Ubuntu 9.04 (the Jaunty Jackalope) will be released towards the end of next month and it is picking up the Linux 2.6.28 kernel, GNOME 2.26, and other improvements like install-time support for the EXT4 file-system and some subtle improvements.

This is an exciting time for Web browsers. Google Chrome is now available in alpha for Linux, and I downloaded it for Ubuntu.

PCLinuxOS is dubbed the "distro hopper-stopper" by its fans. Not without a good reason, I must say, because PCLinuxOS aims and succeeds at being radically simple [sic], friendly to new users as well as Linux geeks, easy to configure and manage, and packaging all you might need from your computer.

GNOME 2.26, the latest version of the open source desktop environment for Linux, has been released. Ars pranced through the garden with the new GNOME release and found that it delivers some nice incremental improvements.

There is a strange disconnect in the thought that the CLI is dangerous and the GUI is safe. I think that as a general rule GUIs are more dangerous because they let users click randomly and make things happen without having any real knowledge.

My goal was to check on what was new in this distro but not necessarily to fully replace my installation of Ubuntu 8.10. After about 10 minutes in 2009.1, I could not double click the "Install" icon on the desktop fast enough.

GNU/Linux is blessed with a good choice of file managers. Gnome has Nautilus, KDE has Dolphin and Konqueror and Krusader, which I wrote about some time ago). If you are looking for a minimalist system with low processor and memory overheads to revive an old "underpowered" machine or make the latest PC look even faster, you have to start thinking about alternatives.

I have been using KDE since version 1 came out and have always liked it over Gnome. Until recently, I would not even consider switching to or installing Gnome on my desktop. My choice of distributions always depended on a strong support of KDE: Mandriva, Xandros, PCLinuxOS, SuSE, etc.