I finally had a few minutes to do a clean install of the Gutsy Beta last night and it is looking hella cool. I really like the new default desktop background. I like darker/deeper colors so the the new image really hits the spot for me. Staring at a monitor all day (essentially staring directly into light all day) can be hard enough, but the darker and richer colors are much easier on the eyes (for me anyway).

A few months ago in PC Advisor, we ran a feature on buying the cheapest desktop PC possible. We considered the idea of specifying no operating system at all, believing that the truly cash-strapped consumer might be interested in saving a few pennies by sticking on an open source Linux operating system - such as is the case with the Dell Inspiron 530n Ubuntu.

Last month, just one week after IBM announced it would help with OpenOffice.org's development, the company released Lotus Symphony, an office suite based on OpenOffice.org code. I found a lot of slick features in Lotus Symphony, but I worry that Symphony could affect the OpenOffice.org community adversely.

The beta of Ubuntu's next release (7.10 Gutsy Gibbon) is out - time to review the well discussed decision to incorporate desktop effects by default in this version.

Desktop effects vs. Compiz

Since this topic has caused a lot of confusion lately (especially since Feisty introduced it's Desktop Effects), I feel it's time to shed some light.

Dell as a pioneer in the industry has recently released first line of consumer desktop computers and notebooks with pre-installed Linux, Ubuntu 7.04. Dell Ubuntu has lots offer, Ubuntu is extremely powerful, practical, absolutely free, and ready-to-run desktop Linux distribution, which is highly compatible for mainstream use.

As a few of my personal friends – and the crews in various IRC channels I haunt with my entirely off-topic discussions – know, I’ve just recently become the proud owner of not only my very first iPod – but a beautiful 5th generation one at that!

How does the current version of OpenOffice.org (OOo) compare with Microsoft Office in its ability to produce slide presentations? The last time I tried to answer that question, two years ago, both OOo Impress and Microsoft PowerPoint had features that the other lacked. To see how the two programs compare now, I installed Microsoft Office 2007 and OpenOffice.org 2.3, and went through the process of designing a slide show from start to finish. To my surprise, the results were more decisive than in my last comparison. They're not enough to award a knockout victory, but, even based on points, the winner is clear.

Gnash is an open source player for Adobe’s Flash format. It can be used as an alternative to Adobe’s proprietary player. The upcoming Ubuntu 7.10 release includes automatic installation of either Adobe Flash or Gnash. I decided to put this feature to the test in Ubuntu 7.10 Beta.

Assault Cube is an open source 3d shooter done in the old school deathmatch style of gameplay, but with much newer graphics. Gameplay is especially good in this game due to the way it's implemented. Unlike the original Cube and Cube 2 on which it's built, Action Cube provides you with a much better and fuller gaming experience.

If you spend most of your computing life in Firefox, it makes sense to consolidate other online activities in your browser. There are extensions that can help you to do just that: you can manage your bookmarks with the del.icio.us extension, chat on IRC channels using Chatzilla, and read RSS feeds in Sage. Jabber instant messaging users have their own extension: the SamePlace, a nifty IM client that, besides the basic Jabber functionality, offers a few unique and useful features.

In proprietary software, Web page design is dominated by Adobe's Dreamweaver and Microsoft's FrontPage. Free software users have witnessed the rise and fall of several Web design apps, but it has been a while since a new one debuted. Now the next new release is here -- KompoZer, heir to the Mozilla Composer legacy and updated for today's technology.

While I may be taking Seopher.com away from being completely Linux oriented, it's impossible for the impending release of Ubuntu 7.10 to be completely overlooked. Let's take a look at the newly released Gutsy Gibbon Beta to see quite how big a splash the Gibbon is going to make.

In my last article, I said that musikCube had support for Last.fm through a plugin. You might be wondering what is Last.fm, even if you jumped quickly to their frontpage.Last.fm is, to quote them:

Songbird is a cross-platform, Mozilla-based music player with high ambitions. The app is still undergoing heavy development, but it has come a long way since we looked at the 0.1 release in 2006. Songbird today can sing a pretty sweet tune, but to push its way into the big leagues, it needs to get over its own interface.

A to the point article at the Tolero’s tech notes blog covers all the new features and changes in the upcoming Ubuntu 7.10 release. During the development I have written and tried out a lot of the new features, but there were are few little things I didn’t see. Here the the features I missed which you may have also:

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.

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.

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.

I just suddenly felt an urge to right about KDE after reading troy’s recent post (Troy, your marketing fever and ideas are contagious!!). I will probably be writing about something that has been written over and over again, but let me give it my own personal flavor. So…

This tutorial shows how you can install and use F-PROT Antivirus on an Ubuntu Feisty Fawn desktop. Although there aren't many Linux viruses out there, this can be useful if you often exchange files with Windows users - it can help you to not pass on any Windows viruses (that don't do any harm to Linux systems) to Windows users. F-PROT Antivirus for Linux is free for home use.