A look at the evolution of the Linux desktop through the ages. Specifically Red Hat Linux.

The Linux desktop has undergone a significant change in layout since the earliest days of the Gnome desktop that we saw on Red Hat Linux back in the day. Those were the days of dial up Internet and 14″ monitors that were far smaller than the massive computer screens that we have now. And the … Read more

TRON Legacy GDM theme. A nice addition to any Linux computer.

TRON Legacy GDM theme: http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=117133. This will also work with MDM in Linux Mint 15. TRON Legacy Gnome Shell theme: http://half-left.deviantart.com/art/GNOME-Shell-Tron-Legacy-208220836. This theme is very reminiscent of the theme that the computer uses in the movie. You need to install the User Themes extension to load this theme. TRON Legacy lightcycle wallpaper: http://www.moviedeskback.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Tron-Legacy-Wallpapers-1600×1200-6.jpg. Die Hard … Read more

Computer interface used in the Avengers movie and thoughts on the touch interface.

http://cargocollective.com/jayse/Avengers. Some information here about the user interfaces used in the Avengers movie. These touch screen interfaces were used a lot in the movie. The touch screen computer model is all the rage at the moment even if it is not that useful when using a computer for a long period. Especially when using a … Read more

Usage of computers in the movies. Some get it wrong. The Matrix and Tron Legacy are the exceptions.

The usage of computers in movies has always been quite hit and miss. The Matrix Reloaded movie had realistic depictions of the usage of the NMAP port scanning command and the use of the ssh command to login remotely to the target machine and execute commands to shutdown the power plants to buy the keymaster … Read more

Tron Legacy UNIX commands revisited.

http://www.securitronlinux.com/uncategorized/tron-legacy-unix-operating-system/. As seen in this posting above, the Tron Legacy movie used computers with a variant of the Solaris UNIX operating system. The ps -ef command works in the FreeBSD UNIX distribution, you need to mount procfs with this command: mount -t procfs proc /proc this will enable the proc file-system. The login -n root … Read more

Tron Legacy UNIX desktop usage.

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/09/linux-top-command-used-in-tron-trailer/#dsq-new-post. In the Tron legacy film trailer at 1:12, you can see a terminal displaying the output of the top(1) command, a traditional UNIX command to display the list of running processes. It is funny that the machine is only showing 9 days of uptime though, it should be longer than that. This is like … Read more