In ten days, Canonical will officially launch Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex, the next version of the popular operating system. But you don't have to wait until October 30th to take it for a spin. The beta version of Ubuntu 8.10 is available today, and for all intents and purposes, it's pretty close to the version that will be available in a week and a half, and you can always install it now and update files and settings as necessary when the time comes.

But what if you're not ready to devote valuable hard drive space to a new operating system? Fortunately, you can download the Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD today and try the operating system out without making any changes to your hard disk. But you also can't make any changes to the CD. In other words, you can't install any applications or alter any settings and expect them to be there next time you boot from a CD.

But you can install Ubuntu 8.10 (and a number of other Linux distributions) on a USB flash drive which will allow you to save any changes. Pen Drive Linux has a set of instructions, but in a nutshell what you need to do is download the Ubuntu LiveCD, burn it to a disc and reboot your computer from the CD. Then you follow a set of instructions to copy the files you need from the CD to your 1GB or larger flash drive, tweak a few settings, and voila! You can run Ubuntu from your USB stick.

This can come in handy if you want to try out the operating system without committing to it. But it can also be useful if you tend to wander back and forth between a number of computers, because you can carry your entire operating system with all of your preferred programs and settings in your pocket.

So you've decided to install Ubuntu on your computer, but you're not ready to give up Windows altogether. No problem. During the install process, just take care not to overwrite Windows and you can have a dual boot setup in under an hour. But what's this? The GRUB bootloader adds 10 seconds to your startup time if you don't hit the key to skip the countdown. And it automatically assumes Ubuntu should be your default operating system.

It's relatively simple to tweak your GRUB menu by editing the menu.lst file hanging out in the grub directory of your Ubuntu file system's boot folder. You can change the boot order of the operating systems. Or you can adjust the countdown clock. But if you make a mistake, you could also make it quite difficult to load either Ubuntu or Windows.

Startup Manager, or SUM provides an easier way to edit your GRUB menu. You can find SUM in the Synaptic package manager or by typing "sudo apt-get install startupmanager" into a terminal window. Or you can just click this link.

Once it's installed, you can access Startup Manager from the System -> Administration menu. The utility lets you change the default operating system, adjust the screen resolution of the GRUB menu, and even alter the background and text colors. You can adjust the countdown timer, set a password, or alter a number of other settings. And there's fairly little risk of messing up your boot menu beyond all repair.

[via Digg and Make Tech Easier]

Appnr is a web-based directory of applications for Ubuntu Linux. You can also launch Ubuntu's package manager to install any application on the site with a click of a button.

Nothing to write home about there. You can get a list of apps for Ubuntu by firing up the Synaptic package manager from your desktop. But Appnr differentiates itself in at least two ways:

1. You can sort applications alphabetically or by how popular the downloads are.
2. The software description pages are much more informative than the brief, text-only descriptions you'll find in the Synaptic package manger.

The popularity rankings are nice. But it's the fleshed out details page that are really useful. Each page includes related image, video, web, and blog search results. That makes it easy to find screenshots of the application in question, an official product page (or Wikipedia or other page), and recent posts from blogs that have written about applications.

[via MakeUseOf]

There are plenty of things to love about a modern desktop Linux distribution like Ubuntu 8.04. It's got nifty desktop effects, comes with an office suite, web browser, media player, and pretty much anything else you need for day to day computer user. And there's a huge list of applications you can install with the click of a mouse.

But there's one thing I absolutely hate. And that's the fact that while package managers like Synaptic and apt-get make it incredibly easy to install all sorts of applications, uninstalling is another matter.

I wanted to see if I could get some audio editing tools up and running on my Eee PC 1000H today. I could have just tried installing Jack and Ardour, but I decided to go all out and install Ubuntu Studio's audio packages. I opened a terminal, typed in "sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-audio," and after downloading 300MB of files and unpacking them to take up 600MB on my desktop I was all set. Dozens of utilities has been installed, most of which I didn't have any intention of using. After playing around a bit, I couldn't figure out how to playback audio in Ardour, the one app I really wanted to use. And Ardour crashed about 70% of the time I tried to launch it.

So I decided to uninstall using the same method. I opened a terminal, typed "sudo apt-get remove ubuntustudio-audio" and received a message saying I could free up 49.2KB. Only two packages would be uninstalled, and almost all of the audio applications I didn't need would stick around, eating up hard disk space.

