It’s Monday and that means we’re looking for stuff for this week’s show! This week is the return of customs on the podcast but now it’s multiplied by infinity with all the new options, forge, and fileshare. We’re looking for your favorite custom games and forge variants to get out there in the Halo Nation. You don’t have to be the creator, but if you send one in please either put it on your fileshare or send us a link for the show notes. Of course let us know your gamertag so we can give you credit and find the game in fileshare. Spread the word, let’s make this a really fun show with a bunch of cool customs and forge variants! Just click the big green button on the right side of the page to send yours in. Deadline is Tuesday night at about 6pm EST.

The Wide Load points out the latest newspost at Wideload (boy is that going to be a hard distinction to keep making) that confirms the announcement of Wideload Shorts’ web-based game Cyclomite debuting on GarageGames’ InstantAction site early next year and already previewed by 1Up.

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It’s Sunday and that means time for another episode of Podtacular! This show has a rich awesome center and has a whipped topping of awesome sauce. LoneBananaFone returns to the show this week with one of the funniest shows in quite a while. We also have an interview with Luke Smith at the Best Buy launch event in Seattle, voice mails from the community naarated by CapnKrunk, and more! Don’t miss the outtakes at the end… those will explain this lol-podart by StickyGerbils. 🙂

Speaking of which, after this we’re going to use the best user-submitted screenshot of the week for pod art. If you have a cool one, be sure to submit it! Oh and here’s a link to goozex.com that we mentioned in the show.

This is aimed at general PC users and gurus alike. If your interested in a free, easy to use (and very cool) alternative to Windows, Ubuntu Linux is a very popular choice. In my opinion the ease of installation is now even easier than installing Windows considering you don’t have to enter in a license key.

Steps to install:
1. Download Ubuntu Desktop Edition
2. Burn .iso to cd.
3. Place CD in tray and restart computer. Ubuntu will boot from the CD.
4. On the desktop is an “install” icon… click it. Follow the wizard.

Then your good to go. That’s it.. it’s that simple.
Click “read more” to see what you get with Ubuntu

It installs by default a few pieces of software: Full office functionality (MS spreadsheets, MS .doc, MS powerpoint) with the openoffice.org software, Email client, Firefox browser, along with others that you should be able to choose during installation.

The fact is, I’m actually surprised how easy it is to use Linux now. Before all of the Linux distributions got a handle on the installation process, Linux was slightly overwhelming to install and use. The OS has now gotten so user friendly that Dell is now offering PCs with Ubuntu already installed.

If your planning on putting it on a hard drive with Windows already installed, again it’s quite easy. You can partition your hard drive and make space for Ubuntu. In the installation process you have the choice to install a boot loader called Grub that lets you select between Windows and Ubuntu when starting up your computer.

Planning on installing it on a second hard drive? No problem.

Here’s an example of the Compiz Fusion window manager that will be installed along with Ubuntu 7.10. Other features include 3d desktop switching, wobbly windows, particle effects, and more. Being a fan of the Windows OS, I can honestly say that these features far outshine Vistas window manager. The fact that it’s free is just icing on the cake.

This article is not intended to make you an expert in Linux usage. It’s solely to give the novice user confidence that they can now use Linux with no problem. Here’s a couple things about Ubuntu that you will notice:

There are multiple ways to install software on Linux. Here’s the preferred way:

• Ubuntu uses a top level “package manager” that handles this with ease. This will keep track of the versions of software similar to the way Windows does with the it’s update manager.
  
• Packages to install come in either .deb or .rpm files. These are analogous to the .msi Windows installer files. So when you find some cool software, just download the packaged version of it rather than the other forms (which I won’t go into here)
  
• Compressed files are usually found with the extension .tar.gz which is analogous to .zip files. Extracting these is usually an easy click of the mouse button Zip files also work here as well.

Hopefully, this is enough to convince some people that Linux is no longer just for the experts. Just ask away if you have any questions on installation, configuring or just plain “how do I ____ on Ubuntu”.

This is aimed at general PC users and gurus alike. If your interested in a free, easy to use (and very cool) alternative to Windows, Ubuntu Linux is a very popular choice. In my opinion the ease of installation is now even easier than installing Windows considering you don’t have to enter in a license key.

Steps to install:
1. Download Ubuntu Desktop Edition
2. Burn .iso to cd.
3. Place CD in tray and restart computer. Ubuntu will boot from the CD.
4. On the desktop is an “install” icon… click it. Follow the wizard.

Then your good to go. That’s it.. it’s that simple.
Click “read more” to see what you get with Ubuntu

It installs by default a few pieces of software: Full office functionality (MS spreadsheets, MS .doc, MS powerpoint) with the openoffice.org software, Email client, Firefox browser, along with others that you should be able to choose during installation.

The fact is, I’m actually surprised how easy it is to use Linux now. Before all of the Linux distributions got a handle on the installation process, Linux was slightly overwhelming to install and use. The OS has now gotten so user friendly that Dell is now offering PCs with Ubuntu already installed.

If your planning on putting it on a hard drive with Windows already installed, again it’s quite easy. You can partition your hard drive and make space for Ubuntu. In the installation process you have the choice to install a boot loader called Grub that lets you select between Windows and Ubuntu when starting up your computer.

Planning on installing it on a second hard drive? No problem.

Here’s an example of the Compiz Fusion window manager that will be installed along with Ubuntu 7.10. Other features include 3d desktop switching, wobbly windows, particle effects, and more. Being a fan of the Windows OS, I can honestly say that these features far outshine Vistas window manager. The fact that it’s free is just icing on the cake.

This article is not intended to make you an expert in Linux usage. It’s solely to give the novice user confidence that they can now use Linux with no problem. Here’s a couple things about Ubuntu that you will notice:

There are multiple ways to install software on Linux. Here’s the preferred way:

• Ubuntu uses a top level “package manager” that handles this with ease. It’s called Synaptic Package Manager. This will keep track of the versions of software similar to the way Windows does with the Update Manager.
  
• Packages to install come in either .deb or .rpm files. These are analogous to the .msi Windows installer files. So when you find some cool software, just download the packaged version of it rather than the other forms (which I won’t go into here)
  
• Compressed files are usually found with the extension .tar.gz which is analogous to .zip files. Extracting these is usually an easy click of the mouse button Zip files also work here as well.

Hopefully, this is enough to convince some people that Linux is no longer just for the experts. Just ask away if you have any questions on installation, configuring or just plain “how do I ____ on Ubuntu”.