A single image taken with a camera like my Android G1 can contain a lot of information as shown below:

EXIF Information from an Android G1 Photo

Removing EXIF Data in Ubuntu

This is a quick and easy way to remove EXIF data from JPG files from a Bash prompt in Ubuntu or other Debian derived versions of Linux.  This method will let you remove the EXIF date from all images in a directory.

First, install the jhead package via apt-get.  Open a terminal window and type:

sudo apt-get install jhead

After jhead is installed you may want to review all the ways you can use this powerful tool by typing:

man jhead

You can use jhead to add/remove/modify information in JPG files but for now, all we are going to do is strip out all the information from the file that is not needed to render the image itself.  This may be more than you feel you need but it will give you the most privacy that I know how to provide.

To remove all EXIF info from a single image just open a terminal window and type:

jhead -purejpg /path/to/image.jpg

You can also use wild cards so you can use:

jhead -purejpg /path/to/*.jpg

or

jhead -purejpg /path/to/*.JPG

Since the jhead tool only acts on jpeg files you can do an entire directory of files – regardless of the case of the file extension using xargs like this:

ls | xargs jhead -purejpg

from within the directory of photos.

via Announcing Ubuntu 10.04 LTS: The Lucid Lynx | The Fridge.

Package description: moreutils

Description: additional unix utilities
This is a growing collection of the unix tools that nobody thought to write thirty years ago.

So far, it includes the following utilities:

• sponge: soak up standard input and write to a file – I use this utility in bash scripts all the time.  When I am processing lots of text data I need to do things like grep for strings in a file and then replace the original file with just the data pulled from the grep.  If you were to try grep string file > file you would end up with an empty file. To get around that you could do grep string file > file.tmp ; mv file.tmp file if you wanted but spong makes it easier With sponge you can do grep string file | sponge file and the resulting file will contain the exact results of your grep.  It works by storing all the grep results in memory until the grep is finished and only then writing them down to the file.  This can simplify many tasks.
• ifdata: get network interface info without parsing ifconfig output
• vidir: edit a directory in your text editor – Say you have a directory full of files you want to rename in ~/Photos/ItalyTrip.   You can use vidir ~/Photos/ItalyTrip and you will get a directory listing of that folder in your default text editor.  You can then use find and replace or any other tool in the text editor to rename the files and folders.   When you exit the editor and save the changes the files and folders in ~/Photos/ItalyTrip will be renamed to match what you did in the text editor.
• vipe: insert a text editor into a pipe
• ts: timestamp standard input – This handy little tool will add a timestamp to data coming from standard input.  I have a series of backup scripts that run nightly and I end each script with echo “$backjob Complete” |  ts > ~/Logs/backups.log if the job finishes successfully.  By piping the echo statement through ts I get the date and times as a preface to the “Complete” statement in the log.  There are other ways to do this but this way ensures that I get the exact time and date that the job finished as opposed to when the job started.
• combine: combine the lines in two files using boolean operations
• pee: tee standard input to pipes
• zrun: automatically uncompress arguments to command
• mispipe: pipe two commands, returning the exit status of the first
• isutf8: check if a file or standard input is utf-8
• lckdo: execute a program with a lock held

Homepage: http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/moreutils/

To install moreutils in any current Debian install or Ubuntu 8.04LTS or newer use:

apt-get install moreutils

Right now, with so many people running the new Ubuntu 9.04 Beta, Ubuntu users are finding themselves in a position of needing to get updates at least daily.   By default, your new Ubuntu install will be set to use an official Ubuntu mirror along with thousands of other users.

One of the nicer things about Ubuntu is that many organizations and Universities maintain Ubuntu mirrors.  This guide will walk you through testing for the fastest mirror/server and selecting that mirror as your source for updates to your Ubuntu installation.

Open the Software Sources applet by clicking System and then Administration and then Software Sources.

Reload

Software Sources

Click to the right of Download from: and select Other.

Select Best Server

Click on Select Best Server in the upper right of the window.

Checking for fastest mirror

It may take a few minutes to test all the mirrors to detemine wich is fastest for your location and ISP.

Best Server Highlighted

When the testing finishes, the fastest server will be highlighted.  Click the Choose Server button in the lower right.

Close Applet

You will now see the fastest server to the right of the Download From label.   Click Close in the lower right.

Checking For Updates

Since you have changed the Mirror, Ubuntu needs to check for updates.  Click Reload and it will check the new repository.

This process can be repeated anytime you notice that Updates are downloading slowly.  Just because one mirror is fastest today, it doesn’t mean that it will be the fastest forever.

