Am in tears!

[sarcasm]

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In May’s issue of Linux Journal, their segment “LJ Index” featured some tidbits or trends about which countries are actually Googling “Linux.” It is always interesting where Linux is gaining public interest, which countries are falling behind. (Source: Google Trends)

• Russia claimed the top spot
• India came in second
• Number of Asian countries in the top ten: 3
• Number of European countries in the top ten: 7
• Number of North American countries in the top ten: 0
• Position of Russian among all languages: 1

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I then decided to play around with Google trends on my own, here are some interesting results:

• Recently, the two terms “Ubuntu” and “Linux” became almost at par:

• Norway leads in searching “Ubuntu”:

• Over the years “Microsoft” and “Linux” are almost at par; with a slight edge for Microsoft since 2005:

• Ubuntu is trailing behind Mac and Vista:

What other interesting finds could you find? Share them with me!

It has been merely days since the exciting release of Ubuntu Hardy Heron but for Canonical the ball is already rolling! Canonical has just announced it’s next Ubuntu 8.10 codenamed Intrepid Ibex release schedule. The release date is scheduled on the 30th of October 2008. Here is a breakdown of the important dates:

• 12 June 2008 - Alpha 1 release
• 3 July 2008- Alpha 2 release
• 24 July 2008 - Alpha 3 release
• 14 August 2008 - Alpha 4 release
• 4 September 2008 - Alpha 5 release
• 18 September 2008- Alpha 6 release
• 2 October 2008- Beta release
• 23 October 2008 - Release Candidate
• 30 October 2008- Final release of Ubuntu 8.10

For the full detail release schedule; visit the official Intrepid Release Schedule Wiki

Steven707 seems to figured out how to run Crysis using Wine. Well almost! The game launches off perfectly, however during gameplay there are some glitches that makes the game almost unplayable. According to Steven, he had to tweak the registry a bit and use a few native Windows dll’s just to get it to start. I hope he could give us more details on what exactly he did.

Now I am not really big on PC gaming, but what makes this special is the fact that Crysis is known to be very demanding when it comes to system resources, and running it un-natively is impressive itself. Wine has really improved by leaps and bounds over the years. Version 1.0.0 is just around the corner! W00T!

Ok I have a confession, actually I really don’t need to make one, because it’s so transparent, but yes this is a linkbait. But I also promise you that each one of these blogs are great, fun and informative, and that I did my research on them. It’s not just a headless list of blogs.

I tried to avoid blogs that are more or less aggregators like Lxer and Linux.com, I focused on personal blogs of developers, activists, programmers, and leading members of the Open Source community. Hope you find this helpful!

Note: This list is just randomly ordered, higher blogs on the list does not mean better. Oh and this list is by no means exhaustive. Of course, your input will be highly appreciated, tell me what are your favorite?

1-Jono Bacon is an Ubuntu community manager at Canonical. What’s nice about this blog is that it’s not very technical, any non-techy could actually read it without any problems. You won’t find a “sudo” here or an “apt-get” there. Just simple observations and commentary about Linux and Open Source.

2-Be The Signal is brought to you courtesy of Jeff Waugh, the winner of the Google/O’Reilly Open Source award for Best Evangelist in 2005. So he definitely knows his stuff! You might as well read his blog.

3-Numerodix Blog gets half the recognition it actually deserves. Maybe because Numerodix is just blogging for his self gratification, and not really interested in marketing it. But he definitely has a lot of insightful open source articles. You must check it!

4-Mark Shuttleworth Do I really need to explain this one? Oh well what the heck. Mark is the founder and creator of the Ubuntu distro. He is well known and recognized all around the open source kingdom. Nuff said!

5-Aaron Seigo is the king of KDE, he mostly blogs about Plasma, ie his new shiny new desktop and about KDE policy /marketing issues.

6-HowtoForge While this isn’t exactly a personal blog, but it’s a great reference to 100’s of very comprehensive howto’s and guides. From setting up the perfect Ubuntu or Fedora box to building a simple home file server. You should always keep on eye on this one, you never know when it inspires you to a “why didn’t think of doing that” moment.

