Tried out Amarok 2 over the weekend on my Linux mint "Elyssa" box. Install instructions are fairly straightforward. The UI is quite minimalist. But fact is that it just works. Just point it to your music directory, add the lyrics applet (Right Click in the center panel of the Amarok window)
Then select Lyrics Applet:

And Voila:


Of course the lyrics will be displayed provided you are connected and online, duh :)

Great work by the Amarok team!

My experiments with truth, er, herd5

First mistake – ran the cdromupgrade script to upgrade my “production” laptop from dapper. The process threw up when it tried to upgrade python 2.4 to 2.5 and left my laptop in an unusable state. Fortunately, I had a rescue cd based on gentoo handy and I took a backup of /home and /etc. Went ahead with a clean install of herd 5.

After install,

First annoyance:

Synaptic thinks that the feisty cd is mounted on /cdrom (which is symlinked to /media/cdrom). However on inserting the herd 5 cd, the actual mount point is /media/Feisty\ Fawn\ Herd\ 5. I had to remove the /cdrom symlink and recreate it to point to the auto mount point.

Second annoyance:

Intel 915 graphics – the default install guessed the resolution correctly (1280x800), however the rendering sucked. I repeated what I did for dapper – downloaded and used 915resolution – it's a life saver.

Third annoyance:

For playing audio files, I immediately installed xmms and the gstreamer-* plugins. I went to the file open dialog and voila:

Fabulous blank dialogs.

Many more annoyances kept cropping up. Hopefully all these will be fixed by the time Feisty is actually released.

My Machine config: HP DV5220US, Core Duo, Intel 915 graphics, 120 GB HDD and 1 GB of RAM.

Monopoly arm twisting schools?

Reading the article on CTMI left me bewildered and disgusted. Exposing kids to computers via the Monopoly's OS gives them a skewed view of the world. Whether this particular case happened due to politics or arm twisting, it does not bode well for the OSS world. Do you have a school in your neighborhood that uses linux and OSS? Let me know.