GNOME 2.16 is the latest version of the popular, multi-platform free desktop environment, providing all the tools a user needs for everyday work, and a platform for developers to write new software.GNOME’s focus is ease of use, stability, and first class internationalization and accessibility support, so that GNOME and its applications are usable by anyone, anywhere. GNOME runs on a variety of platforms, including GNU/Linux (commonly called Linux), Solaris, HP-UX, BSD and Apple’s Darwin. Work has been done in this release to make it easier to port GNOME tools to Windows as well.

GNOME 2.16 Desktop & Developer Platform

Boot Linux faster with an open BIOS

The solution, according to Seebach, is to replace proprietary BIOSes with open BIOSes. Open implementations can be configured or customized to perform only those initiatialization tasks that really are required, before bootstrapping the OS.

Swiftfox 1.5.0.6

Apparantly good for older computers with Linux. Mind you, Firefox is not slouch.

Philipp H. Poll started the Linux Libertine Open Fonts project in September 2003 because of his dissatisfaction with the fonts shipped with GNU/Linux distributions. “In SUSE 9.x,” he recalls, “you had to use a script to download the Microsoft core fonts if you wanted to have good TrueType fonts.” To improve the situation, Poll chose to start with the basics with Linux Libertine, an alternative to Time Roman and Times New Roman, the most commonly used typefaces in computing, and to develop it using free software methodologies and tools under the GNU General Public License.

Linux.com | Linux Libertine Open Fonts offers free Times Roman alternative

I’ve never got the True Type fonts to download on the Suse update so this sounds like a nice alternative

Ichthux is an operating system aimed at Christian users. It is based on Kubuntu in order to provide the best desktop environment of the moment, together with Christian programs and settings. For a brief graphical tour of Ichthux, check out some screenshots.

Ichthux | Linux for Christians

Have to say I’m not sure about the name, but the concept is good. Still, it will have to impress on usability to justify the “Yet Another Distro” attitude that is starting to worry me about the Linux community. How newcomers decide on a distro is beyond me. Perhaps I was lucky to find Linux when I did when it was Red Had, Suse or Mandrake…

Backing up your Personal website.

Like many people you have one of those cheap personal web sites that don’t allow direct shell access or file access to the server. This is a real problem if you want make a copy of your web site for backup or other reasons. The solution is simple but requires using the command line in a terminal.

The program wget allows you to make a copy of a web site with the command line option –mirror. This allows you to download a complete copy of the files on your web site to your home computer.

This is an example of how to do it:

wget -nv –mirror http://YourWebSite.com/

This should download all files on your web site except possibly the CSS files. To find the CSS files you can view the HTML source of your home page by right clicking your mouse while you are viewing your web site in a browser and then selecting “Source” or “View Source” in the popup menu. The location of the CSS files will be listed somewhere in the top of the displayed source information. Search for .css to find it. You can then (usually) add the specified directories and css file name to the basic url of your website and view the css files in your web browser. This allows you to copy and paste the CSS information into an editor and save it on your computer.

For more information check out the manual:
http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/manual/wget.html

From the guys at TuxMagazine.com. I don’t think this will backup any databases but this is certainly a great example of the command line making something easier.

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The People Behind KDEWho are these creative people? Why are they working on KDE? What motivates them to contribute to the project? What do they eat? Who are their favourite writers, singers and actors? Well… you get the picture.At this web site there are interviews with the people who work on KDE to find the answers to questions like these. As well as coders we also interview artists, translators, publicity people and everyone else that is involved in KDE.

The People Behind KDE

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Syllable is a new OS built for speed, with low hardware requirements. After trying it out, I was really impressed. Syllable is a great OS with a lot of potential.

NewsForge | Syllable: A different open source OS

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Kickoff Start Menu Research - Sneak PreviewAs previously blogged, openSUSE 10.2 will have a redesigned KDE start menu created by the KDE and usability team at SUSE, after doing usability testing with other start menus. We now have a working prototype, code-named ‘Kickoff’ (started during world soccer championship, obviously), which is currently being tested with real users in the SUSE usability lab.Don’t forget to visit the Start Menu Research talk at aKademy 2006 in Dublin, Ireland.

Kickoff Sneak Preview

Looks good so long as it doesn’t make it harder to find rarely used apps. At least the days of ordinary linux installations with 10 text editors and 15 terminals are now over.

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Microsoft will release a version of Office to run on Linux within the “next couple of years”, according to the chief executive of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL).

Microsoft Office for Linux ‘inevitable’ - vnunet.com

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