7-Ubuntu Geek As opposed to Howtoforge, Ubuntu Geek gives you quick tip and howto’s, it’s more focused on quick fixes or tweaks making it less comprehensive. True, that it’s Ubuntu oriented, but that doesn’t really mean the tips can’t be applied to other distros

8-Foogazi is a pretty nice blog, Adam Kane provides his readers with tips, tricks, and opinions. He usually holds competitions, and handing out Amazon gift cards, which is a nice touch. Simple questions like “How would you set up a recurring task of “task.sh” to run every day at 8:00am?” are asked, the most straightforward and complete answer wins!

9-Groklaw Pamela Jones, or PJ, is extremely dedicated to this site. This blog is an award-winning website that covers legal news of interest to the free and open-source software community. To us mere morals, it’s just a big bunch of legal mumbo jumbo, but if you just read the headlines, you will get a good idea on what’s going on in our fight.

10-PolishLinux is originally a Polish blog that focuses on distro reviews and helping people choose the proper distro. Their main goal is to “help you polish your GNU/Linux by using the tips and tricks we provide”. Pun probably intended

11-Dana Blankenhorn & Paula Rooney @ ZDNet In old fashioned ZDNetesque professionalism Dana and Paula brings you the latest buzz in the Open Source and Linux community, providing you analysis and opinions.

12-Android Developers Blog If you are like me, and totally dissatisfied with what the current mobile industry has to offer, then you are proabably very excited about Google’s Android. So keep an eye on their blog, to see what the guys got up their sleeves!

13-Google Open Source Blog Who doesn’t love Google for their Open Source backing? Well if you work for Microsoft you probably don’t but everybody else does!

14-Fsckin W/ Linux brought to you by Wayne Richardson, one of my favorite Linux bloggers out there. Recently Wayne has been hired by Ars Technica to write for them. I think that’s enough of a testament on his quality of work!

15-Ubuntu Unleashed To me this is another “aha why didn’t I think of that” kind of blog. UU, as it name hints, focuses on Ubuntu, providing tips, howtos and guides. But I think a lot of the stuff on there is applicable on other distros.

16-Mozilla Blog No Open Source list would be complete without Firefox! Keep this blog on your RSS reader, trust me, you won’t regret it

17-Linux Screw Here you will find tips, tricks, docs, manuals, hacks and more relating to different Linux distributions, FreeBSD and Sun Solaris as well as much more Open Source around information.

18-Tombuntu I know I know, there are other distros out there other than Ubuntu. But tbh Ubuntu is the most blogged about, and Tombuntu is one of the better ones out there.

19-The Open Source Advocate brought to you by Tristan Rhodes, and pretty much blogs about what I blog about. Open Source is good Closed is evil. He provides lots of howtos, observations, and very informative articles. Thanks Tristan!

20-Open Ended brought to you by Ars Technica is one of the best Open Source blogs out there. I don’t think you can go wrong with Ars’ professionalism now can you?

21-Debian Package of the Day If you are adventurous like me, you probably need to keep an eye on this blog. As the name implies, this blog reviews a package (program) everyday ,well at least on paper, I have noticed that it’s more of a weekly cycle, but it is a great blog nonetheless.

22-Phoronix Get the latest news on Linux hardware, especially displays, graphic cards, motherboards, and processors from this great resource.

23-Boycott Novell The name says it all! This blog is lives on criticizing Microsoft and Novell on their deal a couple of years back. This blog is very much concerned about legal matters, such OOXML, patents, intellectual property and whatnot.

24-Kernel Trap provides you kernel news, a must read for Linux hackers out there. A bit too technical for my taste, but it has to be mentioned!

25-Planet KDE I know I have promised that I will step away from aggregators, but this one is definitely worth mentioning because it pretty much brings you all the KDE news. It links you to tons of blogs of KDE developers and hackers, which would probably bring you irrelevant blogs about the developers’ life, but still those can be interesting also.

26-Planet GNOME Same as Planet KDE but for GNOME

27-Debuntu A great blog about .deb packages providing articles, howtos and guides.

28-Firefox Extention Guru Is concerned mainly on Firefox and it’s extentions. However, it also brings you a lot of general tech news.