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• Good night Folks! #
• Gotta get the guest room ready for my moms visit over the 3 day weekend. If time allows after that, may install Ubuntu 9.04 Beta on main PC #
• RT @therocket954: More Ubuntu Goodness: http://www.mythbuntu.org/ Clean, simple, open source alternative to TIVO and Windows Media Center #
• The packaging integrity of a Splenda packet just FAILED horribly while over my keyboard. #
• I <3 Compressed Air #
• Remaining API: 0/0 Resets: 19:00 (its currently 11:00) #tweetdeck WTF!? #
• RT @TweetDeck: Appears to be numerous issues today with the Twitter API (lagging/missing tweets) and connectivity in general #
• #Grandcentral Has Become Google Voice. Maybe Yay? #
• Need more #tweetlag excuses. Submit yours to @TweetLag and add it to the pool with credit. #
• RT @dmataconis: RT @MikeMezzadri Where were the tea party activists when Bush was shitting on the Constitution? #tcot #tlot #
• RT @MikeMezzadri: The End of American Religio-Culture Wars? http://tiny.cc/iR5n1 let’s hope so #
• RT @americablog: Mom kills son&self at shooting range: If everyone had guns, this could have been prevented http://tinyurl.com/ddfpmy #tcot #
• Reading: “Catch-22: Can AIG Repay Taxpayers? – ProPublica” ( http://tinyurl.com/djx6a9 ) #
• “@CathyGday: MUST SEE! Concervative Moral Capitolist March on Washington! ” Speellng Fale! #TCOT (banging head rhythmically on desk) #
• RT @TweetLag: Tweet Lag Excuse: Evil Dogs Hypnotised The Night Shift. #
• RT @davidbadash: Newt “Homosexuality is a threat to anyone for traditional religion” Gingrich’s sexual escapades: http://ow.ly/2tw9 #tcot #
• Heading home from work. Hope traffic is light. #
• Home from work. Yay! #
• RT @maniar: Deliberate sabotage is being blamed for a big internet and telephone service outage in Silicon Valley today. http://is.gd/rFIo #
• Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. #
• Strange things are afoot at the Circle K. #
• RT @macartisan: @dailydish /Andrew Sullivan:”Understanding conservative movements is like analyzing the Hapsburgs.” http://is.gd/rGoV #tcot #
• →_→ “GOP Senators in Desperation Over Release of More Bush Torture Memos” #tcot ( http://tinyurl.com/ckzfsc ) #
• RT @muti: More Easter Eggs in Ubuntu http://muti.co.za/r/tvp #

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This little cutie weighs in at 13 oz (370 gr) including the internal hard drive.  That low weight would make shipping much cheaper, and the extreme low power usage is nice too.  At 6 Watts its far more energy efficient than anything else we have in the company IT stable – including 20 Watt Asus eee net books.  It ships with a choice of Windows XP and Ubuntu so it could handle all of our needs.

Fit-PC2

Mar. 17, 2009
CompuLab is readying a full-featured Ubuntu Linux PC that draws six Watts and costs $245-to-$400. The Fit-PC2 packs a 1.1GHz or 1.6GHz Atom processor, 160GB hard drive (or SSD), and DVI/HDMI video up to 1920×1080 into a passively cooled case smaller than three CD cases.

Measuring 4 x 4.5 x 1.0 inches, the Fit-PC2 would be dwarfed by a stack of three CD jewel-cases, which would measure about 5.5 x 5 x 1.25. The Fit-PC2 is touted for its innovative, ruggedized die-cast aluminum case. There are no venting holes, but the fanless device is said to be designed so that the case itself dissipates heat.

via Smallest full-featured Linux PC ever?.

France’s Gendarmerie Nationale, the country’s national police force, says it has saved millions of dollars by migrating its desktop software infrastructure away from Microsoft Windows and replacing it with the Ubuntu Linux distribution.

The Gendarmerie began its transition to open source software in 2005 when it replaced Microsoft Office with OpenOffice.org across the entire organization. It gradually adopted other open source software applications, including Firefox and Thunderbird. After the launch of Windows Vista in 2006, it decided to phase out Windows and incrementally migrate to Ubuntu.

“Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy.”

via French police: we saved millions of euros by adopting Ubuntu – Ars Technica.

Seagate has announces, in its Knowlege Base, that the problem is a result of bad firmware and that drive owners can protect themselves by upgrading the firmware for the affected drives. They have also confirmed that the data, while inaccessible to the drive owner, is still intact.   Seagate has released a statement to the folks at TechReport.com saying they will recover the data for customers who experience the failure.

