Ubuntu recently demoed their new Ubuntu Netbook Remix for small (ultra mobile/ultra portable) sub-notebook computers like the Asus Eee PC. Whilst it is not impossible to install Ubuntu's latest Hardy Heron version on these UMPCs, Ubuntu releases a more apt version to suit the constraints of these devices.

ArsTechnica.com provides a hands-on report with this new Ubuntu variant. You can, however, install the interface on top of your Hardy Heron install and have a feel of how the next Ubuntu-running UMPCs will be.

With the ultra-portable, Linux-running sub-notebook computers on the rise, this one is a welcome addition to add a slick new interface tailored made for the devices. I wonder how SugarLabs and Xandros will respond.

Image courtesy of ArsTechnica.com

Google now provides Linux users with Google Gadget support. If you are not familiar with how gadgets work, it is similar to Yahoo! gadgets and the Mac's dashboard widgets, i.e., small utilities/applications that run on the background and invoked by a press of a key or two. This is useful specially when there are small utilities that you use but do not want it to clog your screen real estate.

You can download Google Gadgets now and follow the quick start guide to install and use it.

The next question is - what is your favorite gadget?

image courtesy of Google.com.

On my Mac, I use iStat Menu to monitor my system. On Linux, there are several tools to do this but I have found Conky to be the most familiar, i.e., looks like iStat Menu.

Photo courtesy of iStockphoto, Stepan Popov

Whilst we have several distributions with LiveCD versions to allow us to boot-up our computer and run/test Linux without installing it, not too many are familiar with LiveUSB (not all motherboards support USB-booting, only recent motherboards do). Whilst we have PenDriveLinux to thank for giving us a single source of knowledge on how to create USB versions of our installers, creating LiveUSB versions is still a bit cryptic to most. However, Ubuntu users have this nifty tool that makes it super easy to create a LiveUSB distribution. Here's what the tool does:

• Detects available USB sticks (using HAL) and asks user which one to use
• Partitions USB stick with 1 partition
• Sets partition bootable
• Writes MBR to USB stick
• Formats partition FAT16
• Installs bootloader (syslinux) to partition
• Writes bootloader configuration file
• Copies necessary files from running Live CD to USB stick
• Sets language and keyboard of USB Live system to match running Live CD

Check it out and tell us if it is indeed easy for you to make one.

Whilst we have featured quite a number of backup utilities for Linux, here is another one that may just prove to be a solution that works on almost all popular platform. Areca, is a personal backup software that runs entirely on the Java virtual machine, i.e., runs on all platforms that support Java.



If you want to know how to use it on Fedora 9, here's an article from HowToForge.

Enjoy!

Miguel de Icaza just announced the first public release of Moonlight, an open source implementation of Microsoft's Silverlight after about several months in initial beta. However, this release is not version 1.0 nor is it feature-complete, so use at your own risk.

Whilst I do not really use it nor do I intend to install it, there are users who *might* just find a need for this technology.



Do you have any use for this Microsoft technology?

Not too long ago, I featured two entries, "Linux Video Editing" and "State of Video Editing", on video editing in Linux. Today, I feature another one that I just recently discovered, Open Movie Editor, a Linux-only basic movie editor.