You can simply search desired package and install it within no time. Manjaro has made very easy for it's users.

  

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So overall, Manjaro 17.0 is quite a good release. It is decently stable  and performance is also on decent level. Tough we experience a very little lag few times but it's negligible and can be ignored. Manjaro 17.0 packs with Linux kernel 4.9.13 LTS which provides support for many hardware and works like a charm. We recommend you to use Manjaro Linux once, it has lot to offer and it is made with love from developer team. There are different flavors in Manjaro, The flagships are Xfce and KDE. Soon, community flavors will be released too. We also explained detailed process of installing Manjaro 17.0 here. So, try it out guys and let us know if you have any problem while installing it or using it in comments :)

KDE Plasma 5.9 released

Today KDE team has announced the release of KDE plasma 5.9.And it's not like those conventional release, having few bug fixes and improvement here and there,KDE has some nice list of changes and features for their users.
Without wasting more time let's get the list of changes and what's new in here?So,
What's new in KDE Plasma 5.9?
Interactive Notification Previews:
To bring more productivity out of this Plasma version,Here is something real useful feature which allows us to do things with the notifications.Yup! Alike other Desktop Environments, which are now working on notifications of the actions but they are just few lines of information about the task/action taken, KDE Plasma's this feature gives a lift by giving real time interactions with notifications and one can do various actions with their notifications.

For instance, A notification of screenshot allows to drag and drop the taken screeshot directly in any mail(Even Webmail), chat window etc.

KDE Plasma 5.8.5 released

With the ringing bells and Gifts of Christmas, the world of Linux release line is nothing left behind in assuring they present their gifts to the users.From Distros to Linux kernel itself getting new releases and improvements, KDE team is not behind in this Joyful time of Christmas.
KDE team has announced the point release for their KDE Plasma 5.8 build, KDE Plasma 5.8.5 has been announced just a moment ago.Basically, this point update is a bugfix update with some bugs fixed, found in the previous release so far. And, the good thing is that they have worked on a number of bugs, fixing issues encountered and reported by users and Developers around the world.