Rumor has it Dell is due to start selling the Ubuntu-loaded systems any day now, perhaps as early as this week. Yesterday, the Direct2Dell website offered up some details regarding the forthcoming product:

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Will be interesting to see what the adoption rate is. If anything, the systems should be cheaper than their Windows-loaded counterparts.

Meanwhile, thanks go to everybody at Apress HQ who helped make the book what it is.

• Don’t write off Novell: Landmark deal sees Microsoft and Novell working together on cross-platform technologies. Quote: “Top executives from Microsoft and Novell convened in San Francisco today to proclaim a landmark deal that sees the companies improve interoperability between Windows and SUSE Enterprise Linux Server (SLES) on virtualization, Microsoft’s Active Directory and Novell’s eDirectory, and Microsoft Office and OpenOffice XML formats on the desktop.” Rather predictably, the FSF is already up in arms.
• Firefox 2 continues rough ride: Another nasty bug is discovered; many are refusing to upgrade and are sticking with the 1.5x release. Still, looks like Internet Explorer 7 isn’t faring much better.
• IronPython for ASP.NET: Other dynamic languages can now be easily utilized too.
• Google gets Creative: Google gives $30,000 to Creative Commons, continues its role as the AntiMicrosoft.
• IBM targets .NET devs: Quote: “The company has announced Lotus Expeditor, an Eclipse-based environment for building what IBM has called a “universal” client spanning current Lotus products and the planned “Hanover” release of its Domino email and collaboration server.”
• OpenBSD 4.0 released and reviewed: Millions of changes but primarily related to hardware support. Changelog.
• Deluge: GTK-based BitTorrent client for those bored of Azureus. Check out the screenshots.
• amaroK gets music store: New version of KDE music player/manager is first open source program to tie-in with music store, in this case Magnatune.
• Shuttleworth calls for packaging revolution: Ubuntu man wants single common software installation format across distributions, and even across all open source operating systems, including the BSDs.
• Edgy Eft fails to impress: Recently released Ubuntu 6.10 not going down well. After all the success, has Ubuntu made its first slip-up? Also see this less critical review; quote: “Edgy is a worthwhile upgrade, if you’re looking to run a desktop with the most recent versions of your favorite programs and don’t require the long-term support offered by Dapper, but it’s not as adventurous as one might have hoped.”
• GNewSense—Linux for a GNU generation: FSF attacks those on its own side in the war against proprietary software by releasing its own version of Ubuntu, but with “the addition of freedom” (ie the removal of useful proprietary bits and pieces that means Ubuntu will function correctly for many of us).
• Dell going pro-Linux? Quote: “We recognize the chicken-and-egg problem though: it has to work before many people will want to buy it; and it won’t work unless effort is put into it before people start buying it. So we’re cracking the egg, not quite making omelettes.”
• Mandrive 2007 review: Quote: “With its latest version, Mandriva returns attention to its software development and re-establishes itself as a leading desktop distribution that can give Ubuntu serious competition.”
• IE guys send Firefox guys a cake: To say congrats on the release of Firefox 2.

The main themes for feature development in this release will be improvements to hardware support in the laptop, desktop and high-end server market, and aggressive adoption of emerging desktop technologies.

Ubuntu’s Feisty release will put the spotlight on multimedia enablement and desktop effects. We expect this to be a very gratifying release for both users and developers.

All this is a little late, considering SUSE and Mandriva already have these features built in. Rather unexpectedly for those who considered Ubuntu the Best Hope Yet for the Linux desktop, Ubuntu is now playing catch-up, not only compared to other Linux distros but also compared to Windows Vista.

But I don’t want to moan (yes, really). I’m just happy one of my favorite distros will be getting some eye-candy love.

A quick look through the list of new features reveals some pretty impressive stuff. We have the likes of Compiz implemented on AIGLX, which is implemented by default. Yet in addition to the exciting stuff, it seems Edgy Eft is also refining the already very good Ubuntu user experience.

All of which is pretty damn cool. More than any other distro, the Ubuntu people “get it”—they really understand what it takes to get Linux on the desktop. Frankly, I can’t wait for the final release!

Mark Pilgrim has long been one of my favorite technical writers. He’d taken a long hiatus away from blogging, and to my great delight suddenly resurfaced again in April. More recently, he’s made the switch away from the Mac to Ubuntu, and resultingly has published a great list of software essentials. One gem I pulled from the list is FireBug, a CSS/HTML/JavaScript monitoring and debugging extension.

Unabashed promotion: Mark is the author of Dive into Python, the print version of which is published by Apress!

(Did I mention that you should use this service with care? Most of the repositories are unofficial and using them may break your system. You’ve been warned!)