Google Launched Real Time Search

On September 8th Google launched instant search, a service which displays real time results from discussions on social networks, like Twitter or Facebook.


The service provides the options to customise the location from which the updates come from, very useful if you need to quickly find out something about a particular event in that region.

digiKam 1.1 Planned for the End of January 2010

Only a few days have passed since digiKam 1.0 was released to the delight of its users, and the developers already announced that version 1.1 will be available by the end of January 2009. According to the official announcement, digiKam 1.1 will be a bugfix release to the stable 1.x series.

digiKam is a powerful, open-source photo management application for KDE 4, which has support for various image manipulation plugins, importing or exporting photos, and organising your entire photographies in collections sorted by albums.

The announcement also asks for digiKam users to submit splash screens for the next version of digiKam. From the article: "So, time has come to find the ideal splash-screens to go with it. Now is your chance to join the ranks of the precious few who have had their artwork associated with a release of digiKam!"

For compiling and installing digiKam in Ubuntu 9.10 see this post.

WordPress 2.9 Released!

The popular web publishing platform reached today version 2.9 (see official announcement) and it comes with notable new features and a whole bunch of bug fixes. WordPress is one of the most popular, open-source platforms for blogging, and also the platform of choice for many people who need a complete content management system.

The highlights of this release, codenamed 'Carmen', include:

- global undo (or 'trash') feature, which eliminates the messages asking if you want to delete each comment or post, and instead sends those into the trash
- a built-in image editor which offers basic image manipulation functions, like edit, crop, rotate, flip or image scaling
- batch plugin updates, which allows for updating several plugins at once, and also verify if the plugins are compatible with new WordPress releases
- video embeds only by pasting a URL which will turn into embed code, with support for YouTube, Daily Motion and Google Video to mention a few

WordPress 2.9 also comes with a large number of many smaller features and bug fixes.

New Version of Skype Released with PulseAudio Support and Numerous Improvements

A new version of Skype for Linux was released the other day, bringing new features and a lot of improvements and bug fixes. Skype 2.1.0.47 comes packaged for distributions like Ubuntu (both 8.04 and 8.10), Debian Lenny, Fedora Core 9 and 10+ and openSUSE. Dynamically and statically linked binaries are also available from the official website.

Among the new features Skype 2.1.0.47 comes with are:
- PulseAudio support
- SILK audio codec
- SMS sending support
- high quality video support
- contact groups
- chat picture for group conversations
- contact labels and tags
- many bug fixes and improvements

To install Skype in Ubuntu or in Debian just follow the instructions in this article.

OpenOffice 3.1.1 RC2 Available for Download

OpenOffice 3.1.1 Release Candidate 2 was released a few hours ago, and you can grab a download from the official website.

OpenOffice 3.1.1 RC2 comes with numerous bug fixes to the 3.1 stable series and will install as version 3.1.1. Repositories for Ubuntu 9.04 should be soon available via this Launchpad PPA.

Karmic Alpha 4 Planned for August 13

According to the latest issue of the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, the fourth alpha of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is planned for release next Thursday, on August 13, 2009.

The Ubuntu team will use a so-called 'soft freeze' for the upcoming Karmic alpha release, which means only packages which do not stay in the way of the release will be uploaded, and focus on fixing the remaining critical bugs.

At the time of writing, Karmic has 80 bugs reported, from which over 30 are tagged to have a 'high' importance: 'Beyond that short list of bugs that are blockers for Alpha 4, there are those bugs that are listed as release-critical for karmic as a whole: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/karmic/+bugs'

Kaffeine 1.0-Pre2 Released

Kaffeine is a popular video player among the KDE users, using the Xine engine for video playback, supporting lots of video formats (including high-definition Matroska video (MKV), DVDs and DVD ISO images) and providing numerous and powerful features, support for subtitles, DVD menus, and much more.

Kaffeine 1.0 will be the first KDE4 port of Kaffeine, and in the past I wrote a review of the first pre-release, which you can read here.

