Ubuntu 9.10 named Karmic Koala

Ubuntu 9.10 (releasing October 2009) would be named as Karmic Koala!

The release is expected to boost startup performance on the desktop. Boot performance and beautification will be focussed and target boot time for Jaunty (9.04) is 25 seconds and this would be improved even further for 9.10. They might also adopt Red Hat's Plymouth framework to give flicker free animation. One could probably expect inclusion of Ubuntu's experimental face browser login screen.

And maybe, we could get a non-brown look finally!

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 Release Countdown

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pidgin for Ubuntu

Looking to install pidgin 2.2.0 on Ubuntu Feisty ?

Remove your old version using sudo apt-get remove gaim

Download Pidgin from Getdeb

and

Pidgin Data files

and use sudo dpkg -i <>

Tennix - tennis on your Linux system

Written in C using SDL, Tennix is a simple tennis game for your playing pleasure

On Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install libsdl-mixer1.2 libsmpeg0

Get the deb file from here

Install

sudo dpkg -i tennix_0.4.0-1\~getdeb1_i386.deb

Go to their home page to know about Game hints and keyboard shortcuts

Walter Mossberg - Ubuntu not for everyone

Mossberg in his WSJ column says Ubuntu isn't for nontechie users

Says it looks like Windows, but doesn't work like one

Clearly a novice but it is these people who we are targeting to start using Ubuntu

Ubuntu Packages by "Seveas"

Dennis "Seveas" Kaarsemaker provides you 3rd party packages that Ubuntu don't include in their official repositories for various reasons

These packages include backports, custom packages and packages like libdvdcss :)

Go here to know how to add his repository to your sources.list

Shop Ubuntu gear!

Canonical has started a online store for your Ubuntu gear

Go here and shop away!

Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Now what's that ? Its Ubuntu 8.04 ! Ofcourse its releasing April 2008 (8, 04)

Ubuntu Hardy Heron is the next LTS ( Long Term Support) version which means that there will be 3 years of security updates for the desktop and 5 years for the server.

Here is the mail to the list

Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon

Ubuntu has released Gutsy Gibbon - Tribe 5 image for all you folks to download!

There are plenty of features to look forward to in this version including a new printing version.

You can get the image here

The final release date for Gutsy Gibbon is on October 18 2007

If you would like to track how the schedule for the Gutsy Gibbon looks like - Go here

Brasero - CD/DVD Burner for Linux

If you are looking for an CD/DVD software other than the usual K3B/Nero for Linux/wodim, Brasero might be worth looking at.

It has a simple interface which supports drag and drop of files from Nautilus, previewing of files.

On Ubuntu

Install : sudo apt-get install brasero

Google Desktop for Linux

Long expected, Google finally has released the popular Google Desktop for Linux. I have just started indexing and look forward to searching man pages in a way I never knew :) - All I used to do was man -k before. This would be so much better I would hope.

Get it here

Galeon - the fastest browser in the world

I was looking for a lightweight browser to supplement Firefox (I use Cookieswap for different profiles too). I was trying to use Opera but somehow I hate the way it renders. So, ended up trying Galeon - which based on Gecko and again am pleasantly surprised at the amazing rendering speed - Now, I believe it's probably the Fastest browser in the world


To install on Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install galeon

sylpheed - the no frills mail client

I haven't tried out sylpheed since gtk-1.2 days. I was looking for a replacement for Evolution which I was using as my second mail client (use Thunderbird as the primary client) .

I wanted the simplest of GUI based mail clients and Sylpheed seems to be perfect fit - Its fast, does most of what a mail clients do (protocols, privacy, junk mail handling, command line options, etc) and more importantly doesn't crash (evolution crashes a lot!). Its a little unconventional in terms of UI, but I guess its manageable.

On Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install sylpheed

Screencast in Ubuntu

Its easy to create a screen cast on Ubuntu using a program called byzanz which will save the screencast as an animated gif file.

To install byzanz

Use sudo apt-get install byzanz

To record your screencast, On a terminal, type byzanz-record filename ( the default option is to record for 10 seconds), but you can increase the duration. use byzanz-record --help for more options

Install Gnome themes through gnome-art

Trying out Gnome themes (or for that matter, any themes) could be quite addictive.

At the same time, getting them from http:// art.gnome.org previewing the themes, untarring them is quite boring. Gnome provides a utility - gnome-art to do that for you - It lets you preview themes for applications, windows, backgrounds and splash screens, download or install them directly through a single window.

To install Gnome Art for Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt-get install gnome-art

Start up gnome-art - gnome-art through the terminal
or

System > Preferences > Art Manager

It will download the theme data the first time and retrieves only the new files from then on.

You now can Preview, Download or Install directly

Try Ubuntu through Wubi

If you always wanted to try Ubuntu and didn't want to install it fiddling with partitions on your hard disk - you should really try Wubi.

Wubi allows you to install and uninstall Ubuntu as any other application and it does this by installing Ubuntu into a single file as opposed to installing on a partition

Download the installer

Via Wubi

Slow Ubuntu Bootup ? Disable fsck on vfat

If you have installed Feisty and notice that your bootup is really slow - fsck might be one of the causes - dosfsck which is called via fsck everytime you boot takes quite a bit of time and slows down the boot process dramatically.

You can disable the fsck check by changing the entry "1" (checks file system everytime) to "0"

So, your fstab entry for vfat partitions would look something like this

UUID=301C-1A1D /media/hda1 vfat defaults,utf8,umask=007,gid=46 0 0

Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04

Ubuntu 7.04 comes packed with a host of new features including data migration from Windows, new and easier ways to install multimedia codecs, binary drivers, as well as networking improvements and of course, GNOME 2.18, the 2.6.20 kernel and more.

Ubuntu 7.04 is the most user-friendly Ubuntu to date and includes a ground-breaking Windows migration assistant, excellent wireless networking support and improved multimedia support.

Windows migration tool - The new migration tool recognises Internet Explorer favorites, Firefox bookmarks, desktop wallpaper, AOL IM contacts, Yahoo IM contacts and imports them in Ubuntu. This offers easier and faster migration for new users of Ubuntu and individuals wanting to run a dual partition. In addition to single accounts, you can migrate several users' settings in Ubuntu.

Playing an MP3 or other media file just got a lot easier. If the required pieces are not yet installed, 7.04 will get the correct codecs for you, no more searching and no need for long and complicated instructions.

Stunning new desktop effects are available as a technology preview for users who choose to enable them. They remain turned off by default, for the benefit of users with older or less powerful chips and certain non-supported graphics cards.

New in 7.04 is Network Manager, a simple way to find and connect to wireless and wired networks. With a single click, view all the available wireless networks and their strengths. For those on a secured network, WPA support is built in right out of the box

Feisty features all new artwork; check out the new Desktop Background image, and a boot-up splash image that has more 'bling'. The new theme also includes a polished icon set.

Download here

Ubuntu Community Magazine

FullCircle - the Ubuntu magazine has a brief history of the various versions of Ubuntu as well as the preview of the upcoming Feisty Fawn release. Download it from the link below

Download link

Ubuntu 7.04 on CDs !

Ubuntu will be shipping the Feisty Fawn CDs through the Shipit service. This might be in very soon - Feisty Fawn is scheduled to be released on Apr 19 2007 - Check here

Among the prominent features are the Xorg 7.2 server, Graphical Desktop Effects, New Artwork, Automatic media detection, codec installation, new Games - Chess, Sudoku

Edgy (6.1) wasn't available in the Shipit service

Keep checking Shipit :)