Welcome to the Lubuntu PC Retirement Home

Having a working computer, but no money to buy a Windows licence for it is as useful as owning a large garage with many cars, but no money to fuel them. This was the predicament I was faced with for quite some time. No, not the cars of course, but a handful of spare computers.

At one point in the last couple of years, I owned and maintained as many as five different computers in my house wherein my primary desktop and laptop always ran the latest version of Windows, and the next two, a slightly older version or a Windows Preview (beta) copy, and the last one, some distribution of Linux. Sometimes, I even had Linux installed alongside Windows for variety. I’ll admit I had great fun playing mix-and-match with all these OSes.

With Windows, there really isn’t much of a choice; one tries to buy the latest version of it and sticks to it for a good half a decade before it’s time to cough up to Microsoft again and that has been the mantra until quite recently. Linux however, being a different and open-source ecosystem, allows the user to choose from a variety of flavours and variants. And I had tried them all; Ubuntu (with the old GNOME and the new Unity interface), Fedora, MeeGo, etc., but never stuck with anything for too long. Every distro has its own quirks, so I could never place my finger on one of them and say, ‘This is the OS I want to use permanently.’ I found myself wanting to go back to Windows often because they all felt equally slow or limiting due to driver incompatibility or lack of apps. Until I tried Lubuntu.

Lubuntu is a lightweight Ubuntu distribution based on an LXDE interface. It’s designed to run easily on old and low-end computers with low memory, and I have a couple of old-timer PCs that just about run Windows with occasional hiccups. Ideal candidates then. Lubuntu is lovely to use because the interface is very similar to that of Windows, but is not Windows. Unlike Unity and GNOME that have an app-switcher bar on the sides and corners (which if I’m honest, can be putting-off at first), Lubuntu uses a simple and conventional taskbar at the bottom with a Windows Start-like button on the left, followed by shortcuts and running tasks in the middle, and finally the system tray icons on the right. This alone makes for a flatter learning curve for new Linux users.

My Acer netbook, which has struggled to run most versions of Windows and Linux mostly due to inadequate memory and driver incompatibility, works with Lubuntu as if it were an old buddy. And my old Windows desktop too feels completely at home with Lubuntu. There’s definitely some magic here.

Lubuntu serves me well for most of my everyday computing needs. Web browsing is taken care of by Chromium, the father of Google Chrome. It is identical to the current version of Chrome and runs apps like Hangouts for chatting, and Keep for note-taking. A pre-installed Mozilla browser is also available if you prefer the fox instead.
The default music player is Audacious, a simple yet powerful tool that’s so good I even use it on Windows sometimes. I have noticed the audio output through Audacious to be crisper when compared with the competition. The popular VLC media player too is available for download in the Lubuntu Software Centre.
Dropbox works just as well as it does on Windows, and that’s lucky because I use it very heavily. Thunderbird is the most popular email client on Lubuntu, but I haven’t really taken to it. I prefer Sylpheed for speed, although it may prove to be too simplistic for some when you actually use it. There are a few more email clients to choose from, however.
The LibreOffice suite does its best to mimic Microsoft Office, but may lack full file and feature compatibility with new Office files. In this department alone, I’d recommend using Office Online if you really want the Microsoft Office experience or something close to it.
Transmission is the default torrent client and I daresay it works just as well as its Windows counterparts like the uTorrent client.

After a few months of using Lubuntu, I found myself left with a surplus of Windows licence keys. I found Lubuntu to be a better match for my Acer netbook than the Windows that came with it. I also found it liberating to use a computer without so many updates being thrown at your face every now and then, and if you’ve used genuine Windows before, you’ll know that it can get sickeningly overbearing.

