Maybe you've taken some time and fooled around a bit with Quanta Plus and Bluefish and decided that they weren't for you. Maybe you just looked at the features, and the GUIs and thought, "I'd rather pluck my nose hairs out than use those."

That's okay. We're not about to pass judgment on your taste in HTML editors, or your strange penchant for self-inflicted pain. And while we may never use the tweezers in your house, we will gladly point you in the direction of alternative HTML editors.

This week we'll take a look at Screem and Amaya in brief. These two editors are frequently found in distribution repositories (and are also, of course, available as source code). Both of these editors have a very different take on what their users hope to accomplish with them. We hope at least a few have earned your badges of dorkdom, and are presently happily pondering the irony of applications that do the same thing to reach different ends.

Whether you like the idea of handcoding growing the hair on your chest (as opposed to your nostrils), the moral highground of browsing and coding with standards compliance, we've got you covered.

Next week, we'll take a closer look at our final two editors, suggested by our noble readers at the beginning of the series.

Perhaps our fate is sealed at Download Squad. Perhaps if you avert your eyes now you can save yourselves. Abandon all hope ye who read past this point, and know, yea verily, that while the weather stinks here, the company is diverse and you're bound to find someone you have something in common with.

The Ubuntu Satanic Edition is Linux for the damned. You don't have to be damned to use it (well, we're using it, and we've been telling ourselves this). The best thing is that it is so well designed and configuration is so well documented, you won't even need to use naughty words in the installation process. (We do advise, to get the most out of your hellish computing experience, that you follow the configuration guide. Some of it is very obvious, some of it isn't.)

Unlike the (now on temporary hiatus) Ubuntu Christian Edition and (active) Ubuntu Muslim Edition, which both have religion-specific applications, the Satanic Edition is simply a collection of themes, wallpapers (some NSFW), sound effects and splash screens. We suppose that's fine, as we really don't want any Satanic applications on our computers, although we're pretty sure someone will comment on the true nature of OEM installs of certain software that comes pre-installed on many computers. We didn't say it, though, okay?

Ubuntu Satanic Edition is visually quite stunning. We mean this in a good way. The artwork is very professional looking, the themes render well (and there are hints for making them work better with applications that have issues with dark themes), and the screen savers and bootsplash screens work without issue. There are even Beryl Skydomes especially for this edition.

Ubuntu Satanic Edition can be optimized for wide screens, and can be uninstalled, should you have complaints from co-workers, loved ones, or just feel really creeped out. It'll install happily on Hardy, Feisty, Gutsy or Edgy in either the 32- or 64-bit varieties (PPC does have a few components missing). There are guides for installing and configuring both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. There are also several additional themes for Emerald, icon themes, and other assorted goodies that are not "officially" part of the Satantic Edition.

The version number of the Satanic Edition? Duh, 666.4, of course.

[via Aditya Kavoor's blog]

I remember being a little girl, and watching my friends fuss about what their babies would like if they married George Michael, or Michael Jackson (so I am not only carbon-dating myself, but I'm also showing how naive my friends and I were). Oh, c'mon, I never fussed about these things. I was too busy playing with the Commodore PET.

The Commodore PET could only dream of doing the things modern computers (or little girls) do. Today, its dreams have come true with the introduction of (cough) MakeMeBabies.com. Okay, this site is for entertainment purposes only. The resulting child of any of these unions, holy, unholy, or otherwise, may not be true to life. Yet all of us here at Download Squad are wasting way too much time spreading our genes throughout Hollywood.

They'll thank us later, for sure.

The results of our fooling around (hate the game, not the playaz, guys) produced some interesting (if extremely disturbing) results. My (real life) husband and I had a blonde child that was much too good looking to have come from either of us. Never mind that neither of us are blonde. Antonio Banderas and I produced a child that had some serious facial issues. Interestingly enough, fellow Download Squad lady bloggers (why aren't the guy Squadders doing this too?) seemed to have children with similar facial issues. Actually, we all seemed to have the same child with Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, and Antonio Banderas.