Apt-get makes it incredibly easy to install software. It's not so easy to remove it. It looks like my best bet is to go through and remove the applications I don't need one by one. I'm amazed how often I run into this program.

If you don't tend to install a lot of programs that you later wind up uninstalling, Ubuntu's a great operating system. If you enjoy testing out new software, and value both your hard drive space and your free time, Ubuntu may not be for you.

I haven't played with Fedora, SUSE, or PCLinuxOS lately. Anyone know if any of them have a package manager that makes it easier to remove applications?

Update: Thanks to mcdope, I managed to find a solution. But it was so non-intuitive that I'm going to stand by my headline. Uninstalling applications needs to be much simpler in Linux.

Basically, apt-get autoclean, apt-get autoremove, and apt-get --purge remove did nothing for me. What helped was installing the debfoster package and then running it. This shows a list of all packages that were installed along with ubuntustudio-audio (or any other package). If you select "y," you can keep a package. Selecting "n" removes it -- but not the other packages that rely on it, as I figured out the hard way.

So I had to reinstall ubuntustudio-audio, run through the whole process again, and this time select "p" for purge." That finally removed most of the apps that had been installed as part of the package and cleaned up 519MB of disc space. Finally, I ran apt-get autoremove which seemed to cleanup a few more loose ends.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

Canonical has released the first beta versions of Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex and its KDE counterpart, Kubuntu 8.10. Both feature a whole slew of new features and updates. But first thing's first. I don't recommend installing this operating system on your laptop unless you:

1. Know what you're doing.
2. Are willing to risk frying your LAN card.

As we reported last week, a bug in the latest version of the Linux Kernel used by Ubuntu 8.10 not only causes some Ethernet cards to stop working, but it also kills them dead. Basically, if your Ethernet hardware uses the Intel 82566 or 82567, do not install Intrepid Ibex yet. Because it could corrupt data on your hardware. There is a patch available to address this issue, but Canonical hasn't incorporated that patch yet. It should be in place by the time Ubuntu 8.10 final is released.

So if you do decide to go ahead and install Ubuntu 8.10, what will you see? Intrepid Ibex includes Gnome 2.24 with a number of improvements including tabbed browsing in the latest version of the Nautilus file manager. You also get a new version of the network manager which provides a 3G connection manager, among other things. The OS also uses X.Org 7.4, which has improved support for hot-pluggable input devices like keyboards, mice and tablets.

Update: If I'd spent a few more seconds reading the release notes, I would have told you that the offending component has been disabled so as not to fry anybody's Ethernet card. That's the good news. The bad news is that means you may not be able to access the internet via a LAN using this build. The issue should be addressed by the time Ubuntu 8.10 final is ready to go.

Check out some more of the highlights after the break.

[via Engadget]

Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has big dreams for Linux. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's been following the progress of Ubuntu, which releases a major update every six months and keeps getting more and more user friendly. But user friendly is just the beginning. Shuttleworth wants Linux to be prettier too. In fact, he's calling on open source developers to make desktop Linux more attractive than OS X within 2 years.

Shuttleworth's remarks came yesterday at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, or OSCON. Open source developers have been making great strides in this area recently. Many Linux distributions include support for Compiz desktop effects which add a bit of visual bling to the desktop experience while also making things like switching virtual desktops a bit easier. And the developers behidn the KDE desktop environment have scrapped the Windows-like interface of KDE 3 and replaced it with a whole new paradigm in KDE 4 -- we're note entirely convinced that KDE 4 is easier to use than KDE 3, but it's certainly prettier.

On the other hand, it's a bit funny to hear Shuttleworth talk about making Linux more beautiful. After all, Ubuntu is frequently mocked for its default dull brown color scheme. But the operating system and its user interface are already extraordinarily customizable.

What do you think? Is it possible for desktop Linux to become as "beautiful," and user-friendly as OS X within 2 years? What would it take? And keep in mind, it's not like Apple is going to just sit still while Linux developers are working on the challenge. Who knows what the Mac OS will look like two years from now?

WattOS is a new Linux distribution that's based on Ubuntu, but designed for low-power machines. It has low system requirements, which means you can run it on older hardware. But the developers are also hoping to build advanced power management features into the OS so that you'll have a full Linux desktop experience without consuming much power (by today's computer standards).

