It’s really the most wonderful time of the year. Out of the top 6 GNU/Linux distributions (according to DistroWatch.com), four are releasing or have released builds between April and June. What’s new in them?

M6-IT, a Community Interest Community in the UK, are part way through a project to equip socially excluded families with computers running Xubuntu. I was recently able to interview Richard Rothwell of M6-IT about this project and its progress.

In my last article, I talked about using the powerful gedit text editor. But no program is perfect, mainly because too many features imply too much bloat. That’s where gedit’s plugins come into play. In this article, I’m will explain how to install and use some of my favorite gedit plugins.

Most computer users spend their entire life looking for the Holy Grail. In other words, they spend all their life searching for the perfect editor that supports all their languages, is free as in speech, has spelling, has highlighting… you get the picture. Obviously, there isn’t a perfect editor out there. However, some come pretty close. Ironically, one of them is one that any Ubuntu (or in fact, any Gnome) user has installed, though they may not know it. It’s called gedit (also known as Text Editor).

gedit: not as simple as it looks

One of the reasons free operating systems are so great is because of their bug reporting features. Ubuntu is no exception. Like most other GNU/Linux operating systems, Ubuntu allows users to file bug reports using its bug reporting site, Launchpad. In the free software world, each user becomes a potential beta tester and gets the chance to contribute to the community without ever coding or writing documentation. Unfortunately, Launchpad’s bug reporting tool often scares away users who have no idea what a ticket, project, or distribution is.

For those of you that follow my blog, you must have noticed that I’m a Mandriva user. Recently though, I took an interest in Ubuntu: I installed version 7.04 on a laptop, and it did look interesting, enough to make me doubt my commitment to Mandriva’s products.

Thus, when 7.10 came out with a bang in the media, and I got another laptop to de-borgify, I downloaded the Ubuntu 7.10 ISO along with the install CD for Mandriva 2008.0 Free.

One popular screensaver in Ubuntu is “Floating Ubuntu”, which displays a number of Ubuntu logos floating around the screen. This screensaver exists in many different flavours; for example in Ubuntu you can also find “Floating Feet”, that has the GNOME logo instead of Ubuntu’s; or, on Debian you have Debian’s “swirls” floating around. I thought that it would probably be easy to customize it and have an image of my choice floating around instead. Unfortunately, screensavers in Ubuntu are not configurable using the GUI so I had to hack the screensaver myself.

Days ago I was appointed as the on-call support on our TIBCO installation. So I have been given a personal mobile phone, a personal laptop and, lastly, a Vodafone Mobile Connect Super UMTS card. You may well be interested in the fact that Vodafone Spain developed a Linux driver, the card seems to work very well with Linux, and that it was quite easy to configure it!

I am going to describe how I configured it to work with Vodafone Italia as the provider. Please feel encouraged to comment on this entry and fill in the configuration you made for your own Country or distribution. What follows is the configuration for Ubuntu 7.04.

One of the biggest strengths of Debian (and derivatives like Ubuntu) is support for the .deb package. After all, it provides a one-click method of easily installing programs. Best of all, these programs are automatically updated via the official Debian repositories. Unfortunately, the official repositories aren’t always the best. Some programs aren’t always up to date (the latest version of Thunderbird is 2.0. However, the latest version in the repositories is 1.5).

The free software world erupted into cheering when Canonical announced that Ubuntu would be one of the first GNU/Linux distributions to ship pre-installed on Dell machines. Obviously, this is huge news. A major computer manufacturer has not included a GNU/Linux distribution as a pre-installed option on desktops and laptops in a very long time. However, I’m not getting excited until a few questions are answered.

Question 1: What versions of Ubuntu?

Last fall a slightly ambitious project to test the uptake of Ubuntu Linux in the volunteer community of eastern England showed positive results, so why has the funder pulled the plug?

The interview with Mark Shuttleworth in which he answers the questions sent in by all of you has finally been released after a few delays. Read on for more information!

In the interview, available at Questions Please…, Mark covers a wide range of topics including the possibility of a completely free Ubuntu release on the time frame of feisty+1 - he also lets us know a quick tip on how to install any current Ubuntu release without any of the proprietary blobs!

I’m still on my quest to stop dual-booting between Edubuntuand Windows XP. The hope is to solely boot into Edubuntu since I’ve switched the majority of our personal computing over already. The last pockets of resistance were the MS Money and Hallmark’s Greeting Card programs. I could address MS Money with GnuCash, a QIF import and a little time (see prior blog Trial Balances and Tribulations). That left the Hallmark program.

Last week I gave you half of my Top Ten Names for Ubuntu releases. As a reminder, they were: ‘pissy porcupine’, ‘bitty bat’, ‘virtual viper’, ‘talky tortoise’, and (my favorite) ‘kinky kangaroo’. Now here are the rest. I do this, again, as a public service to Ubuntu, which can freely use these names as it sees fit (though a brand new laptop would be a most fitting ‘gift’ as a show of gratitude for my creative genius). Anyway… read em and weep! Oh, and you even get a bonus release.

Zesty zebra