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It had been a very long time since I used Mandrake (now, Mandriva) to power my old AMD K6 desktop PC. At the time, I was very happy using a 1280×1024 screen resolution supported by Mandriva in my integrated circuit! Then, I met others GNU/Linux distributions until I chose Slackware as my favorite one.

Today, I started wanting to try Mandriva Linux, again. I felt seducted by the Mandriva Flash device

Mandriva

so I decided to order one. However, I found this message:

“THIS PRODUCT IS NOT FOR SALE ANYMORE
A NEW VERSION IS COMMING SOON”

ummm… well… I’ll have to wait for the new Mandriva Flash device. I like this gadget because it is easy to carry on, it provides a complete “user-desktop” mobile solution to plug-in and boot (with the possibility to be installed) by almost any computer. Moreover, I trust Mandriva a lot and I think it has a very, very nice desktop environment that supports 3D effects. The new version of the Mandriva Flash device is coming with a boot and restore CD, it is, an additional item that I think is really important when we manage a Linux distribution. I read the price to be: 59 euros. I think it is a cheap price if you consider that the new Mandriva Flash device is 8 Gb!

The most customizable GNU/Linux distribution: Gentoo, canceled the 2008.1 release due to a change on its factoring release phase. As shown in the “New release strategy to provide more current install media” posted by Gentoo:

In future releases, Gentoo will focus on a more back-to-basics approach that will give you up-to-date install media on a regular basis and make much better use of our human resources. We’re looking into automated weekly builds of the minimal CDs and stage tarballs as well as maybe an annual LiveCD release.

So, for a future major Gentoo release, please consider that it can be in annual term, but weekly builds will be available.

Gentoo is famous because the overall distribution can be configured before it be installed. This highly customizable environment is the perfect solution to everybody looking to take the highest optimization of software vs hardware.

Gentoo is more recommended to experienced GNU/Linux users, but, nowdays Gentoo’s live cd cans approach more Linux newbies adepts.

Gmail just released the voice and video chat so you can hear and see family and friends right inside from Gmail. Unfortunately, this Gmail update does not applies to Linux users, yet.

Gmail voice and video chat

So, if you still use Windows, just plug in your web-cam to start using this Gmail video and chat service. The Linux community hopes to receive very soon an update to this Gmail video and chat service, but, I think that some of our most well known instant messaging programs: Pidgin and Kopete will start working very soon to add the Gmail voice and video chat feature as soon as possible.

Just remember that Gmail’s core chat service is based upon the open XML-inspired XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) protocol, more commonly known as Jabber.

Check out here the Gmail voice and video chat release notes and stay tunned to WAHIL.net to get the latest news.