Software Review: Ubuntu Desktop Environments Part 2: Ubuntu Unity

This is Part 2 of a multi-part series of posts.  Part 1 can be found here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Open Source world or operating systems other than Windows or Mac, there lies a magical world of free (as in freedom) software.  Many of you are already accustomed to free (as in beer) software, or freeware.  But what makes Open Source Free software so unique is that when it is licensed under something like the GNU General Public License anybody has the freedom to change, modify, and redistribute that software either for money or for free (as in beer).  That means that you could have thousands of individuals working on a piece of software all around the world, creating localized language packs, improving performance, squashing bugs, and fixing security holes.

  Sounds pretty sweet, right?  And I'm about to blow your mind, because not only is there software like LibreOffice or GIMP that's Open Source, but there's a whole slew of Operating Systems.  Versions of Unix, reincarnations of BeOS, and the very popular Unix-like GNU/Linux (often shortened to just Linux).  I'm going to be specifically looking at GNU/Linux for this multi-part post, and even more specifically I'm going to be comparing the Desktop Environments that are built on the GNU/Linux Distribution Ubuntu.  These posts will be spaced far enough apart to allow me to use the systems for a good week or two.  After I have tested the different "major" Desktop Environments I'll have a final post with my conclusion and opinion.  All of these OS's are run on my work computer, which is an HP ProBook 6460b with an Intel Core i5 2520m, 8GB of RAM, and 500GB 7200RPM drive with a custom partition setup.  This should be more than adequate to run all of these Desktop Environments.

Software Review: Ubuntu One

   In the wonderful world of high-speed Internet and constantly connected devices cloud storage has proliferated and evolved.  From Dropbox, Amazon Cloud, Google Drive, SpiderOak, Box, and more than I care to list comes a new offering for Cloud Storage.  Canonical, the company behind the hugely popular Ubuntu GNU/Linux Operating System, has decided to join the foray and offer its own cloud service, called Ubuntu One, for Windows, Ubuntu, Android, and iOS.  Is it a program that stands out, or is it just another name in an ever growing list of cloud storage services?

No Updates for a few weeks

We recently moved into a new house, so between packing and repairs there has not been a lot of opportunities to do a decent write-up.  I hope to resume updates sometime next week or the week thereafter.  Stay tuned!