Want your kid to love Linux as much as you do, but worried that he or she might be learning too much about Windows and OS X on the streets (or at school) to feel comfortable with an open source operating system? Qimo is here to help.

Qimo Linux is based on Ubuntu, but it's designed for children over the age of 3. It features large cartoon-like program icons and comes with a bunch of open source and educational games including Tuxmath, Tuxpaint, Tuxtype (a typing game) and even some games that don't have Tux in them like GCompris and Childsplay.

Unlike Edubuntu, Qimo is designed for home use, not classroom use. The operating system can be run from a LiveCD or installed. Qimo uses a simple interface based on Xfce.

[via instant fundas]

Lossless audio codecs (like FLAC and ALAC) have been around for a while, but Thomson's new mp3HD format might be the one that finally achieves mainstream adoption.

mp3HD has one key advantage over other lossless formats: it's fully backwards compatible, meaning you should be able to play encoded files back on any device that supports mp3.

Bitrates are similar to FLAC, ranging from 500 to 900kbps. The average bitrate for pop/top 40 music comes in at 876kbps which produces a 26mb file for a four-minute track.

One more thing mp3HD has going for it is that it utilizes something most users have grown accustomed to: the .mp3 file extension. Familiarity means a lot to the average user - try asking some of your non-techy friends what an .ogg file is. Using the extension that has become synonymous with digital audio files should improve mp3HD's chances of achieving mainstream adoption.

Thomson has also released a command line enocder and decoder for Windows and Linux, as well as a Winamp plugin for mp3HD.

SMPlayer is a frontend for the open source MPlayer media player. Like MPlayer, that means SMPlayer can handle a wide array of video formats. And the latest build brings SMPlayer one step closer to being a complete replacement for Windows Media Center with experimental support for DVD menus.

SMPlayer 0.6.7 also makes it esier to load external subtitle files, doest a better job of sorting new files added to playlists, and and allows users to configure audio and subtitle delays if necessary.

The media player is available for Windows or Linux. There's also a portable version for Windows that can be run from a USB flash drive.

[via gHacks]

When our own we met up with Darin Fisher of Google's Chrome team, we had exactly one question on our mind, "Where's Chrome for Mac?"

Darren shares some answers, encourages you to try out nightly builds, and laments the lack of Chrome for Linux (coming soon-ish.. ) in this short interview.

Ubuntu users (or users of a Ubuntu-based distro) who have been waiting patiently for the chance to play with Google Chrome, there's now a dead simple way for you to do it. Thanks to the PPA (personal package archive) for Chromium daily builds team, getting the pre-alpha Chromium browser running on your system is about as painless as it can be at this stage.

You'll need to add repositories, of course. They are (substitute jaunty or hardy if needed):

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main

Once they've been added, running sudo apt-get install chromium-browser in a terminal window will take care of the rest. After the package has finished installing, just type chromium-browser [enter] to fire it up.

While it's still in its early stages, Chromium on Linux runs as it does on Windows - fast and smooth. Some important features aren't working yet, like the tab and bookmarks bars and options menu, but nearly everything else is. Incognito, history, download manager, and the new tab view are all functional, and every web page I tested rendered beautifully - and fast.

Check the gallery after the break for screenshots from my CrunchBang install.

If you're starting to amass a large collection of eBooks, formatted for all kinds of different readers, Calibre might be just what you need to help organize them. It's a cross-platform app that can read and tag eBooks from Kindle 1 and 2, iPhone, and readers from Sony and Cybook. It can also convert text from all kinds of sources into eBook format, and function as its own server of sorts, so you can access your library online.

Calibre also looks great, with a display mode similar to the Cover Flow in iTunes -- can someone explain what's up with Cover Flow being so hot right now? -- and a more practical list mode that just shows cover images on the side. You can also edit or fill in information about your books from Calibre, to make sure your library is accurate and organized. Oh, and if you're a fan of the Stanza reader on the iPhone, Calibre's hosting feature makes your books accessible through that, too.