The operating system comes in four flavors:

• wattOS: The core operating system which features a Gnome desktop
• mWattOS: Uses the Xfce interface
• µWattOS: Features a command line interface and a light-weight GUI
• Substation: A server edition

WattOS is currently available as a public alpha, which means there's still a lot of work to do, but the operating system is perfectly usable, if a little rough around the edges. It comes with a stripped down set of applications. For examle, instead of OpenOffice.org you get AbiWord and Gnumeric. But WattOS supports apt-get and the Synaptic Package Manager, which makes it easy to add additional applications.

[via Sizlopedia]

Perhaps our fate is sealed at Download Squad. Perhaps if you avert your eyes now you can save yourselves. Abandon all hope ye who read past this point, and know, yea verily, that while the weather stinks here, the company is diverse and you're bound to find someone you have something in common with.

The Ubuntu Satanic Edition is Linux for the damned. You don't have to be damned to use it (well, we're using it, and we've been telling ourselves this). The best thing is that it is so well designed and configuration is so well documented, you won't even need to use naughty words in the installation process. (We do advise, to get the most out of your hellish computing experience, that you follow the configuration guide. Some of it is very obvious, some of it isn't.)

Unlike the (now on temporary hiatus) Ubuntu Christian Edition and (active) Ubuntu Muslim Edition, which both have religion-specific applications, the Satanic Edition is simply a collection of themes, wallpapers (some NSFW), sound effects and splash screens. We suppose that's fine, as we really don't want any Satanic applications on our computers, although we're pretty sure someone will comment on the true nature of OEM installs of certain software that comes pre-installed on many computers. We didn't say it, though, okay?

Ubuntu Satanic Edition is visually quite stunning. We mean this in a good way. The artwork is very professional looking, the themes render well (and there are hints for making them work better with applications that have issues with dark themes), and the screen savers and bootsplash screens work without issue. There are even Beryl Skydomes especially for this edition.

Ubuntu Satanic Edition can be optimized for wide screens, and can be uninstalled, should you have complaints from co-workers, loved ones, or just feel really creeped out. It'll install happily on Hardy, Feisty, Gutsy or Edgy in either the 32- or 64-bit varieties (PPC does have a few components missing). There are guides for installing and configuring both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. There are also several additional themes for Emerald, icon themes, and other assorted goodies that are not "officially" part of the Satantic Edition.

The version number of the Satanic Edition? Duh, 666.4, of course.

[via Aditya Kavoor's blog]

Never one to rest on their laurels, the Ubuntu team is hard at work on the next cutting edge version of their popular distro, Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (who the heck names these releases?).

As with most other Ubuntu alphas, there isn't much to write home about yet. However, much to our surprise, it has a new interface theme, for the first time since Dapper Drake. "That ugly brown theme", as many people on the internet referred to it, has been the standard on Ubuntu for over a year now, and you either love it or hate it.

"NewHuman" takes the art of Ubuntu in a new direction, and only time will tell if it makes it into the final release, scheduled for October of this year. Those who are interested in participating in the testing process may download an ISO image from the official site. As always, the Alpha versions are not recommended for production machines, so distro shufflers need not apply.

On June 17, 2008 Mozilla attempted to set a Guinness World Record for the most downloads in a 24 hour period. According to Mozilla over 8 million downloads were recorded. Currently they are awaiting word from Guinness if they were successful.

But there was one thing we wanted to know about this number. Out of the 3 major operating systems in use today which one blazed away with the most downloads. So we decided to ask and a Mozilla spokesperson gave us the following numbers:

• Windows 79%
• Linux 13%
• OS X 8%

Now the number 1 spot didn't surprise us at all since Windows leads in overall computer operating systems it's almost a given that most of the downloads would come from Windows. But what was a bit surprising was that Linux bested OS X in the numbers of downloads.

One could say that Ubuntu, which is a very popular Linux distro comes packaged with Firefox so it's only natural that more downloads would come from Linux users. But according to w3counter, OS X accounts for 4.95% of the operating systems in use while Linux is barely half of this at 2.01%

So this strikes us as odd. What would cause OS X to slip to 3rd place in the number of downloads? Do these numbers suggested that Apple users only like to use Apple apps? Or did a large group of Mac users not get invited to the download party?

