Ubuntu 8.04 shipped with Firefox 3 Beta 5, which is now one version behind. There’s some confusion on whether Firefox would be updated in Ubuntu, but it has been confirmed by an Ubuntu developer that this will happen.

You should receive the Firefox 3 Release Candidate this week along with your regular updates. I’ll update this post with my impressions of the RC once it arrives in Ubuntu.

[update] Firefox 3 RC 1 arrived in the Ubuntu repositories on June 9. I haven’t noticed any difference other than some visual changes to the address bar. Mozilla has released RC 2 now, so the wait begins again.

You may not realize (I didn’t until today) that OpenOffice.org 2.4 is in fact already included in Ubuntu 8.04 Beta. It’s not mentioned in the Ubuntu release notes, and the about window in still says version 2.3 except in the fine print:

[update] OpenOffice 2.4 final has been added to the Ubuntu 8.04 repositories. It should be updated automatically.

At this time, Ubuntu 8.04′s version is actually the second release candidate. I noticed that the new 3D slide transitions are not available in this version. I don’t think it will take long before the final release is added to the Ubuntu 8.04 repositories.

The GNOME Project’s focus on users and usability continues in GNOME 2.22 with its hundreds of bug fixes and user-requested improvements. The sheer number of enhancements makes it impossible to list every change and improvement made, but we hope to highlight some of the more exciting user-oriented features in this release of GNOME.

See the release notes for a complete look at what’s new and screenshots.

Here’s what I’m excited about:

• Cheese:
  I wrote about Cheese a few months ago, and even suggested that it should be included in GNOME. Now it is! GNOME users can now take pictures and video with their webcams without installing any additional software.
• Compositing:
  The GNOME Metacity window manager has support for compositing for a while, but now it’s compiled in by default. The effects are basic and not easily enabled at this point, they’ll need more testing first.
• GVFS virtual filesystems:
  GVFS has replaced GNOME-VFS as the virtual filesystem layer. It’s what lets you transparently access network shares (SSH, FTP, etc.). I use it all the time with SSH and I hope it fixes the frequent crashes I’ve been having. GVFS adheres to the Freedesktop.org trashcan spec, maybe this means GNOME will stop putting a trash folder on my camera’s CF card and filling it up with pictures I deleted.
• Totem Movie Player:
  Totem isn’t very useful for playing DVDs, improvements in GNOME 2.22 should change that. Also interesting is the YouTube plugin, GNOME users can watch YouTube without installing the proprietary Flash player.
• Clearlooks: The new Clearlooks theme introduced in the previous GNOME version has been tweaked. The dotted focus indicator is now a stylish blue box.

It looks like the packages are already included in Ubuntu 8.04, so an up-to-date installation should include final GNOME 2.22. What are your favorite features and changes?

The system sold by Wal-Mart was an Everex’s TC2502 gPC and is the first mass-market $200 desktop PC. The spec of the system is very low – 1.5 GHz VIA C7 CPU embedded onto a Mini-ITX motherboard, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive – but this doesn’t matter because the system does pretty much everything that your average PC users wants.

The gPC runs an Ubuntu-based distribution called gOS, which focuses on web applications. It’s an good example of how Linux works for allowing lower cost PCs that are easier to use. Perhaps there should be a official Ubuntu distribution just for this purpose. It could be similar to the Xfce desktop I set up for my Grandparents.

Sure, these low-end systems will never appeal to those who want power at any cost but for people looking for a very cheap PC at a rock bottom price, this must be a pretty irresistible deal.

The GNOME Community Roadmap is a big-picture view of functionality we expect GNOME to include in short-term and long-term future. The roadmap is based on feedback from current GNOME developers and other community members.

Phoronix has an overview of the major changes.

I’m glad to see Ekiga is getting major work. I tried to get it to work in GNOME 2.22 and simply could not get it to connect.

One of the updated applications in GNOME 2.22 is Ekiga 3.0. The Ekiga VoIP client will introduce a new user interface as well as supporting X-Video and IAX2.

One thing I was expecting to see was compositing in the Metacity window manager. KDE4′s KWin includes 3D effects, and distributions are integrating Compiz Fusion into GNOME by themselves. Are desktop effects ever going to be included in GNOME by default?

GNOME 2.22 will be released in March 2008, followed by GNOME 2.24 later in the year. Ubuntu 8.04 should include GNOME 2.22.

Everex, a longtime personal computer vendor, has unveiled its latest PC featuring Ubuntu Linux-based open-source productivity software and Google-based Web 2.0 applications, for a mere $198.

The gPC does not run Ubuntu, but does run gOS, a Linux distro based on Ubuntu. The gOS focuses on Google applications, and uses the Enlightenment E17 desktop. Many popular open source applications are included, but there is also a focus on Google’s online web apps.

The computer’s pre-installed and linked Software includes Mozilla Foxfire, gMail, Meebo (a browser-based IM client) Skype, Google Documents & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, Google News, Google Maps, GIMP, Blogger, the Xing Movie Player, and OpenOffice.org 2.2.

The hardware is quiet, runs an energy efficient VIA 1.5GHz CPU, and has half a GB of RAM.

Everex’s gPC will be available in some Wal-Mart stores and online starting in early November.

[update]
The official website for gOS is up now, as well as an interview with the founder.

The improvements in GNOME 2.20 include: Improved support for right-to-left languages; desktop search integrated into the file chooser dialog; convenient new features in the Evolution email and calendar client; enhanced browsing of image collections; simplified system preferences; efficient power management and incredibly accurate laptop battery monitoring. Developers receive more help with application development thanks to a new version of the GTK+ toolkit, improved tools, and a great new documentation web site.

Here are a few things that caught my eye from the release notes:

• GNOME’s Clearlooks theme has been totally redesigned, I think it looks pretty good.
• Pie charts for disk usage, similar to Windows’.
• Apparently, many application have been tweaked for better power usage on laptops.
• Totem can do automatic codec installation, just like in Ubuntu Feisty.
• Gedit can do syntax highlighting for code embedded in HTML, this bothers me all the time in GNOME 2.18.
• Nautilus rotates thumbnails by looking at camera metadata.
• I noticed that the screenshots on GNOME’s site include shadows and transparency effects. Is GNOME going to include a compositing window manager in the future, like KDE4?

It is interesting how GNOME is continuing to do incremental updates in their releases, while KDE is trying to change everything very quickly. Congratulations to the GNOME developers for a superb release!

The so-called killer feature of this version of X is the new support for hotplugging of input devices (such as keyboard, mice, touchscreens) as well as output devices (monitors, projectors, and so forth).

The article at Ars Technica notes that old drivers will not work with the new X.org 7.3.

The input and video driver API/ABIs are not compatible with the previous server release, version 1.3, so you will not be able to mix and match drivers that were released for previous X server versions.

Have all the video drivers been updated? It would be a shame if this release brakes support for some video cards until their drivers get updated.

Leo is impressed that Karin is using PC Linux OS, and she prefers the command line. Leo believes that she is definately a geek and she should stop in Las Vegas next year for the hacker convention.

Download an MP3 of the show, and listen starting at 21 minutes.

This is just to announce the imminent completion of a brand-new Linux release, which I’m calling the Debian Linux Release. This is a release that I have put together basically from scratch; in other words, I didn’t simply make some changes to SLS and call it a new release. I was inspired to put together this release after running SLS and generally being dissatisfied with much of it, and after much altering of SLS I decided that it would be easier to start from scratch.

The SLS distribution (Softlanding Linux System) that is referred to was an early Linux distribution by Peter MacDonald that was started in mid-1992.