Google Chrome OS, the Operating System being currently built by Google for people who would like to work in the cloud has been in the wild as public test builds. It wasn’t isn’t that easy to get Google Chrome OS running on your machine keeping in mind the limited hardware support, and the relative complexity to get it installed.

However if you still want to try out Google Chrome OS, don’t fret Chrome OS Diet is here. The biggest change is the 300 MB download, a far cry from the 8 GB that “real” Chrome OS consumes. The small download size means that Diet Chromium OS much easier to get hold of.

Diet Chrome was built by developer Hexxeh in his free time. What’s even better is that he’s managed to add some more hardware support in his builds, which means the chances of Chrome OS working smooth on your system is even greater.

Here’s how you get Chrome OS Diet up and running on your system. Won’t take much of your time I promise.

1. Download the Diet Chrome OS torrent (or alternatively get a direct download mirror from here)
2. Download and extract Image Writer for Windows.
3. Extract .tar.gz archive using your favorite software.
4. Launch Image Writer and write the newly freshly extracted image file (the one with .img extension) onto a 2GB or better USB Pen Drive
5. Voila that’s it. Just boot into Chrome OS from your System by restarting.

I tested this on my Dell Inspiron 530s and everything worked perfectly. Chrome OS booted up from the USB drive in like about 6 seconds. There’s isn’t much to play around with at the moment, so I got bored by it pretty fast.

You might want to have a look at Diet Chrome OS FAQ here : http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/faq.html

If you don’t want to reboot and boot into the USB Pen Drive, you can use MobaLiveCD to run Diet Chrome directly in Windows.

I am not really sure if Google Chrome OS will manage take off in the real world, because the demand of an always available Internet connection isn’t any bit easy to achieve. Its a long way ahead for Google and its ambitious plans for Chrome OS.

Have you tried out Chrome OS? Tell us about your experiences in the comments.

Diet Chrome OS

photo credit: psd

Who said Linux can’t look pretty? For long its been said that Linux is the most boring OS ever and is not user friendly. I’ve been a linux user for sometime and I can say that my experience with it was nothing short of marvelous. Linux offers you unlimited amount of control as to how can you customize your desktop.

Scoring around the net I found some really fantastic desktops and here is what I feel are the best of what I’ve seen. Certainly not the most exhaustive list, but they are reminiscent to the fact that Linux can look pretty good if you know how to make it look good.

Without further delay, here are my favorite Linux desktops, and I’m sure they are some of the prettiest you’ll ever see.

Note : Click on the images for bigger screenshots

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Are you a Linux user? Please show us your desktops.. It will be go a long way in promoting Linux as a User friendly OS. If you have come across other cool looking Linux desktops, please share them as well.

Way to go Tux!!

Nicholas Negroponte the founder of One Laptop Per Child Foundation yesterday unveiled the design of their upcoming XO Laptop. Dubbed to be the world’s cheapest laptop ever it is expected to retail about 75$. The designs that were unveiled totally blow the current market, as the design is simply amazing, and looks very user friendly. The only catch is that it will take them till 2010 to bring this design from the artist’s canvas to a real functional device.

The laptop to be called XO-2 will have dual touch screens and to keep the costs low they plan to use the same kind of screens that we find in DVD Players these days. The design showcases a lot of flexibility, for example when held vertically the laptop is more like a book with pages to the left and right, and while it is held horizontally it adds up as a hinged laptop or a tablet computer.

Here’s a excerpt from the official press release :

“The XO-2 laptop will be about half the size of the first generation device and will approximate the size of a book. The new design will make the XO laptop lighter and easier for children to carry with them to and from school or wherever they go. The XO-2 will continue to be in a green and white case and sport the XO logo in a multitude of colors that allow children to personalize the laptop as their own possession.” 

Here are some more images on what the XO-2 will end up looking like. Pretty futuristic and great looking if you’d ask me!!

