Czanik@BalaBit

For a long time I was a KDE user, but around 4.5 it became too fancy for me and was in my way instead of helping my work. So I switched to Gnome 2. It provided me with a sometimes over simplified, but convenient and consistent GUI. Then suddenly Gnome 3 destroyed the whole thing with a completely redesigned interface. Also, pulse audio became mandatory with Gnome, which has a noticeable impact on sound quality (I have above the average good ears and headphones )Recently I switched to XFCE, so I had a convenient interface and a mixer on the system tray even without pulse audio. It can even load services from Gnome 3, so ssh login is convenient there too. But I still missed the unified look of applications.

It seems to me, that I was not the only one, who did not like the new Gnome user interface, as the guys of LinuxMint created a fork of Gnome 3, called Cinnamon. It builds on Gnome 3, but brings back most of the convenience and flexibility of Gnome 2. And also the most important feature of Gnome, the unified look of apps. It is still not perfect, for example I can’t move the virtual desktop overview applet, but for the rest it’s a huge step into the right direction.

On the other hand Gnome 3 or KDE might actually prove to be useful on a tablet. I have an e-book reader now, which had a very positive impact on my reading habits. I read a lot more now. But while the reader is a perfect target device, I also feel its limitations. A tablet with Linux could be a perfect personal media consumption device, not limited to e-books, but also pictures, music, movies, e-mails and web pages. No, not with Android, as I like to be root without voiding warranty, and Linux is a lot more flexible anyway.

The problem is: which tablet. Many Android tablets play Blue Ray quality movies without problems. They would even be able to play recordings from my full HD camera recording at better than Blue Ray quality. But don’t run Linux, or just as a limited hack. There are some Linux tablets based on ARM, but their video and other capabilities are not too strong. I also found some Atom 4xx based tablets, but these have the same problem. Of course, they have an advantage on the software side, x86 Linux and its drivers are still light years ahead of ARM Linux (video) drivers. But they also have a much higher power consumption, so are either heavier or have a shorter battery time.

Also, a sunlight readable low power screen, like the one from PixelQI would be nice. But the only table I know using it is the Adam from Notion Ink, which runs Android.

Summary: I have yet to find a good tablet.

Talking about hardware: once upon a time I regularly visited a Linux hardware site, looking for interesting hw to be used with Linux, which was called LinuxDevices. It is still on-line, but no more updated. The author started now a blog, I hope he will have the time and energy to keep it up to date. It’s available at http://www.gadgetsense.com/