The BBC has an article saying all Russian schools will be running Linux by 2009. Many schools were using illegal copies of Windows and schools were being prosecuted since Russia joined the WTO. Schools will slowly be moved to Linux over a period of 3 years.

Yesterday we took a look at the new Firefox plugin work. Today we turn to one of the most vexing of questions for many Linux users: hardware support and all that it means.

Why is hardware so vexing?

Basically, there is a lot of hardware and each requires a driver. People keep making new pieces and types of hardware and people keep buying it. All this means keeping up to date is a constant struggle, although projects like the Linux Driver Project are helping change that.

I have recently started expanding my research based from previous tutorials on network based installations and PXE booting + network based installations to include automated Ubuntu installations.  I will mention that I do not consider myself an expert at this by any means, but I wanted to give some of you a preview of what will end up being a much more mature tool.

I cannot tell you how many times I have found myself looking at that ugly and rather useless Xorg reconfigure screen that has never worked on Ubuntu for me. Generally, I would see something like this (not the exact image, but close) and then ask you to diagnose the problem from the x server output. This is fine for an advanced distro, but not for Ubuntu or its derivatives.

A small review of my usage of Ubuntu on my laptop for the past 3 months and a few improvements that I'd like to see in the OS to make it more user friendly for a normal desktop user.

Let me  know your thoughts...

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #60 for the week for the week October 7th - October 13th, 2007 is now available. In this issue we cover the release candidate of Ubuntu 7.10, learning more about Ubuntu at Ubuntu Open Week, Gutsy release parties, another Ubuntu Forums interview, new MOTU team member Laurent Bigonville, and, as always, much much more!

I was just over at the OpenOffice site browsing through some of their marketing materials to see if there was anything interesting. I came across a presentation that was given on September 19th at the OpenOffice 2007 Conference. The presentation was called “OpenOffice.org 3.0 and Beyond,” and it walked through some of the most notable features that are expected to be released in the next big OpenOffice milestone.

Although Linux is frequently referred to by the names of various distributions, what can properly be called “Linux” is really the management part of the operating system known as the kernel which interacts with the computer’s hardware. Here’s how the kernel works in Ubuntu, and how to rebuild it.

As the release of the next version of Xubuntu, 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon”, is set to arrive soon, I took a test drive with the release candidate, looking for bugs to be solved just before the final release, and to find out what’s new. This release will bring you many improvements inherited from Ubuntu but also tons of Xubuntu-specific improvements. Prepare for a long read.

Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" is due out in just a few days and shipping with it is the Linux 2.6.22 kernel. One of the interesting additions to the Linux kernel since the 2.6.20-based Ubuntu 7.04 "Feisty Fawn" release has been the tickless kernel feature. If you hadn't read out tickless kernel article from earlier this year, the tickless kernel feature (CONFIG_NO_HZ) is designed to improve the power efficiency especially on servers and portable devices.

One of the less-touted changes for Ubuntu 7.10 is the merge of the Ubuntu Studio repositories into the main ones (hosted by Canonical). This means you'll be able to install entire categories of multimedia software (audio, video, graphics) with a single command (or via Synaptic, as usual). You don't care, right?

Aren’t you tired of those audio players with billions of useless features that clutter up their graphical interface? I am. Most of the time, the player looks good on paper, but when I’m faced with the interface, I don’t even know where to start in order to play my music. There are a lot of buttons, lists, combo boxes a bit everywhere and their usage is not so intuitive.

Yesterday we took a look at Desktop Effects with Compiz. Today we turn to all the improvements for Firefox including the a better way to install plugins and the arrival of Gnash, a Free flash player.

Kubuntu 7.10 RC was announced as available several days ago. I installed it immediately, and I have to say, I’m very impressed! Although it’s still just a release candidate, it has all of the necessary ingredients: stability, responsiveness, innovation and coherency.

People seem to have quite high expectations of Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy), and to be honest, I don’t think they’ll be disappointed. Gutsy seems to be shaping up to be the best Ubuntu release ever, and it’s due for release next Thursday (18 October).There’s one particular aspect of Gutsy that I think is more important than most, and that is that it allows you to choose your level of freedom. I’d even go as far to say that this is an historic Linux distribution release, because of that.

It's always been my impression that, appearances to the contrary, Linux aficionados are no different than the rest of us. So I wasn't surprised when I saw a post on the Ubuntu Women forum, from a guy, who's wondering if there are "any good places online to meet like-minded free software women." (The "free," of course, refers to the software.)

I feel that is important for me to further analyze the benefits of open source software. In a previous post, I highlighted the cost-savings of open source and did not mention any of the other advantages that it provides. This post should provide a more balanced view of open source and the intrinsic benefits that free software provides.

On October 11, 2005, proprietary software maker Xara announced its plans to open the source code to its flagship vector graphics package Xara Xtreme, and with the help of community developers port it to Linux. Today, two years later, the project is stagnant and on the verge of irrelevance, primarily because the company couldn't figure out how to work with the open source community.

Well, so we missed a day. Fear not, today we soldier on to Desktop Effects with Compiz Fusion. It can be safely said that few features are as keenly desired as Desktop Effects. Ever since Compiz was announced XXX years ago, users and developers have been playing with the bling-tastic effects and wondering when it will hit a desktop near them. Well, the wait is no longer. Ubuntu 7.10 is the first major distro to ship Compiz enabled by default, for all users to have fun with.

As promised in my previous post on installing VirtualBox Open Source Edititon today I’ll be going over installing the Guest Addition tools for better integration between host and guest. These steps have not been tested on other Linux distributions but I’m sure they’ll work about the same way. I tested these on Kubuntu 7.04 running atop Kubuntu 7.10 beta as the host.

The release candidate of Ubuntu 7.10 “Gutsy Gibbon” has been released.

The Ubuntu developers are hurrying to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software that the open source and free software communities have to offer. This is the Ubuntu 7.10 release candidate, which brings a host of excellent new features.

Downloading—no matter what operating system you are using—is ubiquitous. If you’ve been on the internet you will have downloaded something at some point: PDFs, pictures, ISOs, movies, music files, streaming videos to name a few. This article will take a detailed look at KGet, a very versatile GUI download manager for the KDE desktop which is easy to use and has plenty of easily configurable options. It isn’t perfect (but the upcoming KDE4 may rectify that) but we’ll go with what we’ve got and put it through it paces.

Frozen Bubble is a pop-cap style game that puts the user into a world of colored balls, ice and penguins. While that might sound a bit silly, that's the whole point. The game works on the same principle as several very popular pop-cap style games such as "Dinosaur Eggs" and even the classic game "Puzzle Bobble" that started it all. The concept of Frozen Bubble is simple.

Brian Kent is a prolific font designer. At 32 years old he's already amassed an impressive collection of handmade fonts. He's also a really nice guy and has agreed to let me package his free fonts for Ubuntu.

I've used Brian's fonts in many design projects. Some of my favourite fonts from his collection include...

The Participatory Culture Foundation (PCF) believes the media is controlled by a small group of corporations. In response, it created the open source video player Miro as a way to make media available to the masses.