It's easy to forget that what you have in your hands is the best operating system in the world. I've been using Linux since 2005 and I've been following the slow march of the penguin since. I am not a linux zealot. I don't go around trying to convert windows users to linux. I have a few friends I have introduced to this operating system and they also continue to use it everyday.
The latest wonder for me started when Updates offered an upgrade to a new kernel. The kernel is the core of the linux operating system. I accepted. Afterwards, I thought that such an important change to the system should have repercussions. And it does. After downloading the kernel it prompted for a reboot to complete the installation. Reboots are uncommon in the linux update world. When GDM showed up I knew I have a problem with the graphics. Somehow the kernel update broke my Nvidia drivers bindings. Make sense. New kernel needs new instructions to the graphics drivers. When the new kernel could not find it, it went for the fall back, which is Nouveu, I think. So what I need to do is confirm this and grab the appropriate Nvidia graphics drivers, install them. These would need an entirely new how-to post in my mind but in Ubuntu. I opened 'Additional Hardware Drivers' and it shows I don't have the recommended Nvidia driver version. I clicked a button to grab the right version for my card and just gave it privileges to do the installation itself. After 2 minutes it asks permission for a reboot and I did. The next thing I saw is the 3D desktop I am familiar with. So all in all that's 15 minutes to change the core of my operating system plus an unfamiliar tangle with my Nvidia drivers. This is the reason why I love Ubuntu.
Encryption is the topic of week. I wrote about it in a related post here. While encryption is a very good idea, doing it and doing it every day as part of your work flow is another thing. My view is that if you're already using an email client then it is easier, simpler and more convenient to adopt encryption. That is not the case if you're using a webmail service. If you are using the browser to check, compose and send your email, what are your options? The answer is: it's complicated. Looking for a way to do encryption with Google Chrome and Gmail, I found this. I also read that Google just released code for email encryption as open source. But it's a long way to being used by end users. The extension for Google Chrome works fine if the recipient also uses Google Chrome. But I went ahead and check this on Evolution.
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