Gnome 2.26

It has to be said that Gnome is maturing into a very nice desktop environment, and the 2.26 release sees only minor tweaks here and there. Sadly, many of the key features boasted about on the are skipped in the Ubuntu distribution of Gnome. You won't see the Empathy Instant Messenger, for example, unless you specifically install it. On the other hand, Ubuntu's IM choice of Pidgin is better right now, so this is a good thing. Evolution sees a few new additions, primarily in the area of Windows integration, although missing from Ubuntu's Gnome distribution is the all-new ability to import Microsoft Outlook PST files (the central database of messages). This seems to be because the libpst library is missing, but I haven't investigated any further. Still, this is a shame.

Cruft Cleaning

One of the features slated for 8.10, but postponed until 9.04, is the Computer Janitor program. This lives on the System, Administration menu. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in the beta, complaining that a package is missing, but I played with it in the alpha releases I've tested. It's purpose is to get rid of old packages, such as old kernel files that stick around when you upgrade. As far as I can tell, it's a GUI equivalent of typing sudo apt-get autoremove and sudo apt-get clean at the command-prompt. Beware, however, that it might be a little overzealous: in one of my tests using the alpha release, it considered no longer necessary a package I'd installed by hand (TrueCrypt). I had a little too much faith in it, and agreed to its deletion, only to have to reinstall the package afterwards.

Brasero