So what do you all think? One trick algorithm putting similar features on generic children's heads? Or is it a deeper conspiracy? Do all the guys in Hollywood have the same genetic structure? Are they all inbred? Or maybe... Maybe it's all of us here at Download Squad. We'll never tell.

[via Jay Martinez.com]

The Quanta Plus rundown

Quanta Plus is a KDE based application, and is associated with the kwebdev package. Quanta Plus is actually a completely different application, at this point, than Quanta Gold. There is a bit of shared history between them, but Quanta Plus is released under the GPL and is developed and maintained by a different team with different goals.

Naturally, Quanta Plus is not limited to HTML/XHTML editing. It can handle PHP, CSS, and just about any sort of tagging or coding that can be defined with XML. It also has a variety of more advanced features, such as debugging for PHP and XSL, and XML validation tools.

In the normal course of the day here, we don't ever use every last feature that Quanta Plus is capable of delivering. That's okay because Quanta Plus is designed well enough that extraneous features generally stay out of our way (and is customizable so that we can get oft-used tools where we want them). It's even better because when we do need an odd tool or function, it's there at the ready.

There are a few features of Quanta Plus that we adore. For reasons we can't explain, we have always loved editors that allow us to switch between (and display simultaneously) code view and "design" view. Maybe it's an instant gratification thing. Maybe if we're screwing up something really basic we like to know right away. Regardless of the reason, Quanta Plus implements this feature very well.

Next on the menu... Bluefish

Bluefish initially feels like it is missing a lot of the glitz and glam of Quanta Plus. This might bother some from the very beginning, or it might win Bluefish a place in their hearts. When you start using Bluefish, it becomes clear that there are different motives and goals for the project. It is still an XHTML editor, but it caters to a different audience.

Bluefish is also released under the GPL, and runs on a number of *nix and related platforms, including OpenBSD, FreeBSD, OS X and Solaris. It's very lightweight (without sacrificing function) so it starts noticeably faster than Quanta Plus. Though geared for GNOME, it strives for compliance with as many GNOME and KDE user interface standards as possible (though we will mention here, out of fairness, that Quanta Plus when run on GNOME had virtually no issues either).

Bluefish supports a number of programming languages, such as PHP, XHTML/HTML, CSS and DocBook. There are handy scripts for Apache authentication, MySQL queries, and associating actions with various features on your website. Syntax highlighting and autoclose tags are optional, and we really liked that they were easy to find and activate/deactivate in the menu.

Document types were easily configured from the moment of document creation. We could easily pick HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Ruby or Pascal (among others) from the document menu.

There is the inclusion of a "Quick Bar" tool menu. The idea is that we load it with our most oft-used tags and functions. We think this is a great idea, and it makes customization a bit less involved than with Quanta Plus. If we have a tag we use a lot, we right click and add it to our Quick Bar. Problem is, unless we disable it in our Preferences, if we should leave it empty, Bluefish reminds us every time we start up that the menu is empty. In the big picture, it won't kill us. But clicking on that menu and finding it empty is faster and more effective at reminding us than a pop up when starting the application.


Document and project creation is pretty neat. Projects feel a lot more cohesive than in Quanta Plus, and we think this is because it's a lot more readily apparent how documents are created and fit together.

For instance, when we click our QuickStart icon (and choke at the number of meta tags it includes by default -- yikes!) we can add our link to our style sheet. If we've not created it yet? No worries. We can right click on the side pane and add a new document with the correct name, or we can go to our Document window and select a .css document type.

Then we can fire up our style sheet, and go to the CSS tab, and start adding our attributes. The input menu here feels much more intuitive than Quanta Plus.

An XHTML editor is a lot like a teacup dog breed or a designer pig. Okay, so they don't tremble incessantly or have the tendency to pee in the corner of your living room. They are really just highly specialized, souped-up versions of something else. Chihuahuas are pack animals, just like wolves. Potbellied pigs know instinctively how to root around for tasty things, as do wild boars. And XHTML editors edit text.

They have many tools to make editing XHTML (and other bits of code geared specifically for web use) faster and easier, but there's nothing says you need to use an XHTML editor for web coding. Text editors can do the job as well. If Kate, gedit, or Cream do the job for you, either on their own or with a few plugins, that's got you ahead of the game.