Customers can expedite assistance by sending an email to Seagate (discsupport@seagate.com). Please include the following disk drive information: model number, serial number and current firmware revision. We will respond, promptly, to your email request with appropriate instructions. There is no data loss associated with this issue, and the data still resides on the drive. But if you are unable to access your data due to this issue, Seagate will provide free data recovery services. Seagate will work with you to expedite a remedy to minimize any disruption to you or your business.

There is a bit of a problem with the Seagate KB article though. It assumes that you are a Windows user. They provide a tool to let Windows users scan their drives and discover the model number, serial number, and firmware revision.  However, if you are a Linux user their Knowledge Base article is not going to help you.  Fortunately, this information is very easy retrieve in most Linux installations.  If you are using a Debian or Ubuntu install this method will definitely work.

You can skip down to the end for a simple bash command to get this info, but first I will go through it step by step.

To check the drives, you will need to determine your hard drive device names.  A quick and dirty way to get this information is to check your /dev/disk/by-path folder

~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-path

You will see all your drives.

On my Desktop I get a list like this:

pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdf
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdf1
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1 -> ../../sdg
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:2:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1-part1 -> ../../sdg1
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:5:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdm
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:5:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdm1
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:6:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdn
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:6:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdn1
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:8:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdh
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:8:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:1 -> ../../sdi
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:8:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:2 -> ../../sdj
pci-0000:00:02.1-usb-0:8:1.0-scsi-0:0:0:3 -> ../../sdk
pci-0000:00:06.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdd
pci-0000:00:06.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdd1
pci-0000:00:06.0-scsi-0:0:1:0 -> ../../sde
pci-0000:00:06.0-scsi-0:0:1:0-part1 -> ../../sde1
pci-0000:00:08.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sda
pci-0000:00:08.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sda1
pci-0000:00:08.0-scsi-0:0:0:0-part2 -> ../../sda2
pci-0000:00:08.0-scsi-1:0:0:0 -> ../../scd0
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdb
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0-part5 -> ../../sdb5
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0-part6 -> ../../sdb6
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0-part7 -> ../../sdb7
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0-part8 -> ../../sdb8
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-1:0:0:0 -> ../../sdc
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-1:0:0:0-part1 -> ../../sdc1

This technique will not work on USB drives and for our purposes we only care about drives, not partitions so since /dev/sdb1 and /dev/sdb5 etc… are on the same drive we need to whittle down the list a little more.  Your drives could show has /hd* instead of /sd –  just use what you have for the rest of the post. Try this command in your terminal.

~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-path/ | grep -v usb | grep -v [0-9]$

On my Desktop, this brings our output down to:

pci-0000:00:06.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdd
pci-0000:00:06.0-scsi-0:0:1:0 -> ../../sde
pci-0000:00:08.0-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sda
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-0:0:0:0 -> ../../sdb
pci-0000:00:08.1-scsi-1:0:0:0 -> ../../sdc


Those are my two internal hard drives so those are the ones I need to query to find out their their information to compare to the Seagate site.
Now at this point we want to remember our drive devices.  Just make a list of the last three letters prefaced with /dev  so for me.

We can do that in the shell by using sed and lets sort them while we are at it.

~$ ls -l /dev/disk/by-path/ | grep -v usb | grep -v [0-9]$ | sed "s/^.*\./\/dev/g" | sort

This gives us:

/dev/sda
/dev/sdb
/dev/sdc
/dev/sdd
/dev/sde

The easiest way I know to get the information we need is by using the hdparm tool that is built into most Linux systems.  Two different hdparm commands will provide the information we want.  If you want to see a lot of information in a very pretty format try (substi:

~$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/sda | more

This gives us all kinds of data about that drive:

/dev/sda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number:       ST3750640AS
Serial Number:      5QD2DLC0
Firmware Revision:  3.AAE
Standards:
Supported: 7 6 5 4
Likely used: 7
Configuration:
Logical        max    current
cylinders    16383    16383
heads        16    16
sectors/track    63    63
--
CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064
LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
LBA48  user addressable sectors: 1465149168
device size with M = 1024*1024:      715404 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000:      750156 MBytes (750 GB)
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16    Current = 16
Recommended acoustic management value: 254, current value: 0
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled    Supported:
*    SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
*    Power Management feature set
*    Write cache
*    Look-ahead
*    Host Protected Area feature set
*    WRITE_BUFFER command
*    READ_BUFFER command
*    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
SET_MAX security extension
*    48-bit Address feature set
*    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
*    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
*    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
*    SMART error logging
*    SMART self-test
*    General Purpose Logging feature set
*    SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
*    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
*    Phy event counters
Device-initiated interface power management
*    Software settings preservation
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not    enabled
not    locked
frozen
not    expired: security count
not    supported: enhanced erase
Checksum: correct

