Linux Format Archives

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Issue 155 (March 2012) - Discover Linux

Get on board the Linux bus. Destination: expertsville!

If you`re looking for a way into the weird and wonderful world of Linux (by weird we mean being able to install what you want without being branded a pirate. We also mean no longer having to worry about viruses corrupting your expensive machine), LOOK NO LONGER! This issue holds your hand and guides you through those first tentative steps to software freedom.

And there`s plenty more for the established Linux user: we cover advanced SSH, Arduino hacking and data-loss prevention in Drupal in the tutorials, plus there`s the Coding Academy, reviews (trust us, the Xfce desktop is going to get a lot more popular when people realise how good VectorLinux is), and we discover how Linux is making a difference to people`s lives in rural Zambia.

 Features

Discover Linux

Start your journey from beginner to Linux guru. (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Dr Brown`s Administeria

Introducing Anaconda`s new hub and spoke model and how to manage your system with Webmin. (Chris Brown)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Penguins in Africa

We discover how Linux is helping to change hundreds of lives in Zambia. (Adam Oxford)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

8 things we`d change about Linux audio

We refrain from filling the whole magazine with complaints about sound, restricting ourselves to asa few PulseAudio gripes. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Running a project from the front line.

After six years of development, 35,000 downloads of his operating system and plenty of mishaps, Mike Saunders knows a thing or two about making open source projects work. We asked him to share all... (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Interview: Interview: Damian Conway

Five years after our last interview, we corner Perl`s `uncle` and programming mastermind to ask the rhetorical question, `Where is version 6?`. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

 Coverdisc

Ubuntu remixed and 6 other distros

Neil Bothwick shows his mastery over optical media with our own Gnome 3 remix of Ubuntu and six other fully booting distros, as well as all the other great software we feature in the magazine. (Neil Bothwick)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

HotPicks

Ubuntu Tweak, Jhead, PuTTY, Arcadia, ReKonq, Nightingale, Aweather, Smallball2, XORCurses, SourceSquare and cronopete (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

 Tutorials

Core Skills: Making internet calls with SIP

Before Skype there was SIP for sending voice and video calls over the internet. It`s still around and it`s just as cool. We show you how. (Mayank Sharma)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Zina: Music on your sites

We show you how to share your music with visitors to your website using a free web-based media streamer. (Shashank Sharma)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Bristol: Build a synth studio

Save a fortune in vintage hardware by going virtual with the best synth suite for Linux. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Backing up Drupal

Sleep better at night after letting us show you how to back up and maintain Drupal`s core files. (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Arduino: Make some waves

Doing some more tricky things with timers, we turn the Arduino into a waveform generator. (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

OpenSSH: Easy Logins

Running automated scripts over SSH channels can be tricky. We show you how to work around this limitation. (Mayank Sharma)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

 Coding Academy

Assembly: Know your code

Delve deeper into the mystical world of assembly language and get to grips with subroutines and the stack. (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Code Concepts: Sorting

Let us introduce you to the unruly world of algorithms, efficiency and sorted data. (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Modern Perl: Adding to our app

The power of web frameworks is in how they take care of standard features. We use Dancer to add interactivity to our reading list program. (Dave Cross)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Python: Do it with style

The ever-fashionable Nick Veitch acceded to your demands and explains how to create a proper Python package that nobody will snigger at. (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

 Reviews

VectorLinux 7.0

Can a distro built on Slackware ever appeal to the masses? (Andrew Gregory)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Super Meat Boy

The inside of Mike`s head is a platform game, after years of Mario fun in the nineties. Now he pits his wits against something more modern. (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Scribus 1.4.0

After four years of betas and release candidates, we finally get virtual ink on our hands. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Parallels Workstation 6.0

We look at a low-cost altenative to VMWarew Workstation, but can it beat the free VirtualBox suite? (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Roundup: Project Planners

Linux can help project planners, thanks to DotProject, GanttPV, KPlato and TaskJuggler (Marco Fioretti)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

 More

News: Microsoft blocks Linux from ARM devices

Also: Gnome 3 forked by Linux Mint developers, financial situation `grave` at Mandriva and Ubuntu hits our TV screens (Andrew Gregory)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Distrowatch: News from the vaults of distro development

More Mint, Semplice Linux, Easy Arch and the battle for the Linux desktop. (Susan Linton)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

What on Earth: Dart

We wonder whether Google`s new Dart language heralds the dawn of a new age or a bitter schism (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.