Automatix was one of the tools that made our life easier during the first Ubuntu versions (more or less until the Feisty release). But each new Ubuntu release, all those tasks that Automatix did, were completed by default. So Automatix became useless.

Later, Automatix team wanted Canonical to include it inside Ubuntu. That should have been the solution for all… but Canonical said no to Automatix explaining that Automatix is, in itself, a poor quality package which fails to conform to Debian or Ubuntu policy.

But it seems that the Automatix team went on developing tools and some days ago the released a new tool, similar to Automatix, but its name is Ultamatix. Ultamatix can be installed on Ubuntu Ultimate Edition, Ubuntu Hardy and Debian systems (including unstable branch). This is the software list that Automatix can install:

The only thing that is more or less interesting of Ultamatix are the games that can be installed. Some of them can be installed by Add/Remove, but not others like Vegastrice or Warzone 2100. So in that case Ultamatix is useful. Even though all this, there are no really new things. Actually, the look is not different in comparison with the old Automatix. So you decide.

• Source | Softpedia
• Download | Ultamatix

Something happened in the aMSN forums one month ago. A group of programmers from aMSN, emesene and pymsn started a discussion about how to develop aMSN2.

First of all, the main change in aMSN2 will be that from now, they won’t use tcl/tk anymore. They are now using python and EFL libraries (Enlightenment Foundation Libraries) with which the gui will be much nicer than the current one (that’s not really complicated).

aMSN2 will be a multi-front-end program. This means that there will be different gui depending on the desktop or operating system we use. For example, on Mac they will use cocoa as a front-end, on KDE4 QT and XUL and GTK on GNOME.

Emesene programmers will focus on the GNOME version while pymsn programmers will work on the MSN protocol. The rest of the programmers will work in other general purposes.

All this still in development, there is one interesting screencast about what the current state of the program is. We hope to try in a few months this new internet messenger.

• Source | SomGNU.cat
• Link | aMSN forums

It’s been a long time since I’ve been collecting wallpapers that I do like. They are not all about linux topics. There are wallpapers about nature (the most part), animals, girls, comics, abstract…

These wallpapers are generally from gnome-look and other links that you can find on this post (visiting the links you can see license…. the most part have no problems). This is a selection of the 30 wallpaper that for me are the best (at this moment, I’ll change my mind in the future, for sure).

• Donwload | 30 wallpapers selection

Two weeks ago, after the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Praga, a report about what will be the new goals and features on the next Ubuntu was published.

There are many improvements and changes that the developers want to include. Maybe one of the most important changes is the goal about reducing start-up time.

These will be the new features:

• New theme and visual changes on the desktop (they were about to change it on Hardy, but there were no time to do it)
• Better firefox 3 integration on KDE (at this moment Oxygen and Firefox are not good friends)
• 3G network support
• Faster start-up system and general improvements on the system
• The want Wubi to be better, more options, more possibilities
• They will include the kernel 2.6.26 (that’s a shame because webcam and wifi drivers will be included on the 2.6.27)
• Grub2 is going to get in. Basically, grub will became prettier with a nice graphical aspect
• New Compiz Fusion plugins, above all the plugin that will turn soft the log-in and log-out from GNOME or KDE
• Better flash integration and free flash players promoting

One of the most important tools that linux users need to use almost everyday is the terminal. Even though you are a new user, you have to use the terminal.

When you get used, the terminal became an indispensable friend that allows us to control everything and reports much more better the information about our system than all gui applications can do together.

For that reason exist Yakuake (on KDE) or Tilda (on GNOME), two programs that run a terminal just pushing one of the function keys. Even though Yakuake is a good solution for KDE, tilda is not really good for GNOME. The integration and functionality is limited in comparison with Yakuake.

But there is other solution on GNOME: Guake!. Guake is basically Yakuake for GNOME and is more or less exactly the same, with the same functions and appeareance. At this moment there are only precompiled versions for Ubuntu. The rest, we have to compile it from the source.

• Source | SomGNU.cat
• Download | Guake! 0.3.0

Two days ago a new ati catalyst drivers were published, the 8.6.

Of course they’ve solved some bugs and improved the performance, but there is something new that is kind of interesting: the new command-line installer.

With older versions, we were able to install the drivers by two ways: with the graphical installer (not always working well) or the command-line installer that made the specific distributions packages (–buildpkg).

Since now, things will change. There is a new option for the command-line installer that allows to detect our distribution and its version and create directly the packages. Even more, it installs the created packages and configures the system. The specific command is:
sudo bash ./ati-driver-installer-8-6-x86.x86_64.run --buildandinstallpkg

However, that’s the theory. I tried to run it on my Ubuntu Hardy and the distribution was detected, packages were created, but it couldn’t install them (I don’t know exactly why). Even though, at least it was able to detect and create the specific packages by its own.

Finally, I installed the packeges manually, and it worked. The problem was that when I tried to run wine, the screen broke in two… (metaforicaly).

• Link | Release notes
• Download | Catalyst Linux Driver 8.6

In less than three hours we will be able to download the latest Firefox (from the link above). Mozilla wants Firefox 3 to get in the Guinness World Records, so they set up this page and you can join and help us to be successful!!

Since the Xbox Media Center was released it was relatively impossible to find the easy way to install it.

XBMC (formerly named “XBox Media Center”) is a free and open source (GPL) media-player and entertainment hub. XBMC can play a very complete spectrum of of multimedia formats, and featuring playlist, audio visualizations, slideshow, and weather forecast functions, together with a multitude of third-party plugins.

Now it is possible to install the XMBC on Ubuntu using deb packges that some people have prepared. Also we can add some repositories to synaptic and install it directly.

You just need to add these repositories to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-hardy/ubuntu hardy main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc-hardy/ubuntu hardy main

Then install it (and the skins, scripts…):
sudo apt-get install xbmc xbmc-skin-* xbmc-eventclients-*

It’s a nice Media Center, eventhough we have other media centers on GNU/Linux like Elisa or Sofa that are pretty as well.

• Link | Ubuntulife
• Download | Deb packages (if you don’t want to add the repositories)

aMule is the linux version of eMule. When we run aMule we notice that the environement is not as cool as eMule, and it’s been since it was published.

A new version of aMule is in development and the main changes will be taken on the GUI: we will be able to change the icon theme and choose among a kind of cool flavours: KDE4, XFCE, GNOME, Tango…

But there will be more general improvements on the graphical side. Some details that have always been a problem will be fixed. Of course, the engine will improve (actually, it’s been already improved) and other small things are supposed to change as well.

At this moment it is possible to install the development version on Debian using these repositories:
deb http://www.vollstreckernet.de/debian/ testing amule wx

Then, just install needed packages:
apt-get install amule amule-skin-gnome amule-skin-tango

For other distributions you can visit this page.

• Link | jEsuSdA

Those people who translate free software to other languages (for example, I translate from English to Catalan), has realised that Ubuntu is not as good as we could think.

First of all, Ubuntu uses Rosetta in order to organize the translations. It seems is a good and easy system to do it, but there is an important problem: Rosetta is not free software.

Second, translations done by this way can’t be used in other distributions, so it’s necessary to translate again something if other distribution wants to use that software.

I know my explanation isn’t very good. For that reason it’s better to read the article in wingolog.

Someone has proposed it at the BrainStorm area. It is a good idea to vote it.