ks writes "Novell hacker Jan Holesovsky has released a build of OOo 1.1.3 that integrates with either KDE or GNOME depending on the environment it's running in. The build features KDE/GNOME look and feel, KDE/GNOME file dialogs and the Crystal icons. If you're running NLD, you have this already." Update: 11/27 18:13 GMT by T : Also on the OpenOffice.org front, the OO.o front page links to this interview with Debian ARM developer Peter Naulls, who has ported the suite to ARM processors. Hint: they're everywhere.

sombragris points out this interview on OfB, excerpting "Open for Business Associate Editor Eduardo Sánchez sits down with Scott Wheeler, creator and lead developer of JuK, and a member of the KDE Multimedia Team, to find out where the KDE multimedia department is headed in general, and concerning a replacement for aRts, more specifically."

Robin "Roblimo" Miller is well-known in the open-source world for advocating cheap, user-friendly Linux computing and demonstrating that it's not only possible but available, right now. (He's also a writer and editor at NewsForge, and the editor in chief of OSTG, of which Slashdot is a part, and therefore one of my bosses; take that for what it's worth.) Roblimo's new book Point and Click Linux really consists of three things: the book itself, an included copy on CD of the Debian-based SimplyMepis Linux distribution, and a DVD featuring Roblimo's multi-part narrated video guide for getting started with Linux, Mepis and KDE. "Getting started" is key; this book is for the interested beginner, not the power user. Read on for the rest of my review.

trustedserf writes "This year I am including a bootable Live Linux CD in many of my Christmas cards. As I'll be making the copies myself I may even change the default desktop background to something personal, or Christmasy before running it off on cheap CD-Rs. The objective is to show people the easiest possible route to using a linux desktop so that they will be: A) Aware and B) Pleasantly surprised. About Christmas they may also have more time to try it out too. Naturally, I'm thinking of Gnoppix, but there are other options.. I use KDE, so I have to decide between it and Gnome. Bearing in mind my objectives, what distro would you choose. Also, importantly, is it possible any of them will damage their hardware (monitors with incorrect refresh etc.) I would be *very* unhappy if that happened. How many of them would fail to boot, leaving a bad impression? Which way would you go about it for maximum "WOW"."

norburym writes "The publishers' blurb on the back cover describes Knoppix as 'a veritable Swiss Army knife in CD form.' Knoppix Hacks by Kyle Rankin is no less astounding in revealing the hidden versatility and power inherent in this unassuming tool." Read on for the rest of Norbury-Glaser's review.

Chris writes "With new features such as SELinux, GNOME 2.8, KDE 3.3, Evolution 2.0, Remote Desktop, Helix Player, and of course Firefox, it may be worth your while to make the switch. At OSDir our screenshot tour of Fedora Core 3 takes you through boot, installation, desktop, taskbar, menus, configuration, and the new features of this new release. Our Core 3 screenshot tours have taken you through Test 1, 2, 3, and now the final release. Check it out."

anyweb writes "Fedora Core Release 3 is out now, Heidelberg, 2.6.9-1.667 kernel, Firefox included ! Gnome 2.8 and more. Here are some screenshots" New release includes Gnome 2.8, KDE 3.3, Kernel 2.6.9, Firefox PR1, Thunderbird 0.8, Ximian Evolution 2.0 and more. Here is a Mirror List and Bit Torrent

An anonymous reader writes "After reading this article, I was pretty excited about trying an Ubuntu live CD on my Mac, because I've heard a lot about the distro. But it turns out the only live CD is for x86. Looking around for PPC live CD's that support modern hardware (like a G5) and demo modern versions of KDE and Gnome has proven fruitless so far. Does Slashdot know of any current projects that have released or are working on releasing a nice PPC live CD?"

Bruno_me writes "Some of the folks at the GameCube Linux project have gotten KDE to run on a GameCube. There's a screenshot of what it actually looks like and what it should look like. This is the first real 'GameKube.' And of course, here is the original frame buffer (dd if=/dev/fb0 of=./kde.fbdump)."

comforteagle writes "In this month's KDE: From the Source, entitled Breaking the Network Barrier George Staikos takes us on a walk-through of KDE's desktop networking protocol handlers in the vein of sftp:// webdav:// and a few really nifty ones I wasn't aware of like info:/ perldoc:/ and tar:/. The entire KDE desktop environment is decked out like this, and as George puts it, 'Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X have a long way to go to catch up with the robust, transparent functionality that KDE has provided since version 2.0.'"

