Digg “Linux Nation” for Thursday November 1st 2007

Every week I comment on the top stories of the week in the Digg.com Linux/Unix area.  Last week there was so much junky Ubuntu news, due to the release of Gutsy Gibbon, I needed to cut it out a little bit, just to keep some sanity.  This week, there seems to be a good balance so I’ve left the list as-is and we’re back to the top 15 of the week format.

1.  Ten Absolutely Stupid Quotes By Steve Ballmer
Oh, my god.  If you’ve ever enjoyed watching the Steve Ballmer developers video, you’ll enjoy this list.  I haven’t seen all of these until now.

2.  ATI Releases Catalyst 7.10 Drivers for Linux
This is pretty fsckin great news if you have an ATI video card.

“The Catalyst control center for Linux now has a new 3D user interface as well that allows users to adjust settings like anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering and VSync. This release also provides support for X.org version 7.3.” – Shane McGlaun

3.  Itty-bitty, teeny-weeny Linux PCs 
Want a computer that James Bond would envy?  Something like the 3ePC from Asus might get a reaction.  I’m personally considering buying one of these.

4.  Linux Doesn’t Lack Drivers, it Lacks Complete Drivers
I think this article hits the point squarely on the head with the following quote.

“Linux may be free as in beer, but it effectively costs me $50 if it reduces my $80 mouse to the feature set of a $30 mouse.”

5.  Cracking Windows passwords with Linux
Whether you’re cracking windows NTLM passwords with rainbow tables or just using a registry tool to remove the password completely, this is a really great guide to recovering a password on a Windows XP machine.  Highly recommended.

6.  Mac4Lin – Mac OS X Leopard Is Coming to Your Linux Desktop
Well… I’ll admit I tried this guide, and it failed badly because the instructions are specifically for Feisty Fawn and Gutsy doesn’t have a few of the files in the default repositories… it still left me asking myself, “Why do this?  There are better themes out there that aren’t in a legal grey area.”

7.  Current plans for Ubuntu 8.04
This is good.  Way good.  I wrote a very comprehensive article about these plans and what I think of them (including a new default theme for the next version of Ubuntu), check it out here.

8.  Mandriva: An open letter to Steve Ballmer
Have you ever read 419 Eater?  Perhaps you did all the research, fact checking, etc to make sure these fine folks from Nigeria were able to be trusted… but I can’t say that I didn’t expect something like this to happen.  Microsoft has deep pockets, and when they partner with unsavory folks like this, it makes Microsoft look really bad.

9.  Ubuntu Certificate of Authenticity
AHHHHAHAHAHA…. I love this.

10.  New York Times opens up code
NYTimes has been releasing open source code since July, but this is a good article that explains how it all came about.

11.  Mythbuntu 7.10 hits 20,000 downloads in one week
I didn’t know that many people used Mythbuntu. 

12.  Ubuntu 8.04 to finally get a new default theme? 
Two articles this week on themes….. see my comments on it here.

13.  Wine 0.9.48 Released
Everyone’s favority not-an-emulator gets a new point release.  It’s usually a good idea to upgrade to the latest version, if you’re feeling adventurous, grab it.

14.  ATI: Linux vs. Windows Vista
This is a really good comparison of ATI video game performance in both Linux and Vista.  Very interesting results, check it out.

15.  Fedora 8 Werewolf (Screenshots)
I’ve tried out a beta of Fedora 8 and was fairly impressed.  The biggest piece of news with the latest release (for me, anyways) is Codec Buddy, which makes it easier to install codecs for proprietary formats.

That’s all for the week, if you haven’t already, check out the video where I go and delete every file on a Linux machine while it’s still running.  You might be asking why I’d do this… the answer is simple – because I can!  If you’ve ever personally wondered what happens, you can’t say I didn’t show you.  🙂

See you next week!