Jamie's Random Musings
Various thoughts and adventures, including but not limited to Video IM, Linux, Windows XP and Widows Vista, and various bits of hardware new and old.
Wednesday 26 November 2008, 1:24 PM
Fedora 10 Released
The Fedora Project has released Fedora 10. It comes as a either a Live CD, a set of CDs or a DVD.
I have installed from the Live CD on my Lifebook S6510, and it seems to work very well. However, I have also tried to install it on my Lifebook S2110, so far without much success. I suspect that the problem is with the driver for the ATI display adapter.
Fedora is produced with the assistance of Red Hat, and is basically a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As such, users who already have RHEL on corporate systems, for example, might find this a very interesting option.
jw 26/11/2008
I have installed from the Live CD on my Lifebook S6510, and it seems to work very well. However, I have also tried to install it on my Lifebook S2110, so far without much success. I suspect that the problem is with the driver for the ATI display adapter.
Fedora is produced with the assistance of Red Hat, and is basically a derivative of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. As such, users who already have RHEL on corporate systems, for example, might find this a very interesting option.
jw 26/11/2008
Tuesday 25 November 2008, 8:27 PM
Photo Management on Linux - Part 2
When I am looking for a photo management program, I want one which meets most or all of the following requirements:
- Allows me to store my photos where I want on the disk. I don't want the program to "steal" my pictures and squirrel them away somewhere that I can't find, access or recover them without assistance from that program.
- Allows me to catalog, categorize, tag or otherwise group pictures independent of how they are stored. I tend to do the bulk storage of my pictures by years, but I want to be able to look at them not only by years, but in smaller groups within a year (Thanksgiving 2008), or in groups which span years, and thus span storage folders (all Thanksgivings).
- Includes minimal image manipulation capabilities. All I really want to be able to do is rotate pictures as necessary, resize them for sending in email and such, and perhaps fix red-eye problems.
- Has at least full-screen picture display, and preferably slide show capability.
That's not a lot, I know - and that has been the problem. If I want to do more sophisticated things, editing, creating collages, whatever else, I will use GIMP on Linux, or something like Photo Shop on Windows. But I don't want the overhead or the complication of those programs when all I am trying to do is download pictures from the camera, look at them, or show them to someone.
So, working within these expectations, here are some of the programs that are available on Linux.
F-Spot Photo Manager: Perhaps the best known of the Linux programs, simply because it is the "standard" that comes on Ubuntu and openSuSE, and is activated whenever you insert a memory card or connect a camera.
- It will download pictures from your memory card or camera (unfortunately storing them in its own photo hierarchy, but at least they are still standard Linux files and directories). It detects duplicate pictures, so if you insert the same card several times without clearing it, you don't end up with multiple copies of every picture - and this is not based only on duplicate file names.
- It maintains the original file name, which I particularly like, as it helps me see very easily which pictures came from which of our cameras.
- You can specify catalogs and categories for groups of pictures as you download them.
- It has a nice sidebar with lots of image information, meta-data, comments if you have added them, and even a histogram of the image data. I suspect that latter is part of how it detects duplicate pictures, by the way.
- It has rotate/flip, red-eye fix, color and crop options, but no resize that I can find - one of the few failings I have seen in it.
- It has a nice full-screen view with next/previous and "start slide show"
- You can "export" pictures to a CD (nice if you want to burn all of the Thanksgiving pictures to give to others), as well as various web photo share services.
- Perhaps the most impressive feature is the "loupe", a magnifying glass you can move around the picture with your mouse. This is worth lots of "gee whiz" points.
gThumb Image Viewer: This is the program that is activated on Fedora 10 when a memory card or camera is connected. It is much less abitious than F-Spot, leaning a lot more in the "simple image viewer" direction rather than the "complete photo manager" direction. However, that suits me just fine, as I am looking for something minimal, and this is currently my program of choice.
- Downloads the pictures from memory cards and cameras, and stores them in the folder of your choice. It can change the file names if you want it to, but it will leave the original name intact if you tell it to. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to detect duplicate pictures, even by file names.
- You can assign a category to the entire group as it is downloaded, but you can not assign them to a catalog (there's a significant difference).
- Pictures can be viewed by folder (storage location) or catalog (which you can assign to them). One picture can be assigned to multiple catalogs.
- Includes rotate/flip, red-eye fix and resize
- Has both a full-screen view with next/previous controls, and a slide show which appears to be simply the full screen mode with automatic advance and a pause button.