The information we really want is in the top section:

Model Number:       ST3750640AS
Serial Number:      5QD2DLC0
Firmware Revision:  3.AAE

If you only have a couple of drives you can just repeat the hdparm -I /dev/DRIVE for each drive and then use that information to compare to the affected model numbers listed below.  With as many drives as I have, I want to use a different hdparm parameter.  This one outputs much of the same information, but in a more condensed format:

~$ sudo hdparm -i /dev/sda

This time we get back:

/dev/sda:
Model=ST3750640AS, FwRev=3.AAE, SerialNo=5QD2DLC0
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=16384kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?16?
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=1465149168
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: Unspecified: ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

As you can see, the line starting with Model= has all the information we need.  The rest of the output is nice, but not needed.   We can clean this up and get just what we need by building this command:

TEMPLATE:  sudo hdparm -i /dev/[hs]d[DRIVES] | grep -A 2 dev | sort | uniq | grep Model

In the above line you should replace [DRIVES] with your drive designation letters.  In my case, I want to see the results of /dev/sda, /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd, and /dev/sde. So I will replace [DRIVE] with [abcde] in this command:

~$ sudo hdparm -i /dev/[hs]d[abcde] | grep -A 2 dev | sort | uniq | grep Model

This gives me:

Model=ST3750640A, FwRev=3.AAE, SerialNo=5QD3VYA7
Model=ST3750640A, FwRev=3.AAE, SerialNo=5QD4E17G
Model=ST3750640AS, FwRev=3.AAE, SerialNo=5QD1MCM8
Model=ST3750640AS, FwRev=3.AAE, SerialNo=5QD2DLC0
Model=WDC WD7500AACS-00ZJB0, FwRev=01.01B01, SerialNo=WD-WCASJ1008654

Using this information, we need to check the list of Seagate models.  The  models listed below are current as of January 18, 2009.  You may want to visit the Seagate page here in case they add addtional affected models.

If you are the proud owner of one of these models you will want to follow these instructions from Seagate:

If you have one of the models listed above, Customers can expedite assistance by contacting Seagate via email. Please include the following disk drive information: model number, serial number and current firmware revision.  We will respond, promptly, to your email request with appropriate instructions.

Or you can call Seagate Support at 1-800-SEAGATE.  Please be prepared to give the serial number of your drive as the solution depends on knowing the exact serial number.

For a list of international telephone numbers to Seagate Support and alternative methods of contact, please access http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/about/contact_us/

A couple days ago this came out over at TheInquirer.net:

Windows 7 is enough to kill Linux on the desktop

FOR THE PAST three years I have been a Linux fan-boy using Ubuntu most of the time and Windows XP when I needed to play games or run CS desktop lay out stuff.

In a bid to focus my bile on something other than Apple for a bit I decided to play with the new Windows 7 beta. I was disappointed. It was pretty good and, if I am right, could result in the move away from Voleware to Linux and OSX being stopped in in its tracks….

And then that was addressed on a ZDNet.com blog:

7 reasons why Windows 7 will not wreck Ubuntu

One of our competitors has a review of the Windows 7 beta which claims that desktop Linux is doomed — doomed!

Not exactly. Not even approximately.

First let’s understand what 7’s target is. It’s not so much desktop Linux as a particular Linux distro — Ubuntu — that targets the desktop…

The smart money is on those who understand that this really only applies to the class of PC users who actually give a damn about which OS is running on their system.  Sadly, at present, thats a tiny fraction of users.  People use what they are given or what they used in school or at the office.  Those of us who shuttle back and forth between multiple OS’s or even multiple incarnations of the same OS will continue to do what we always have and select the best tool for the job.

If I want to use Dreamweaver, I load a Windows XP virtual machine on my Ubuntu Desktop and use it since, in my opinion, XP is the best platform for using Dreamweaver for me – personally.  If I could run OSX in a VM and use Dreamweaver there, my opinion could change.

If I was constrained through my employer to only use Windows as my primary desktop, I would stll have Ubuntu running in a virtual machine for those times when I need a robust shell like bash to do what needs to be done.

With current PC’s shipping with lots of RAM and big hard drives there is no longer any good reason to limit yourself to a single operating system.

One of the big things that I think will help modern Linux users is the default Ext4 behavior for allocation of space on the file system.

Most file systems create files by filling the requested space with zeros.  As anyone who has used BitTorrent to download an ISO knows, this can be time consuming as the system creates a 700mb file full of zero’s that will only be overwritten as the real file is downloaded into that space.

