EasyLinuxGuide Blog

After a lot of preparation, Thunderbird 2 was just recently released. There is a long list of changes posted on the Mozilla homepage under release notes:

• Message Tags: Create your own tags for organizing email. Messages can be assigned any number of tags. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.
• Visual Theme: Thunderbird 2’s theme and user interface have been updated to improve usability and maximize screen real estate.
• Session History Navigation: Back and Forward buttons allow navigation through message history.
• Advanced Folder Views: Customize the folder pane to show favorite, unread or recent folders.
• Easy Access to Popular Web Mail Services: Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.
• Improved Support For Extensions: Extensions can now add custom columns to the message list pane in addition to storing custom message data in the mail database.
• Improved New Mail Notification Alerts: New mail alerts include information such as the subject, sender and message preview text.
• Folder Summary Popups: Mouse over a folder with new messages to see a summary of the new messages in that folder.
• Saved Search Folder Performance: Search results for saved search folders are now cached, improving folder loading performance.
• Find As You Type: Finds and highlights message text as you type.
• Improved Filing Tools: Recent folder menu items for moving and copying messages to recently used folders. Move / Copy again functionality.
• Updates to the Extension System: The extension system has been updated to provide enhanced security and to allow for easier localization of extensions.
• New Windows installer: Based on Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, the new Windows installer resolves many long-standing issues.
• Windows Vista Support: Many enhancements and fixes for Windows Vista.

One of the perks for me is that the Arch package list RSS Feed now works, it was the only feed that didn’t work and probably the one I wanted most to work. Nonetheless, it was nice to see Thunderbird go to version 2 as Firefox has been at 2 stable for quite a while.

NeroLinux 3 beta has been released. I just recently packaged this for ArchLinux and upgraded from the previous version on the Arch ELG repository. You can download it individually (you may need rpmextract also) or you can add the ELG repo to your pacman.conf. I tested this out on my main box and it seemed to work fine. It’s nice to see some added features to the new version. The interface is a lot nice than the previous gtk1 version which looked very old school. Check out this Screenshot of the new version in action.

The new version includes several new qualities including:

• Blu-ray and HD DVD data recording support
• Upgrade to GTK 2.0
• Improved graphical user interface similar to the look and feel of the current Nero Burning ROM 7 edition
• Unicode support in all languages currently supported by Nero 7 Premium Reloaded

I typically use Gnomebaker, but it’s good to have options. NeroLinux 3 is a step in the right direction. The software has evolved nicely.

The happy people are back again for a new release. Ubuntu has been steadfast in its entrance into the Linux world for several years now. It is clear at this point that there is some longevity in mind. With LTS (long term support versions) being released on a regular basis, Ubuntu is pioneering new standards in the Linux world.

The latest version 7.04 offers an improved splash screen to open the festivities. The live cd even seems to run faster than its predecessor which again indicates that Ubuntu is not only about major changes but also refinements. Other notable features that make life easier include:

• 2.6.20 kernel
• Gnome 2.18
• restricted drivers manager (shows up in your taskbar and prompts for installation of drivers such as Nvidia, super easy and convenient)
• Windows Migration tool makes copying settings during the install easy from that “other” OS
• Improved Network Manager including better wireless config with wpa security
• Easy Codec Installation (probably the major complaint about the last release even though it really wasn’t difficult, but codec addition has been made even simpler)
• Built in Beryl. Perhaps taking the cue from Fedora on this one, there is an easy way to enable Beryl settings from within the Gnome Environment

Overall, a nice improvement over the last quality release. Ubuntu continues to help move Linux in the right direction. If you are interested in trying out a distro, Ubuntu is definitely recommended. It’s no wonder why those Ubuntu people are smiling so much.

Recently there was a major change in Arch Linux land where packages were renamed to assert their built architecture. So now packages will all either contain “i686″ or “x64″ to differentiate between the two optimizations. While this is a good thing, it does cause some tedious short term work for people that maintain private repos like ELG. I went through all 90 packages and checked for updates and edited each PKGBUILD to specify the architecture and also ensured that all packages were named properly with the new convention that places the architecture right before the .pkg.tar.gz suffix. You will need to be using Pacman 3 in order to properly read the new filename convention. If you are not, you can still download and install the packages manually.

Adjusting packages for the architecture is only one change recently. Gnome and XFCE4 were moved from /opt into /usr which means that any packages relating to these Desktop Environments will need to be rebuilt to reflect the new locations. The /opt directory may become a thing of the past for ArchLinux but for now, both will work. I would think that a new ISO would be released fairly soon, accommodating these changes.
If anyone has any issues with the repository, please visit the IRC Channel or send me an email and I will look into it.

This event was interestingly enough offered as a pay per view as well as free to air on Spike. If the pay per view had offered HD widescreen, it perhaps may have been a consideration over the free event, but it was not, so I’m guessing there was no money made off the ppv element other than the people who ignorantly paid for the free event.
In terms of results, the biggest shock to probably everyone except Randy Couture was Gabriel Gonzaga’s win over Mirko Cro Cop. Cro Cop has been dropped before, but Gonzaga caught him with one of the most vicious high kicks to the temple I have ever seen. Cro Cop dropped instantly and ended up tangled up like a human pretzel with right leg buckled under him. This was probably the most entertaining fight of the evening.

Hometown favorite Michael Bisping won his bout after dominating it for its duration until he was in danger of being submitted, then came back with a barrage of ground and pound until it was over. Bisping’s young son ran into the ring to offer congratulations and was just in time to hear the post fight interview where Bisping uttered obscenities.

The rest of the headliners were fairly uneventful. Notably, Cheick Kongo and Andre Arlovski were both victorious in their contests, seemingly fighting not to lose instead of putting on a good show for the fans.

UFC 71 is approaching where Chuck Liddell will defend his Light Heavyweight belt against the only unavenged competitor who has defeated him in the past. There have been so many titles changing hands lately other than Liddell’s that he appears to be the only mainstay champion.

It would be nice to see more lightweight fights at 155 lbs. Where the hell is Sean Sherk these days anyway? Let’s get going on watching these guys who are the most exciting and well conditioned athletes in the sport!