If you dual-boot or have to use Windows 7 for work and miss Ubuntu, here's something you can use to make Windows look more familiar: a Windows 7 theme called "Maverick for Win7" designed to look like the Ubuntu Ambiance theme (the latest version in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick).

Compiz 0.9.2.1 was uploaded to the official Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal repositories yesterday and to a PPA. I was hoping we'll also get a PPA with Ubuntu 10.10 packages but only part of the packages have been uploaded to that PPA (and they don't work even if you install the rest of the Compiz dependencies). But I though I'd copy the Natty packages in a PPA for Maverick and give it a try and I was surprised to see... it actually works.

However, most part of the plugins are not available yet so using the PPA I've set up (which is a temporarely PPA by the way - until Compiz 0.9.2 (or newer) packages will be uploaded to an official PPA) you'll only get the "main" (compiz-fusion-plugins-main) plugins. Also, Emerald won't work.

Update: A new PPA comes with fixed Ubuntu 10.10 Linux Sopcast Player packages so use that instead of this manual fix.

SopCast Player is a Linux GUI front-end for the p2p streaming technology developed by SopCast. SopCast can play various TV channels online (watch football games, HBO, AXN Movie and so on) for free. Besides the default channel list, you can find many more (local or international) channels by simply searching Google.

Because there aren't too many touch-enabled devices so only a few people can enjoy the touch functionality in Unity (Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook Edition), the guys at Canonical blog posted a video showing off the amazing multi-touch capabilities of Unity:

NE Terminal Config is an utility to configure the Nautilus Elementary embedded terminal (which is only available for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat), developed by FLOZz.

To avoid the confusion: Nautilus Terminal (which is also developed by FLOZz) is a Nautilus extension to get an embedded terminal into Nautilus which works with any Nautilus version. However, NE Terminal Config is an utility for configuring the embedded terminal feature in Nautilus Elementary, not the Nautilus Terminal extension.

NE Terminal Config allows you to change the colors, font, default terminal height, hide/show the scrollbar and so on.

The Medibuntu repository is available (was released seconds ago) for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat - I know many of you were waiting for it so here is how to add it to your sources.list:

Most of you probably like the fact that Ubuntu Software Center is now used for opening .deb files in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, but I for one am not very happy with this change because Ubuntu Software Center is a lot slower then GDebi so why wait some extra seconds when I can do it faster with GDebi?

Also, Ubuntu Software Center doesn't display the dependencies that will be installed with the .deb so if for instance I download some .deb for KDE and don't realize this, Ubuntu Software Center will install hundreds of packages while GDebi will display the number of dependencies that are about to be installed so this can be avoided:

With the release of Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, Ksplice Uptrack - the rebootless update capability - will yet again be offered free of charge for Ubuntu Desktop 10.10.

In case you don't know, Ksplice Uptrack lets you apply Kernel updates without having to reboot. While you have to pay a monthly fee to use it for Debian, Red Hat, CentOS or Ubuntu Server, Ksplice Uptrack is free to use for Ubuntu Desktop (from 9.04 to 10.10) and Fedora 13.

To get you started with your fresh Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat installation, I'd though I'd share the commands I use to install the basic stuff. For everything else there's Ubuntu Tweak or manual installation, however these following should get you started.

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat final has just been released. I'm taking this opportunity to review the major changes (mostly on the UI) in both Ubuntu 10.10 Desktop and Netbook editions. If you're a regular WebUpd8 reader, you should already know all these changes but even so, read on for a new Unity video (recorded today) as well as a recap of the changes to Ubuntu Software Center, Unity and so on. 

Please note that as usual, the Netbook Edition video and screenshots have been taken on my desktop - that's because I personally do not like Unity and prefer my own netbook setup, but it has nothing to do with the Unity performance (which by the way works great now).

If you can't afford to buy an Ubuntu 10.10 CD and can't download the ISO, you'll be glad to know ShipIt, a Canonical service which provides free Ubuntu CDs everywhere in the world - is now open and you can already pre-oder a free Ubuntu / Kubuntu 10.10 CD.

As always, remember not to abuse the system and only order a free CD is you can't download the image yourself due to limited internet connectivity.

The Ubuntu 10.10 CDs (Ubuntu and Kubuntu desktop as well as Ubuntu server) are available for purchase in the Canonical store.

Canonical will still provide free CDs through ShipIt (not yet available for Ubuntu 10.10 - already available for Ubuntu 10.10) but if you can afford it, you could buy the CD and help Canonical and Ubuntu.

You can buy a minimum of 5 CDs and the estimated shipping date is 18 October, 2010. Why 5 CDs? Well, you can share it with your friends, family and so on.

Until today, to install Java in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat, you'd either have to switch to the Lucid Partner repository or use a PPA. That's not required because Sun Java (6.21) has finally been uploaded to the Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat official Partner repository.

A recent update in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat (it probably didn't reach the users yet) sets the Ubuntu font as the default Application, Window title, and Desktop font for Ubuntu 10.10:

For now, the font has only been set as default for the Ubuntu Desktop edition; Kubuntu will not be getting the Ubuntu font by default and regarding the Ubuntu Netbook Edition (or the other Ubuntu flavors), no info is available at this time.


Update: you can now install the Ubuntu Font Family from a public PPA.

Ubuntu 10.10 Release Candidate has just been released. There aren't too many visual changes since the beta version (most of the visual changes happened before the beta so see THIS post), but there are a few things worth mentioning. Read on to see what's new in Ubuntu 10.10 Release Candidate (since Ubuntu 10.10 beta)!

Adding MPD (and thus any MPD client) to the Ubuntu Sound Menu is very easy thanks to Vsevolod Velichko who maintains a PPA for a package he created to add MPD to the Sound Menu.

The new Ubuntu font ("Ubuntu Font Family") has just been uploaded to the Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat official repositories and is now shipped with both Ubuntu desktop and netbook editions according to the Ubuntu meta and Netbook meta changelogs:

The font however is not used by default on any Ubuntu flavor! As bug 649616 points out, the decision on making this the default font for Ubuntu 10.10 has not been taken yet.

The Ubuntu Font Family has been released as a Libre font, licensed under the Ubuntu Font Licence 1.0:

Canonical are working with SFLC and SIL on a revision of the OFL with the intent of adopting that revision for a future version of the Ubuntu Font Family. This Ubuntu Font Licence serves as an interim licence until that is complete. Source

That's because the license still needs some clarifications.

Fglrx was updated yesterday in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and what's special about this is that it finally supports Xorg 1.9 and 2.6.35 kernel. Up until now, ATI users who've tried to install Fglrx or upgraded from Ubuntu 10.04 would get a blank screen. So if you have an ATI graphics card and want to use Fglrx, you can finally install / upgrade to the latest Ubuntu 10.10.

Further more, another update to Fglrx came today, brining compatiblity with kernel 2.6.36 (not yet available in Maverick but it nice to already have it).

This tip was sent by WebUpd8 reader Tamás Nagy who's also tested the new Fglrx drivers in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat and he says everything is working smoothly.

The Ubuntu Light Themes - version 0.1.8 was released today (with a bit of a delay - these fixes were announced  a week ago on the Canonical Design blog)  and while it doesn't bring major changes, it improves the menu slowness (it seems the fix only improves the situation but does not completely solves it - see the comments on this post) and fixes bad contrast between text and background.

Reading the Ubuntu Planet today, I came across a post which mentions a new "feature" that is going to be in Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat: Evolution, the default Ubuntu email client will automatically add a "Sent from Ubuntu" signature to the emails you send.