Now that the karmic release cycle has opened Ubuntu developers are focusing on merging packages from Debian unstable into karmic repositories. If you’re looking for improving your packaging skills here is a list of merges that look easy...

From time to time, I see someone remark that Ubuntu uses packages from Debian unstable, and that they don’t think this is a very good idea. I would like to explain why we do this and how it works, and hope that this will enable a less one-sided view of the subject.

PiTiVi is an open source video editor, written in Python and based on GStreamer and GTK+.

Let’s face it. Ubuntu is based on Debian – each new release of Ubuntu draws packages in from Debian’s Unstable branch, polishes those packages and with the wave of a few thousand magic wands, a new Ubuntu version is born.

For those rare people who don’t know, Canonical’s Ubuntu distribution is basically Debian Sid (the unstable version) plus a few GUI apps and modifications. Debian is one of the most successful community-based distributions. Don’t get me wrong, I use both Debian and Ubuntu, and they both perform well, but here are some reasons to choose Debian over Ubuntu...

A common question is how to compare Fedora [1] and Debian [2] in terms of recent updates and support. I think that Fedora Rawhide and Debian/Unstable are fairly equivalent in this regard, new upstream releases get packaged quickly, and support is minimal. They are both aimed at developers only, but it seems that a reasonable number of people are running servers on Debian/Unstable.

Buoyed by the success I reported running Karmic on an antiquated X40 (and this positive report), I decided to take the plunge this past weekend and upgrade – against the recommendations of many, given that a beta is still two weeks away – my production laptop.

Ever since I moved to Ubuntu, my only problem was that I couldn't use GTalk in Ubuntu.Here comes the solution - GTalx. It works flawlessly on my Ubuntu 9.10 karmic running on Dell Inspiron 1525.

Hello, every Karmic guys! First congrats to Ubuntu, the Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Alpha 4 was just released. I think you’ve been waiting for a while, now Ubuntu Tweak is supporting Karmic!