So often we hear that Linux is lacking in key applications, but if there is one area in which there is a strong replacement for a key Windows application, it is flowcharting.

Here’s a summary of the features from the 2.3 new features list that I considered the most useful or important to write about. This page  http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/New_Features_2.3 about the new features is an excellent guide, as well.

I've decided to see if Ubuntu can meet my needs, but recreating my backup regime under Gutsy Gibbon is proving quite a challenge. The people behind Handy Backup are working on a Linux version, but until it's available I'll have to come up with something else. I'm not prepared to start using Ubuntu for work until I get a satisfactory backup regime in place.

I'm currently using seven computers. Well, not at this precise moment (just three, as it happens), but darn it if I'm not proud of the fact. Of those seven, three run XP, one runs Ubuntu 6.06, two are now on Ubuntu 7.10, and one is Vista. Apple has invited me along to the Festival of the Leopard, so I have high hopes that I'll soon be adding OS X to the mix (I do have a Mac OS 8 box in the bedroom, but I only use that for Crystal Quest, so it doesn't count).

Lots of Linux users already know about Wine. So do I, and I’ve known about it for a long time. For the ones of you who don’t know, Wine is a compatibility layer for Unix-like operating systems (Wine is Not an Emulator), designed to run applications built for Windows in said Unix-like operating system.

After actually trying out Songbird, I have a lot more respect for it, and amaroK has always been an excellent audio player, but my favorite media-management program for Linux is still Exaile.

Ubuntu is a predominantly desktop-oriented Linux distribution, based on Debian GNU/Linux but with a stronger focus on usability, regular releases, and ease of installation. Ubuntu is sponsored by Canonical Ltd, owned by South African billionaire entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth.. It is currently ranked #2 at distrowatch. For this review, I used the DVD distribution.

It may have taken a while, but Linux is finally starting to inch its way out of the dark corners of hobbyist computing and onto the battlefield between Microsoft and Apple.

It took me a while to upgrade from 7.04 to 7.10 because Ubuntu servers were so busy. It would even time-out at times. But now it’s done, Gutsy Gibbon is turning out to be a very solid release. I’ve been using Ubuntu since 6.04 and it has definitely gone a long way!

This week's release of Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" is a significant win for the free software community. Not only does this release incorporate an updated package set -- most notably with the Linux 2.6.22 kernel and GNOME 2.20, but it also delivers on new desktop innovations from BulletProofX and displayconfig-gtk to Compiz Fusion being enabled by default on supported systems.

However, for those business professionals and gamers that remain dependent on some Windows-only binary applications, the WINE (WINE Is Not An Emulator) project has been making some excellent headway into supporting Windows applications on the Linux desktop. With Ubuntu 7.10 and WINE 0.9.46 in hand, we had set out to compare the performance between Windows XP and Gutsy Gibbon with WINE on two popular DirectX benchmarks.

Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon has been released today. I haven’t tested any alpha or beta versions of the new product from Canonical. I have decided to wait for the Release Candidate, since this has proved to work for me in the past. In short: it did not disappoint me. The new Ubuntu is more polished, more professional and in general, better than the previous one, which was already a great OS. Minor glitches? Present, as always.

Kubuntu is a user friendly operating system based on KDE, the K Desktop Environment. With a predictable 6 month release cycle and part of the Ubuntu project, Kubuntu is the GNU/Linux distribution for everyone.

This screenshots tour includes internet multimedia,graphics,system applications,network application and other applications.

While the world of Linux is going crazy over the new Ubuntu 7.10, I’m going to step backward to review a distro which is based on the Ubuntu 7.04. The name is Ubuntu ME. It is a free/open source operating system dedicated to Muslims, with customized features such as a Quran study tool and a web content filtering utility. Now why am I doing a review on a Muslim-based distribution while in fact I am a devout Christian?

Well, that time has finally come, and the latest release of Ubuntu, version 7.10, codenamed “Gutsy Gibbon” is finally out, officially, for real, as certified personally by members of the release team on IRC! Please use bittorrent to download it if possible, as the server load is immense (as you can imagine). Detailed torrent info with hashes is available here.

Since publishing our Ubuntu power tests, where we had monitored the power consumption of the past six Ubuntu releases going back two years on a laptop, we've had repeated requests for a power comparison between Windows and different Linux distributions. Well, in this article are the first set of results from that testing. We've compared the power consumption of Microsoft Windows XP, Windows Vista, Fedora 7, and Ubuntu 7.10.

I have been successfully using GIMP for what seems like years. It's free, it's stable and once you understand the rather strange menu layout, it actually provides fantastic functionality. But the reality remains that some people are still trying to come off their Photoshop dependency, and for these individuals, the argument about how fantastic it is tends to fall on deaf ears.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a review about Desktop effects by default in Gutsy - how Compiz Fusion enhances Ubuntu's desktop of version 7.10. I published it by the time the beta was still fresh. We have passed the release candidate by now, so this is pretty much the actual state of affairs. Time to see what has been fixed (and what not) or generally improved.

First off, I'm by and large a full-time Ubuntu user. However, I'm also one of their most vocal critics for becoming so detached from their core market as well. In response, I have used both operating systems and it has been interesting to see how each deals with the issue of usability for the casual user.

Translating a command line tool to a graphical interface usually means a loss of functionality. However, in the case of the newly released trowser text browser, while I wouldn't swear that the transition has retained all the functionality of the less command that it is intended to replace, I doubt that anyone short of an expert is likely to notice the difference.

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...