Is Breezy ready and several other questions

[Eamonn Sullivan]

On 14/10/05, Timothy A. Holmes <tholmes at mcaschool.net> wrote:
> Hi Folks -- I was wondering the general consensus on a couple items
> about Ubuntu in general and breezy in specific.

I'll try to tackle some of these.

>
> 1).  Is breezy ready for use -- I see it labeled on the site as a
> preview release, but I haven't found (haven't looked real hard) an
> explanation of what a preview release is.  It will be a desktop /
> internet station -- not doing much else

It's released -- no longer preview -- so, yes.

> 3). Similarly, I would like to find a rough equivalent to Picassa or the
> windows XP slide viewer for Ubuntu -- I have a bunch of pics I want to
> be able to look through / categorize etc.

The basic software handles viewing of photos fairly well, just
double-click on them. There's also F-Spot (I think it's called), which
has many of the basic features of Picassa. Gimp, a very powerful image
editor, is included by default. It has a learning curve, but my kids
haven't had any trouble learning it (*I* on the other hand...)

>
> 4).  I also have a ton of files on a Windows 2000 pro box that I need to
> move to Hoary,  CD burning is out as the 2000 box does not have a
> burner, but I do have a good network,  I know that FTP is an option --
> is that the best choice for Ubuntu, or is there an easier way -- id like
> to avoid having to set up samba if I can -- (I do it all the time with
> Active Directory auth etc at work, and would like to avoid headaches at
> home if I can)

Ubuntu does Windows networking now. Samba is what you want to install.
My home network has one Windows XP PC, one Windows laptop and Ubuntu
(Breezy) desktop and they all speak happily together.

>
> 5). Are there any good P2P programs for UBUNTU (yes, I know the risks,
> and yes, I know to avoid copyright problems) but I would like to try
> them out on the linux side of the world.

Yes, there are lots in the so-called "universe" repository (thousands
of programs), although not officially supported. An officially
supported bittorrent client is included by default.

-Eamonn

(And, yes, I did punt on the video question. I don't know if AVI files
will work with out some hoop-jumping.)