Linux Essentials: Sed (Stream Editor)

It's sometimes said that find, sed and awk are all you need when it comes to Linux command-line utilities. The last two are Turing complete, just like any other programming language. Having already covered grep, we move on to its stream-wrangling cousin, sed. Its purpose is filtering and transforming streams of text, which is a very loose and general concept in Linux. However, some of its functionality might not be all that obvious without reading the entire manual, but that's where this article jumps into the picture. Fire up your terminal and type along.

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KDE Launcher Showdown: Takeoff vs Homerun

Using the same launcher or start menu to run your programs every day can get monotonous after a while. You might get used to it so much that you don't appreciate its appearance anymore, even if you do change desktop themes occasionally. So, why not try something completely different?

KDE provides so many options, from “traditional” start menus like Kickoff, Lancelot and App Menu QML to quick launchers like Krunner, Quicklauncher and Shelf. The newest and most interesting additions are fullscreen launchers Takeoff and Homerun which we'll pit against one another in this review.

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Your Linux Adventure: Introducing KDE

GNU/Linux users often emphasize extensive customization options as one of the greatest advantages of their OS – and rightly so. On Windows, you would usually have to install several third-party applications to customize the essential parts of the system. While sometimes it might be necessary on Linux as well, in most cases you get everything you need (and more) by default.

This is especially true for KDE – the most customizable, and I'm sure many will agree, the most beautiful desktop environment. KDE is an all-round, professional, free and open source solution available in more than 60 languages, and today you'll learn that you can even install it on Windows.

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All About Fonts on Linux

Over the last few years, design trends have centered around typography. If you use Pinterest, you must have seen inspiration boards with typographic art, various logotypes, infographics and text-only images. However, you don't have to be a professional designer to appreciate and use different fonts. Maybe you just like to get creative when editing your photos, or want to change the look of your desktop environment. Previously you learned to manage ISO files on Linux, and today we'll show you how to do the same with fonts - from finding, installing and organizing them to even creating your own fonts. 

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Ubuntu Webapps

Ubuntu webapps are something that get highlighted on the Ubuntu website. Webapps are becoming quite popular, I actually make use of a couple of them daily with the Google Drive Chrome Webapp and the Hootsuite one.

Ubuntu 12.10 brings with it the ability to use Unity webapps and integrate them directly with your desktop. But what does that mean?

Different webapps work in different ways that make sense to the specific service. Webapps for news sites, like BBC News (bbc.co.uk/news), will give you notifications of the latest and breaking news on your desktop. The Facebook webapp and other social apps gives pop-ups about messages and tells you when there's other updates in your social streams to check. Music site webapps allow you to play music in your desktop from the web by hooking into the notifications menu. There's a load of sites that already have Unity webapps but thousands more websites could be turned into Ubuntu webapps too.

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