Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot is marching ahead. Through our detailed reviews of Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 releases, we followed Ubuntu 11.10 in its each and every developmental phase so far. A lot of things have changed since the third alpha release and as we had promised, here is a preview of latest round of changes in Ubuntu 11.10 and a quick screenshot tour.

Got a mail recently from freeworld's Raphael where he introduced me to his recent creation - a Linux bash shell cheat sheet meant for beginners. Very useful list of commands and keyboard shortcuts for Terminal with descriptions, more relevant if you are an avid Ubuntu/Debian user.

Google, the maker and manager of the Android platform, has claimed that Android is the world’s best open source software system. How true are these claims? A report based on a recent study by market research firm VisionMobile about several popular open source projects.

Ubuntu Software Center is seeing its second round of upgrades, this time changes are even more dramatic. Good to see Canonical putting so much thrust on Software Center which has the potential to become Ubuntu's major money spinner in the near future.

Inkscape is the premier open source vector graphics editor for Linux. Inkscape is cross platform and is available for Windows and Mac OS X for free download. We have dealt with a bunch of really good Inskcape tutorials before, here are even more of those. Following is a collection of 10 of the very best and descriptive Inkscape tutorials from around the web.

Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot Alpha 3 was released few weeks ago. I decided to properly install Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric in my netbook along with Ping-Eee OS this time around instead of just experimenting it with a USB install. I have been using Ubuntu 11.10 Alpha 3 as my primary OS for almost 2 weeks now and this is how I feel about it. Read on.

Android Market is such an awesome place for exploring and finding new interesting stuff. On one such recent explorations, I discovered these great Android apps with which you will be able to remotely control major multimedia apps for Linux incuding Banshee, Amarok, VLC, XBMC and Boxee from your Android device. Check them out.

Faenza has always been my favourite icon theme for Ubuntu. We have had numerous posts on Faenza Icon theme before with some of them like this one here becoming hugely popular among our readers. Well the good news is, Faenza has just breached version 1.0. Faenza 1.0 adds a number of new icons and even launches support for symbolic icons in GNOME Shell.

Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. But are there any good free CAD apps for Linux? Strangely, that is one of the questions we often receive in our mail. We will try to list not just the free CAD apps here, but also the non-free ones that works well under Linux(in no particular order).

Bricscad is a CAD package developed by Bricsys, originally built using the IntelliCAD engine. We have featured Bricscad before in our featured listing of top commercial apps for Linux. Bricscad is among the few commercially supported CAD packages which runs on Linux. Bricscad is capable of most contemporary AutoCAD functionalities.

• Download Bricscad for Linux

QCad is a CAD software package for 2D design and drafting. QCad professional edition is the non-free version with options for limited-time free trial. There is also a community edition of QCad which is licensed under GPL. You can download QCad community edition for free.

• Download QCad Professional and Community Editions

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FreeCAD is a free and Open Source 3D CAD/CAE program, based on OpenCascade, QT and Python. It features key concepts like macro recording, workbenches, ability to run as server and dynamically loadable application extensions. Windows, Mac and Linux versions available.

• Download FreeCAD for Windows, Mac and Linux

VariCAD is 3D/2D CAD program primarily meant for mechanical engineering design. VariCAD provides support for parameters and geometric constraints, tools for shells, pipelines, sheet metal unbending and crash tests, assembly support, mechanical part and symbol libraries, calculations, bills of materials, and more.


VariCAD is a non-free, proprietary application with packages for Windows and Linux readily available.

• Buy VariCAD for Linux from VariCAD Online Store

Open CASCADE Technology is a software development platform for 3D surface and solid modeling, visualization, data exchange and rapid application development. Open CASCADE Technology is available for free download and is licensed under Open CASCADE Technology Public License which the developer claims to be 'LGPL-like with certain differences'. The Debian project considers the license to meet the Debian Free Software Guidelines and has accepted Open CASCADE into its main archive.

• Download Open CASCADE Technology for Linux

CYCAS is a 2D/3D CAD application for Windows and Linux which offers special elements and techniques for architectural design apart from normal CAD techniques. CYCAS enables intuitive and uncomplicated handling of 2D and 3D elements. It is non-free and proprietary.

