Showing posts with label firefox. Show all posts
Showing posts with label firefox. Show all posts

Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Thoughts

Yesterday, I decided to upgrade to the Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron) Beta. I've been having problems with internet connection and I thought an upgrade might fix it, but now I'm convinced it's a problem with my LAN segment, not my card. Anyways, among the shiny new goodness:

  • Firefox 3 - Great new GTK look on all the buttons, they don't look like they're from 1993 anymore!
  • Wait, more crazy Firefox 3 goodness - apparently now I can cut and paste images around by right-clicking on them in the Blogger "Compose" mode.
  • Notebooks in Tomboy! If you're a Tomboy Notes user, you won't believe how useful this is. I currently have 78 notes in Tomboy, so being able to organize them is a huge win for me.
Tracker (left) and Tomboy (right)
  • Tracker for indexing, now with a spiffy tray icon. More importantly, when you right-click on the tray icon, you can easily pause the data indexing (for example, if you have an older PC like me and want to fire up a game that pushes your system, like Quake Wars)
  • The new screen resolution and display setup dialog. I've read lots of people evangelizing about this - it's supposed to make setting up a second display easier, such as when you're plugging in a projector. I haven't tested this personally though, and I'll believe it when I see it.

  • Lots of little improvements to Evolution as well. It handles multiple operations nicer now, and seems quite a bit snappier. Big thanks to the Evolution team for their hard work.
  • Other random things that I haven't personally tested: The new gio stuff in Nautilus is supposed to make doing multiple file copies simultaneously "better", and the old VFS mounts have been replaced with a new system. I use SSH mounts through Gnome frequently, so I'm looking forward to playing with the new system.
I'm sure there's lots of other little things I've yet to stumble across, and it'll take about a month for me to notice any little bugs that crop up. So far so good though - it looks like we've got another good Ubuntu release!
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Ubuntu 7.10 Released

Ubuntu 7.10 was released yesterday after another exciting development cycle, bringing a slew of new features and bug fixes. Among my favourites are:

  • New printer setup dialog (System->Administration->Printing) - Looks a lot more complete now:

  • The Firefox plugin finder is integrated into apt now! Not only does the plugin finder detect the correct plugin, but it'll download and install it from the Ubuntu apt repositories. Sweet integrated goodness. (The Add-Ons/Extensions window also has an "Get Ubuntu Add-ons" thing that's tied into apt as well.)


After using the easy codec installation that Ubuntu 7.04 brought along with the new Firefox-apt integration in 7.10, I've realized that my dream of "intelligent package suggestion" has been fulfilled. Way to go Ubuntu/GNOME team!

I've been using Gutsy for almost 2 months now, and I could never go back to an earlier version of Ubuntu. As Dan mentioned, the latest version of Rhythmbox totally kicks ass (it's worth upgrading to Gutsy for that alone). WINE has much nicer integration into the Applications menu now too. There's just tons of nice little features that make Ubuntu 7.10 awesome.

I'm going to try to pick up a laptop this weekend (maybe an Acer TravelMate 6292 or an Acer Aspire 5920), so we'll see how 7.10 handles Intel's new Santa Rosa chipset.
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Firefox Copyright Dilemma

"I used to be cool"

There's been quite a bit of noise in the Linux community lately over this 'bug' in Debian. That's right, the Mozilla Firefox name goes under the same crappy copyright license as the artwork, so Debian isn't "allowed" to use the name. (This is why Ubuntu and Debian ship Firefox with that uninspiring blue globe icon instead of the Firefox icon.)

So what's Ubuntu going to do about it?
Well, the users clearly want the official logo in addition to keeping the name, and I don't blame them. Firefox made the transition from Windows to Linux quite a bit easier for myself, and I'm sure others have found the same thing. The matter is still up in the air, as the only official word on this has been been from Canonical's Matt Zimmerman saying he's "discussing the relevant issues with representatives from Mozilla."
In the meantime, I was shocked to discover that those crazy GNU people are now maintaining "Gnuzilla" and "IceWeasel", the latter of which I originally thought was a joke.

I think I can honestly say that I wish IceWeasel was joke, because this whole Mozilla trademark thing is ridiculous. Aren't we all playing on the same team?
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