Eye of Gnome: It is too much of a stretch to call this a "Photo Manager", but it is a quite nice Image Viewer. This is what comes up when you double-click on an image file under the Gnome desktop. It doesn't know anything about downloading or transferring pictures, it simply presents one or more pictures from within a folder.
- Includes very basic image maniuplation - rotate and flip.
- Full Screen mode with an optional toolbar across the top and an optional film strip of all images across the bottom. Keypad arrow keys move to the next/previous image.
- Slide Show mode, also with toolbar and keypad arrow key control.
digiKam: This is the "luxury" model of the programs I looked out, with all sorts of bells and whistles. It is typically installed on systems with the KDE desktop, such as Mandriva and MEPIS. As I mentioned in part 1, it is undergoing a change along with the transition from KDE 3 to KDE 4; I have only been able to really look at the older 0.9 (KDE 3) version, which I have on MEPIS. First, Mandriva 2009.0 didn't have digiKam installed, and after I installed the 0.10 (KDE 4) version, I can't get it to do much other than crash.
- Downloads pictures from cards and cameras into digiKam "Albums", which are Linux folders.
- Includes all the usual category and tagging features, and displays the complete image information and meta-data for each picture.
- Has nice full-screen and slide show modes.
- Extensive picture editing capability - this is where it really starts to excel, if you are looking for this sort of thing. Rotate, flip, resize and all sorts of color adjustments. WAY more than I would want, but this matters to a lot of people, and it's much more capable than F-Spot.
- Filters/Decoration/Borders. Wow. Lots of fun stuff here. You can put all sorts of frames around a picture, make it look like a charcoal sketch, overlay patterns like decorative paper, and all sorts of other effects. If you have a lot more imagination than I do, and like to "play" with your pictures, this should be a wonderful playground for you.
showFoto: This is sort of the KDE 3 equivalent of the "Eye of Gnome", it is what you get by default when you click an image file under KDE 3 (at least on MEPIS). It is, however, considerably more powerful (and complex) than Eye of Gnome - it is more like "digiKam light". It will do almost everything that digiKam does, with the exception of downloading and cataloging images. In particular, picture editing, filters, decoractions and borders are all the same as in digiKam. It also has full screen and slide show modes.
Gwenview: This is yet another Image Viewing program, and is the default for KDE 4 (at least on Mandriva 2009.0). Gwenview underwent a substantial overhaul between versions 1 and 2 (corresponding to KDE 3 and KDE 4), and the newer version seems much nicer to me. It is better designed, much more focused, the user interface is much cleaner and more intuitive. The following description refers specifically to Gwenview 2.
- As with showFoto, the one thing Gwenview is missing that would make it more like a complete "Photo Management" program is the ability to download images and assign them to catalogs and/or categories, or to write them to CD or otherwise "export" them.
- Gwenview either displays a single image, or a browse view of all images in a folder.
- It has very nice full-screen and slide-show diplay modes, with a flim-strip view of all available images across the top of the display.
- Basic editing capabilities - rotate, flip, mirror, crop and resize... everything I need!
- It can display complete image information and exif metadata in an optional sidebar.
So, there you have it - that's quite an assortment of photo management, viewing and manipulation programs! Of course, the best news is that they are all freely available, various of them come preinstalled with the popular Linux desktop distributions, and if the Linux version you are using doesn't have one that you particularly like, or that sounds interesting to you, it is always possible to download and install them.
jw 25/11/2008
- Allows me to store my photos where I want on the disk. I don't want the program to "steal" my pictures and squirrel them away somewhere that I can't find, access or recover them without assistance from that program.
- Allows me to catalog, categorize, tag or otherwise group pictures independent of how they are stored. I tend to do the bulk storage of my pictures by years, but I want to be able to look at them not only by years, but in smaller groups within a year (Thanksgiving 2008), or in groups which span years, and thus span storage folders (all Thanksgivings).
- Includes minimal image manipulation capabilities. All I really want to be able to do is rotate pictures as necessary, resize them for sending in email and such, and perhaps fix red-eye problems.
- Has at least full-screen picture display, and preferably slide show capability.
That's not a lot, I know - and that has been the problem. If I want to do more sophisticated things, editing, creating collages, whatever else, I will use GIMP on Linux, or something like Photo Shop on Windows. But I don't want the overhead or the complication of those programs when all I am trying to do is download pictures from the camera, look at them, or show them to someone.