Since we will all have to wait until 2010 to see this design in the form of a real functional device, I’m holding back my thoughts if this can be a success, because someone else can come and make a better cheaper laptop by then. Apart from that with the launch of iPhone, Touchscreens have evoked mixed responses, a lot of people seem to asking for Tactile feedback. Considering that these laptops will primarily be used by kids, tactile feedback could make quite a difference.

At the moment, XO-2 is the coolest looking laptop in town, yes even better than any of the laptops made by Cupertino based Apple. Fingers Crossed until 2010!! But Nonetheless I want to have one of these even if I don’t live in a third world country..

One last question, why wasn’t Amazon Kindle made into something like this?

Via Gizmodo

The Ubuntu team is at hard work and I must say I’m impressed with the work that has been done so far. Ubuntu 8.04 is on track to be shipped on April 24th 2008, and in the early stages of its development it continues to impress me with the new features being added..

This alpha release comes with HOT new features and improvements, like PulseAudio as the default sound system, the latest and greatest 2.6.24 Linux kernel and Xorg 7.3, with an emphasis on better autoconfiguration without config files

“The Ubuntu developers are moving very quickly to bring you the absolute latest and greatest software the Open Source Community has to offer. Hardy Heron Alpha 2 is the second alpha release of Ubuntu 8.04, and with this new alpha release comes a whole host of excellent new features.”

Well here is what is new in Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha :

• Xorg 7.3
• Linux kernel 2.6.24
• PulseAudio

With the release of Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha2, even  Kubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2 was released yesterday :

What’s new in Kubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2?

• KDE 4 RC 2
• Amarok 1.4.8
• Qt 4.3.3
• Digikam 0.9.3 RC 1
• Tasty Menu
• Speedcrunch 0.9
• KGmailNotifier
• Thinkpad Flashing for Kopete
• Rear Speaker Volume Support in KMix
• SMB Printer Browsing
• User Hard Disk Mounting
• Adobe Flash in Konqueror

If you wish to download Ubuntu 8.04 Alpha 2, you can grab it from here or incase you want Kubuntu 8.04 then you can download that from here. Please note that this is an Aplha release, so you can expect many bugs in the system.

Here is a screenshot of Ubuntu 8.04 in action, click on it to enlarge.

Via Softpedia

Mozilla Prism about which I had talked about earlier has just got a fresh release for Linux and Mac OSX. Prism is basically a stripped down version of Firefox that allows you to load a single page at a time. By using minimal resources Prism is able to deliver high performance. No tabs, no useful URL or navigation buttons. But Prism can come in handy if you like to keep a single web site like Gmail open all day, since it uses fewer resources than Firefox.

I Installed Prism on Ubuntu, and it seemed ok, except that it was still quite buggy. For example pressing the F11 button didn’t make Prism go full screen. There was also problems when I fired up pages that were Flash enabled. All in all it is a good release for Linux, expect the bugs to be ironed out in the future. Mac users tell me how Prism works for you.

You can download Prism from Mozilla Labs

Android is a stripped down version of Linux, and it will be available under the very popular Apache Software Licence. By Being open source, I am sure Android will appeal to a large number of developers to develop applications for the Mobile OS.

The developers will have access to the SDK sometime next week, so that they can start building applications for Android. For me Android holds a lot of promise, and I feel this one of the better things Google has done in the recent past. We won’t be seeing any mobile handsets loaded with Android atleast until next year, so I can’t really tell if Android will take off. But if it does, it is a major victory for Linux and Opensource.

Did anyone notice, doesn’t the Android logo look weird. Sure Google could have come up with something better.

Well today marked the day when another version of Ubuntu labeled as Gusty Gibbon present itself. Gusty has brought a lot of new features to the table and I just thought i should do a quick rundown through it..