The second pre-release was made available on August 9, 2009, and, according to the announcement on the official website, it includes the following new features:
- added screensaver inhibition using DBUS
- added basic playlist features
- added on-screen display
- added DVB-S2 support using S2 API
- many other bug fixes and improvements

I'll soon post a tutorial on how to install and test this pre-release in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

Wine 1.1.27 Released

Today the Wine project announced the availability of Wine 1.1.27, which includes:

- a new version of the Gecko web browsing engine
- new GSM 06.10 codec support
- improved support for the disk volume APIs
- support for XShm pixmaps for better performance
- various bug fixes

The source code can be downloaded from here. You can follow this tutorial I wrote a while ago to install Wine in Ubuntu Hardy Heron or Jaunty Jackalope.

Nmap 5.0 Released - Biggest Release Since 1997

Nmap 5.0 was released on July 17th 2009 and according to the official announcement, this is the biggest release since 1997.

Nmap (or Network Mapper) is a powerful, complete, open-source tool for network exploration and port scanning.

This release features many improvements, among which are the new Ncat tool for data transfer, redirection and debugging; the Ndiff scan comparison tool which reports changes between different network scans; the performance improved dramatically; the Nmap Scripting Engine allows users to write scripts to automate a wide variety of networking tasks. See the users' changelog here.

Firefox 3.5.1 Released With Security Fix

Firefox 3.5.1 is the first update to the new 3.5 series of Firefox. According to the users' changelog, this release fixes several issues, including security and stability-related problems.

To download the new Firefox 3.5.1, go to the Mozilla downloads page. I wrote two guides on installing Firefox 3.5 (and later) in Ubuntu, you can find them here and here.

You can watch a video of Firefox 3.5.1 running in Ubuntu below:

Firefox 3.5.1 running in Debian Lenny

3 Years Ago: Ubuntu Dapper Drake

Remember Dapper Drake? All the fuss around it, being an LTS (long-term support) release, the six-week delay in order to make things stable, all the forum discussions and the enthusiasm with which it was awaited by Ubuntu users.

Dapper Drake was released on June 1st, 2006 and it had version number 6.06. It was probably one of the biggest Ubuntu releases and ended up being known for its stability. After three years of security updates, support for the desktop version of Ubuntu Dapper Drake will end on July 14th, while the server edition will still be supported two more years, until June 2011.

I remember that when Dapper was about to come out I've switched from GNOME to KDE, and I was very enchanted that Kubuntu, the KDE version of Ubuntu, will ship a stable KDE3 environment. For me, that was the most stable Kubuntu I've ever used. In my opinion, after Dapper Drake, Kubuntu never had such a stable release again. A few months later Ubuntu put out 6.06.1, a point release which included several software updates performed after the initial release.

Here's what Dapper Drake included:

Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake
GNOME 2.14
OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
Firefox 1.5
GIMP 2.2

Kubuntu 6.06 Dapper Drake
KDE 3.5.2
OpenOffice.org 2.0.2
Konqueror 3.5.2

KDE 4.3 RC2 Released

The KDE project put out the second release candidate of the upcoming KDE 4.3 on July 9th. This comes only a few days after the first RC was available. This release is codenamed 'Canteras' and it is specifically intended for testing purposes and bug reports only.

KDE 4.3 will include many Plasma improvements, several changes, PolicyKit integration, Geolocation services and many bug fixes.

According to the official announcement, KDE 4.3 is expected at the end of July.

VLC 1.0.0 Released!

VLC, the popular, cross-platform video player, finally reached version 1.0.0 today, under the codename 'Goldeneye'. VLC (VideoLan Client) is built using the Qt4 toolkit (used wxWidgets in the past) and comes with any feature one would require from a video player, including support for various formats, including MKV, DVDs, DVD ISO images and mounted images.

According to the announcement on the official website, the features of VLC 1.0.0 include:
- free, open-source and cross-platform
- live recording
- frame-by-frame support
- finer speed controls
- HD codecs like AES3, Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD, Real Video 3.0 and 4.0 etc
- major improvements in many formats and several new formats
- new Dirac encoder and MP3 fixed-point encoder
- video scaling in fullscreen mode

The source tarball can be downloaded from here. I'll soon post a tutorial regarding installation in Ubuntu and a review.

Update: Here's the tutorial for installing on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty.

Wesnoth 1.6.4 Released

Battle for Wesnoth is a fantasy turn-based strategy game for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. The current stable version is 1.6 (reviewed here), which received the latest update on July 6.