• Download CYCAS for Windows, Linux

CityEngine is a 3D modeling application specialized in the generation of three dimensional urban environments. Key features of CityEngine include GIS/CAD Data Support, Dynamic City Layouts, Street Networks Patterns, Map-Controlled City Modeling, Industry-Standard 3D Formats and more. CityEngine is non-free and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux.

• Download CityEngine for Windows, Mac and Linux

BRL-CAD is a cross-platform open source solid modeling system that includes interactive geometry editing, high-performance ray-tracing for rendering and geometric analysis, image and signal-processing tools, a system performance analysis benchmark suite, libraries for robust geometric representation, with more than 20 years of active development. BRL-CAD is free to download and is available for almost all platforms out there.

• Download BRL-CAD for Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris etc.

Update: 3 More CAD Apps for Linux Recommended by Our Readers

• Draftsight - It was a really big mistake from our part for not including Draftsight in the first place. DraftSight is a free 2D CAD product developed by Dassault Systèmes. DraftSight lets users to create, edit and view DWG, DXF files easily. Specific packages for Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva and Suse available for free download.
• LibreCAD is the free and Open Source personal CAD application for Windows, Mac and Linux. LibreCAD is among the very few truly community driven CAD app for Linux.
• ARES Commander Edition for Linux

Linus Torvalds becomes the latest to join GNOME 3.0 haters club. In a recent discussion at Google+, Linus went on to call GNOME 3 an unholy mess and called for a GNOME 2 fork. 

Humble Indie Bundle 3 offer just got a wee bit sweeter. Now, along with the 5 games that comes with Humble Indie Bundle 3(which you can buy at the price you decide), you could obtain 6 more games taking the total number of games to 11.

We have discussed a lot about real world applications of 3D modelling and rendering tools like Blender before, but not really about the choice of tools itself. What are the best, free and open source, 3D modelling and rendering apps available for Linux? Let's find out.

Art of Illusion is a free, open source 3D modelling and rendering application for Windows, Mac and Linux. Online repositories and a built-in downloading tool for installing extensions are some of the unique features of Art of Illusion which are not seen even in non-free, proprietary 3D modelling and rendering applications. 

• Art of Illusion for Linux Installation Instructions

Blender is the most popular, free and open source, 3D modelling and rendering application for Linux. Blender foundation has produced a number of small animation movies created entirely using Blender to showcase its true potential (Agent 327: Operation Barbershop, Sintel, Big Buck Bunny to name a few).


The first large professional project that used Blender was Spider-Man 2 movie, where it was primarily used to create animatics and pre-visualizations for the storyboard department. Blender is available for free download from the default repositories of all major Linux distributions.

• Download Blender for Windows, Mac and Linux

Ayam is a free 3D modelling environment for the RenderMan interface, distributed under the BSD licence which allows anyone to use, copy, modify, distribute, and license this software and its documentation for any purpose. The current stable version of Ayam is 1.19 and it was released on 16th of March 2011. Downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux available.

• Ayam Download and Installation Instructions for Linux

K-3D is yet another free and open source 3D modelling and animation software for Linux. It features a plug-in-oriented procedural engine for all of its content. K-3D supports polygonal modelling, and includes basic tools for NURBS (a mathematical model commonly used in computer graphics for generating and representing curves and surfaces), patches, curves and animation.


Like Blender, K-3D is available in default repositories of all major Linux distros. Do a simple sudo apt install k3d in Terminal if you are on Ubuntu.

• K-3D Download Instructions for Windos, Mac and Linux

MakeHuman is an open source application for creating 3D characters. Features that make this software unique include a new, highly intuitive GUI and a high quality mesh. According to its creators, a photorealistic humanoid can be modeled in less than 2 minutes using MakeHuman. Free downloads for Windows, Mac and Linux (Ubuntu specific packages available).

• Download MakeHuman for Windows, Linux

Also Read..

• Top 10 Commercial Apps for Linux that I Never Knew Existed

Bisigi themes has a special place in the hearts and minds of long term Ubuntu users. I have been using Ubuntu for about 5 years now and in my opinion, the first set of really professional looking themes were introduced by Bisigi. And unlike many other theme packs for Ubuntu, every single Bisigi theme was a wholesome deal, included everything from wallpapers to icon themes. Bisigi themes stable PPA for Ubuntu 11.04 has just been updated and now you can install the full set of 15 Bisigi themes for Ubuntu Natty in just 3 steps. Read on.