FOSSwire

A really quick look at how to switch the GNOME File Manager into a browser mode rather than its default spatial mode. The setting is quite hidden in menus and dialogues, so if you\'ve lost it - here\'s where it is!

Let's face it - the web is a less fun place without Flash. There are plenty of sites that make use of it, and while we have projects to build a free implementation, it's not quite there yet.

So here, I'm going to try and show you how install Flash Player on Fedora 7 as quickly as possible. The process should be pretty simple, but does require use of the terminal. You might want to get one open right now.

$ su -
[[Enter your root password when prompted]]
# rpm -Uvh http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/flash-plugin-9.0.48.0-release.i386.rpm

That one hit command should download and install the RPM version of the current Flash Player at the time of writing. A quick restart of your browsers should complete the installation, and Flash should work.

You may want to browse about:plugins in Firefox (and similar browsers), to check it is installed. You should see something like this:

If you get that, all is well and Flash is installed. Have fun!

There can be no hiding it - audio frameworks on Linux are far from perfect. To start with, we have several different sound servers - including OSS and ALSA, which complicates things for application developers, but also, these frameworks aren't nearly as advanced in terms of feature sets as the sound systems in other operating systems like Core Audio in Mac OS X and Windows Vista's sound architecture.

PulseAudio is a project designed to change that. Actually, it's not Linux or even POSIX specific, but it is a much more advanced system which is designed to bring better stability, compatibility and features to Linux audio.

The Fedora Project have an interview up with Lennart Poettering, one of the developers on PulseAudio. The news is that Fedora 8 will be one of the first Linux distributions to ship with the new audio framework (and if it turns out to be successful, many other distros could follow suit).

I won't paste the whole interview here, but I do want to raise some points that I thought were interesting in it and that arose from it:

• As well as modernising the Linux sound architecture, PulseAudio is designed to be a "Compiz for sound". This is a novel and interesting concept. While all major operating systems now have some form of visual eye candy, whether it's Vista's Aero interface or Compiz in Linux, there hasn't really been any ideas around enhancing the sound experience in a similar way. Poettering terms it 'ear candy' (although for some reason I don't like the sound of that).
• Lots of backwards compatibility is built into it. That's sort of inevitable, as no new sound system for Linux would ever be adopted if it didn't work with any existing code. It does seem a shame however, that we have to reinvent the wheel to a certain extent and it's quite difficult to drop everything.
• A negative point - it is yet another framework. Things are complicated enough with having multiple sound systems and some applications that work with one and some that work with another. Again, it's inevitable to a certain extent, but it does make things yet more complicated.

Overall though, I think this does sound like a very neat idea and it's something I will personally be watching keenly when Fedora 8 is released next month and as it develops.