Rediscovering the desktop

As you might have noticed, I've been on a rather long break from my blogging activity, and again this was due to my Mac being broken. Again.

It's not like I didn't have a replacement (my old trusty Asus M6N), but as I've said before, i get depressed when my Mac brakes. And it just happens oh so many times.

Anyway, the downside, apart from the depression bit, was that I missed the opportunity of ego-blogging about the brand new Ruby-Lang Portuguese site .I'm very proud of being a part of the amazing team behind it, and sincere kudos must go out to Emanuel and Franc.

On the upside I had the chance of rediscovering Linux on the laptop!
I'm lucky that my Asus is a pretty linux-compatible, but with the new Ubuntu 7.04, everything just works. That includes wireless, the extra (media) buttons, the compiz powered desktop effects, the works.

Now, I've been known to prefer Suse/Novel over any Debian based system for users and user-grade hardware, but Ubuntu has been making such an extraordinary evolution that it has (for all that I care) become the de facto distro for desktop use. It just gives you roughly 70% you'll need from the first boot, and the rest you'll get with Automatix. For a little more specific usage needs, the excellent Aptitude app will do the trick. You'll never get so much for so little!

Anyway, here's a little list of apps I've been (re)discovering:
Aptana + RadRails (Netbeans, eat your heart out!. Thankfully its cross-platform);
F-Spot (will give iPhone a run for its money any day);
Songbird (think iTunes minus clutter);
Gnome-Launch-Box (it's a Quicksilver clone, gets the job done);

And a list of what I miss:
Integrated Dictionary just a shortcut away;
Textmate (it was growing on me...);
Dashboard (what? I love eye candy...);

That's not so bad is it?