29-Copyrighteous Is a combination of short reflections (often humorous) and essays that tend to focus on issues of free software, copyright, and issues of free culture and knowledge. Brought to you by Benjamin Mako Hill the Debian hacker and Open Source activist..

30-Royal HeHe2-ness Last and definitely least, yours truly Rami Taibah. I have started this blog as a personal one writing about my interests such as gaming, football, tech, and of course Linux, however over the course of 6 month, it has diverged mainly into a Linux advocacy blog. Happy reading

That’s it! I am sure there are plenty out there! What are your favorite? Tell me

Ya well most tech savvy people already know this, after all it’s common knowledge. But it’s nice to see the difference visually, and would probably explain the difference to the less technically endowed amongst us, in more ways than one!

In a recent blog post of mine, Etymology of A Distro, I mentioned that I convinced a friend to name her cat “Gentoo”. And since we all know that the Internet is basically built on tubes and cat pictures, I decided to treat it as a dump truck and load all the Gentoo The Cat pictures! Watch out, your “internets” will get delayed by a few more seconds.

Oh while we’re at it, these pictures will be sooner or later be featured in a LOLcats design somewhere, so please do share them with me

Oh Noes! Sullaya my dear you got it all wrong, the collar should be purple, Gentoo style!!

Gentoo in a T-shirt. Cute!

Last but not least, Gentoo as usual pissing on a Windows machine. He developed a hobby, good for him

The long awaited release of Ubuntu 8.04 from Canonical has finally arrived, and it’s looking great! This version, codenamed Hardy Heron, is only the second LTS (Long Term Support) release, which makes it even more special. The first LTS release from Canonical (Dapper) was when the company was relatively new and unknown. However through the past 2 years, Ubuntu has established itself as one of the most user friendly and easy Linux distro out there. So much expectation revolves around this release, and finally the wait is over! Let’s have a quick run down on what Hardy brings on the table, and how it weighs against these expectations.

Installation

Over the years, I have grown very confident with installing Linux distros, and with Ubuntu it almost makes it a no-brainer, this version is no exception. I didn’t notice anything new with the installation process except for the importation tool and some few minor facelifts.

Ubuntu has already introduced a Windows importation tool, which imports your bookmarks, e-mails, settings…etc from your Windows partition. Hardy now introduces the possibility of doing the same with other Linux distros, I imported all my bookmarks, settings, Pidigin accounts…etc using this neat new feature.

As for the facelifts, a more user friendly time zone selection graphic, instead of having to zoom out of a location, the world map graphic just follows your mouse movement. The other facelift concerns the disk partioning utility, the “Guided Resize” option now tells you exactly how your disk will be partioned after installation with a graphical representation.

New Features

Xorg Hardy now ships with Xorg 7.3 with emphasis on autoconfiguration. A new resolution utility has been added that enables you to rotate your screen, select your refresh rate, and dual screen support (hopefully haven’t tested that last one yet.)

Kernel 2.6.24 and with it the fixes and enhancements that has been added to the mainline kernel. The release notes specifically mentions, dynstick support, which brings power saving options for 64-bit machines, and “Completely Fair Scheduler“, which in layman’s terms maximizes overall CPU utilization while optimizing interactive performance.

Nautilus has never been better, a lot of new and cool features has been added. For example, on previous Ubuntu versions, if you were to move a file to a folder that you don’t have permission to, you would get an error, now you simply get a dialog asking for a password! Performance boosts, undoing accidental file moves, pausing file operations, are all new great features added into this release!

PolicyKit Now you can run administrative tasks without being asked for a password, however if you need to change you can just click on the unlock button. This comes in handy when you need to check something, for example your current DNS server, previously you would need a password, now you can choose Network under Administration and the tool will open up without asking for passwords. Need to change something? Just click on Unlock. PolicyKit also includes an authorization management tool that provides an overview of all the privileged operations exposed through PolicyKit and allows administrators to configure permissions for each individual operation.

PulseAudio A lot have been raving about this addition, I would be lying if I were to say I feel the same way, I have never had any problems with sound on my machine(s), so I really can’t comment on this one (in all honesty my only use of audio is multimedia). But if you really want to know about PulseAudio, Ryan Paul from Ars Technica wrote a nice article about it.