But there are some XHTML editors that manage to bundle the basic functions and a whole slew of handy extras into a nicely finished package. There are quite a few of them, and we'll be touching on more of them next week.

This week we'll take a peek at Bluefish and Quanta Plus. Why? Because they are the two most often included in Linux as the sort of "came with the distro" web development applications. Even if they aren't installed by default, many people try them first.

Do you want to make more money? Sure, we all do! You can make more money quickly and easily by studying for a new career at home in your spare time.

Get your degree in professional internet surfing from myinternetdiploma.com! It's the hot new career! And you know that "study" talk we've gone on about? Pfft. Studying is for people who actually want to learn stuff. Where's the glory in that?

And spare time? That would imply that we have lives and other stuff we should be doing, and then we wouldn't really need an internet diploma.

The good news is, as long as you know how to type in your email address, and are then able to log in to the aforementioned email account by using your username and password... You too can get a degree in professional internet surfing. That's not all...

There are absolutely no tuition costs! Plus, putting it on your resumé is no problem. It's not a purchased degree, or an earned degree. That's right! You can use it where ever you wish because it is -- well, pretty much worthless?

So, yeah. Why on earth would you want to do this? Hey, search us. It's kind of funny. Totally pointless, but funny. For about two whole minutes, you know, as long as it takes for you to fill out the forms for your degree. No, wait, and then it's fun for another two minutes, when you view your degree. Then you realize that you have a molecular biology final tomorrow and reality sets in.

Why would the site owners want to do this? We imagine there is probably some harvesting of emails involved somewhere, but we're not sure. The few, the brave, the worthy DLS bloggers who have earned this prestigious honor didn't use email addresses that they check regularly. It is entirely possible that the folks behind My Internet Diploma are really into education, and want to bestow its virtue on everybody.

The "No Surfer Left Behind" Act has a nice ring to it, in that case. Otherwise, make sure your spam filter is up to snuff.

The people at the OpenSUSE project are so excited about their recent 11.0 release, they're ready to share the love with a lucky Download Squad reader! And it's not that garden variety elementary school crush sort of love, either. It's the bona fide, dyed in the wool, hand-holding sort of love, complete with instruction manuals, quick start guides and 90 days of end-user installation support bliss!

The OpenSUSE 11.0 boxed version is especially nice for new users, not only because of the support and great manuals, but because it has every iteration of OpenSUSE 11.0 you could ever imagine. Need the x86 version? There it is! Got a 64 bit processor and a ridiculous amount of RAM to support? Hey, the 64 bit version's there too!

There's the usual Linux suspects, too, of course: KDE, GNOME, Xfce, OpenOffice, Firefox, GIMP, Amarok, firewall software, and AppArmor. But lest your heart become overwhelmed, there are a few hoops you have to jump through to get up close and personal with the OpenSUSE 11.0 box set of love.

In order to win the OpenSUSE 11.0 team's heart (or at least the fruits of their labor):

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older
• Leave a comment on this post and tell us what you like best about free speech and/or free beer (and keep in mind that our moms visit this site, so go easy on the free speech concerning the free beer, okay?)
• Contest is open until 11:59 pm Eastern Time, June 26, 2008
• You may enter once.
  
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize is one boxed copy of OpenSUSE 11.0, including manuals and 90 days of end-user installation support. (valued at $60)
• Click here for complete official rules.

OpenSUSE has always been an odd sort of Linux distribution. It's always been reasonably user friendly, very stable, and quite nicely pulled off the not-so-easy task of being good for new users while offering advanced and power users the flexibility and freedom they require.

Yet OpenSUSE often gets a bad wrap. There's that whole Novell/Microsoft/the world is ending conspiracy thing going on, for one thing. Certainly when Novell bought SuSE, it was disturbing. What were Novell's intentions? Where were things going to go from this point? Was openSUSE going to suffer for it?

Suffer? We probably wouldn't go as far as to say that. Were the changes and improvements to the distribution immediately after Novell took the helm earth-shaking? No, not particularly. They were modest, and worked well enough, but nothing that seemed leaps and bounds beyond the previous versions.