Canonical has made the Mobile Internet Device (MID) version of Ubuntu available to developers. Developers can now make the necessary changes to their desktop applications to better match the smaller screen sizes and processing power of these devices as well as take advantage of the touchscreen interface to improve the user experience.

Ubuntu MID is based on the desktop version of the Ubuntu operating system but has the necessary tweaks made to run efficiently on smaller and less powerful devices like the Samsung Q1U which currently ships with Vista. We had an opportunity to demo this unit running on Vista with the standard 800MHz CPU and 1GB of RAM and the Q1U was really sluggish and not as responsive as we would like.

Hopefully, Ubuntu MID will be well optimized to make devices like the Q1U more usable as it will include a Gecko based browser, email, calendaring and media player specifically designed for these types of devices.

But does the recent announcement of Ubuntu Linux Remix and Symbian going open source possibly take some of the potential Ubuntu MID sales away?

Been so busy trying to figure out Steve Jobs would announce next week that you haven't had time to read the news this week? We'll save you some time. First, it's probably a new iPhone. Second, here are some of our favorite stories from the week that was:

• Wikia Search human powered search engine becomes useful
  Ever wish you could rearrange search results in Google? Well, you can't. But you can customize Wikia Search, the search engine from the makers of Wikipedia to your heart's content. Don't like the order of the search results? Just vote your preferred results up. In theory, this could be an excellent way to deal with the inadequacies of machine ranking. In practice, web publishers are just going to spend all day fighting for the top listings.
• VLC on the iPhone and iPod Touch? Yep
  The iPhone is a remarkable device that lets you make phone calls, surf the web, watch movies, and listen to music. But if you want to watch DiVX videos, listen to MP3 files, or use any number of other formats, you're out of luck. Or at least you were last week. Because this week, the open-source VLC media player was ported to the iPhone. And there was much rejoicing.
• As June 30th approaches, are you stocking up on Windows XP licenses?
  Microsoft has set a June 30th cutoff date for Windows XP sales. Sort of. While it won't be impossible to pick up a copy of the 6 year old operating system after that date, it will be a bit tougher. Since Windows Vista isn't exactly what we'd call popular, and Windows 7 is at least a year or two away, now might be a good time to pick up a spare Windows XP license in case you need to install the OS on a new computer.
• Ubuntu Netbook Remix gets real official
  Dozens of computer makers showed off new cheap mini-notebooks at the Computex trade show in Taipei this week. And while many of those "netbooks" run Windows XP or Vista, many more are running Linux. Canonical wants in on the action and is planning to release Ubuntu Netbook Remix later this year. It's basically a custom version of Ubuntu with a new program launcher designed for small screens and optimizations for the low-power Intel Atom CPU. Canonical showed off an early build of the system this week.
• Ever use Pandora? Ever use Pandora...on AIR?
  While there have been desktop clients that let you listen to streaming music service Pandora without a web browser for ages, the company finally released its own official client this week -- to mixed reviews. On the one hand, it's great that you can listen to music without having to launch a browser. On the other hand, the desktop client, based on Adobe AIR, is kind of bulky and feels more like a web service than a desktop application.
• NexusFile - Putting Windows Explorer out of its misery
  Looking for a good replacement for the Windows Explorer? NexusFile supports tabs, favorite folders, has a built in FTP client, and disk cleanup tool. And it's free.

XBMC is a media center suite that was originally designed for the original Xbox. But over the last few years XBMC has taken on a life of its own and has been ported to run on OS X and Linux. And if you don't happen to have a PC running either operating system or an Xbox lying around, now you can check XBMC out by creating a bootable flash disk version of the media center.

Theoretically, you should be able to boot XBMC on any PC no matter what operating system you're running. In practice, you'll need a PC that can boot from a flash disk and a supported graphics card (or some Linux hacking skills). NVIDIA drivers should be supported out of the box, but ATI and other graphics cards, not so much. The LiveUSB is based on Ubuntu Hardy Heron, so if you're up to the challenge, you might be able to add support on your own.

Creating the bootable media using Windows takes just a few moments. Just download the LiveXBMC image and builder files, unzip them to the same directory, insert a 1GB or larger USB flash drive (which will be reformatted), and click the LiveUSBBuilder.exe file to get started. A few moments later you should have a bootable version of XBMC. Or a flash drive that will start to load the media center suite and then crap out about halfway through the process. But definitely one or the other.

[via Lifehacker]