On March 21, Canonical has released the first public beta version of Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron. Its about a month left until the release of stable version of Ubuntu 8.04 LTS Hardy Heron. Here are some of the improvements made by the developers that distinguish Hardy Heron from Gutsy Gibbon.
- Latest version of Xorg (7.3)
- Linux 2.6.24-12.13 kernel based on 2.6.24.3 which bring support for amd64 power saving ( this is a good news for me)
- Gnome 2.22 is the default desktop environment. Kubuntu 8.04 comes with KDE 3.5 or KDE 4
- Firefox 3 beta 4 is the default web browser
- GTK’s version of the Transmission bittorent client
- PulseAudio is enabled by default
- New PolicyKit manager for advanced permission controls
- Vinagre
- Brasero CD/DVD burning application, replaces the Serpentine CD burning utility
- World Clock Applet
- Native PDF support
- Wubi installer which allows Windows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application (a good features to attract Windows user to the world of Linux)
Since this is still a beta version, therefore you are not recommended to install it on production machines. The full version of Ubuntu 8.04 is due out on April 24th.
Here are some great open source applications which I use most of the time. These applications can be installed in Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X. I would like to recommend you to install and use it as your main applications. These open source applications can be downloaded for free and can be distributed. If you know programming, you can modify the source code and distribute it.
To know more about open source, go to OpenSource.Org
Mozilla Firefox.
I am pretty sure that you already knew about this great web browser called Mozilla Firefox. If you don’t have any idea about Mozilla Firefox, let me tell you a little bit about this web browser. Mozilla Firefox is a cross platform web browser developed by Mozilla Foundation which is secure and faster than Internet Explore. Mozilla Firefox includes pop-up blocking, a tab-browsing, a spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager and integrated Google searching. Mozilla Firefox also comes with simplified privacy controls that let you cover your tracks more effectively. Mozilla Firefox can be customized by adding add-ons which were created by third party developer. Click on the Firefox2 button below to download.
Mozilla Thunderbird
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If you are looking for an alternative image manipulation software which is free and open source; Gimp will be the best alternative for you. Gimp stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program. New version 2.4.5 of Gimp has been released today. This version is a bugfix release in the stable 2.4 series. Gimp comes by default in many Linux distribution. However, this piece of software can be installed in MS Windows and Mac OS X.
Gimp ables to do what Adobe Photoshop can do and it can read and write most of Photoshop native PSD format files. However, Photoshop does not support Gimp’s XFE file format.
The advantages of Gimp over Photoshop are:
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Slax v6.0.0 was released officially on the 12th February 2008. Slax was developed by Tomas Matejicek using the Linux Live scripts based on the Slackware. Slax was developed to be a modern, small and fast operating system. Slax boots and runs from either cd or usb drive.
Slax is a modern, small and fast Linux operating system with a modular approach and outstanding design. Despite its small size, Slax provides a wide collection of pre-installed software for daily use, including a well organized graphical user interface and useful recovery tools for system administrators.
The modular approach gives you the ability to include any other software in Slax easily. If you’re missing your favourite text editor, networking tool or game, simply download a module with the software and copy it to Slax, no need to install, no need to configure.
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