“The Debian project has started a new webpage: the ‘Debian package of the day.’ It does what it says — every day another package from the Debian repository is posted with an elaborate description and some nice screenshots. As Debian (and all the other distributions as well) contains way too many packages for it to be feasible to inspect all of them yourself, this is then a nice way of learning about all kinds interesting software packages.”

Debian Package of the Day

Source: linux.slashdot.org

Your Open Source Solution to Tax Time
TaxGeek is a Mozilla-based US income tax program that includes Form 1040, Schedules A, B, C, C-EZ, D, E, K-1 (1065), SE (Short and Long), W2, Form 8880, Form 8863, Form 3903, and Form 2441 with access to most other files as PDFs. It is also intended to be extensible so that developers can easily add other forms that are needed without affecting the existing file formats and stored data.

TaxGeek will do all the calculations required in the forms it supports. It can use tax-tables, tax-formula, and the qualified dividends and capital gains methods. It has 95% of the supporting worksheets for 1040 implemented and working and many of the supporting worksheets for schedules and forms that are supported. Additionally, TaxGeek has a context-based repository of PDFs of all the commonly used IRS forms that aren’t officially supported. These forms are clearly marked for identification by developers of what needs to happen next.

Source: Source Forge

TaxGeek was last updated: 03-08-07

You’ve finally made the move to a Windows-free computer, you’re enjoying your brand new Linux OS, no trojans/viruses, no slowdown, everything’s perfect. Suddenly, you need to update the BIOS on your motherboard to support some new piece of hardware, but typically the motherboard vendor is offering only DOS based BIOS flash utilities. You panic! Fortunately, this problem is easy to solve…

Source: How to flash motherboard BIOS from Linux (no DOS/Windows, no floppy drive)?

Osalt.com is a site to help you find open source alternatives to popular software.

From their site:

Our mission is to provide easy access to high quality open source alternatives to well-known commercial products. And remember that open source software is also a freeware alternative.

You can search based on commercial application and it will find open source alternatives for that application. It looks like a useful site to find free open source software to take the place of expensive commercial applications. While many open source alternatives aren’t as good as their commercial offerings, there are some that are even better than the commercial closed source versions. Most people don’t necessarily need all the features of an expensive software package when the features of an open source program will do. Check out the site and see if you can replace some of the programs you pay for with free open source alternatives.

Source: triedit.org

Enlightenment. Linux users who have been around for awhile no doubt remember this X11 window manager. I remember using in around 1999 and 2000 myself. Since then KDE and GNOME have grown by leaps and bounds and that’s where most of my GUI usage been since then. Every once in awhile a new story pops up on the web about Enlightenment and I reminisce about using it back when few people had heard of Linux. So, with the latest Elive release announcement, I decided to give Elive a try. I wanted to see how Enlightenment stacked up against the latest from KDE and GNOME that I had recently tried.

Enlightenment?
Back in the day Enlightenment, or simply E, was strictly what is known as a window manger. More or less, that’s all it did — manage your windows so you could keep them organized. It also managed how those windows were displayed and what you could do with them (i.e. minimize, maximize, etc). It didn’t come with a bunch of applications. E was always known for having lots of eye candy and I remember browsing and exchanging E themes in the past.

Well, as time passed more people began preferring desktop environments that included a bunch of applications that looked and worked similarly. These desktop environments included a lot of extra features than simply managing your windows. It gave us things like docks, task bars, and lots of nice configuration tools to help us better manager the system.

The next version of E, 0.17 (DR17), is a complete rewrite of 0.16 (released in 2000) and has become itself a complete desktop environment. It includes a number of features and applications over its previous version such as a basic feed reader, a mail checker, and a taskbar.

Elive
Elive uses the upcoming Enlightenment Desktop for its GUI and since it has been awhile since I’ve used E, Elive seemed like a perfect candidate to see what the latest offering from the E camp is about.

From Elive’s website:

Elive is a complete operating system for your computer. It’s the perfect choice for replacing your proprietary, high-cost system. It is built on top of Debian GNU/Linux and customized to meet your needs for a complete operating system while still offering the user eye-candy with minimal hardware requirements.

Turn your old computer into a high-powered work-station again, with an Interface that dazzles everybody that sees it. This is Elive’s goal.

Source: triedit.org