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Ubuntu 9.04 (and Kubuntu) comes with VLC 0.9.9 included in the repositories. However, VLC 1.0.0 was released today and it ships with several new features and many improvements. For readers who don't know what VLC means, it is a powerful, cross-platform and open-source video player, built using Qt 4 toolkit. It supports many video formats and comes with advanced video features and functions. To install the latest release of VLC (currently 1.0.0) in either Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu distributions, just follow the steps below:

This article is a continuation to my other Bash-related post, 6 Bash Productivity Tips. Since that article gathered many useful comments and I bumped over several more over the net, here are 5 more tips and tricks. Although these may not be necessarily productivity-related, they will surely ease working in a Bash terminal and it may be worth knowing them. If you're not familiar with the terminal, command-line interface and Bash you can go ahead and read my introduction to Linux CLI.

PCManFM is the default file manager in LXDE, the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment. Its goal is to offer a fast execution speed, providing in the same time enough functionality for a file manager of its class.

Epiphany is usually the first choice for GNOME users who want to use a web browser which is lighter than Firefox and integrates well with GNOME. Of course, there are alternatives like Konqueror or Opera out there, but they are either too bloated compared to Epiphany, or they don't integrate very well with the GNOME desktop environment. Being the default web browser in GNOME and built using the GTK toolkit, Epiphany became over time a well-known web browser especially for the fact that it is lightweight and has a basic, clean interface.

Thunar is a lightweight file manager included in the Xfce desktop environment. It has a simpler interface compared to Nautilus, the default file manager which ships with GNOME. So, what are the features which come with Thunar, and what makes it a viable alternative to Nautilus? First of all, it is lighter on resources and offers less functions than its GNOME counterpart, making it a very good choice for users who don't need advanced features, and prefer speed over those. Being the default file manager in Xfce, Thunar also comes included in lighter distributions like Xubuntu, which is the Xfce-based distribution of Ubuntu. The version of Thunar I used for this review is 1.0.0, tested in GNOME 2.26.1, as they come with Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope.

The first change it jumps into the eye is the new Plasma appearance, called Aero now. It is brighter than the old one, but I found it looking not so appealing, at least not for the desktop widgets. Here's how the desktop looks in Kubuntu Jaunty, with several widgets running on the desktop:

A while ago I put up this article, reviewing 5 so-called 'essential' add-ons for Firefox. To continue in the same manner in this second part, here are 5 add-ons updated for Firefox 3.5 which can prove useful. Maybe not the most popular, but they definitely deserve a try.

FrostWire is an open-source, free Java-based peer-to-peer client with support for the BitTorrent protocol, skins and iTunes. The latest release, 4.18.0, contains many improvements, bug fixes and several changes. See the official announcement here. Debian Lenny doesn't come with FrostWire included in its repositories, but installing it is very easy if you follow the steps below.

Krusader is a twin-panel file manager for KDE which has been around for around seven years and was always a good alternative to Konqueror since KDE3 days. Its interface resembles the one of the popular file manager Midnight Commander for the console. Codenamed 'Mars Pathfinder', 2.0 is the first KDE4 stable release, bringing lots of new features and coming with the entire interface ported to Qt4 libraries.

Transmission is a lightweight BitTorrent client built in GTK, with a clean and simple interface. Although most people prefer more popular clients like Vuze, Deluge or KTorrent, Transmission incorporates all the major features one needs for downloading torrents and can prove a very good alternative to those, especially if you don't need all those whistles and bells.

Eschalon is a turn-based RPG (role-playing game), which tries to reproduce the feeling of classic RPG games. It's closed-source, available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, and it comes with a demo too. The full version is available as a download for $19.95.

Amarok 2.1.1 was released on June 17th and it includes several bug fixes and a few new features compared to 2.1. Among the new features worth mentioning: there is available support for compilations with over 60 artists, there is an option to hide the context view now. For a full list of changes and bug fixes, have a look at the announcement on the official website.

A while ago I wrote an article called 13 Terminal Emulators for Linux, where I briefly reviewed all those popular shell-like applications and a few flavours of xterm or rxvt. In this article I will talk about Yakuake, a powerful terminal application for Linux, and also the KDE counterpart of Tilda in GNOME.

Kubuntu 9.04 comes with version 0.10 for KDE4, but in the first beta of version 1.0 was released on June 9. Here are several easy steps for compiling digiKam from source and installing it on a Ubuntu/Kubuntu Jaunty machine.

Miro is an open-source and cost-free application for watching Internet TV in high definition quality. It's available for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows.

1. Use !! Typing !! followed by Enter will bring back and execute the last command (same as Ctrl+P followed by Enter). 3. Make manual pages coloured I think this tip is a productivity tip because once a manual page is shown coloured, it is easier, clearer to read. Just add the following inside the ~/.bashrc file, where ~ is your home directory:

The last time I had a look at Opera 10 it was in alpha state, meaning no new features were introduced, and only the rendering engine was replaced with a newer one compared to 9.x series. This first Opera 10 beta comes with various new features.

Written in Python, Minirok is a minimalist audio player which ships with a simple and intuitive interface, which kind of resembles the 1.4 interface, except all the major features were removed. The latest version was released on June 1st, and it is the first release for KDE4. If you want the KDE3 version (although it is rather poor when it comes to features), you can download and install release 0.9.2 from the official homepage.

One of the new additions which are noteworthy to mention for Amarok 2.1 is the introduction of the classic playlist (the one from 1.4) and also the playlist editor. The good thing about this release is that users who liked more the older, classic playlist can switch to it now. Besides this, there is also a playlist editor available, which lets you decide which fields are shown and which not.

I decided to put up this guide which shows how to install the latest Wine release in Ubuntu 9.04 using 3 different methods. The default Jaunty repositories come with Wine 1.0.1, but the latest release is 1.1.24 and a new version is available every two weeks, so here is a tutorial which explains how to get the last Wine release in Ubuntu or Kubuntu Jaunty.