Nothing seemed leaps and bounds beyond -- until now. Today, OpenSUSE officially rolled out the 11.0 release. OpenSUSE seems to have scrutinized itself, from the kernel to the community. The developers pushed away from what seemed like an "adapt to survive" mode, and rolled out a release with changes so dramatic and beautiful that the distribution's chameleon ("geeko") mascot seems less cute and instead genuinely fitting.

If we had one word, and only one word to use to describe OpenSUSE 11.0, it would be this:

Fast.

Yes, dear readers. We just used the word "fast" (boldface, even) in relation to an OpenSUSE release. It starts and runs applications quickly, and we can say completely honestly, it installs quickly. We aren't just talking system updates and "here and there" YaST additions. No... You can boot the liveCD and have a complete OpenSUSE 11.0 system on your hard drive in what seems even slightly less time than an Ubuntu install.

We can say unequivocally that change is good.

OpenSUSE, at its heart, has always been a really good distribution once it was up and running. But its faults, even though they weren't encountered by most users on a daily basis, were discouraging. For example, the project offered liveCDs, but they didn't contain an obvious or easy installer option. Instead, the user usually tried out the liveCD, then had to download the installation disk image.

The installation was lengthy, regardless of media used or programs installed. Most distributions, on reasonably powerful hardware, can take anywhere from twenty to forty minutes to install, start to finish. OpenSUSE versions prior to 11.0 took significantly longer.

Don't blink, or you'll miss the installation

OpenSUSE 11.0 unveils its take on the liveCD/DVD and installer combination. Our initial thoughts were that this was nice, because at least we'd be entertained with a web connection and functional operating system while OpenSUSE worked at the install. We imagined that we'd be involved with this install process for a good hour, at least.


The install process was fairly generic, and not unlike Ubuntu's ubiquity installer. We agreed to the EULA, and picked languages and layouts. When it came time to create our user, we got some nice options. We had the choice of creating a separate administrator (root) account with a separate password, or we could go with the sudoer-type arrangement. We could select if we wanted to auto-login.


We also really liked the disk partitioner. It seemed much more intuitive than OpenSUSE's previous partitioner, and the design felt better than Ubuntu's partitioner. This partitioner does have its quirks, which are just as likely to benefit a new user as make a more experienced one have to stop and think a minute.



In the event there is another operating system on your hard disk, OpenSUSE proposes resizing the largest partition/the one with the most free space, and installing itself there. For dual boots with Windows (or another Linux distribution), this should work without a hitch. If you'd like to replace your current distro with OpenSUSE 11.0 and preserve your current /home directory, or dual boot OpenSUSE and another Linux, and share the same /home directory, looking at the proposed partitioning can make your eyes bleed.


The solution is to select the "Re-Read the Partition Table" option, which nicely mind-wipes any proposed changes and allows you to go on to edit as you see fit.


Then the install starts in earnest. Filesystems and applications are mirrored, copied, and -- that's it? We didn't even have time to make a sandwich! The install itself took close to twenty minutes, and the only incident that might make someone uneasy was a temporary interruption (4-5 seconds) of the X server, which gave us a nice peek at our command line. Our graphical server came back right where we left off.

And it was time for the restart. Upon first boot a few things get configured and hardware is probed. During this time, it is normal and customary for the X server to shut down momentarily. The OpenSUSE team knows that even experienced users say nasty things to themselves when this happens unexpectedly, and thoughtfully set a "Don't Panic, we're probing your video hardware" message to display in the terminal. Thanks, OpenSUSE!

The final configuration is a quick process (ours lasted about two to three minutes) and we were greeted with our OpenSUSE 11.0 desktop.

The desktop and included programs

We installed the GNOME desktop by default (the liveDVDs are all inclusive and allow the user to choose a desktop, where liveCD users will need to pick a KDE4 or GNOME based image before downloading). We later looked at the KDE4 live environment to get a feel for how both desktops operate on the system. KDE 3 is still available in the OpenSUSE 11.0 repositories, as well Xfce and a number of window managers, should they be more your style.


