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Welcome to the Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, Issue #55 for the week August 26th - September 1st, 2007. In this issue we cover the announcement of the next Ubuntu release "Hardy Heron 8.04", Full Circle's latest issue, the Month of Ubuntu Screen Casts, Gutsy Gibbon's release parties, and, as always, much much more!

IBM's new POWER6 processor-based UNIX server has posted world records in key metrics of computing performance vital to a broad range of technical and commercial applications. These leadership results were obtained on 1-core, 4-core, 8-core, and 16-core servers running either Linux or the IBM UNIX operating system, AIX, allowing customers substantial flexibility. The new IBM System p 570 server achieved record-breaking results in the SPECfp_2006 and per core SPECfp_rate2006 benchmarks.

A recent News.com article by Martin LaMonica reports on the ODF vs OOXML war. The report mentions the arguments over one standard vs two competing standards. But shouldn't we be trying to solve - not prolong - the interoperability gap?

PCLinuxOS Magazine, September 2007 Issue is available to download.  We apologize for the 2 day delay in this release; website problems at mypclinuxos.com added to our woes.  However, a few days late never means a dollar short!  Our previous issues can also be downloaded. Some highlights include: PCLinuxOS, A Walk Down History Lane, Ubuntu's Hype is Misleading, A Beginner's Guide to Linux, Part I, How to Understand and Edit /etc/fstab, KDE User Guide, Part 8 and as always, much more.

Linus Torvalds released the fifth release candidate for the upcoming 2.6.23 Linux kernel noting that he was on his way to Cambridge, England, for the 2007kernel summit. The invite-only kernel summit has been hosted in Ontario, Canada the past five years, the being the first year it has been hosted in Europe.Regarding 2.6.23-rc5, Linus noted,"hopefully we've addressed most regressions, so please do give it a good testing."

On the Phoronix Forums we have been running a Q&A with the developers of the Nouveau project. For those out of the loop or new to Linux, the Nouveau project aims to provide an open-source 2D/3D graphics driver for NVIDIA hardware. After collecting a number of questions from our readers, KoalaBR and Marcheu have answered these questions. The questions range from whether there will be open-source SLI support to asking if NVIDIA has ever contacted the Nouveau developers.

If you’ve just bought a new desktop,laptop or server and the box says the box is powered by 2 processors, you can actually verify that.

In windows there are many guides on how to create a dvd using your own video files. However this doesn't seem to happen in linux and moreover by using a program with a GUI. In this guide I will describe how to create a dvd with a menu using DeVeDe. DeVeDe is an open source program which allows you to create DVDs and CDs (VCD, sVCD or VCD) suitable for home players. It supports any of the formats supported by mplayer such as mpeg, avi, asf, wmv, wma, quicktime, mov, realtime, ogg, matroska and many others!

Open standard IP telephony is quite flexible. We have been able, using standard SIP loads on phones and the features implemented on open standard servers using only standard SIP signaling, to implement features beyond simple "plain old telephone service," including hold, call forward, ring groups, call park, multiple line appearances per set and more.

Confessions up front: we're pretty hot for any device that sports some sort of console emulator, so when faced with GamePark Holding's Linux-powered GP2X, which currently boasts of SNES, NES, Genesis, MAME and quite a few other gems, it's a little difficult to rein in the enthusiasm. That said, the new F-200 could use just a little bit of slimming

Is open, session initiation protocol (SIP)-based telephony achievable for the enterprise? Lately, I am being told by industry consultants, as well as the majority of trade press articles and vendor presentations, that it isn't -- that secure and feature-rich IP (Internet Protocol) telephony can be achieved only through the proprietary extensions of the established telephony vendors, at least for now. However, communications professionals at several major universities are collaborating to develop these systems, based on open source and open standards, for production use in their own enterprises. Their progress is encouraging.

It seems like things are starting to settle in with GNOME 2.19, and more specifically, the Appearance applet. Those who have wondered why there are so many different dialogs for doing similar things in GNOME have had their query answered. The final form presents one clean, organized application that lets you configure most display settings from one window.

One of the applications that we Linuxers have long longed to have natively on our beloved platform is Adobe Photoshop. Although nearly all of us have turned to the trusty GIMP for our image manipulation needs, The GIMP's limitations, such as lack of support for the CMYK color model, keep it from fully replacing Photoshop. Luckily in our community, if there's a hole in the application portfolio, there is a scrappy, innovative dot-org or developer striving to fill it. A prime case in point is Pavel Kanzelsberger, the Slovakia-based developer of Pixel, an up-and-coming and very multiplatform image manipulation program. If Kanzelsberger's ambitions are realized, his handiwork may one day even out-Photoshop Photoshop. We recently caught up with Pavel to find out more about Pixel.

PowerTOP is a Linux tool that finds the software component(s) that make your laptop use more power than necessary while it is idle. PowerTOP combines various sources of information from the kernel into one convenient screen so that you can see how well your system is doing, and which components are the biggest problem.

LXer Feature: 02-Sept-2007

Microsoft is under the microscope with the FSF looking into GPLv3 violations, and news that there will be a Gnome Desktop for the Windows API, Carla Schroder writes about 802.11n, HP launches Linux desktop in Australia, Mandriva Benelux is launched and I finally start getting tired of of the constant FUD coming from Matt Hartley. All this and more in this weeks LXer Weekly Roundup.

The VectorLinux Website is promising: “Speed, performance, stability -- these are attributes that set VectorLinux apart in the crowded field of Linux distributions. VectorLinux is a lighterweight, fast, Linux operating system for Intel-AMD x86 compatible systems and is based upon Slackware, one of the original Linux distributions…” Linux-Tip was testing the installation and usage of version 5.8 (Standard Gold).

This article describes how to set up PC-BSD v1.4 beta. PC-BSD is released under the BSD license. PC-BSD is a desktop operating system based on FreeBSD. It uses KDE as its desktop environment.

AcetoneISO is CD/DVD image manipulator for Linux.Using this tool it is very easy to Mount and Unmount ISO,MDF,NRG Images.

Corsair is known for their high-performance system memory and for the past two years or so, we have seen very innovative flash products from this memory leader. The Corsair Flash Voyager marked the era of waterproof flash drives only to be succeeded by the Flash Voyager GT. Both of these USB flash drive series not only performed great and handled all of our durability tests, but it was also backed by a ten-year warranty and official support for Linux. Earlier this year, however, Corsair redefined durable flash drives by unleashing the Flash Survivor GT. In our premiere review of the Corsair Flash Survivor GT 8GB, the flash drive was not only fast but had withstood our harsh torture treatment, which consisted of letting the Flash Survivor GT rest at the bottom of an 8 foot deep pool, smashing it with a hammer, and even boiled it in a pot of water.

The Ubuntu Linux team last week announced Hardy Heron, the next release of the popular open source Linux operating system to include long-term support.