So, working within these expectations, here are some of the programs that are available on Linux.
F-Spot Photo Manager: Perhaps the best known of the Linux programs, simply because it is the "standard" that comes on Ubuntu and openSuSE, and is activated whenever you insert a memory card or connect a camera.
- It will download pictures from your memory card or camera (unfortunately storing them in its own photo hierarchy, but at least they are still standard Linux files and directories). It detects duplicate pictures, so if you insert the same card several times without clearing it, you don't end up with multiple copies of every picture - and this is not based only on duplicate file names.
- It maintains the original file name, which I particularly like, as it helps me see very easily which pictures came from which of our cameras.
- You can specify catalogs and categories for groups of pictures as you download them.
- It has a nice sidebar with lots of image information, meta-data, comments if you have added them, and even a histogram of the image data. I suspect that latter is part of how it detects duplicate pictures, by the way.
- It has rotate/flip, red-eye fix, color and crop options, but no resize that I can find - one of the few failings I have seen in it.
- It has a nice full-screen view with next/previous and "start slide show"
- You can "export" pictures to a CD (nice if you want to burn all of the Thanksgiving pictures to give to others), as well as various web photo share services.
- Perhaps the most impressive feature is the "loupe", a magnifying glass you can move around the picture with your mouse. This is worth lots of "gee whiz" points.
gThumb Image Viewer: This is the program that is activated on Fedora 10 when a memory card or camera is connected. It is much less abitious than F-Spot, leaning a lot more in the "simple image viewer" direction rather than the "complete photo manager" direction. However, that suits me just fine, as I am looking for something minimal, and this is currently my program of choice.
- Downloads the pictures from memory cards and cameras, and stores them in the folder of your choice. It can change the file names if you want it to, but it will leave the original name intact if you tell it to. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to detect duplicate pictures, even by file names.
- You can assign a category to the entire group as it is downloaded, but you can not assign them to a catalog (there's a significant difference).
- Pictures can be viewed by folder (storage location) or catalog (which you can assign to them). One picture can be assigned to multiple catalogs.
- Includes rotate/flip, red-eye fix and resize
- Has both a full-screen view with next/previous controls, and a slide show which appears to be simply the full screen mode with automatic advance and a pause button.
Eye of Gnome: It is too much of a stretch to call this a "Photo Manager", but it is a quite nice Image Viewer. This is what comes up when you double-click on an image file under the Gnome desktop. It doesn't know anything about downloading or transferring pictures, it simply presents one or more pictures from within a folder.
- Includes very basic image maniuplation - rotate and flip.
- Full Screen mode with an optional toolbar across the top and an optional film strip of all images across the bottom. Keypad arrow keys move to the next/previous image.
- Slide Show mode, also with toolbar and keypad arrow key control.
digiKam: This is the "luxury" model of the programs I looked out, with all sorts of bells and whistles. It is typically installed on systems with the KDE desktop, such as Mandriva and MEPIS. As I mentioned in part 1, it is undergoing a change along with the transition from KDE 3 to KDE 4; I have only been able to really look at the older 0.9 (KDE 3) version, which I have on MEPIS. First, Mandriva 2009.0 didn't have digiKam installed, and after I installed the 0.10 (KDE 4) version, I can't get it to do much other than crash.
- Downloads pictures from cards and cameras into digiKam "Albums", which are Linux folders.
- Includes all the usual category and tagging features, and displays the complete image information and meta-data for each picture.
- Has nice full-screen and slide show modes.
- Extensive picture editing capability - this is where it really starts to excel, if you are looking for this sort of thing. Rotate, flip, resize and all sorts of color adjustments. WAY more than I would want, but this matters to a lot of people, and it's much more capable than F-Spot.
- Filters/Decoration/Borders. Wow. Lots of fun stuff here. You can put all sorts of frames around a picture, make it look like a charcoal sketch, overlay patterns like decorative paper, and all sorts of other effects. If you have a lot more imagination than I do, and like to "play" with your pictures, this should be a wonderful playground for you.
showFoto: This is sort of the KDE 3 equivalent of the "Eye of Gnome", it is what you get by default when you click an image file under KDE 3 (at least on MEPIS). It is, however, considerably more powerful (and complex) than Eye of Gnome - it is more like "digiKam light". It will do almost everything that digiKam does, with the exception of downloading and cataloging images. In particular, picture editing, filters, decoractions and borders are all the same as in digiKam. It also has full screen and slide show modes.