We like OpenSUSE's presentation of the GNOME desktop. The elegance goes beyond the easily changed things color choices and themes, and gives the feeling that OpenSUSE's developers knew what functions and features to "brand" and which to leave alone. Yes, when you use OpenSUSE 11.0, you are aware of it. It is unique, but not at the cost of function. There is always easy access to utilities such as YaST and the Control Center on the GNOME menu, but the presence of these applications doesn't complicate or clutter the menu at all.


Certainly our favorite bit of GNOME on OpenSUSE 11.0 in terms of presentation is the look of YaST, the frontend of the package management system. It's clean, it's easy to sort with pull down menus, and icons with corresponding functions are easy to decipher. The KDE side of YaST is not quite so pretty (to the point that we find it annoying), but we are still taking a lot of comfort in the speed of the whole deal.

Hey, if KDE's YaST is a little ugly, it's not so bad. Installs and updates are much faster, so we don't spend as much time looking at it.


Both desktops include many commonly used open source applications. OpenOffice 2.4.0 is included in a default install, as well as Firefox 3 (though still in beta). The OpenSUSE sticks to the desktop-developed versions with other applications -- F-Spot is the GNOME digital photo management software, and digiKam does the same in KDE, for instance. Regardless of desktop installed, many users will find that they're able to do a majority of their common computing activities from the start.

A word about graphics cards and drivers

The machine we installed OpenSUSE 11.0 has an NVIDIA graphics card. Installing the proprietary drivers via the instructions on NVIDIA's site seems very daunting on any OpenSUSE version. This is due in part to the proprietary nature of the NVIDIA drivers, which makes things difficult for any Linux distribution.

Here's where we discover a neat feature of OpenSUSE in general: the 1-Click-Install. We recommend giving the OpenSUSE 1-Click-Install NVIDIA drivers a spin. The only requirement here is that you are connected to the online YaST repositories (usually set up during installation). Installation and configuration should be automated after that point. (ATI drivers are also available for 11.0 via 1-Click-Install.)

Oh, and about those installs...

YaST, regardless of your desktop choice, is going to behave (if not look) the same way. YaST is used to add, remove or update your system's software packages (among other administrative tasks). Most people know it in its graphical form that runs on the X server. It also runs as a console based application from the command line.

The real star of OpenSUSE 11.0's packaging system is Zypper. It's a command line install tool that works with a number of repositories and resource objects (things like packages, updates and patches). Like YaST, it will update and cache repositories when you first use it. This takes a few seconds, depending on internet connection. The OpenSUSE 11.0 version of Zypper, once the repositories are updated and the command is given, absolutely flies through the install.

This is a crowning achievement. Success with Zypper was all over the charts in earlier versions. Some people had no issues, some said it was slower than other command line install methods (including apt-get commands). But where we're shy about saying the openSUSE liveCD installer is significantly faster than Ubuntu's ubiquity, we will say with absolutely no qualms that Zypper outperformed apt-get on the command line.

OpenSUSE has always been a strong option for new Linux users, and users who wanted a distribution they could grow with. We always had a few reservations about recommending it, mainly because of speed and package handling issues. OpenSUSE has made monstrous strides in these areas between the 10.3 release and today.

The little geeko is a different animal than the Hardy Heron, but its proven ability to adapt and innovate gives it a much more secure niche in the Linux ecosystem.

There was a toss up this week about whether it would be better to dig right in to the Linux HTML editors, or to wax poetic about setting up LAMP so that those choosing to go the content management system (CMS) route could test any changes they made with such editors on their local machines.

We ultimately decided to tackle setting up a LAMP testing ground. This will certainly not be necessary for every single person out there who just wants to put up a web site. If your site is not using PHP-driven content that interacts with or requires a database backend, and you just plan on designing static web pages, there is absolutely no need to do any of this.

If you are perfectly content to upload your site and integrate any supporting elements (once again, things like databases) live and on the web and make changes there, where it is possible that everyone can see your style sheet testing or things may be temporarily broken, you don't need to do this either.

Some people, though, really like to get things on their CMS tweaked to near perfection before releasing their content on the world. Other people need to know exactly what a dynamic site is going to look and act like before it goes live. The combination of Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP (LAMP) makes this possible.

