Linux Monday

Linux Monday

How many of you are still clunking along in Internet Explorer 6.0? Quite a few, actually, even though they're now up to 8.0.

But just about no one is using anything but the latest version of Chrome. Here's a look at how browsers handle their updates differently and how that affects user share.

The program you use the most but probably know the least about is your window manager. I'm not talking about a browser or a file manager. The window (not WindowS) manager is the program that runs your graphic interface (or GUI).

Windows has one default window manager, the poorly named Explorer, which you only really notice if your browser locks up, you go into Task Manager and dump it thinking it's Internet Explorer (which is a browser) or Windows Explorer (which is a file manager), then find your desktop doesn't work at all.
Linux gives you multiple options. I've mostly used just two: the bells and whistles Gnome and the minimalist Fluxbox. But for the truly geeky here's a list of hundreds. Overkill? Sure, but you know I'm all about that.

Speaking of window managers, here's a look at how things have improved in that department over the last decade of Linux.

And Lexmark acknowledges that us Linux geeks exists and slaps Tux on their packaging next to Windows and Mac. (Remember those Vista Capable" logos that really, in the fine print, meant "Technically you can install Vista on this underpowered piece of junk, but good luck actually doing anything.")