Bodhi Linux is NOT yet another Ubuntu based Linux distro. Bodhi Linux is among a very few number of Ubuntu based distros that run Enlightenment(E17) window manager instead of the popular alternatives like GNOME or KDE. I had never used anything other than GNOME, KDE and XFCE desktops before and I have to tell you, my experience with Enlightenment desktop has been a completely refreshing one.

LibreOffice 3.3 stable is released finally with enormous amount of bug fixes and other major improvements. OpenOffice has already become memory and LibreOffice is the new name for revolution. As Mark Shuttleworth himself stated before, LibreOffice is already a default in ongoing Ubuntu Natty release cycle. Slowly but surely, things are starting to look good for LibreOffice. Community involvement is also picking up. LibreOffice UI mockups we featured here before are good examples.

Here comes even more movies and short films made using Blender for visual effects. For starters, Blender is a free and open source 3D content creation application. If you have seen the brilliant collection of Blender made videos we have featured here before, you probably don't need any more lecturing on the abilities of this incredible open source tool called Blender.

Applications for Ubuntu/Linux are not at all in short supply. But picking the best from the rest is not an easy thing to do. There are a number of really good bit torrent clients for Ubuntu out there. Here we intend feature a collection of 5 really good bit torrent clients for Ubuntu which we think are among the best.

Amarok 2.4 codenamed "Slipstream" was released some days ago. Amarok has evolved a lot over the year and we had followed the Amarok evolution in its each and every step. Now with the release of Amarok 2.4 final, a lot has changed. Here is a quick preview.

The latest Opera 11 release introduced a slew of new features which included the support for third party extensions. There is nothing new about it though, since Firefox had addons support like for ever.  And Opera gradually became the most awesome browser that nobody uses. Let's just hope that the new changes brings in new users as well for Opera. We had already featured top Firefox addons that enhances browser safety and privacy some time ago, now here is a collection of incredible Opera Extensions that matter.

XPlanetFX is an incredible tool for rendering high quality real time earth wallpaper in Ubuntu. XplanetFX comes with a handy GTK interface which makes things a whole lot simpler. I never knew such a tool even existed until one of our readers mentioned us about it.

At the time of writing this article, Ubuntu 11.04 codenamed "Natty Narwhal" is still very much in its nascent stages of development. I really wanted to take it for a spin and write about my first hand impressions on latest build Ubuntu Natty. I installed Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Alpha 1 in my USB drive and things went pretty smooth from the word go.

•  UPDATE: Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal Released, Reviewed 

Tech Drive-in has covered several posts on useful Google Chrome extensions before, the most prominent being the one where we featured useful Chrome extensions for a more secure browsing experience. But this one is special. A Last.fm music player extension for Google Chrome that does exactly what you expect it to.

LibreOffice is already my default office suite in Ubuntu though there is not much of a difference between OpenOffice and LibreOffice for now. But things are moving fast and LibreOffice is going to have its first official release soon. Meanwhile, you might want to remove all traces of OpenOffice and install LibreOffice in Ubuntu for a change. Trust me, it feels good.

Elementary Studio GTK theme is a nice and impressive fusion of DanRabbit's Elementary GTK theme and beautiful dark Ubuntu Studio default theme. Elementary theme is supposed to be the default theme for upcoming Elementary OS codenamed "Jupiter". 

In the last couple months I've been seeing a lot of articles concerning the Midori web browser. It's a lightweight GTK-based browser that uses the WebKit rendering engine also used by browsers like Chromium and Safari. At version 0.2.9, it's relatively new (it's still a ways away from a 1.0 release), but it's included as part of the Xfce "goodies" package. It's also the browser of choice of the Elementary project. I've tried Midori before and like it because it isn't too much of a system resource hog, and it faithfully displays the webpages I visit.

When you look back at the history of Ubuntu through the years, you will see that, Ubuntu Unity is *the* most significant change ever happened to Ubuntu. Ubuntu Unity is a really interesting idea with limitless possibilities. Now, here are some innovative user created Ubuntu Unity UI mockups/ideas you might find interesting.

What else do you expect from a project with the name Desktopography? Nothing but pure desktop eyecandy in the form of incredibly well designed wallpapers.

