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Kubuntu 5.10 Preview Screenshots

OSDir has screenshots of the Kubuntu 5.10 preview release.

On a somewhat related note, I installed Ubuntu 5.10 preview and am thoroughly impressed. The one thing that has shocked me is the “Add Programs” application. In Ubuntu 5.04 Add Programs is not very useful, it has the names of some 20 extra programs not included by default. But now, it’s got hundreds, if not thousands, of apps. They’re all organized, with their own icons, and summaries of what everything does. I’m not sure how to describe it, the experience is something like viewing software boxes at a computer store, except everything is instantly, legally, and freely downloadable. This app should be in every distro and on every window manager. It’s going to have a huge impact on the acceptance of Linux as soon as people discover it.

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Windows In Your Pocket

Tom’s Hardware has a detailed article about installing Windows XP onto a USB flash drive using Bart PE Builder. Adding software like Firefox and Nero is also described in this article.

All it takes is a minor error in the Windows Registry or a virus infection, and your operating system can become unbootable. But with a properly configured USB flash drive on hand, you’ll always have a compatible replacement no further away than your pocket or keychain.

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Linux in Italian Schools, Part 3: DidaTux | Linux Journal

Linux Journal has an article about the use of open source software in Italian Schools. One teacher has tailored a LiveCD to focus on education, and is fighting to have open source mentioned alongside the teaching of proprietary software.

First of all, she notes, this is software that can be installed, modified and shared freely, without choosing between the risk of heavy fines and the use of expensive licenses that software companies use to lock in millions of end users.

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NTFS for Linux review by PC Magazine

PC Magazine reviews NTFS read/write code for Linux. It comes with its own bootable cd, and they even review it using a Knoppix CD. In short, it works, it costs money, and I can’t find downloadable source code or the acronym GPL anywhere.

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LiveCDs Helping with Katrina Disaster Recovery

PublicWebStations.com is helping to setup Public Web Stations for the people affected by Hurricane Katrina. These stations are run off a modified Damn Small Linux LiveCD and allow web access to various disaster relief information websites. They are also assisting in organizing donations of computer hardware, and with the DSL’s requirements of a 486 with 16 MB of ram, a lot of unused computers can be made useful again.

“A working web station would take no more than 5 minutes to set up, and requires no ongoing maintenance except in the case of hardware failure,” Hargadon continued. “In case of any difficulties, the machine is just rebooted.”

Ars Technica has a related story, but addresses the problem of FEMA’s IE-only disaster registration website.

The issue isn’t only security. XP hardware requirements, while not impressive by today’s standards, rule out using some donated hardware as well. Furthermore, legitimate copies of Windows also cost money, and relief workers are trying to stretch their dollars as far as they can go.

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Ubuntu Colony CD 4

Ubuntu Colony 4, the “last Colony CD release before the Breezy preview, has been released. My Ubuntu Breezy install recently updated itself to include a spiffy framebuffer-using bootup, with a black and gold(?) theme. This is most likely the same theme they’re talking about at the bullet point which says “Many fixes to the live CD, including usplash integration”.

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Elive: Where Debian meets Enlightenment

OSDir.com has a review of Elive. If you like visual effects, you owe it to yourself to try Elive. The screenshots are good, but don’t come close to actually using this desktop.

In a few moments the Elive desktop was loaded. Unlike earlier versions of Enlightenment the vertical curtain effect was not present. Elive uses the ‘elive’ theme as opposed to the Enlightenment default. Wow, where do I start with this crazy desktop. Beautifully polished would be a fit description. It is truly only rivaled by OS X.

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Upgrade to free software for italian schools

NewsForge reports that 20,000 LiveCDs will be distributed to students and teachers in Italy. Less than three weeks ago there was an announcement that 64,000 LiveCDs would be distributed to students in France. If only I was given a Linux CD while in school, I’m sure my first computing years in front of BASH would have had a better impact on me then all the time I spent in DOS.

about 20 thousand live-cd will be delivered to students and teachers, with the collaboration of Alpikom [7]. All the students and families will have, for free, the same software environment and all the applications used in the computer classes at school.