FOSS News Weekly

FossNews Weekly

Issue : 1
Team : T.Shrinivasan <tshrinivasan@gmail.com>, K.Balavignesh <kbalavignesh@gmail.com>
Date : 25-04-2008

Contents
=========

0. Introduction
1. Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy heron” was released
2. South Africa adopts ODF as a national standard
3. Kumar Appaiah – 5th Debian Developer from India
4. kanimozhi – Online Tamil Magazine on FOSS
5. Inkscape 0.46 was released.
6. Damn Small Linux 4.3 was released
7. Introduction To Linux – Class at MIT, Chennai

0. Introduction
===============

Welcome to the  First Newsletter of FossNews Weekly. Here, let me start with important events and news happening in the FOSS world. For now, we continue to be a plain text newsletter. Soon, this may improve as HTML newsletter or even PDF emagazine. It depends on the contribution of the people.

You can also participate in this. just send your atrticles, comments and interesting links

1. Ubuntu 8.04 “Hardy heron” was released
===========================================

The most expected Linux Distribution “Ubuntu 8.04′ nick named as “Hardy Heron” was released.
Ubuntu, as usual concentrated more on desktop users. It gives excellent desktop excellent to linux users.

Some nice features of 8.04 are
1. Wubu You can install linux inside windows as any other application, even you can
uninstall too.
2. Gnome 2.22 -  This GUI comes with improved performance and added utilities to make life easier
3. PulseAudio -  A generic sound server applicable for all sound applications
4. Virtualisation – KVM gives the power of virtualisation.
5. FireFox 3 -  Firefox 3 Beta 5 is integrated with 8.04. It promises a unbelievable speed.

goto http://ubuntu.com and download it or ask you local Linux User Group.

2. South Africa adopts ODF as a national standard
=================================================

The South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) on Friday, Apr,18, 2008,  approved the Open Document Format (ODF) as an official national South African standard. The adoption of ODF by South Africa opens the way for the businesses and government to adopt ODF more widely in their processes.

ODF is Open Document Format. the new standard for the Office Documents such as Word, spreadsheet and presentation files. The Microsoft Corporation goes against the ODf and promotes its own properitery standard OOXML. But, more countries are now adopting for ODF.
http://www.tectonic.co.za/?p=1838

3. Kumar Appaiah – 5th Debian Developer from India
===================================================

Kumar Appaiah, a student from IIT-Madras, as approved as Official Debian Developer.
Becoming a Official developer is a marvellous one.
He is the 5th Indian Debian Developer.

http://goinggnu.wordpress.com/2008/04/19/kumar-appaiah-5th-debian-developer-from-india/

4. kanimozhi – Online Tamil Magazine on FOSS
============================================

This April 13, for Tamil New Year, our friend Ramdhas (NRC-FOSS) and his crew
has started this online tamil magazine. Articles related to FOSS are now in tamil language.
read at http://kanimozhi.org.in

http://goinggnu.wordpress.com/2008/04/16/kanimozhi-online-tamil-magazine-on-foss/

5. Inkscape 0.46 was released
==============================

Inkscape, the Open Source Vector Graphics Application has reached it sstable version 0.46 asn was released recently. It has more filers, tools, effects and improved interface. The PDF import is an important enhancement in this release. Now, you can impoert PDF files and edit them.
http://www.inkscape.org

6. Damn Small Linux 4.3 was released
=====================================

Damn Small Linux (DSL) reached its version 4.3. DSL is very thin Linux Distribution. It is only 50 MB. You can take with you in a Pen Drive, Visiting Card CD, Mini CD. Because of its light weight  applications, it can boot up even a 486 machine with 16 MB RAM.

The version 4.3 has a Browser, Image Editor, File Manager, Picture Viewer, Email App, Word Processor,
spread sheet, pdf viewer, media player and all other essential tools.

Download it now at
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/download.html
 

7. Introduction To Linux – Class at MIT, Chennai
==============================================

Mr. Ramadhas is conducting Introductory classes on Linux, every month.
For this month,

Topic : Introduction to GNU/Linux
Date : April 27, 2008, Sunday
Session : Full Day 10.00 am to 5.00 pm
Donation : Rs. 100 and above ( For Facilitation )

Place : NRC-FOSS, Madras Institute of Technology, Chrompet, Chennai

Registration Needed., send mail to  shriramadhas@gmail.com
telling your Name, address, Profession, Email Address and Contact Number.

Topics:

1. Introduction to GNU Concepts
2. History of GNU/Linux
3. Installation
4. Open Source Applications-Intro
5. How to Migrate from windows?
6. Introduction to Localization. Setup Tamil Input and Tamil Interface

Please attend and refer to your friends,

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