Ubuntu grows and grows....

The Ubuntu linux distribution has become the most downloaded, most used and most liked linux distributuion of all.

With the first relaease in October 2004, it has gone to the top of distrowatch and remained there.

It is certainly the friendliest linux distro around. It is also the best distro to run on notebooks. The Thinkpads are specialy supported, as the team in Canonical UK, mostly use them.

The brown, clean, Gnome desktop and its simple toolbars, the ability to add/remove a vast number of programs, ease of use, good hardware detection, ease of installation from the desktop of a live CD, are adding together.

The futuristic Beryl desktop 3D enhancements, look great already.

Meanwhile the new Ubuntu server offes a LTSP-5(Linux Terminal Server Project). LTSP-5 is designed to offer thin clients a lower TCO (total cost of ownership), simpler installation, and easier maintenance than typical office desktop deployments.

open source GPL 2 java by sun

open source community will be thrilled to find the java language being made available with FOSS label.

http://www.sun.com/software/opensource/java/index.jsp

This is thought to be one major step in making open source platforms stronger and more useful. It will allow open source developers to get involved in java development without worrying about legal issues.

The spread of java to more and more devices and platforms is likely.

Concept Maps and Mind Maps

Concept Mapping is an extremely useful tool as I found out. There are several free tools which provide some cool functions. Most of them use java, while one uses Trolltechs language Qt, and is called View Your Mind.

I personally find Concept Maps more useful than Mind Maps. CMap Tools and Compendium are my favorites at the moment.

They are also, a very nice presentation tool.......