The Ubuntu team is proud to announce the beta release of Ubuntu 7.10 and its variants, Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu.  Codenamed “Gutsy Gibbon”, 7.10 continues Ubuntu’s proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution.

We all know that Gutsy (Ubuntu 7.10) will be released, a version that everyone is waiting for, but today you'll be informed about the release dates of Ubuntu 8.04, codename Hardy Heron.

At the large school in Mexico where I'm employed as a system manager, I proposed (and got) a Linux server to replace an old Windows 2000 file server and domain controller for the alumni. I then was faced with the task of adding 3,000 users to this new CentOS 5 server. I wasn't about to add thousands of users and their passwords one by one to the new Samba primary domain controller (PDC) system. With a little help from OpenOffice.org Calc, a utility called Expect, and shell scripts, I automated the process.

v1:http://www.littleubuntu.com/blog/?p=3

v2:http://www.littleubuntu.com/blog/?p=168

This not really public yet, but for those of you savvy enough to subscribed to Linux Fanatics, this affects you. In the past, I have talked about finding a vendor that will support a specific RaLink chipset with consistent performance and full WPA out of the box. Today, this has happened.

Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) Release Dates

A user a the Ubuntu Forums has compiled a list of interesting and useful terminal commands that can be used in Ubuntu:

The Ubuntu Linux team is planning to release a beta of Gutsy Gibbon (7.10), the latest version of its OS tomorrow. Progress on the latest release looks promising.

I have watched Miro (formally known as Democracy Player) grow and mature over the last few years, and I have to admit, it's become quite the addition to my Linux desktop. But how are the users reacting to the name change, and are they offering the content that users are into? Today, we will examine this and explore how Miro could go even further. I would point out that this is not so much a review, but a deeper look at the product and the mission as open source software.

Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #58 for the week September 16th - September 22th, 2007. In this issue we cover the Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 beta release, new MOTU members, new Launchpad release, Software Freedom Day organized by the Ubuntu Nicaragua Team, and, as always, much much more!

GNOME 2.20 was officially released last week after six months of development. The new version includes strong incremental improvements that contribute to a better user experience and provide more flexibility and integration opportunities for third-party software developers.

I got a telling reponse from Canonical when I approached its Public Relations team looking for case studies of businesses that had switched from Windows:

Ok, KMail (Kontact) has no export options. You can however create several mboxes, copy your mail into them and import the mboxes into Evolution one by one. This can be quite time consuming.

Last year, we reviewed Neuro-Evolving Robotic Operatives (NERO), a unique game in which players train forces of autonomous bots, then pit those forces against each other in hands-off, artificial intelligence (AI)-only competitions. NERO spawned a new major release a few weeks ago, and like its eponymous operatives, it has learned some new moves over time.

One last minute feature added to GNOME 2.20 was XDS, the Direct Save Protocol. XDS is a framework for drag and drop functionality between applications. Previously Nautilus, the GNOME file manager, lacked any drag and drop support beyond moving files between Nautilus windows. With XDS, Nautilus can drag and drop with other applications.

Nowadays, many people maintain separate email accounts for work, for family and friends, to post into forums, and so on. I use several Gmail accounts, and I find it a challenge to read all those accounts without having to set up a POP client or disconnecting and connecting to the Gmail Web site with a browser over and over again. Gmail Manager is an OS-independent Firefox extension that can help anyone with that problem. With it, you can manage multiple accounts and be notified as soon as you receive a new message in any of them.

Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer (or "packet sniffer") that can be used for network analysis, troubleshooting, software development, education, etc. This guide shows how to install and use it on an Ubuntu Feisty Fawn desktop to analyze the traffic on the local network card.

I was on the Novell campus a few weeks ago attending the Utah Open Source Conference. One of the days I went to the Novell cafeteria for lunch. While I was filling my plate with food, a young man next to me asked, "So do you work here?". I replied with "No, I'm here attending the open source conference." A few seconds later I was hit with a question that I was not prepared to answer.

According to the 2007 DesktopLinux.com survey, Ubuntu is the distribution of choice for 30% of GNU/Linux users. The exact figure is questionable, but Ubuntu's dominance is not. For an increasing number of people, Ubuntu is GNU/Linux. Yet, looking at the pre-releases of Gutsy Gibbon, Ubuntu 7.10, I found myself becoming disturbed by the degree to which this popularity has translated into uncritical acceptance.

If you download your movies and tv series only as scene releases, then you'll have to extract the release's video file from its multiple rar files. That can take some time... Not a horrible long time. You can live with it... But I learned a cool thing and thought I could share it just because I have nothing better to do.

You'll need the packages "unrar" and "vlc" (or "mplayer" or any other video player you may prefer)...

Damn!, just found a sweet application on getdeb.net, its truly chillin for you dj's out there and people that like to mess around with beats like I do. It looks like you can now create great music with Ubuntu Linux. Check it...

LMMS aims to be a free alternative to popular (but commercial and closed- source) programs like FruityLoops, Cubase and Logic giving you the ability of producing music with your computer by creating cool loops, synthesizing and mixing sounds, arranging samples, having more fun with your MIDI-keyboard and much more...

The look of the default Ubuntu wallpaper has not changed much in the last few releases. As of now, this will be the default for the upcoming 7.10 release. You may notice like I did that it is darker than previous wallpapers. A few people are not liking it, this tread on the Ubuntu forums has been started to discuss the wallpaper choice.

I’m starting to get .docx in my mail lately ( against my will…) and not using Microsoft Office and not beeing able to ask people to send at least .doc, I had to do some search to give some support do OpenOffice to this “format”.

I really dont like fedora, but its theme is nice and crisp, check it out, if you dont like it rm -rf :)

This is a quick 5 step install, check it...

Here is all you need to know about package management on Linux. By package management I mean how you install, update, or remove a package.

The most concise expression is: [1]

Apt-get it or for-get it.

Put another way:

If you cannot install a package using apt-get then you should forget about it. If the author doesn’t provide it so it can be installed with apt-get, then it’s not yet ready for serious consideration, so you shouldn’t waste your time on it if you have to use another package manager.