The Pull of Ubuntu

[Ronald van Engelen]

Op vr, 08-04-2005 te 00:13 -0400, schreef Ed Sutherland:

> 1. I want to do more than complain and wait on the sidelines until 
> someone creates the app I desperately need -- or think I need. I'd like 
> to work on the PR side of Linux, but also on the interface creating 
> simple solutions to the most common problems. How do I start? Do I need 
> to learn a scripting language?

When doing things which are too complex for bash and sh scripts (see
thread), my advice would be to learn python.

Check out the pygtk tutorial, available online at
http://www.pygtk.org/tutorial.html and as package with `apt-get install
python-gtk2-tutorial`. For designing great Gnome UI's use glade or
gazpacho and learn how to use those interfaces on
http://primates.ximian.com/~sandino/python-glade/.

> 2. I don't want to leave multimedia (in my case, playing audio CDs and 
> MP3 files) behind simply because my dominant OS is now Linux. What are 
> some concrete examples of bullet-proof apps for such tasks?

For ripping and converting CD's to anything (including MP3) use the
greatest of them all: abcde. Install with `apt-get install abcde`. 

For playing MP3, Ogg Vorbis,PCM and FLAC I really like rhythmbox
(iTunes-like UI).

Better yet, you can directly rip and convert CD's to the great FLAC
lossless format from within rhythmbox; 'File --> Import Audio CD' or
start 'sound-juicer' (Gnome CD ripping software) from the
applications-menu and lose the horrible MP3-format altogether.

For playing audio cd's use 'gnome-cd', simple but robust.

For movies I use the super-stable and leightweight xine (`apt-get
install xine-ui`) with the 'w32codecs' form marillat (see
http://ubuntuguide.org/#extrarepositories for instructions regarding the
marillat packages).

> 3. I spend most of my workday in Mozilla Thunderbird, but I can't stand 
> the blocky bold serif typeface used to denote unread messages. No matter 
> what I change (switching from Serif to Arial; using 96dpi fonts) the 
> same blocky bold typeface is used in the Linux Mozilla Thunderbird. If I 
> have access to the MS fonts and Thunderbird on Ubuntu is using the same 
> font settings as Thunderbird in Windows, why does the application look 
> so drastically different? Is there a solution?

You might tweak almost anything regarding fonts in Thunderbird; see
http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html and
http://www.holgermetzger.de/faqmailnews.html#24

Have fun,
Ronald