No explanation for the PC giant’s decision was given, according to Stephen Vaughan-Nichols. Presumably, after years of shouldering the unwanted burden of supporting Microsoft operating systems, the vendor was loathe to increase the burden on its support staff further.
Held at the Desmond Tutu Center in New York, the End User Collaboration Summit will give “sophisticated” end users an opportunity to “learn and interact with leaders from within the Linux community, including the highest level maintainers and developers,” says the non-profit Linux Foundation, which will host the event.
The new beta of MEPIS 8, like MEPIS 7, is based on Debian rather than Ubuntu. Creator Warren Woodford decided to switch to Debian in the summer of 2007. Specifically, MEPIS 8 is being built on the forthcoming Debian 5, Lenny.
The Ulteo Application System is clearly attempting to separate itself from the masses of other distributions. Ulteo claims to have the standard Linux features and attempts to move beyond them. Still, it doesn’t appear to be out of the testing stage yet. If you try it out now, be prepared to encounter a few problems.
The latest series of the K Desktop Environment now utilizes Plasma, a new desktop and panel user interface tool that aims for a more functional, user-friendly, and sleek KDE desktop. Plasma also supports Dashboard-like widgets called plasmoids. If you want to further enhance the look of your KDE 4 desktop, I have here a list of some of the most beautiful Plasma themes available.
While gOS is a great desktop for Internet cafe computers or the casual Internet user, there isn’t much reason to use it over Ubuntu itself. However, this distro wasn’t intended to appeal to professional Linux users, and new users will probably appreciate the easy access to some of the most commonly used Web 2.0 services.
Xandros announced that it was going to revamp the community distribution Freespire, basing its next version on Debian instead of Ubuntu, and using it as a precursor for Xandros Desktop Professional. But the company didn’t need multiple for-pay desktop distributions, so Linspire is getting the boot.
Following the release of a Debian ‘Lenny’-based Freespire distribution, Xandros plans to bring out Xandros Desktop Professional 5, which will also be built on “the same open source code base,” with added proprietary bits for “enterprise customers,” the company says.
The GTK+ 2-based LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment) first emerged in late 2006 when two Taiwanese Linux distributions adopted an early version. LXDE is touted as being fast, fast-booting, compatible with old computers, and designed so that “every component can be used without LXDE,” say the developers.
The four vendors are working with their local business partners in markets around the world to build and distribute a pre-loaded PC offering that features IBM’s Lotus Notes, Lotus Symphony and Lotus Sametime; the Linux operating system of each distributor; and software applications and installation services from the various local affiliates.