If somebody were to ask me which feature of Linux I liked the most I would have to say without a doubt the packaging systems that are available for it. The packaging systems for the biggest, baddest and best distributions would have to be the biggest, baddest and best difference between Linux and proprietary systems.

Agave is a color palette selection tool used to pick design layouts for desktop themes, web site designs, icon creation, and much more. It simplifies the process of choosing colors by generating a palette based on an initial color selection according to the selected rule and color set. Supported color sets include GNOME Icon, Tango Icon, Web-Safe, and Visibone.

With Hardy now past feature-freeze it’s time to start to plan features that are being lined up for inclusion after Ubuntu 8.04 LTS is released in April. And so I’d like to introduce you to the Intrepid Ibex, the release which is planned for October 2008, and which is likely to have the version number 8.10.

Many companies offer LAMP hosting, but some of the cheaper LAMP providers do not allow SSH access, reserving that feature for higher-paying customers. Without SSH you may think you'll have trouble executing commands on the hosted server. Not so -- PHP Shell allows execution of some commands without having SSH access to the LAMP server.

I have recently been inundated with questions about using an iPod (or iPhone) with Linux. I have written about Rockbox and how to “Open Source” your iPod, but for the average user that is not a viable option (Firmware? Do what????). So instead I am going to introduce those of you who do not know to an application that, in my opinion, is much better than the original (the original being iTunes.)

One of the first things I noticed after using Ubuntu for a while was how snappy the OS is, especially compared to Windows Vista (which in my experience can't even keep up with its predecessor XP). Then I poked around the Linux forums a little bit and found out that I could work even faster in Ubuntu by changing some default settings, and using a few of the OS's unique keyboard shortcuts.

Don't look now, but the third volley in the second browser war is about to be fired, and it's packing an impressive payload. Mozilla, the folks developing the Firefox Web browser, last week released a new test version. It's the third beta of Firefox 3.0, and it's solid enough that it could become your main browser right now, even before it's formally finished.

Having an SSH server can be incredibly useful; you can access a “headless” server without a monitor, get shell access to your system from anywhere in the world, transfer files without using FTP, securely tunnel VNC or web browsing, safely restart a locked-up system, and a lot more. However, improperly setting up a SSH server can leave your system vulnerable. Here’s how to install a secure SSH server (specifically OpenSSH) on Ubuntu or other Debian-based distributions.

Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do 2 things with an existing Klikit or Ubuntu or derivative installation.It can make a full system backup including personal data to a live cd or dvd that you can use anywhere and install. It can make a distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.

Really, Five is the amount of bugs YOU, yes YOU, will work on today. This is a new promotion by Daniel Holbach, called 5-A-Day. What it breaks down to is this…You will pick 5 bugs per day to work on. Whether you are a developer or not, there is much fun to be had for everybody!

So, having re-installed a brand new copy of Ubuntu and required updates, there are a few applications that I immediately download because, without them, I would not be able to do most of my day-to-day work. Here, in no particular order, are the five application or tools I have to have but aren’t included in a default Ubuntu install. If you work in media or website development many of these might sound familiar.

This tutorial will show you how to install Thunderbird ( the last stable release for Linux ) and how to configure the application do download all your Yahoo / Hotmail mail to your local inbox.

Maybe most of the readers of this blog do already know about shell scripts, and maybe they know even more than me (which is not difficult), but for those who does not know about it, I will write a little about shell scripts. A shell script is a sequence of commands -For those coming from DOS is like a .bat file- this command will execute in the sequence they are entered, unless loops, if, do, for, or any other commands like those are used.

KGRUBEditor is a visual GRUB configuration editor for KDE 4. With KGRUBEditor, you can edit GRUB entries and alter GRUB settings. KGRUBEditor is very easy-to-use. The latest version of KGRUBEditor is 0.5b. You can get it at KDE-Apps.org web site.

KGRUBEditor is a visual GRUB configuration editor for KDE 4. With KGRUBEditor, you can edit GRUB entries and alter GRUB settings. KGRUBEditor is very easy-to-use. The latest version of KGRUBEditor is 0.5b. You can get it at KDE-Apps.org web site.

By default, Ubuntu automatically checks for updates daily. If this is too frequent for you, you can change the interval to something that better fits your needs.

If you've ever tried to create or edit a Web page, you know that getting the little details just right can sometimes take a long time. Here are a few Firefox extensions you can add to your toolbox that will help you measure images, align objects on your page, and capture colors quickly and easily.

Xfiles is an interactive utility for comparing and merging one file tree with another over a network. It supports freeform work on several machines (no need to keep track of what files are changed on which machine). Xfiles can also be used as a cross-validating disk<->disk backup strategy (portions of a disk may go bad at any time, with no simple indication of which files were affected. Cross-validate against a second disk before backup to make sure you aren't backing up bad data).

Google recently confirmed in a blog posting that it had paid Codeweavers to help develop WINE to make Photoshop usable on the well-regarded but still somewhat unpredictable software package, which aims to replicate Windows libraries to enable popular Windows applications run in a Linux environment.

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue 78 for the week February 10th - February 16th, 2008 is now available. In this issue we cover Developer Week, MOTU Freeze Team, Hardy Alpha 5, Hug Day, PulseAudio, and, as always, much, much more!

"One of our developers calls this the 'awesome bar.' It brings the concept of search to your browser directly now. If you start typing it will go ahead and search through all the Web sites you've visited and bookmarked and try to figure out what Web site you're trying to go see," said Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering for Mozilla.

It’s the start of the Ubuntu Developer Week! (Digg it.) So what’s going on later today?

I didn’t receive a response from Citimortgage about their ghastly PDF files, but on my next visit I was again able to view my statements in Evince, the GNOME PDF viewer. (Although they were still obnoxiously large files for the amount of data represented.)

I've been using the Gimp now for a few years and have really come to love it. Since getting my larger 22-inch flat panel, The Gimp has become much easier to use. Gimp makes use of floating tool panels. One panel for bushes, eraser, paint bucket and other tools. another panel handles brush size, navigation, layers,etc. And a main panel that houses the image you're going to edit.

We all hope not to lose any of our valuable data; documents, pictures etc. Well sh*t happens, right? Accidental deletion of files, system or software crash, you name it. In those cases we need a data recovery software tool. So, how about a Free-Libre Open-Source data recovery software toolkit based on Ubuntu.