A month ago we compared Intel's graphics performance between Ubuntu 8.10 and the latest Ubuntu 9.04 daily snapshot at the time. With those tests we found Intel's performance had degraded significantly. However, with many new graphics packages having been released since then, we have carried out some additional tests this morning to look at where the Intel Linux graphics performance stands today.

Brilliant Brainstorms is a (usually) weekly summary of some of the best/most interesting brainstorms from the Ubuntu Brainstorm site. This week: easily tracking all the stuff on your desktop; disabling screensavers during video playback; correctly and easily detect and configure external monitors; one interface for customization options.

Everyone knows that Linus Torvalds 'is a Linux' but did you know he is also a born-again gnome?

January 27, 2009. The KDE Community announced the immediate availability of "The Answer", (a.k.a KDE 4.2.0), readying the Free Desktop for end users. KDE 4.2 builds on the technology introduced with KDE 4.0 in January 2008. After the release of KDE 4.1, which was aimed at casual users, the KDE Community is now confident we have a compelling offering for the majority of end users.

Turning your personal computer into a media server means that you will be able to play video (AVI, MPEG, MPEG-2, DivX, XviD, MKV, WMV, MP4 or even DVD ISOs or VIDEO_TS folders) and audio files (MP3, OGG, FLAC or WMA) or view your favorite photos (JPG, PNG, GIF, TIFF) stored on your PC's hard drive on a big screen TV set or LCD/Plasma high-definition display, via a PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 console

Kontact came back with KDE 4.1 (it didn't make it on time for KDE 4.0). I can't truly comment on how much it improve, since I didn't use Kontact in KDE 3.5.x, however, what I can say is I'm completely amazed by it. It works well, it has a overall good interface (with some, from my point of view, little mistakes here and there).

Linus Torvalds is a regular visitor to Australia in January. He comes out for some sunshine and to attend the annual linux.conf.au organised by Linux Australia. He took some time out to speak to Rodney Gedda about a host of topics including point releases, filesystems and what it is like switching to GNOME. He also puts Windows 7 in perspective.