InnerPhalanx writes "Today, SuSE 9.2 Professional Edition has been released. SuSE writes: 'It combines a fast, secure operating system and more than 1,000 popular open source applications. It is the first complete Linux package to harness both the improved Linux kernel 2.6 and the recently enhanced GNOME 2.6 and KDE 3.3 user desktop environments. Ideal for Linux enthusiasts and developers, SUSE LINUX Professional 9.2 improves support for mobile users and delivers a host of essential tools.' More information at the SuSE website. The price is $89.95. The update version is $59.95. A live DVD image is also available on the SuSE website, for use by DVD. Have fun, SuSE Pro users!" Reader tannhaus submits an early review.

BEI01 writes "From windowmaker.org: After years without a release, we are glad to announce that Window Maker 0.90.0 is out! Highlights are NetWM support (thanks to Peter). This means wmaker should work fine with GNOME 2.x and KDE 3.x. UTF-8 support, antialiased text support via Xft2, Xinerama support, enhanced Alt-Tab window switching, Font configuration in WPrefs, and many fixes."

An anonymous reader writes "Looks like the folks at Xandros are getting ready for a new release of their Linux desktop. They're recruiting beta testers so those of you who like to try something new, you can sign up from here. No details about when or what to expect in the new release. Xandros always lets the other distros get the bugs out of the latest bleeding edge software before they do a new release so this should be another solid release with updated KDE, kernel, X, drivers, etc. Can't wait. Gotta get me on that beta list."

Chris writes "Did you know that OSDir now does frequently updated screenshots of open source apps, including Evolution 2.0, KDE 3.3, Gnome 2.8, Enlightenment DR 16.7.1, Thunderbird 0.8, and YaST? Have a look!" These screenshot tours are a great way to see how polished (or not) a particular piece of software is getting, especially when you absolutely have to know what every menu item holds.

Pete Gordon writes "Do Portable Usability and User Research Labs make sense in the software development life-cycle? This interview (my bias--it's with me, and I have a tool in beta now) covers some of the issues and questions on KDE's news site. I don't have the right answers necessarily, just looking for others input and opinions. Also, here are other links about the subject over the past few months. Info World and Harry's comparison."

Raymond Lodato writes "For a number of years now, I've been playing with Linux at my company. My laptop is dual-boot, and I've been trying to steer away from Windows as much as I possibly can. Most of the books I've read have been geared either to running Linux as a server, or as a personal workstation. The gap has been filled. Moving to the Linux Business Desktop, by Marcel Gagné, covers what you need to know to successful run Linux as a business workstation." Read on for the rest.

Michael Pyne writes "It's finally out, KDE 3.3.1 has been released with many bugfixes and translation improvements! Those who just want to start downloading can visit the KDE 3.3.1 Info page, which also includes packages for Red Hat, SuSE, Conectiva, and Yoper." wikinerd adds some details, writing that the new version "fixes a number of bugs in Konqueror, improves JuK and enables VPL in the Quanta webpage editor. The new Plastik theme is very fast and may become the default style in 3.4."

Chris writes "To give you a feel for what to expect in Core 3, we've done 120 screenshots of a full installation of Fedora Core 3 Test 3. Our screenshots include Gnome, KDE, and XPce interfaces. This is the last planned test release before the final release, scheduled for November 1."

An anonymous reader writes "After Hewlett Packard, who jumped off of supporting GNOME, Red Hat has followed by splitting their Desktop Linux out to Fedora which is community driven, and now distributions like Slackware have started to drop GNOME entirely in favor of KDE. Read more about their decision here. It looks like companies as well as distributions start focusing towards one solution." Patrick Volderking's quoted message doesn't announce a final decision to drop GNOME from Slackware, however -- and as the followups in that thread note, it could be interpreted as an endorsement of the good job done by Dropline in packaging GNOME for Slack.

prostoalex writes "eWeek Labs reviewed the latest editions of GNOME and KDE desktop environments, and for all the criteria that eWeek uses for evaluating the software products ranked 'good,' while usability, capability and reliability for both products ranked 'excellent.' The online version is missing the screenshots and ranking tables that the printed version has, but eWeek likes Evolution (for mail), Konqueror (for file management), Samba and Kopete. They dislike GConf (still complex and a hassle to use) on GNOME and KMail on KDE."