I frequently use the command line because of its speed and am using ohmyzsh to make the experience more valuable and enjoyable. I configure ohmyzsh to use the powerlevel9k theme which provides lots of useful information as well as looking fancy.

We are more connected to the work we do if its an enjoyable experience.

Read on for details on how to configure Ubuntu with zsh, ohmyzsh and powerlevel9k theme.

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Git version 2.9 has been released and it brings some new features and performance benefits when using git submodules.

Here is how to install Git version 2.9 on the latest release of Ubuntu (16.04)

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With a new version of Ubuntu this month, I asked myself if I would get more out of one of the many other Linux distributions. Here is what I learnt.

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As a developer you sit in front of your laptop all day (and night) so why not make it a more human experience by using the set of beautifully clear fonts from Ubuntu.  Its really quick and simple to add them to your MacOSX machine (and probably windows), so give it a try.

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I have not found any Ubuntu related video’s for the Lenovo X1 Carbon, but here is an unboxing video that gives you some idea of how slim this laptop actually is.

Thank you.
@JR0cket

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 ShareAlike License, including custom images & stylesheets. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at @jr0cket

There are a few little tweaks that I find make using http://www.ubuntu.com desktop just that little bit nicer. The easiest way I have found to make these changes is using Ubuntu Tweak.

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So I bought the Lenovo X1 Carbon for development and an important part of that is having some good tunes to listen too. As I also travel a lot, its also useful to have a good display for movies and screen-casts.

Well, the X1 Carbon give great results in both sound and vision.

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I have a lovely new Lenovo X1 Carbon and to make it even better I am installing Ubuntu. The installation should be a breeze as Lenovo laptops are usually well supported, the only thing I configured was in the BIOS. I wanted to check the boot order and see what the boot menu key was so I could install Ubuntu from a USB memory stick (boot menu key is F12).

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After a bit of research on the level of http://www.ubuntu.com support, I decided to get a Lenovo X1 Carbon for my new development machine.

If you have never seen the X1 Carbon, its like a really special edition of a Mac Book Air, except much more awesome and more powerful. Here are my impressions so far.

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Oracle have had many ups and downs with the community over the last few years, although recently I though they seemed to be getting things right.

On the one hand Oracle are supporting FOSDEM but with the other hand are stopping the Sun JDK from being shipped freely by Linux distributions.

Is this simply an aggressive way to move everyone over to the OpenJDK platform at a quicker pace?  If it is then its a bit of a big stick to use, when you could just use the carrot of new features in OpenJDK 7 & 8.

Now Oracle has retired the ‘distributor license’ which allowed OS vendors to package Sun JDK (August 2011), the security board for Ubuntu announced that it would be removing Sun JDK package from its ‘Partner‘ repository from 16th February 2012.

“The Sun JDK packages will remain installed on current systems with no further security updates. On new systems, it will no longer be possible to install the packages from the partner archive. “

So if you want a new install of the Sun JDK after February 16th 2012 then you will need to do a manual install by downloading a .bin file from the Oracle website and installing it into /opt or /usr/local/. Or you could have a look at the  package from one enterprising Ubuntu user, Martin Wimpress.

Moving to OpenJDK

Instead of the fiddling with the Oracle version of Java, you could use this move as a good excuse to test drive your Java applications on OpenJDK which is currently available to install through the Ubuntu Software Centre.

I was concerned about moving over to OpenJDK at first until I realised that I had been using OpenJDK for everything for quite a while anyway.  In the last year I have been doing JIRA and Confluence plugin development, using Netbeans IDE and coding with Scala and Clojure all on OpenJDK 1.6 without any issues.  So is it time for us to move over to the OpenJDK platform for good?

In Summary

Its a funny feeling that moving to OpenJDK is not only what a huge commercial organisation wants but also a great boost for open source projects in general and of course the OpenJDK project itself.  The world has certainly changed in the last few years !!

Thank you.
@jr0cket

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 ShareAlike License, including custom images & stylesheets. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at @jr0cket