This morning, the good folks over at the openSUSE project announced the official launch of the merged forums. Prior to this, English speaking openSUSE users had a bit of a confusing ride when it came to joining a support community specifically for their distro -- they had the support forums at the Novell openSUSE site, suseforums.net, and suselinuxsupport.de to choose from. The merged forums, located at forums.opensuse.org, are archived and searchable, and the new forum is open for posting (openSUSE members with an account for the wiki or bugzilla will be able to use their existing accounts on the forums, but suseforums and suselinuxsupport users will need to create new accounts).

Those who have never used openSUSE might have difficulty grasping the significance of this. It seems like a little thing, really... But the real strength of Linux (and any distro) is the knowledge and experience of the community, its experiences with different bits of hardware in different configurations. That strength is undermined when the community is divided between three sites -- even if they're three very, very good sites. If a user asks a question on one site, but the person who knows the answer is on one or two of the others (or doesn't have endless hours a day to comb forums), it is a real disadvantage to the person asking, those searching for an answer to the same problem, and ultimately the distribution in general.

The openSUSE project hopes to add more languages to the merged forums in the near future. Okay, it probably won't happen anywhere near in time for the openSUSE 11.0 release (on schedule for June 19th), but we're guessing that most people really won't mind, being much too distracted with a faster install process and a new and improved version of Zypper.

In many ways, I'm pretty old school. When I learned HTML, I painstakingly handcoded my pages in the esteemed Notepad. Only when I became a master of HTML-fu did I allow myself to try Dreamweaver. (Okay, fine, the ability to buy a license with educational pricing may have had a lot to do with it, too.)

I loved Dreamweaver. One of the things that always made me a little sad when I first tried Linux was that there wasn't a real Dreamweaver-esque type application. Times have changed, however. There are a number of HTML/web development applications out there that are free (as in speech and beer) and feature filled.

But I'd be really amiss if I just mentioned Linux HTML editors in a vacuum. There are a number of tools readily available in repositories that make coding, layout, uploading, and testing easy and (dare I say it) fun.

Because seriously, if it isn't fun, what's the point?

Over the next few weeks we're going to take a look at web development tools in Linux. We'll do a run down of some popular XHTML/HTML editors, FTP and transfer software, and neat little tools for creating content that make some of the drudgery of "back-end" web work less painful.

At any given time on the planet, there's a technology trade show in progress. Some are more significant than others, and there's no formula to figure if any given one will be worth the airfare. We're guessing that a few ultraportable laptop manufacturers, as well as a few of us (cough) normal folk, are a little intrigued with the news emerging from the Computex exhibit halls today.

Canonical let slip some further information and screen shots of Ubuntu Netbook Remix, the Ubuntu derived operating system for ultraportables. The quick and dirty information: it looks suspiciously as if the Ubuntu image is made to work solely on Intel Atom processors. How radically different is that from the other Intel processors used previously in ultraportables? Will it be a significant enough difference that it won't run with other Intel chips? Are VIA machines left in the dust? Maybe, maybe not, but we're guessing it'll affect performance on some level.

It seems that Canonical and Intel are working with various manufacturers to get Ubuntu Netbook Remix into our hot little hands, but it probably won't happen much before late 2008. They were so kind, however, as to release some screenshots of the demo version.

Ubuntu Netbook Remix looks... well, a little bit like the "Easy Mode" settings in the Eee PC's customized Xandros. Maybe not quite as simplistic, but we have this funny feeling that many people picturing "Ubuntu on an ultraportable" were thinking more along the lines of the traditional look with a few GUI tweaks. We're not sure if this is really a good or bad thing, as yet. Ultraportables are different animals, and used in a different manner than a desktop. Perhaps a different looking user interface is enough of a disconnect to make it all work (and keep us from trying to install the sorts of things on our ultraportables that they aren't intended to run due to processing limitations).

What will be interesting, and promises to push Linux on ultraportables to the next level, is all that scary stuff on the backend. The most intriguing bit of this conversation seems to focus on the use of Moblin, and the push for developers to get Ubuntu packages to work well -- really well -- with the specific requirements of the processor and ultraportable hardware.