I haven’t been a detractor of Canonical’s attempt to improve the Ubuntu desktop experience and since April, as well as for a time earlier, have been using the Unity interface. But as part of my general movement towards making things a little simpler, I thought I would take a step backwards. I’ve noticed lately some stability issues with both of my Ubuntu machines. Sometimes the mouse will mysteriously stop working – or rather does not respond to clicks – and other strange behavior. I’m not sure where this comes from, but it could be that going back to lighter and more tested configurations will bring greater stability.

I think some of those who are up in arms against Unity have not observed that it is extremely simple to go back to the old Ubuntu interface. You just log onto “Classic Ubuntu”, which is already there, installed alongside Unity. So on my home computer, that’s what I did. I also installed Docky so that I would have a nice application starter. I thought about Cairo Dock, but remembered some stability issues there from my previous use of it. I tried AWN, but at first it would not work. Docky didn’t work at first either. I found a couple of suggestions about how to resolve this issue, but the best and simplest was to edit gconf and get Metacity to use the compositor. However, I also decided I wanted my Desktop not to show icons. There’s another setting in gconf for that. Unfortunately, as soon as you ask not to show icons on the desktop, you also lose your wallpaper. But I’m happy enough to have a cleaner desktop. So back to Gnome 2, with Docky, and so far so good.

On my other laptop, at the office, I was a bit more radical. I installed XFCE, the XUBUNTU interface. There were a couple of suggestions on doing this. I think the wisest of them was probably what I ended up doing: not to install the entire XUBUNTU desktop, but only XFCE. I did add the extra Xubuntu themes, etc. It took me a while to tweak the XFCE interface into something I could live with. I duplicated some of the qualities of an application dock by adding launchers to the bottom bar and making it autohide. A couple of people in XFCE forums recommended that and, for a minimal keep-things-simple desktop, there is some logic in using just the native abilities of the GUI. So, there at work, I’m also quite happy now with the interface. With XFCE it’s easier to configure the desktop not to show icons, and you can choose between one of the wallpapers that come with XUBUNTU. That 3-4 year old computer is pretty snappy now with XFCE.

So tonight we went to a wedding. It was near Kibbutz Naan. When we went in they couldn’t find our names. Eventually they wrote out seating cards for us anyway. We dropped the cheque in the safe and looked around. “Maybe it’s the wrong wedding,” I said: I don’t see anyone I know here.” “Wow, maybe it really is,” said Dorit, also peering round to recognize a face somewhere. So it dawned on us that there must be more than one wedding hall near Kibbutz Naan. It took a while to get someone to retrieve the envelope from the safe and for us to go and find the right wedding.

As we walked in they were just reciting “and if I should forget Jerusalem may I lose my right hand – or however it goes.” At first we didn’t see anyone we knew there either. One wedding’s as good as another wedding, I thought. But it wasn’t so bad. The salads were excellent, and I managed to finish several chapters of “No more enemies.”

On the way out we took a different way, through the fields. Two young guys came up along side us and signalled us to stop. I thought they might be criminals. “Police”, they said. “Police?” – “We are police,” they answered, “Where are you going, sir?” “To the road.” “Where are you from?” “Neve Shalom. Shalom.” I said, winding up the window.

I’ve been thinking lately that the minimalism that I’ve been trying to achieve lately would have seemed to me bourgeois sophistication just a few years ago. The items and gadgets I possess are opulent in comparison to then, and the amount of time I squander on the computer is similarly insane. When I extrapolate from what I know of the change in my own habits to wider circles, I can only conclude that there must be something seriously wrong with our koyaaniqatsi world.

Anyway, today I was looking up on the web things that I might like to take to India with me. Last year I took along a meditation pillow and was glad of that but it’s too bulky. So I looked up inflatable meditation pillows. Amazon was selling one called the “Mobile Meditator”, and there were a couple of competing products on other websites. There’s an inflatable zafu from bodyfriendlyfurniture.com, and Wisdom Travellers also have an attractive set. After much deliberation I opted for the Mobile Meditator. But Amazon said it would only ship around July 5 and there seemed to be no way to alter the kind of delivery. So I looked further and found the company that sells the pillow directly – Brightspot Solutions. Their website was friendlier than Amazon’s. The product + delivery was also cheaper and, best of all, it has already shipped today. So if I’m lucky, I’ll have it in good time for India.

I also looked at light travel yoga mats. Here I ran into the problem that most companies didn’t ship to Israel. There’s an Israeli retailer, yogastore.co.il, that sells Jade travel mats. But yogamatsandmore.com have one that folds as small as a newspaper. That would be better for me, even if it is less comfortable to use.

Finally, I looked at clothing. I’m tempted by Ex Officio’s line of travel t-shirts. And there’s one unique company called Makeyourownjeans.com, which would definitely interest me if it weren’t for the time-frame. I’ve bookmarked them for another time.

My goal is to fit everything into the Chinese rucksack that Yonatan had shipped to me from China. If I can make do with just a single change of clothing, I think I can succeed.