I have to say that the current state of Project Utopia is truly outstanding. I desperately hope that the current Project Utopia components make it into Fedora Core 3.

Project Utopia, for those in the dark, is an umbrella term for a collaborative project that aims to integrate the GNOME Desktop Environment with the Linux kernel's (and other kernels such as Solaris and BSD) ability to automatically manage user-oriented hardware.

Examples

• I insert a blank CD-R and Blank CD-R Disc appears on my desktop with a CD-R icon. I'm able to open the Blank CD-R Disc, drag files into it, and then burn it to the blank CD-R.
  
• Upon insertion of a DVD movie the DVD appears on my desktop with a DVD Movie icon and GNOME plays the movie full screen.
  
• Upon insertion of the Compact Flash card from my digital camera into the computer's card slot the label of the flash card "Photographs" appears on my desktop with a compact flash icon.
• If I attach a digital camera to my computer GNOME can automatically import photos from the camera into a photo album.

These are just the test cases, really. So much more is possible with Utopia. I can't wait until everything takes advantage of it fully.

Screenshot of Examples:

Labels: linux