I think anyone interested in Linux saw this NY Times article today. I agreed with the article for the mostpart except for the end where the author stated that “one challenge for Linux users is finding media players that work with encrypted music and DVDs. Ubuntu comes with a movie player, but it is not automatically configured to play copy-protected commercial DVDs.

Gutsy Gibbon Beta CD release brings with it many updated, new, and exciting applications. For this latest release of Kubuntu 7.10, the usability standards have improved and there have already been some aesthetic changes. Besides these changes, there have been updates to many common applications as well as bug fixes to some of those annoyances you may or may not have run into.

I have played around with screenlets. Very nice, but nothing functional enough to grab me. But, AWN is something that looks good and I find very useful. The dock is stable and has good properties management. And there are now new applets being added at a rapid rate. New applets added in the last few days include a volume applet, CPU-meter applet, and GMail checking applet.