The team over at Ubuntu have released the latest beta of Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron). There are lots of upgrades to the existing software packages including the following :

• Xorg 7.3
• Linux kernel 2.6.24
• GNOME 2.22
• PolicyKit
• PulseAudio
• Firefox 3 Beta 4
• Transmission BitTorrent Client
• Wubi

This is the best release yet for ‘converting’ windows users to the world of open source software using Wubi to enable it to be easily installed and used as a dual boot system without any complicated partitioning needed. This is a great way to try Linux without having to compromise the integrity of your windows partition in any way.

I will be upgrading to 8.04 on all of my machines as soon as it goes to stable. I have been totally converted to Ubuntu for my desktop OS over the past year. As an avid Linux user for the past 6 or 7 years using a myriad of different distributions. College Linux whilst I was on the development team there before it was dissolved, Debian for years, a bit of Gentoo mixed in as well but none have come close to Ubuntu for ease of usability and I will continue using it as my primary desktop OS for the foreseeable future.

Another quick update on the state of this blog!

I have added a category system to the posts. All the posts are now sorted by category as well as the original tagging system. This enables quicker referencing when trying to look back through the old posts. Posts can be viewed by category by going here.

There is also now an RSS feed for new posts. This can be viewed by going here. Or paste the link into your favourite RSS reader.

That’s all for now.

Just a quick entry to say that the tag system should now be functional. It is very basic but as I said in my previous posting hopefully I will get time to add more functionality eventually.

Hi to anyone that happens to be reading this. This is my new blog to document my random ramblings and thoughts. This will mostly contain a lot of random thoughts of mine regarding computers, programming, scripting, the world in general etc etc.

Of course this blog was also an exercise to see if I could knock up a basic blogging PHP script in a few hours. No doubt there will be a few bugs but I will hopefully iron those out relatively quickly. Time will tell on that front I suppose. If you do happen to find any bugs feel free to use the contact link to email these through to me so I can sort them out.

The blog will be undergoing many updates in the near future. At the moment it is an extrememly simple script (and the tags don’t even do anything yet). Soon it will be a lot more functional with archiving etc to make it easier to navigate. Hopefully some of my ramblings will come in useful enough to some people to make this worthwhile

Matt