CannonContraption

Wrote a shell script for doing a dropbox-style SSH-based RSync on a specific directory. Manual invocation, but when it runs it does an incremental diff on the files on both sides and moves the ones that were created/modified. #!/bin/bash #Server parameters server="10.0.0.1" #Change this to your server's IP address username="jim" portnumber="20" #Your SSH server's port number. #Excluded files #I added an example excludes file based on files I've had problems with in the past. path_to_excludes="...../rsyncexcludes.txt" #Change this to the path to the excludes file #source and destination #Please note that due to the nature of rsync, these MUST be absolute paths. They also #must match on the source and destination, so if you mirror /home/joey/SyncMe on one #machine, you'll get /home/joey/SyncMe on the other. source_path="/..../SyncMe" #Path to what you're syncing plus the folder name itself dest_path="/..../" #Path to what you're syncing without the folder itself #Tools excludes="--exclude-from $path_to_excludes" #if you prefer to hard-code exludes, use this variable instead of the excludes file sshcommand="ssh -p $portnumber" #This is the SSH command. If you need extra params to login, place them here #From here down is the code to sync stuff itself. Most of the params should be above. rsync -avucr $excludes -e "$sshcommand" $username@$server:$source_path $dest_path if [ $? == 0 ]; then echo -e "\e[1;32mPull complete. Beginning push...\e[m" else echo -e "\033[1;31mFailed to fetch updates. Please diagnose and rerun the script.\033[m" exit; fi rsync -avucr $excludes -e "$sshcommand" $source_path $username@$server:$dest_path if [ $? == 0 ]; then echo -e "\e[1;32mPush complete. Script is successful.\e[m" else echo -e "\e[1;31mPush failed. Please diagnose and rerun the script.\e[m" exit; fi It is written in Bash, and relies on RSync being installed on both systems. If this counts, then including the readme and excludes example file, the entire project comes in at under 100 lines. https://github.com/CannonContraption/rsynccstation for the other files. I do wish that there was BASH syntax highlighting support, but Perl isn't so far off so if something looks out of place in the highlighting, that's why.

Another vote for Kubuntu on that one. If you don't like it, OpenSUSE has a good KDE desktop setup. As for bootloader issues, that seems to be a pretty vanilla setup, so if you are willing to give Arch another try, try this: (as root) pacman -S grub grub-install /dev/sdX grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg I haven't used it in a while, but over the course of several years this never failed me.

I do want to say that I waffle on this one. Half the time, I'm using i3, the other half I'm using KDE. It depends on what I'm doing and what environment I'm in. i3 generally is quicker for really serious work, for me.

He uses a copy of a program called powerline to make the prompt and Vim lines look different. https://github.com/powerline/powerline is the official repo, I believe. I don't know what you mean by navbar, if you mean the Launcher (side dock), that will be transparent if your hardware supports it. If you have hardware which doesn't let Compiz use OpenGL, then it will show up opaque and software rendered. If you mean the panel (top bar) then there's an option for that in Unity Tweak Tool, don't ask me where though because I'm running Arch at the moment.

As for looking obsolete, I disagree, but that's a different topic entirely. Photo editing and video editing on Linux has come a long way in recent years. Keep in mind here that getting functionality comes first over ease of use a lot of the time in the Linux world. While it's not as bad as ten years ago, there are still a lot of programs that work best once you get into the mindset. This goes for professional tools on Windows too, however, and is generally becoming more accepted as far as I can tell. If you're looking for basic photo editing, I think GIMP is overkill for sure. It's built as more of a powerhouse of photo editing features rather than something for quick edits. For those, I can recommend Shotwell. It handles more like iPhoto rather than Photoshop, and is targeted more at people who don't want to spend all day learning that one program. I can echo the positive sentiment around LibreOffice, although I'm a little puzzled as to what makes Calc inferior to Excel, there have been many times where I have reached a specific feature quicker in Calc than Excel simply because despite more complicated control panels, the interface is easier to navigate. I've put people with no experience with Calc who have only used Excel behind it and they generally get things done a little quicker, with the same or better results. I've never used macros in LO or MSO, however, so I can't speak to which one is better. Video editing is tricky. Some perform differently on different platforms, and it all depends on what you're looking for. I'm going to split this into two categories, beginner and professional. Beginner: KDEnlive. (Simple, less crashes, supports multi-thread rendering, I think basic compositing, though I haven't used it as much as the next one) Professional: Blender (Includes 3d modeling, transform strips, raytrace-based photorealistic 3d, compositing, the list goes on...) Vector graphics is another one where it's all about workflow, like with photo and video. If you want all the tools, Inkscape has given me the best luck, but Libreoffice includes Draw, which seems targeted at flowcharts, Calligra includes Karbon, which is probably more friendly in interface, but I hardly know it, so I have no idea, and there are probably more I haven't even heard of. Audio is possibly the most multifaceted part of your list. Here's what I use, based on the task I'm using it for: Quick, cheap edits: Audacity Live sound: Ardour Sequencing: LMMS MIDI: Haven't in a while, but Ardour again Sheet Music: MuseScore All of the audio applications above (except Ardour) are also available in Windows. Ardour is available as well on MacOS. Honestly, I do believe that aside from security (which is generally better across the board, though not impenetrable) and speed (which is mostly improved, though their are areas Windows can do better), Linux is notable for how well it allows scripts and odd setups. Keeping this in mind, it isn't a far fetched expectation for you to install all of these and still have a stable system, so experimentation is probably your best bet. I hope some of this mess makes sense and helps, good luck!

In general, anything related to extending GNOME will be at extensions.gnome.org, in your case I went and did the search and it shows up here: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/307/dash-to-dock/ There are other solutions, so it may be worth exploring and seeing what works best. Note that to use that site, you will need to install the GNOME Shell Integration plugin in Firefox or Chrome, or just use GNOME Web for that specific task. Personally, I have found that if the extensions fail, GNOME Web ALWAYS works, so it's worth a shot Good luck!