The 3D-Desktop has been a hot topic since Novellshowed-off their XGL/Compiz integration for NLD 10 at a Solutions Linux conference in January this year. Useless for some, simply cool for others. In any case, there’s a “Wow” factor that’s just good for Linux on the desktop: your neighbours during train or plane trips always ask “what’s with the cube”? “Oh, this is a Linux desktop”, you answer. And that’s when you’ll give her the speech.
So Blino baked a recipe, put it all in Cooker and made a video of Mandriva Linux 2007 running sexy Compiz effects (powered by XGL in this case). Check it out:
We’re enabling both AIGLX and XGL technologies in Mandriva Linux 2007. The selection will be automatic, so it’s a transparent process for you (unless you want to tweak and hack and break and make ;)). We handle Intel, Nvidia and ATI chipsets through both proprietary and Free drivers. It works on both KDE and GNOME desktop environments.
Apart from those addictive effects (try using a 3D-Desktop for a few days then go back to a plain old desktop to understand “addictive effects”) and the “Wow factor”, many say there’s not much to the 3D-Desktop on Linux yet. Major Linux distributions, and some smaller ones, have just integrated these technologies. This was the first step.
When you’re done showing-off your cool Mandriva Linux 2007 and evangelizing the great things we can achieve through Free and Open Source Software, go make some great 3D-ready applications!
You can now get the latest version of Firefox for your Mandriva Linux 2006 system directly from the Security Updates.
Frédéric Crozat, who maintains Mozilla packages and is the GNOME developer (among other things) for Mandriva, explains:
“Mozilla is not supporting 1.0.x versions of Firefox and Thunderbird anymore. We had shipped 1.0.6 versions of both applications with Mandriva Linux 2006.0 and were able to provide security fixes in sync with version 1.0.8, but now we suddenly found ourselves unsafe. We decided to break our no-backports rule for Firefox and Thunderbird for that reason.”
So there you go, next time you type MandrivaUpdate in your console as root, Firefox will suddenly be safer and more featureful. Kiosk users will benefit from the Firefox update plus the Thunderbird update very soon. UPDATE : Mozilla(TM) Pack 1.5.0.6 is available on Kiosk
Frédéric says it’s likely that a special policy will be implemented for Mozilla software also in Mandriva Linux 2007, resulting in very reactive updates. Although very beneficial for you, dear user, Mozilla’s strategy results in very complicated maintenance of applications that depend on Firefox as a platform, such as Galeon or Epiphany. Another reason to use Konqueror and KHTML some of you will say ;).
In the meantime, run that MandrivaUpdate command already and get Firefox 1.5.0.6!
Odin, chief God of the Norse pantheon. He stands for wisdom, war, battle, death, poetry, magic, prophecy, victory, hunt. More about him on Wikipedia.
Odin, the second Mandriva Linux 2007 Beta. It stands for:
GNOME 2.16 beta 2
Kernel 2.6.17 (based on 2.6.17.8, with ALSA 1.0.12 rc2, i965 support, and new kernel factorization: normal, enterprise and legacy)
KDE 3.5.4
More applications migrated to XDG menus
New ‘Ia Ora’ Mandriva Theme (for now only included in GNOME)
New VPN configuration tool (drakvpn)
Yes, the new Mandriva Linux 2007 theme is already available for GNOME! It’s called IaOra, meaning “Hi” in Polynesian (”Hello” is “Ia Orana”).
