There were a couple of interesting things that made it in my reading list, this week:
- Obviously, you may have heard of the official launch of Ubuntu ‘Hardy Heron’ (or if you’re into version numbering, version 8.04). There’s lots of praise for Ubuntu around the Internet. The issues I’ve been dealing with were the sound issues as mentioned in earlier posts. Is Ubuntu ready to take on Windows? Not yet, but, I don’t think that’s the point of it: However, without a doubt, Ubuntu (and generally any Linux flavour) breathes new life in your older hardware1, 2.
- Via Metafilter, I found a whole set of Hubble photos dedictated to galactic collisions. The photos are available in different sizes3
- The same Metafilter has a link to HP’s RPN calculators. I had one of those too: they actually work OK, although, yes, you need to get used to it. Earlier this week, I was a kind surprised to find that Gnome’s calculator doesn’t have an option to set it to an RPN-mode.
- InformIT has an interview with Donald Knuth. Knuth apparently uses Ubuntu.
- So, the OLPC (the one laptop per child project) is steering towards making a deal with Microsoft, possibly hinting at dropping Linux for a Windows XP-based platform.
What else?
1 I must admit that I think FireFox 2.0 should have been part of the 8.04 release: the current FireFox 3.0 has definitely some “irregularity” issues.
2 The popularity of Ubuntu apparently is causing slowdowns at the Ubuntu repositories.
3 Related (a whole set of interacting galaxies at NASA, all in one picture)