Gwenview: This is yet another Image Viewing program, and is the default for KDE 4 (at least on Mandriva 2009.0). Gwenview underwent a substantial overhaul between versions 1 and 2 (corresponding to KDE 3 and KDE 4), and the newer version seems much nicer to me. It is better designed, much more focused, the user interface is much cleaner and more intuitive. The following description refers specifically to Gwenview 2.
- As with showFoto, the one thing Gwenview is missing that would make it more like a complete "Photo Management" program is the ability to download images and assign them to catalogs and/or categories, or to write them to CD or otherwise "export" them.
- Gwenview either displays a single image, or a browse view of all images in a folder.
- It has very nice full-screen and slide-show diplay modes, with a flim-strip view of all available images across the top of the display.
- Basic editing capabilities - rotate, flip, mirror, crop and resize... everything I need!
- It can display complete image information and exif metadata in an optional sidebar.
So, there you have it - that's quite an assortment of photo management, viewing and manipulation programs! Of course, the best news is that they are all freely available, various of them come preinstalled with the popular Linux desktop distributions, and if the Linux version you are using doesn't have one that you particularly like, or that sounds interesting to you, it is always possible to download and install them.
jw 25/11/2008
Monday 24 November 2008, 8:48 PM
Photo Management on Linux - Part 1
This coming Thursday is Thanksgiving in America. As I have yet to make any progress in convincing the Swiss to also make it a holiday, and we tend to have rather large Thanksgiving dinner gatherings, we generally have our celebration the weekend before or after the actual day. As Thanksgiving falls particularly late this year, we opted for the weekend before, and had 20 or so people for dinner Saturday. That resulted in a lot of digital pictures being taken, which brought my attention back to photo management on Linux.
There are a number of different photo management programs available for Linux - more than I have either the time or interest to look at, honestly - and of course different versions of Linux have different programs available. I'll try to give a brief overview of both of these areas.
- Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex): Includes the F-Spot Photo Manager and the Eye of Gnome Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added the gThumb Image Viewer. When I insert an SD Flash Card in the memory card slot of my laptop, or I connect a digital camera via USB cable, Ubuntu adds an icon for it to the desktop, and it pops up a window asking if I want to start either F-Spot or gThumb on the photos.
- Fedora 10 (Cambridge) Preview: includes the gThumb Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added the F-Spot Photo Manager. When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it asks if I want to start gThumb or F-Spot.
- openSuSE 11.1 Beta5: Same as Fedora 10
- MEPIS 8.0 Beta5: includes digiKam (0.9) and showFoto in the standard installation. When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it asks if I want to start digiKam or simply open a browser window on the new photos.
- Mandriva One 2009.0: includes Gwenview Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added digiKam (0.10). When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it briefly shows a notification in the desktop window, but it doesn't ask me if I want to start any program automatically.
A couple of things are worth noting here. First, the photo management and image viewing programs are generally built on top of one of the Linux desktop management systems - either Gnome (F-Spot, gThumb, Eye of Gnome) or KDE (digiKam, showFoto, Gwenview). Further, digiKam was very extensively modified from KDE 3.5 (digiKam 0.9) to KDE 4 (digiKam 0.10).
The next step will be to take a closer look at each of these programs.
jw 24/11/2008
There are a number of different photo management programs available for Linux - more than I have either the time or interest to look at, honestly - and of course different versions of Linux have different programs available. I'll try to give a brief overview of both of these areas.
- Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex): Includes the F-Spot Photo Manager and the Eye of Gnome Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added the gThumb Image Viewer. When I insert an SD Flash Card in the memory card slot of my laptop, or I connect a digital camera via USB cable, Ubuntu adds an icon for it to the desktop, and it pops up a window asking if I want to start either F-Spot or gThumb on the photos.
- Fedora 10 (Cambridge) Preview: includes the gThumb Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added the F-Spot Photo Manager. When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it asks if I want to start gThumb or F-Spot.
- openSuSE 11.1 Beta5: Same as Fedora 10
- MEPIS 8.0 Beta5: includes digiKam (0.9) and showFoto in the standard installation. When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it asks if I want to start digiKam or simply open a browser window on the new photos.
- Mandriva One 2009.0: includes Gwenview Image Viewer in the standard installation. I have added digiKam (0.10). When I insert an SD card or connect a camera, it briefly shows a notification in the desktop window, but it doesn't ask me if I want to start any program automatically.