Seesmic's Twhirl is one of the most widely-used desktop clients for Twitter, and now it's got a sibling. Loic Le Meur announced on Saturday that the company has released the first version of a similar application for Facebook.

The app requires Adobe Air, and does seem a bit intense on memory use for what it's doing (currently using about 65Mb on my Windows 7 x64 system). Once it's installed, you'll just have to click through the usual Facebook authorizations to get it running.

It's a lot like taking a slice out of the middle of your Facebook home page, minus the handy threading. At this stage of development, most users will likely opt to stick with the web interface.

Remember, this is a preview release. More important than how Seesmic's Facebook app functions right now is Le Meur's statement that they " will soon have a client with both Facebook and Twitter integrated into one." Combined with Twhirl's support for Twitter, Identi.ca, and Friendfeed, that would make for a very intriguing desktop app - especially for users needing to manage multiple Twitter accounts.

Microsoft isn't the only company that's busy pumping out operating system updates like there's no tomorrow. Canonical is busy putting the finishing touches on Ubuntu 9.04. The next version of the popular Linux distribution is due out in April (the 9.04 stands for April, 2009). Today the team released Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope Alpha 6.

So what's new in the latest build? There's a new version of X.Org, an updated Linux kernel, and support for the Ext4 file system. There's also a new style for notifications, and a whole slew of updated packages including the latest versions of Firefox, Pidgin, and The GIMP.

The folks at SoftPedia have put together a screenshot tour showing some of the changes. To be honest, Alpha 6 doesn't look much different from Alpha 5. But as with each release, there have been a bunch of bug fixes, and at least a few new bugs have probably been introduced as well. If you're more comfortable with stable, well-tested software, you'll probably want to wait until next month to try Jaunty Jackalope. But if you want to help test the pre-release version of Ubuntu 9.04, it's available for download today.

Knoppix is a Linux distribution that's been popular for years among folks looking for a full featured operating system that can be booted from a LiveCD (meaning you can run the operating system without installing it to your hard drive - you just can't save any changes). You can also install Knoppix to your hard drive, but it's strength has always lied in the speed with which it boots and runs from an optical disc drive or USB flash drive.

Lat month Knoppix 6.0 was released, and it's even faster and prettier than earlier versions. But it's still designed to run well on older and slower computers. Among the changes in version 6.0 is the switch from the KDE desktop environment to the LXDE graphical environment. LXDE is light weight and loads quickly, but it's capable of offering all sorts of visual candy including Compiz desktop effects.

Knoppix 6.0 also boots twice as fast as Knoppix 5, and comes with fewer applications preloaded, which helps keep the size down. While the main disk image weighs in at 645MB, it can be remastered to use 256MB or less.

You can also now save your settings after shutting down the system by creatng a persisent boot image.

[via Linux Magazine]

Mozilla has already delayed the release of Firefox 3.1 several times in order to work out all the kinks in the latest build of the popular web browser. Now the development team has decided that "3.1" doesn't adequately describe the significance of this the upcoming release, so the next major version of Firefox will be called Firefox 3.5.

Firefox 3.5 will include an improved JavaScript engine, new privacy features, changes to the way browser tabs are handled, and enhanced web standards compatibility.

The team plans to release at least one or two more beta versions before pushing out Firefox 3.5. And just to keep things interesting, the next beta will be called Firefox 3.1 Beta 3.

In related news, Mozilla pushed out a minor update to Firefox 3 this week. Version 3.0.7 includes several security and stability fixes. If you're running Firefox 3.0.6, you should be prompted to update automatically.

[via Mozilla Links]

Elisa is an open source media center application that looks and behaves an awful lot like Apple's Front Row software. The program was initially developed for Linux, but in January the Elisa team released the first version of the application that can also run on Windows.

The media center suite includes a full screen interface for interacting with your music, movie, and picture collections. Elisa also supports plugins, including tools that let you access online media from Shoutcast, Yes.fm, YouTube, and Flickr.