Another Dip In To Linux... Could It Be For Good?

I have had an on-off relationship with Linux over the years, dipping my toe in to various distros and then back to my Mac and macOS. In 2018 I even gave Linux a good run for six weeks (leaving my Mac aside), but eventually I caved and went back to macOS.

My distro of choice is LinuxMint, a superb sleak, cleaning looking version of Linux that is gorgeous to look at and easy to use - as well as being superb stable.

I have used a Mac for over 20 years and once a hardcore Apple fan, but over the past few years I have become a user rather than a fan and even ditched iOS a few years back.

With the announcement of BigSur - the forthcoming new release of macOS - and the fact that my beloved MacBook Air wont be receiving it, it has started to put the nail in my Macs coffin. While it will be good for a while just yet, it does make me wonder what my next computer will be.

It certainly won’t be a Windows machine as I detest Windows. A ChromeBook doesn’t fit my needs and I cannot justify spending a fortune on another Mac. So I have two choices, I stick with my current 8 year old Mac or I start seriously looking in to my interest in Linux.

I installed LinuxMint 20 ‘Cinnamon’ in a VM on my Mac this evening and instantly I felt at home. I remembered why I loved LinuxMint so much. It feels like a Mac/Windows hybrid in terms of look. Start menu and task bars being reminiscent of Windows, but with the window handling of macOS.

The thing that has stopped me moving away from my Mac to Linux is software. While software has come a long way and I do use a lot of free, open source, cross platform packages which are easily found on Linux, there are some mainstream packages which I have struggled to find good alternative for.

Being a Mac user you fall in to the habit of adopting Apple ways and I have used iTunes for music management - such as MP3 converting, album organising and ID3 tag editing. This is something I would have to switch from.

Other than that it is pure habit that has kept with macOS. After so long, I know it inside out and what to do if - on the rare occasion - it goes wrong. While I am fairly up to speed with Linux it is still a little daunting delving in to the nix world and if a problem was to arise I would be out of my comfort zone - and I don’t like that.

But with my MacBook Airs life running out, this could be the push I need to further develop my Linux skills and perhaps start a new chapter in my computing life.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Turn KDE to The Dark Side - Dark Theme All The Things!

When Apple announced at WWDC2018 that macOS 10.14 Mojave would have a Dark Mode, my first thought was that in the Linux world, completely dark themes have been around since forever. Anyway, whilst you can make Gnome look almost exactly like Mojave with themes, I have no wish to do that though, or to use Gnome either. KDE has been my desktop of choice for over a year now and it's far less restrictive and more customisable, and has a far better file manager in Dolphin.

I've been using KDE Neon for about awhile now, having previously used Debian Testing before that. It's currently based on Ubuntu 16.04 but with the latest KDE software, so it's more up to date than Kubuntu 16.04 and still has a newer version of KDE than Kubuntu 18.04. The image below is how my desktop looks right now. I think I found the wallpapers on this subreddit but then I found out they are from iOS or macOS, but they work well on OLED/LED/AMOLED screens. And yes I do have an odd arrangement of a 27" landscape orientated monitor and a 22" portrait orientated monitor, which makes screenshots look quite odd too. Sadly I had to swap my right hand monitor for a non-LED monitor as the old one died. I take donations... ;)

I use Breeze Dark desktop theme which you can find in the Theme settings, and my choice of icons is Papirus Dark. Breeze Dark icons work well too. You can start typing what you need in the K Menu to quickly find anything. For a macOS-like dock, I use Latte dock, which is highly configurable and is far less buggy than Cairo Dock.

For Google Chrome, I found a good dark theme that goes well with the desktop theme, appropriately named Dark Theme V3.  To make every website in Chrome dark, I found a good dark mode extension in the Chrome web store called Dark Reader.  I found it recently and was the first one I found that doesn't mess up how Google Photos and some other app-like sites work. My only slight issue I've had with it is I cannot see the cursor input in YouTube comment boxes. The good thing is all my Chrome settings are synced to my other Chrome installs so I have these on my Chromebook too, which is nice. It's particularly good with Facebook and Google Plus which are far too bright normally.

And that's pretty much it. It certainly is easier on my eyes than without all the dark themes, particularly as I use my computer in a mostly dark room. Let me know in the comments about your dark themes and desktop tweaks.