A couple of things are worth noting here. First, the photo management and image viewing programs are generally built on top of one of the Linux desktop management systems - either Gnome (F-Spot, gThumb, Eye of Gnome) or KDE (digiKam, showFoto, Gwenview). Further, digiKam was very extensively modified from KDE 3.5 (digiKam 0.9) to KDE 4 (digiKam 0.10).
The next step will be to take a closer look at each of these programs.
jw 24/11/2008
Thursday 20 November 2008, 8:59 AM
OS Scratch Load Times
I reload the operating systems on my laptops quite frequently. On the Linux side, it is because I am trying various distributions, while on the Windows side it is more often because something gets fouled up or stops working. Occasionally it is because I am changing to a new disk drive that is larger, faster, or both. This week I have been reloading Vista, and even though I have slogged through it many times, I am still amazed by what a long, tedious, painful procedure it is.
First, as a baseline for comparison, I can load pretty much any of the Linux distributions in less than 30 minutes, including picking up patches and basic configuration. It takes about another 30 minutes to load the extra software and utilities that I most commonly use, so I can go from a blank disk to a productive Linux system in about an hour.
Yesterday I decided to reload Vista on a different disk. I should actually have an advantage with Vista, because I have a Fujitsu "Recovery DVD" which simply recreates the original C: partition. But it's just not that easy. The initial recovery takes about 30 minutes; but then I have to run a Fujitsu-specific "Run Once" utility that sets up some of the devices and drivers, and that takes another 15 minutes. I've also learned the hard way that it is best not to have the system connected to the internet at that point, because the Vista update process will start, and it competes with the Fujitsu utility, slowing the whole process down a lot more.
Once the "Run Once" utility is done, I have to remove a couple of Fujitsu devices and drivers which block Vista SP1 from installing, then I can turn Windows Update loose on it. That requires at least a half-dozen update/reboot cycles the first of which takes a good hour to download and install updates, and the last of which finally installs Vista SP1. Well, not entirely the last, of course, because there are still a couple more stragglers after that.
After Windows Update is done, I install the latest drivers from Fujitsu, and a few other device-specific drivers (Intel and Realtek), and I'm finally done with the basic installation. Total time: at least four or five hours, and that is if I am sitting waiting, ready to start the next phase each time it completes something. Add to that the time it takes for configuration and basic software and utility loading, and it is really and all-day job just to load Vista from scratch.
Not too impressive, compared to an hour for Linux. Of course I could (and have) imaged the system once I have finished the basic load and configuration, before Windows gets a chance to start scribbling on it and corrupting itself too much. But even when I do that, after restoring the image I have to let it go through some number of Windows Update cycles, and I usually have to install whatever driver updates may have been released in the interim.
This problem is not unique to Vista, of course. The same is generally true with Windows XP. Depending on how recent your distribution or recovery media is, it can be just as bad or even worse. My S6510 XP Pro recovery DVD is XP SP2, so it only needs to pick up SP3 and a few miscellaneous patches; but the S2110 recovery is SP1, and it is a long, painful process to get it through SP2, then SP3. I've called Fujitsu support and asked for a newer recovery disk, but they say I am only "entitled" to exactly the version that the laptop was delivered with. That seems a bit odd to me - I mean, XP is XP, right? We're only talking about patch levels and user convenience here, after all. But they won't have any of it.
jw 20/11/2008
First, as a baseline for comparison, I can load pretty much any of the Linux distributions in less than 30 minutes, including picking up patches and basic configuration. It takes about another 30 minutes to load the extra software and utilities that I most commonly use, so I can go from a blank disk to a productive Linux system in about an hour.
Yesterday I decided to reload Vista on a different disk. I should actually have an advantage with Vista, because I have a Fujitsu "Recovery DVD" which simply recreates the original C: partition. But it's just not that easy. The initial recovery takes about 30 minutes; but then I have to run a Fujitsu-specific "Run Once" utility that sets up some of the devices and drivers, and that takes another 15 minutes. I've also learned the hard way that it is best not to have the system connected to the internet at that point, because the Vista update process will start, and it competes with the Fujitsu utility, slowing the whole process down a lot more.