This is another bug fix release for the 1.6 stable series. According to the changelog, one of the major bug fixed was a network problem. Some other fixes or changes include updated translations and a team labels bug fix.

You can download Battle for Wesnoth from the official website and follow the instructions from here to compile and install it in Debian and Ubuntu.

Wine 1.1.25 Released with Various Improvements and Bug Fixes

The Wine project released version 1.1.25 of their development application today, July 3rd, 2009. This release's highlights include:
- translation updates
- support for Unicode file encodings in Notepad
- improved memory management in OpenGL
- various bug fixes and more

For those who are not familiar with it, Wine (which is a recursive acronym for Wine is not an emulator) plays a major role in bringing Windows applications to Linux.

For the tutorial on installing the latest Wine release in Ubuntu 9.04, see this article.

KDE 4.3 Release Candidate (RC) 1 Out

The KDE project put out today (July 1, 2009) the first release candidate of the upcoming version of KDE4 desktop, 4.3. According to the announcement on the official website, the highlights of this release are:

- a new tree mode in System Settings
- integration of technologies like PolicyKit (an application for controlling privileges) or Geolocation services
- crash dialogue UI remake
- many Plasma improvements
- Plasma add-ons
- several additions to the kdegames package
- many bug fixes and other improvements

Coming up soon a tutorial for installing this release candidate on Kubuntu 9.04.

Update: Here is the tutorial.

The Battle for Wesnoth 1.6 Released

The Battle for Wesnoth team released the new stable version of this wonderful turn-based strategy game, Battle for Wesnoth 1.6. This release was in development stage for over an year, since the (now) old stable, 1.4 was put out. You can read the full announcement on the official website, here.

Some of the new features included in this release are:
- a new campaign, called The Legend of Wesmere, which allows you to use the AI as your commander for an allied side
- one of the great features is the ability to log into the multiplayer using the username and password which you have on the forums, so there will be no more nickname stealing problems any more
- many graphics improvements and new unit portraits for several units
- the map editor can be started from the game now

Of course, these are just a few. I'll make a full review of Wesnoth 1.6 as soon as I have the time. In the meantime, you can download this release from the official website and try it for yourself.

Wine 1.1.7 Released

Wine 1.1.7 was released yesterday, October 25, 2008. According to the announcement on the official website, some major changes and improvements in this release are: improved device management for DOS drives, many RichEdit fixes, basic Direct3D 10 implementation and various bug fixes.

You can download packages for Ubuntu and Debian as well as for other distributions from here. The source code can be obtained from the SourceForge.net project page (direct link).


I created two tutorials which show how to compile and install the last release of Wine in Ubuntu and Debian:

Install Wine 1.1.5 in Ubuntu 8.04 from the WineHQ APT Repository
You will only need to add their APT repository address in /etc/apt/sources.list and install Wine after doing a sudo apt-get update.

Compile and Install Wine 1.1.4 in Ubuntu 8.04
Tutorial showing how to compile Wine from source in Ubuntu 8.04.

Both tutorials work for 1.1.7 too.

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex Release Candidate Available

The release candidate of the upcoming Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex is out now. You can read the release notes here.

Ubuntu 8.10 comes with kernel 2.6.27, GNOME 2.24, X.Org 7.4 and OpenOffice 2.4.1.

You can download CD ISO images from the official website here, or get it via BitTorrent (torrent files are available at the same location).

Opera 9.61 Released

Opera 9.61, a security fix release for the 9.60 stable version, was released yesterday, October 21, 2008. This security release fixes several problems concerning the user interface as well as a few other security bugs. The full changelog is available here.

Opera is a closed-source, full-featured web browser for both Linux and Windows, built in Qt 3, which also includes an IRC client and a BitTorrent client. Each release is packaged for all the major distributions, like Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Mandriva, SuSE, Slackware or MEPIS.

To install it on Debian or Ubuntu, download the DEB package from their official website, here, and use:

In Debian:

su
dpkg -i opera_9.61.2456.gcc4.qt3_i386.deb

In Ubuntu:

sudo dpkg -i opera_9.61.2456.gcc4.qt3_i386.deb

With your user's password.