Understandably, Lubuntu may not be everyone’s cup of tea. At the end of the day, it still is a Linux and sadly, a Linux can never be your only OS. This is because, in the twisted world we live in, too many applications run only on Windows or Mac. If you’ve accidentally bought an iPod for instance, or if you want to Photoshop that lightning-shaped scar off your forehead in a picture, you’d be pretty helpless with Linux. Having been designed for low-resource usage, Lubuntu lacks finesse in its user interface design. Expect zero animations and clunky looking fonts and icons that you can tweak later on. However, if you do have a spare computer lying around and are willing to give Linux a shot, Lubuntu is a great place to start.


Until next time...
Vignesh

Cover Me While I Recharge

For a long time, I firmly believed that the mobile phone battery problem could never be solved. In the last five years or so, phones have been becoming increasingly hungry for power because they have been getting smarter, and batteries... well, they have only been becoming bigger, and not really any smarter. Until now.

A couple of years ago, Lenovo, who were still selling only computers at the time introduced their Power Bridge system in one of their X-series ThinkPad models (X240 I think) that allowed the user to swap the rear replaceable battery with another one while leaving the computer running. All they did to achieve this was add a small internal battery that could hold the fort while the rear replaceable ones were being swapped. A clever algorithm then ensured that the internal battery got charged first when connected to power, and then the replaceable one.

The setup seemed perfect to me. This, I thought was the way forward with mobile phone batteries as well - sell mobile phones with an optional second battery that you can keep charging and swapping as you go. Also, get rid of the back panel because it's always such a pain.

In my two years of owning an Xperia ZR, its abysmally poor battery life was pretty much the only thing I used to complain about. It was otherwise a great phone with a stalwart build and a neat camera. About a month ago, its battery almost fully gave out and I just had to let it go.

Enter the new Nexus 5X. It cost a fortune to buy it but I finally have it in my hands (‘hands’ because it’s too bloody big to use with just one). This phone has a very ordinary 2700 mAh non-removable battery, but the way it uses it and charges it is intriguing.

I’m a moderate, if not light user of my phone. My usage consists of some calling and texting and the occasional light reading and web-browsing. I seldom play games, and when I do, it’s usually a crossword puzzle or a word-guesser that barely saps any GPU power. The fully charged Nexus serves me a good day or two before asking me to plug it in again.

Most of this frugal consumption is thanks to its new software. The latest 'Marshmallow' release of Android features Doze, a system that slows down or shuts off background apps when the phone is being inactive for long hours. The result is a phone that’s fresher than I am when I wake up in the mornings. Then there's the display backlight that can automatically go from being as bright as the sun to as dim as a night-lamp depending on the amount of light around me. While this amazing dimming capacity is great for reading late-night text messages in the bed, it can sometimes get a bit annoying as the display becomes really dim even when I'm outside at evenings and need some more backlight.

The only thing better than its battery performance is its charging system. USB type-C has finally started to make its way into some production models and the Nexus 5X has it too. The fast charger provided with the phone makes use of type-C’s improved charging rate and can charge the 5X from around 0% to full in just over an hour. I’m told that it does not employ Qualcomm’s new Quick Charge 3.0 technology but that’s a remarkable charging speed nevertheless and it feels much quicker compared to the two or three hours my previous Sony used to take to charge fully. The plug’s flippable on both ends so there’s no swearing every time I plug it in groggily every morning.

So, there we have it. The way forward is quicker charging with better hardware, and smarter software that knows how to handle apps better. And I believe I am seeing some of the finest of it here with the new Nexus after a very long time.

Every time I plug it in, a line of text on the lock-screen that reads, ‘Charging rapidly’ is a subtle reminder of how things really are progressing with battery and battery-charging technology. I am glad that I am finally seeing some of it.

Sigh. All that said, my idea wasn’t so bad either you know. It could have worked. It could have been cool even. People could have gone around cocking and reloading their phones like guns in action movies until people actually  got hurt and the entire system got scrapped.

Oh, but wait! What’s this news I hear just as I’m about to end this post? Apple has just released an expensive battery pack for the iPhone 6s which encases the phone’s body like a regular silicone phone cover but with an obnoxiously large bulge at the back.

Aha!


Until next time…
Vignesh