Once the "Run Once" utility is done, I have to remove a couple of Fujitsu devices and drivers which block Vista SP1 from installing, then I can turn Windows Update loose on it. That requires at least a half-dozen update/reboot cycles the first of which takes a good hour to download and install updates, and the last of which finally installs Vista SP1. Well, not entirely the last, of course, because there are still a couple more stragglers after that.
After Windows Update is done, I install the latest drivers from Fujitsu, and a few other device-specific drivers (Intel and Realtek), and I'm finally done with the basic installation. Total time: at least four or five hours, and that is if I am sitting waiting, ready to start the next phase each time it completes something. Add to that the time it takes for configuration and basic software and utility loading, and it is really and all-day job just to load Vista from scratch.
Not too impressive, compared to an hour for Linux. Of course I could (and have) imaged the system once I have finished the basic load and configuration, before Windows gets a chance to start scribbling on it and corrupting itself too much. But even when I do that, after restoring the image I have to let it go through some number of Windows Update cycles, and I usually have to install whatever driver updates may have been released in the interim.
This problem is not unique to Vista, of course. The same is generally true with Windows XP. Depending on how recent your distribution or recovery media is, it can be just as bad or even worse. My S6510 XP Pro recovery DVD is XP SP2, so it only needs to pick up SP3 and a few miscellaneous patches; but the S2110 recovery is SP1, and it is a long, painful process to get it through SP2, then SP3. I've called Fujitsu support and asked for a newer recovery disk, but they say I am only "entitled" to exactly the version that the laptop was delivered with. That seems a bit odd to me - I mean, XP is XP, right? We're only talking about patch levels and user convenience here, after all. But they won't have any of it.
jw 20/11/2008
Wednesday 19 November 2008, 11:01 AM
Good (Linux) Things on the Horizon
We seem to be in a particularly good period for Linux at the moment. We've recently gotten the Mandriva 2009.0 and Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex releases, and both of them seem to be very good. There will be a number of new releases coming in the next few weeks, as well:
- Fedora 10 (Cambridge) is due next week, on November 25th. I have been running the Preview Release for several weeks, and it installs and works without problem on both of my laptops.
- openSuSE 11.1 is due on December 18th. I installed the latest development version, Beta5, last week, and it works extremely well on both of my laptops. This is a huge improvement, as I was unable to get openSuSE 11.0 to work very well on either one. In fact, it has already become my preferred version on the S2110 (AMD/ATI) laptop.
- Debian "lenny", their next major release, looks like it is getting pretty close to completion. They are much more conservative at Debian about release dates, so there is no specific date for this release yet.
- SimplyMEPIS 8.0 Beta5 was released last week. It looks good on my S6510, but I couldn't get it to install on the S2110. As MEPIS is based on the Debian distribution, I would assume that the 8.0 final release will follow hot on the heels of the Debian "lenny" distribution.
- OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 will probably come out in the beginning of December. It should be a "bug fix" release for the recent 3.0.0 release, and as there hasn't been a whole lot of shouting about bugs, I don't expect it to be a big deal. What will be significant, however, is that this is apparently the point at which OpenOffice.org 3 will be rolled into Ubuntu.
So, it looks like it is going to be a busy "holiday season", with lots of nice presents for Linux users.
jw 19/11/2008
- Fedora 10 (Cambridge) is due next week, on November 25th. I have been running the Preview Release for several weeks, and it installs and works without problem on both of my laptops.
- openSuSE 11.1 is due on December 18th. I installed the latest development version, Beta5, last week, and it works extremely well on both of my laptops. This is a huge improvement, as I was unable to get openSuSE 11.0 to work very well on either one. In fact, it has already become my preferred version on the S2110 (AMD/ATI) laptop.
- Debian "lenny", their next major release, looks like it is getting pretty close to completion. They are much more conservative at Debian about release dates, so there is no specific date for this release yet.
- SimplyMEPIS 8.0 Beta5 was released last week. It looks good on my S6510, but I couldn't get it to install on the S2110. As MEPIS is based on the Debian distribution, I would assume that the 8.0 final release will follow hot on the heels of the Debian "lenny" distribution.
- OpenOffice.org 3.0.1 will probably come out in the beginning of December. It should be a "bug fix" release for the recent 3.0.0 release, and as there hasn't been a whole lot of shouting about bugs, I don't expect it to be a big deal. What will be significant, however, is that this is apparently the point at which OpenOffice.org 3 will be rolled into Ubuntu.
So, it looks like it is going to be a busy "holiday season", with lots of nice presents for Linux users.
jw 19/11/2008
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