Well here are some of the features that are worth a mention in Ubuntu :   

• Hardware management improvements – improved plug-and-play configuration for printers, as well as automatic firmware installation for Broadcom cards
• Improved support for display systems – For laptop users, full support external VGA (projector) support is available out-of-the-box with easy reconfiguration when hardware is switched. For power users this release includes the ability to manage multiple monitors
• Windows compatibility – Users with a dual partition can read from and and write to files that are on located in a Windows partition (including NTFS)
• Enhanced user interface – Simple 3D screen effects and graphics enhance the user experience
• Desktop search – gives users the ability to search their entire desktop, whether for files, folders, chat logs or photos. This capability includes the deskbar applet, a central location on users’ desktops for all local and web search operations
• Firefox plugins – automatic installation of popular Firefox plugins validated by Ubuntu for a richer, safer web-browsing experience

Notable changes in Ubuntu 7.10 are the latest GNOME Desktop, which provides much improved drag-and-drop support to the user interface, and Compiz, the whiz-bang 3-D desktop effects package, which is enabled by default.

Well I plan to install to Ubuntu sometime soon. I got it installed in the college and here are some screenshots for you to drool over, and yeah let me tell you onething, Ubuntu brings you the best of Mac OSX in terms of User Experience and the widespread compatibility like Windows. Well here are the screenshots :

Well I suggest you give Ubuntu a try and trust me you will fall in love with it.. Well here are the download links :

• Download Ubuntu
• Download Kubuntu
• Download Edubuntu

I Have been building replacement software for everything that I use in Windows, and I can say that AWN(Awant Window Manager) is definitely a better Alternative to Objectdock. Just a couple of days ago, we saw the release of AWN 0.2 and here is what is new :

• Icon Effects
  You can choose weather you want to have the dock icons bounce, spin or have a spotlight cast on them, when you click or hover over it.

• AWN Manager
  A Unified interface to tweak all the settings and options that AWN has to offer.
• Applets
  Applets are coming soon, You will be able to have Weather Docklets, Clock, System info, and OS X look alike Stacks.

Well if you aren’t impressed enough, then have a look at this video. The video demonstrates some of the effects that are possible with AWN.

So if you are a Linux user, go ahead and try out, AWN today.

Thanks Cybernet News

Gimmie uses an innovative tabs-based approach to categorize everything on your computer. Not just the applications you have installed. You can quickly find friends, documents, computers on the network, notes, music, and just about everything else in a few clicks.

All Your Stuff

Because your computer is a tool for performing all sorts of tasks, Gimmie tries to organize all the objects you use to make your life easier. Support for new kinds of objects are being added all the time, and Gimmie already knows about all these…

• Installed Programs
• Connected Devices
• CDs and DVDs
• Nearby networked computers
• Printers
• System Preferences
• Administration Tools
• Bookmarked Folders
• Office Documents
• Audio Files
• Movies
• Downloaded Files
• Saved Email Attachments
• Instant Messaging Buddies

And since more and more of the things you use are located online, Gimmie is working to integrate all your favorite online resources:

• GMail Contacts
• Google Office Documents
• Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace Contacts
• LiveJournal Friends
• Flickr Photos
• Del.icio.us Bookmarks

Find Your Stuff

Instead of forcing you to remember where you placed a file, or the name you gave it, Gimmie lets you quickly search everything right inside it’s main tab. Looking for a contact you haven’t talked to in a while, or a downloaded movie, or recent bookmark takes just a few keystrokes.

Recent Stuff

Most tasks performed on computers involve interacting with the same things over and over again. So Gimmie keeps track of what you use, and allows quick reuse through the Recently Used category that’s in each tab.

And Gimmie allows you to bookmark any of the things you use regularly, so you find them instantly.

Well the aim of Vixta is pretty much simple, and this is how it reads :

Vixta.org is a Fedora-based Linux distribution designed to be user-friendly and eye-catching, similar in look and feel to Windows Vista. Trying to bring linux to the “masses”, not just sysadmins. 

Features :

• KDE based Desktop Environment
• Fedora Based Distribution

Well here are some screenshots for you, and I am sure you must be wondering why it took so long for something like Vixta to turn up.

So if you are interested in checking out, then here are some links to help you :

Home Page : www.vixta.org – Home
Download : SourceForge.net: Files