We have covered Atolm GTK theme before and now this beautiful theme gets a PPA which makes it really easy to install and get updates for Ubuntu users. The theme itself got a number of improvements in the latest update. Atolm theme is done by the same artists who created beautiful Orta GTK theme.

Elementary project refined Linux desktop like no other. And now, the much anticipated Elementary OS codenamed Jupiter is all set to have its first ever official release. The official tagline goes like this - "Its gonna be huge". Considering the sheer amount of changes and improvements Elementary OS is going to bring with it, the release of "Jupiter" is going to be huge indeed!

We have discussed about Orta GTK theme in length before and also about the impressive Orta GTK theme + Faenza icon theme combination, which in my view is the best theme I have used with Ubuntu in a long time. Its so simple and eye-pleasing at the same time. The recent release of Orta 1.4.0 version brings in a number of important changes.

In line with the predictions by Gartner some months ago, open source Android OS is indeed winning the war against Apple's iOS in the great fight for U.S. smartphone market dominance. For the first time ever in U.S. smartphone history, more people are using Google's Android OS powered smartphones than Apple's iPhone running iOS.

Ubuntu Control Center is a nice simple application to sort things out easily and intuitively in Ubuntu. It is originally inspired from Mandriva Control Center and aims to centralize and organize the main configuration tools available in Ubuntu.

Android 3.0 is not just another version of Android like the recently released Android 2.3 "Gingerbread". Instead, Android 3.0 codenamed "Honeycomb" is built from scratch to suit the needs of devices with bigger screen sizes, tablets to be specific(in the current context). Google officially previewed Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada. And from the initial looks of it, Android 3.0 powered tablets are going to be spectacular. Here is nice little video preview of Android 3.0.

Year 2010 proved to be a gold mine as far as Linux Foundation is concerned. Not only did the adoption of Linux grew by leaps and bounds, primarily through Android OS and rest via popular Linux based distros like Ubuntu, the number of official Linux Foundation members also increased dramatically.

In line with the predictions we had here before, IE has not only fallen below 50% market share for the first time ever, it has now become the second most popular browser in Europe. Firefox has taken the lead and is now the most popular browser in the whole of Europe. Is that what you call as the great circle of life?

You have nice and slick Startup Disk Creator app by default in Ubuntu for creating bootable live USB drives easily. Now you can create a bootable live USB device in Windows also using UNetBootin. You can install UNetBootin in Ubuntu and other flavors of Linux too.

Blender is an incredible open source cross platform suite of tools for 3D creation. And if you are unaware of the capabilities of Blender, you should watch these stunning Blender made short films and animations you probably haven't seen ever before. Blender 2.56 beta is the fifth beta release of Blender 2.5. Blender 2.5 is undergoing massive changes and the final release date is still quite uncertain. 

Though there is no definitive time frame yet, LibreOffice is going to be the default Office suite for Ubuntu in the near future. "Future ubuntu releases will be shipped with LibreOffice", said Mark Shuttleworth himself recently. If you don't want to wait until then, here is how you install latest LibreOffice in Ubuntu using PPA.

Silencing its critics once again, Wikipedia met its intended goal of raising $16M in style. And this fundraising was characterized by the collective power of individual netizens, nearly 650,000 of them, who donated generously to Wikimedia foundation.

Changing GDM/Login Screen background image and theme was one of the easiest thing to do in Ubuntu just two releases ago. It all came to an abrupt end since the release of latest GDM version. Changing theme is still so very difficult, but there is an easier way to change GDM background image in Ubuntu.

If you are a regular visitor here, you most probably would have read the article discussing the user friendliness factor of Linux. The most interesting part of the article was the response we got from our readers in the form of comments(nearly 90 of them and still counting). A lot of them are very well written and quite thought provoking too. We are featuring the best of them here. Thanks to all active readers of Tech Drive-in. This is a tribute to you all. Read on.

Linux Mint is one of the oldest, and arguably one of the best-developed, spin-offs of Ubuntu. Over the last few weeks, I've been seeing more articles talk about another similar spin-off of Ubuntu called Pinguy OS, and I thought, "Another Ubuntu derivative? How many more does the world need?" But then I saw that these articles were placing Pinguy OS on the same level of Linux Mint. I figured this warranted a full-on comparison test.