Interestingly enough, I have been using Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04 since the release candidate was released, yet have not reviewed it! Actually, just a few days ago I switched to Linux Mint (based on Feisty Fawn), but I still feel that my multi-month use of straight-up Ubuntu is testament enough. Ubuntu is arguably the most…read more

The most recent release from the MEPIS crew is SimplyMEPIS 6.5, which was released on April 4th, 2007. In all of my Linux and various distribution readings, I rarely hear about MEPIS; however, it is clearly popular as the MEPIS distribution has consistently been in the top 8 on the DistroWatch rankings dating back to 2004. As…read more

Software Developer News – PCLinuxOS 2007, also referred to as PCLOS, was released on May 21st, 2007 to rave reviews. Also, PCLOS has gained immense popularity having been the number two distribution over the last 6 months and number one since the release of the 2007 edition just over three weeks ago (according to the…read more

With the positive reception my Linux Mint 3.0 review received, I figured I would make reviewing various distributions a regular occurrence here at Shift+Backspace. Once again, this review will focus on my opinion of Fedora 7 straight “out-of-the-box” and what it can do with minimal intervention. Lets get to it! Fedora 7 was released on…read more

Back to some Linux and open-source news! A couple of days ago, the first alpha (Tribe 1) of Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10 (successor to Feisty Fawn 7.04) was released. Please be aware that this is by no means even close to what the final product will be as there are 3 more alphas to be…read more

Last night I was sitting around watching some baseball when I decided to bring out my aging and dying laptop in hopes of writing a new article for Shift+Backspace. I booted the old Inspiron 8500 to find out that I still had an old beta version of Linux Mint 3. This spawned a great idea!…read more

For those of you who use Ubuntu and have not heard of Automatix, stop reading and go get it! If you do not use Ubuntu, Automatix does support Debian Etch, Mepis, and Pioneer. Sorry, but other Linux distributions are out of luck, hopefully the team develops installers for other distros such as PCLinuxOS and Mandriva…read more

Everyone has software that they always install whenever they format their computer. There are dozens of such applications for me. One of which is the Avant Window Navigator. Apple has had tremendous praise for their OS X operating system and one feature simply known as “the Dock“. This is exactly what Avant attempts to replicate…read more

Before my full-time migration to Linux, I always used iTunes for playing my music and managing my iPod. I had always thought iTunes was as good as it could get as far as playing and managing MP3 files, especially when I after testing Linux software such as Banshee and Rythmbox. I have nothing bad to…read more