Filed under: Audio, Features, Linux, Open Source, Beta
Flipping the Linux switch: Banshee learns to sing
We've always been fond of Amarok. It has some good features, nice add-ons, and felt just a little friendlier than some other Linux media players. We recently discovered a contender to the title of most loved Linux media player, the ominously named Banshee. Fortunately, Banshee doesn't involve listening to shrieking demons, unless that's your genre of choice.It's an application that has been increasingly packaged with distributions that include GNOME as the default desktop. For those distributions that don't include it on a standard install, it's almost always available from a repository. Many of those repositories include, at present, Banshee's 0.13.3 version. This is the stable version of Banshee and shows loads of promise, but it isn't quite Amarok.
We recommend, if possible, hunting down packages for your distro of choice of the latest version of Banshee (0.99.2). If there are no packages available, try installing the newer version via Subversion. It takes a bit more time, but it is well worth the effort.
Why? Because Banshee 0.99.2 (or alternately, Banshee 1.0 Beta 2) is an almost completely different screamin' demon. It may be a beta version, and not without its bugs, but it works much more smoothly than the 0.13.3 install we were using previously on Hardy Heron.

So, just how good at time waster games are you? Think you've got the stuff? Well, The World's Hardest Game 2.0 doesn't think you do.
Yes, amazingly, it's possible to have a sequel to a game called "The World's Hardest Game". It doesn't seem logically possible, since if the first one was actually the world's hardest, how could another one come along and share the moniker? It made me doubt the name in the first place. That is, until I tried the game.
The mechanics of the game are very simple. You are a small red square, ...
