Many of You, Prestoers, use Xandros on Your notebooks and netbooks…When You work on a mobile device, it would be nice if You could suspend the system when You have several apps opened (I have written that it is not necessary before, but suspending the work when You are e.g. leaveng a train is very helpful). So…follow these steps to enable suspension.

First of all, You have to open the Settings Editor

One way:

1. Press  CTRL+ALT+T to call the terminal.
2. In terminal, type xfce-settings-editor

Other way:

1. Enable XFCE Menu, following my previous instructions.
2. Choose Menu->Settings->Settings Editor

Now, You have to change the setting that hides Suspend button

1. From Channels on Your left, select xfce-session
2. Double-click shutdown on the property list
3. Select ShowSuspend and click “Edit Property” button (the middle one above the list)
4. Select “Enabled” box.

And it’s done…You will find “Suspend” in the shutdown menu, when You press the Turn Off button on the panel.

To really rediscover Your music and efficiently manage Your collection on Xandros Presto, You must try the Amarok (Fast Forward) player. The application allows You to manage Your music collection (p.s. the database update mechanism is really fast), to use different Visualizations, to enable playback with equalizer. The playback is very smooth and performance of the application itself is great. Amarok is a part of KDE environment, so it will take a few secs during the app load, but this is the only con of Amarok that I could find I am quite sure, that You will share my opinion after playing one or two mp3/ogg files with this app.

To install the application, simply type Amarok in the search field of Xandros Presto App Store.

To find out more about Amarok, visit http://amarok.kde.org/

1. Atomic tanks (Atanks) – a clone of a very popular game (Scorched Earth) from old PC’s. If someone needs some more information, these screenshots will explain everything
2. Battle for Wesnoth – a classic rpg-like strategy game based on turns. More info on the offical site of Wesnoth
3. Liquid War – the game that won the “most original linux game” award, an unique war simulation based on fluids. This screenshot may help You.

Installing those apps is as easy as many others. Just put a name of the app in the search bar of Presto Aplication Store, or browse games category to discover more free games.

Anyway:

Why AVG for Linux?

• nice interface
• IMO better database update
• faster scan (better engine?)

Why Presto Anti-Virus?

• You can delete files marked as infected (AVG creates only a list of suspected files and You must remove them manually)
• It is shipped with the OS, so You do not have to download anything
• You will never see a prompt to go pro (AVG asks You to buy better ver. every time when You run the application)
• It adds a tray icon, so You can run app faster

The decision is up to You, but I actually use the second solution…

If You have ever used Ubuntu/Xubuntu, or any other Linux based on XFCE desktop environment, You may want to make Your Xandros look similar to them and enable the XFCE menu. This menu is also similar to windows Start button. To get XFCE menu on:

• right-click on the Panel, select “Add new items” and select XFCE Menu (it’s at the end of the list)

If You use Xandros Presto on Your netbook (I use it on my Eee PC), You may want to save some space on the left side, since low resolution of the LCD display…You may do it in several ways:

• right-click on the Panel and select “Customize Panel”
  • decrease Size of Panel, or
  • change Panel position to the bottom (if You got used to Windows layout), or to the top (Ubuntu-like)
  • You may also turn the Autohide option “ON”, which will save Your space when You do not use the panel

…It could be a little obvious for some users, but unnecessary tip is better than omitted topic.

If You want to browse Your image files quickly the choice is Eye of Gnome.

This tiny app opens a lot of popular graphic formats with high performance, since it is not loaded with unnecessary plugins and addons. But those few MBytes of data contains some basic tools which You may need:

• image flip/rotate
• image zoom
• full screen support
• image slideshow

For many users, this lightweight application will be sufficient tool to browse pictures. If You want to edit files with plenty of filters and scripts, just install GIMP, or, if You have a valid license, install Adobe Photoshop (using WINE compability layer).

To install Eye of Gnome, simply type eye in the search field of Xandros Presto Application Store and choose the second result.

Evince’s performance is even better. It is a basic tool to view PDF & Postscript documents. The application is fully intergated with the desktop environment, so it generates thumbnails of supported filetypes. It is very useful, since You can see the first page of an document even without opening it. Solutions by Adobe and Foxit do not generate thumbs.

Evince is default PDF viewer for a number of Linux distros and I think that it should be that way in Xandros Presto case too.

The fastest way to find this application in the Xandros Presto Application Store is to search for evince and install the first app on the list.

WINE is an applicatin that creates compability layer to execute Windows applications on systems from Linux family.
Many users of Ubuntu, Fedora and other linuxes use it to create Windows-like environment “inside” their system.

The idea of WINE is to “emulate” (since Wine Is Not an Emulator) crucial parts of Windows needed to use apps from that system directly in linux.

So, when You right-click on .exe file and select “Open with Wine Program Loader” it’s opened just like it was Windows (the only difference is that You can not harm Your system when You open a file containing a virus )

WINE is evolving fast and if an application is not fully compatibile with it, developers try to find workaround.

And it is worth using…the trick is that WINE gives You only those part of Windows that are needed to run apps. So, when You run .exe file under WINE (in most cases) it works with better performance! One of the best exaples is Adobe Photoshop family. You can open more files in the same time, filters work faster and the program is more stable. I use Photoshop 7 on WINE only – the difference is huge (20 photos opened simultaneously under Windows and 80 (!) under WINE). According to WINE WIKI “Photoshop 5 through CS2 and CS4 install and work pretty well on wine. Photoshop CS3 has some issues but most things work.”

You can find WINE in the “Desktop Enhancements” category in the Xandros Presto Application Store.

AVG team developed a Linux Version of their well-known antivirus program.
The application is free and and provides good protection against known and not-known malware.

This application may seem unnecesary, since Presto itself is very safe and almost immune to viruses (since it is Linux), but You may need it to: detect viruses on hard disks used by Windows and to remove infection from pendrives, to prevent spreading the viruses on other windows machines (of course You can manually delete malicious files since they can not hide from Presto, but unexperienced user can acidentally remove some software shipped with the pendrive (hidden settings and funcions such as encryption)).

So, for double safety (especially for Windows), You might want to have it.

You can find AVG for Linux in the “Software Specials” section on the main page of Xandros Presto Application Store.

THIS POST IS OBSOLETE, READ NEW OPINION HERE

It is the SuperKaramba app for desktop themes (gadgets).

The application is used to place system meters, weather applets or calendars on Your desktop. One little con for me is that among plenty of gadgets I have found only one desktop calendar (but, luckily, it is a three-month one)

The application is very fast and lightweight, and has a plenty of gadgets to choose from and each one is easily moved on desktop and locked/unlocked with one click.

The app is in “Desktop Enhancemets” category in the Xandros Presto Application store.