Ext4 handles preallocation more efficiently.  Using BitTorrent to download that ISO onto a volume formatted with Ext4 results in the file system simply “Reserving” the of 700mb contiguous (if possible) space but doesn’t actually write anything to the drive until you start using the file.

As more people use iTunes to download TV shows and movies or as people do more video editing the size of the files they work with get bigger and bigger.  Ext4 addresses this problem and keeps Linux ahead of the curve for users who need to work with lots and lots of data.

OK, OK… so how will the end user benefit from this EXT4 filesystem? Well, first of all, the whole system will be much faster and more reliable compared to one with EXT3 (I guess that some of you still remember the Firefox/Ext3 issue), it will boot faster (the current article proves that) and it’s able to handle files with sizes of up to 16 TB (terabytes). But these are just a few of the features brought by the fourth extended filesystem, for more details you can check the Wikipedia entry for EXT4.

via Ubuntu 9.04 Boots in 21.4 Seconds – With EXT4 as the default filesystem. – Softpedia.

Sadly, this April’s  9.04 release of Ubuntu will only support Ext4 installs via the Alternative/Text based installer.  It won’t be until October’s 9.10 release that Ext4 will become the default file system format for the main Ubuntu installer.

ARM and Canonical Ltd, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu^®, today announced that it will bring the full Ubuntu Desktop operating system to the ARMv7 processor architecture to address demand from device manufacturers. The addition of the new operating system will enable new netbooks and hybrid computers, targeting energy-efficient ARM^® technology-based SoCs, to deliver a rich, always-connected, mobile computing experience, without compromising battery life.

The combination of a commercially supported, optimized Ubuntu distribution for ARM, together with Canonical’s ability to tailor solutions to specific ARM technology-based devices and OEM requirements, ensures that highly-optimized systems can be rapidly deployed into the fast growing mobile computing market. ARM’s wide partnership with leading semiconductor and device manufacturers strengthens the mobile computing software ecosystem and extends the market reach for Ubuntu-based products.

“The release of a full Ubuntu desktop distribution supporting latest ARM technology will enable rapid growth, with internet everywhere, connected ultra portable devices,” said Ian Drew, vice president of Marketing, ARM. “The always-on experience available with mobile devices is rapidly expanding to new device categories such as netbooks, laptops and other internet connected products. Working with Canonical will pave the way for the development of new features and innovations to all connected platforms.”

“This is a natural development for Ubuntu, driven by the demand from manufacturers for an ARM technology-based version,” said Jane Silber, COO of Canonical. “Joining the considerable community of free software developers working on the ARM platform ensures that a fully-functional, optimized Ubuntu distribution is available to the ARM ecosystem, providing wider choice for consumers looking for the best operating system for their digital lifestyles.”

This version of the Ubuntu Desktop operating system will target the ARMv7 architecture including ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 processor-based systems. Canonical’s support of a full ARM distribution will strengthen the ARM Linux ecosystem and widen the opportunity to leverage ARM technology into fast-growing markets. This partnership further highlights both ARM and Canonical’s support for open source initiatives and leverages contributions from key open source communities including Linux kernel, Debian, GNOME, and Mozilla communities. The Ubuntu ARM distribution for desktops and netbooks will be officially available from April 2009.

Ubuntu Customization Guide v2 (http://tuxenclave.wordpress.com)

Changes are part of Nature so as with Technology.. Though this cannot be True for Windows and Mac cause the life cycle of a single Version is too much which is not the case with Linux.. Open Source evolve at very rapid rate and with evolution comes new & special changes … Today with a hike in Linux acceptance its pretty hard for competitors to provide similar solutions at free of cost. Open Source is known for User Interaction with Operating System which cannot be done with other OS. Linux user can customize, create, edit, add files according to his/her taste..and customization is the part where Linux is one step ahead of every OS.. You need not to search for poorly written Customization Packs.. What you need is just follow the guide and pimp up your desktop as you like. .. The guide will focus on a particular area but you can customize your desktop using the way mentioned and adding your own idea…

With Gusty Gibbon packed with latest tools and great support couple with new gGun Gnome 2.20, I was adamant to write another Customization Guide..Since M$ launched Vista and Apple launched Leopard quite a while ago so I’ll let you know how to customize your Ubuntu to Vista and Leopard.. Added with few new Customization that I used it…

I have tried to kept the guide as simple as I can so that even a newbie can understand how to make changes.There are few major changes in Ubuntu Themes and Icon Control Panel so please read carefully so that you can get everything..

Read the rest at http://tuxenclave.wordpress.com/2007/11/23/ubuntu-customization-guide-v2/