Long Time No See
October 26, 2008
Well, its been a long time since I’ve actually been able to update this site. As you know, the servers went offline and its only recently that I’ve managed to get everything up and running again. I’ve tried to keep the feed headlines section up to date, but thats about it.
Anyway, a lot has happened in the last few weeks. Its that time of the year when the combined community unleashes their offerings upon us. We have lots to look forward to: Debian are due to release a new distro within the next couple of months (you just cannot pin those guys down!), Canonical are on the verge of releasing Intrepid Ibex with all that it promises, openSUSE are threatening us with 11, Fedora are going through the beta stages of version 10 and OOo have bestowed us with version 3 and that’s to name but a few. Its an exciting time in the FOSS community. Not to mention KDE have released 4.1.2 and are someway to making the Linux desktop beautifuil again! with so much to choose from, its hard to know what to install next!
For my part, I’m currently running Kubuntu 8.10 RC and am loving it. I’m a long time Gnome guy but the absolutely stunning KDE4 meant I just HAD to try it out. As far as an RC release goes, Kubuntu Intrepid is fairly stable. I noticed a few problems with the HAL updates today (machine crashes post-update), but other than that, it works well. The good news is that if you want to run proprietry fglrx drivers, you can. there were a few issues due to the fact that the current ATI drivers did not support the xorg version included with Intrepid, but relax - now works fine!
I plan on doing a few reviews on the plethora of upcoming releases, so stay tuned and check out the reviews to see which distro fits you best.
How to get VC investment for your open source business
October 25, 2008
So, you’ve got the greatest open source idea since Firefox. It’s guaranteed to be bigger than TCP/IP. All you need now is some scratch to get your project off the ground. Given the genius of your idea, you’re sure you’ll have to beat off potential investors with a stick. If you think that’s reality, I’ve got some subprime mortgages to sell you. Getting venture capital (VC) to fund your business is hard work, even if you have a commercial product to sell. The degree of difficulty ratchets up many times if you’re an open source developer. It can be done, but it takes such single-minded focus that getting turned down multiple — maybe even dozens — of times won’t faze you.
New Xfce beta focuses on usability
October 25, 2008
Xfce version 4.6 is shaping up to be more significant than most minor releases. Besides fixes and enhancements that are invisible to the casual user, the first revision in almost two years of GNU/Linux’s third most popular desktop includes numerous changes to applications such as the calendar, mixer, and logout dialog, a new configuration engine, and usability changes to the desktop. Their combined effect is to increase the usability of Xfce without sacrificing any of the speed for which the desktop is well-known.
Three to-do list managers for GNU/Linux
October 25, 2008
Never forget an important task again with these great to-do list managers for Linux.
