Sunday, October 27, 2013

Linux Journal 10.28.13: The Switch is Made

It took me several days to get all the backups set up to my satisfaction, but I am now running Linux (Mint 15 with Cinnamon 1.8.8+Olivia) on my main PC. This is a permanent development, not a trial... although I may switch versions at some point.

I've also gotten Steam running. This was more or less seamless — although I did create a repository for it. I haven't tried to actually run any games through it yet, though.

What did come up, in the writing of this very post, is how to type special characters in Linux. The emdash or long dash seen in the preceding sentence is one of these. In Windows you hold down the alt key and type the decimal value of the special character — 0151 for the emdash — on the numeric keypad. There are a couple of ways to do it in Linux, but the most straightforward way is to hold down CTRL+SHIFT, then type U plus the character code... but in hexadecimal, not decimal. This means I'll need to re-memorize the codes for the characters I use frequently, but I also have this page for reference.

I do — as of now — still have a Windows 7 partition on this machine. But by default it boots into Mint and I can, and plan to, wipe it out as soon as I can be rid of it.  I have already washed my hands clean of that malodorous load of filth, iTunes.

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