Like Clockwork - GNOME 2.24 Released

Like clockwork, GNOME 2.24 was released today as an upgrade from 2.22 which was released on March 12. GNOME is on a strict 6 month, time based release cycle. With a time based release schedule, changes are more incremental than in other projects but they still manage to get a lot of good stuff in. Check out the GNOME 2.4 release notes for all the details and with good screen shots.

The highlights of this release as I see it are:

• The first release with the mobile development platform "to provide a core platform on which distributors and handheld manufacturers can build rich programming environments". Although not running GNOME specifically, that fancy new T-Mobile Android phone is running Linux.
  
• A new integrated IM client, Empathy. Some are excited about Empathy possibly replacing Pidgin (formerly Gaim) in some distributions but I am skeptical. I love Pidgin. That is my only IM client on Windows and Linux.
• The addition of tabs to Nautilus, the file manager. This has been a complaint by many for what seems like forever.
• New Screen Resolution Controls. We shall see if this helps. Linux notoriously has issues with multi-head systems. Much if this is thanks to poor display drivers though. The whole stack needs work.
  

This GNOME release will show up in Ubuntu 8.10 on October 30th, Fedora 10 on November 25th and openSUSE 11.1 on December 18th. If you don't want to wait that long to try it out, most of these distributions already are in late Alpha or Beta and have close to the final 2.24 release in them. There used to be a live CD as part of a distribution called Foresight Linux and some VMware images also. I don't see those up yet for this release yet though. I am not sure if the 2.22 release ever had them created either. You may also find the Ars Technica review informative as I usually do.

Firefox 3, Making awesome software and world records

If you haven't noticed (I don't think any one hasn't), Firefox 3 has been out for just over 2 weeks now (June 17, 2008). On the release day they also had a push to create a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in one day and despite some initial issues, they (we) did it!

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. From 18:16 UTC on June 17, 2008 to 18:16 UTC on June 18, 2008, 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

I've been running some of the betas for a while now and despite some crashes in those pre-releases, this is definitely the best release yet. It feels faster, looks better, uses less memory and the awesome bar truly is awesome. If you have been running Ubuntu 8.04, you too have been running beta 5. So go get your download day certificate and enjoy the new browser.

Gnome 2.22 to be released today

I'm excited. Gnome 2.22 is set to be released today. Check out what's new in the release notes. The changes I find most useful are PolicyKit integration (so I don't have to type in my password if I just want to do something like view the partitions in GParted) and GVFS. Those changes will help and will continue to help make Gnome a more usable desktop in future releases.

The official release hasn't been posted yet but once it is I plan to download a Foresight LiveCD to check it out for myself. Foresight is the distribution used as "the top choice when demonstrating the latest GNOME". Once the ISOs are posted, the Gnome 2.22 LiveCD torrents will be here.

I won't be running Gnome 2.22 regularly until after Ubuntu 8.04, which will have it, is released on April 24th (as currently scheduled). That is the date I am really looking forward to. It is funny to read the release notes of Gnome and Ubuntu because much of the new stuff in Ubuntu is because it is new in Gnome. The Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 6 release notes mention PolicyKit, the new world clock applet and GVFS. All of those are also in the Gnome 2.22 release notes.

Ubuntu Version Numbers And Release Names Explained

Ever since I started looking into running Ubuntu, I have wondered, what is the deal with the crazy version numbers? I first started playing with Ubuntu release 6.06. The release after that was 6.10 and then 7.04. How did they go from 6.06 -> 6.10 -> 7.04 and what is up with the weird zero X numbers?

Well the answer is both simple and logical. If you take a minute to look at the pattern, you will see it is obvious. The version is the year plus the month of the release. So 6.06 was released in June 2006, 6.10 in October 2006 and 7.04 in April 2007. I am currently running 7.10 which was released in October 2007. See how easy that is? It is also nice because then you know exactly how old or new the version you are dealing with is.

As detailed on the Ubuntu Wiki, release names are a little different...

• Warty Warthog was released in October 2004, release number 4.10.
• Hoary Hedgehog was released in April 2005, release number 5.04.
• Breezy Badger) was released in October 2005, release number 5.10.
• Dapper Drake) was released in June 2006, release number 6.06 LTS
• Edgy Eft) was released in October 2006, release number 6.10.
• Feisty Fawn) was released in April 2007, release number 7.04.
• Gutsy Gibson was released in October 2007, release number 7.10.
• Hardy Heron will be released in April 2008, release number 8.04

Although not a hard and fast rule, lately they have been going with code names in alphabetical order. I am hoping the 8.10 release will be called Infallible Iguana.

Also, from the outdated by 9+ months Ubuntu FAQ,

Note: The official way to refer to a released version of Ubuntu is by the number, not the name. Thus the current version of Ubuntu is 7.04, not Feisty Fawn.