Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, wants a more elegant and user-friendly Linux-Desktop for it's users. In a full blown statement at this year’s OSCON, Ubuntu grounder Mark Shuttleworth proclaimed: ‘'The great task in front of us over the next two years is to lift the experience of the Linux desktop from something that is stable and robust and not so pretty, into something that is art'’.

Poppler, a library for rendering PDF data, was released in its developer version as 0.9.0. For the first time it enables interactive documents using Javascript.

The Fotoxx image manipulation program offers highlights such as HDR and panorama functions, but where there is light, there is also shadow.

At first, plans for Gtk+ 3 were considered unnecessary – the developers themselves considered the 2.x version mature enough – now, some developers are toying with the idea of developing Gtk+ 3. Gnome founder Miguel de Icaza comments on and criticizes the developments in his blog.

Version 2.6 of Gimp uses the Gegl library, which can display up to 32 bit color depth.

A tutorial on the Gimpusers.com community website gives visitors the lowdown on next generation Gimp features.

GIMP is great for fixing digital images. We’ll show you how to correct washed-out or under-exposed images and white balance.

Using drawing tools to manually create graphs and diagrams can be a slow and convoluted process. The Graphviz toolbox offers a faster way. Based on a short text with the information for the graph, Graphviz quickly generates a neat drawing.

GIMP is a powerful tool for improving digital photos. We’ll explain how to crop pictures, simulate depth of field, and correct perspective.