GIMP 2.6.9 Available for Linux..sort of

I was perusing the open source software related news this morning trying to wake up and came across an item at Tech Drive-in called Install New GIMP 2.6.9 in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I know that GIMP 2.7.0 is the next stable version to be released and understood that it wasn't going to become available until the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011. What's GIMP 2.6.9 have to offer?

According to the GIMP.org website:

It's been a while since the last release. Quite a few bug-fixes have piled up in the stable branch, so here's another release in the stable GIMP 2.6 series.

There are just a ton of bug fixes included in 2.6.9 for a wide variety of languages. The full details are at developer.gimp.org. Should you be concerned? Probably not. I haven't found GIMP 2.4.6 to be in such a condition that I've been dying for an upgrade. Also, the option to use synaptic (and thus apt-get) to perform such an upgrade on my Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (Hardy Heron) computer doesn't exist (no, I haven't gotten around to upgrading to Lynx, yet).

Even for the Lucid Lynx, you have to jump through a few minor hoops to install GIMP 2.6.9 and unless you really need the bug fixes listed, it's probably not going to change your GIMP experience appreciably if at all.

Not sure if I could make the 2.6.9 upgrade option available for my current version of Ubuntu or if I should care. I know I could download the 2.6.9 tarball and install that way, but I prefer to use apt-get/synaptic to manage my applications.

I checked and for Windows using the Windows installer, the latest version of GIMP available for immediate download is 2.6.8...close, but no cigar.

The interesting news is that 2.6.9 was released on June 23rd, making it the first release of any version of GIMP since last December. Looking forward to GIMP 2.7.0 in another six months.

Hardware Cheat Sheet

Credit geekologie.com for posting this one page PC hardware "cheat sheet" on the web. According to the Geekologie about page, "Geekologie is a geek blog dedicated to the scientific study of gadgets, gizmos, and awesome. There are a lot of shiny new things out there, and Geekologie is dedicated to finding every last one of them for you."

The blog tends to lean towards things Star Wars, but has plenty of other interesting tidbits, photos and videos. Oh. You probably want to see the cheat sheet (since I've written a computer hardware related book or two, I'm naturally attracted to this sort of stuff). Here it is:

Computer Hardware Chart. After you click the link and the image loads, click the image to enlarge.

Using GIMP: It's Getting Closer

Not sure exactly when the eBook will be released. All of the deliverables are in and most of the editing is done. Going over the PDF pages now to make a final check of everything, so the book isn't 100% quite yet. Just to give you a taste though, here's some samples from the front matter. Enjoy.

Chromium on Ubuntu 10.04 Slower than Firefox?

Maybe I'm being unfair. After all, I have been having networking problems with my Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) virtual machine running in VMware Workstation 7. Seems to be tied to a DNS problem. The VM doesn't pick up the DNS server addresses from the DHCP server on my network (though it gets an IP just fine). I thought the solution was to point to Google's free DNS servers. Worked for awhile, but then stopped. I tried using the DNS servers on my wee home server and DSL modem device and that worked for awhile too, and then stopped.

I finally tried my ISP's DNS servers and that seemed to take hold, though I don't know why. It shouldn't make a difference but I've been surfing from my Lucid Lynx VM for two days now without a hitch. That leads me to my second problem.

I'm a big fan of Firefox so naturally, use it on all my Linux and Windows machines. I've tried Google's Chrome web browser on a Windows VM and like it, so I decided to install Chromium on the Lucid VM. Seemed to go great guns at first but then hit major snags.

Actually, I was having problems in both Firefox and Chromium which all seemed to be tied to my general networking problems for the VM. For the past two days, I've been surfing the web just fine with Firefox, though. Time to try Chromium.

For a minute or two, it seemed great. I thought I could give Chromium a real workout and see if it really was faster than Firefox, just as the speed tests between Firefox and Chrome suggest when run on Windows. I've got some bad news.

Firefox continued to let me surf the web at lightning speed, but after a few minutes, Chromium slowed down to a wounded crawl. I tried Googling the problem but only came up with a slow video playback problem in Chromium on Ubuntu reported at ubuntuforums.org.

Admittedly, before I had the chance to investigate further, I had to leave for work, so I won't be able to make more tests until I get home tonight. I suspect the issue may still be tied to Ubuntu Lynx running as a VM and the associated networking problems, but I can't be sure. Until I get home and have a chance to look at this more completely, has anyone else had an experience with poor Chromium web browser performance in Ubuntu 10.04?

Happy 30th Anniversary "The Empire Strikes Back"

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the release of the Star Wars film The Empire Strikes Back, I'm posting a photo of a star destroyer. You are probably saying "So what?" but this photo is special to me. I bought it at a Science Fiction convention in Los Angeles a full month or more before Star Wars (1977) was released. It was my first real look at the world George Lucas created. Enjoy.