Firefox 3 Beta 5 This one is the one I am most excited about, even though I have been using Firefox 3 Beta for sometime now, it’s nice to see it in a major release like this one. Firefox 3 adds a great deal of new features, such as easier bookmarking, more RSS integration, easier navigation…etc. This one needs a review on it’s own!

Transmission is a new torrent client that replaces the Gnome BitTorrent app. Transmission is much more detailed than it’s predecessor (which to me was almost useless), Transmission offers a better GUI and more features and options. But for someone used to Ktorrent or Wine(ing) Utorrent, Transmission still seems lacking.

Vinagre VNC Client I don’t have much use of this, but it is definitely a step forward. Vinagre brings you the possibility of connecting to multiple desktops at the same time! Has a bookmarking option, so you can quickly connect to your favorite VNC server, and has the ability to detect servers via Avahi!

Brasero replaces Serpentine Audio CD Creator. Brasero is miles ahead of Serpentine, in fact I don’t think I ever used Serpentine, I usually install Gnomebaker or k3b right after a fresh installation. Brasero seems to be a good replacement for these two apps, which is nice to see bundled with a fresh install. With Brasero you can create audio CDs, data CDs, burn images, burn DVD, the whole works, unlike Serpentine! (what were they thinking with Serpentine?)

World Clock Applet is a nice new feature especially for people on the go, now your clock can display multiple cities around the world, and even change your timezone on the fly! Not only that, it shows you the weather to a somewhat comprehensive degree, telling you temperature, wind direction, wind speed, sunrise and sunset times!

Security has been beefed up, which is always a welcome. Hardy now includes a command line app called “uncomplicated firewall”, which is a bit deceitful. If you are used to a GUI firewall app, then this is definitely complicated. Just run “man ufw” read it, and you will get it in no time. Another security enforcement was adding additional checks to access memory, this should defend against rootkits and other malicious code.

Wubi when the Windows importing tool was added to the installation process a couple of versions back, it was lauded as a great tool to lower the switching barrier. Well with Wubi, this barrier has been totally obliterated! Now with Wubi, any Windows user can install Ubuntu from within their Windows environment, and not even partition their disk! Wubi is a great tool for people who are on the fence, or love to experiment. Go ahead dabble a bit in the Linux pool.

Eye Candy to be honest I was never a fan of the color brown, and I always hated that choice by Canonical. Hardy Heron is no exception, however the default wallpaper now has a color different than brown! It now includes yellow, red, and orange creating a nice artistic heron. Desktop effects, as usual worked like a charm, however I wish that they would include a more comprehensive menu option, not only 3 (none, normal, extra) what are we using Windows all the sudden? I hope they throw in Compiz Configuration applet soon.

Other Quickies:

• Totem the default media player comes now bundled with a plugin that enables you to search and play youtube videos directly on the player!
• Google Calendars support for Evolution!
• Ubuntu 8.04 LTS includes support for SELinux in the Universe repository
• Hardy Heron comes bundled with OpenOffice.org 2.4, which has tons of new features

Quick Stats:

• Installation time: 19 minutes 32 seconds!
• Boot time: 48 seconds
• Processor: Intel Pentium 4 HT
• Memory: 2 GB

The ever so popular website and torrent tracker Demonoid has been going through rough times in the past year. These freedom fighters fought nail and tooth to keep their servers up, they relocated to several countries, they were harassed by lawyers, and their administrator, Demios, stepped down. It’s no wonder the Internet rejoiced to the news that it’s back! Life is beautiful again

Well maybe it’s beautiful again for everybody except the Saudi pirates! King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology, the governing body that censors the Internet in the country, have so foolishly decided that Demonoid’s content is not suitable for +20 million of it’s citizens.

One has to wonder about the city’s policy regarding torrents. The Pirate Bay has been always been a distant dream for Saudis, only for it to be unblocked a couple of month ago. On the other hand, Mininova has always been attainable. I mean what’s there on Demonoid that’s so corrupting that couldn’t be found on these two mega trackers? The answer currently escapes me.

Thank god that we have some headless chickens regulating our tubes!