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Issue 162 (October 2012) - Best Distro 2012

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Best distro 2012: we put the top contenders head to head. Mint takes on Ubuntu in the classic battle between father and son. OpenSUSE Tumbleweed takes on the most popular rolling distro, Arch. Gnome desktops compete for dominance when we pit Fedora against Sabayon, and we fulfill our KDE obligations by looking at both Mageia 2 and Rosa - two closely related distributions that have yet to make their mark. It’s not close to being an exact science as there will be as many opinions as there are distributions. But it will be fun. Let the games commence! When you've decided what distro you want occupying your hard disk you might want to check out our guide to getting involved in flame wars, build a virtual CPU with 4 bits of RAM, improve your passwords, find the best licence for your best project or read all about how free software is making it easier to find a cheap bottle of Budweiser. All this and more in Linux Format!

Features

Build a CPU part 2

Discover two more components that make your CPU tick, and come a step closer to a working processor. (Jonathan Roberts)

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The great debate

Why are there so many flame-filled arguments in the Linux world? Where did they start, and what do they mean? (Mike Saunders)

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Best distro 2012

We pit the top distros against each other to see which is the finest. (Mayank Sharma)

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Skype

Graham Morrision swipes those flying pigs from the sky whilst playing with the latest release from Microsoft. (Graham Morrison)

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Free Software Licences

We take a look at five of the most popular open source licences to see how they compare. (Ben Everard)

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Dr Brown's Administeria

Cloud costs and part two of 'how to be a sysadmin'. (Chris Brown)

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Interview: David Kobia

We talk to the technical lead of Ushahidi, a crowd-mapping platform giving a voice to communities around the globe. (Andrew Gregory)

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Coverdisc

On The Disc

15 full distros for your perusal. (Ben Everard)

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The best new open source software on the planet

MusE, Expect-lite, StressItOut, Poezio, Revelation, Functy, Super Grub 2, gShogi, Pax Britannica, PDF Cube, and Calise, (Nick Veitch)

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Tutorials

Cloud Storage

We look at the options for cloud storage in case ultimate disaster strikes your home setup. (Neil Bothwick)

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Documentation

Improve the experience for users of your programs, or other programs that don't have decent handbooks. (Mike Saunders)

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LXC: Smaller virtualisation

Wish you could have another box for that new project without weighing down your system? With Linux containers you can. (John Lane)

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Passwords

Have you really thought about your username and password strategy? (James Litton)

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Raspberry Pi

Use public Wi-Fi securely and beat censors with SSH tunnelling (Jonathan Roberts)

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Coding Academy

Android: Map your photos

Create an easy-to-use app that places your photos in the location you took them on a Google Map using GPS. (Juliet Kemp)

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Code Concepts: More data types

Learn hoe different types of data come together to solve a real problem. (Jonathan Roberts)

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python: Making maps

Put yourself, or at least your pictures, on the map with Python libraries and Google. (Nick Veitch)

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Reviews

Alien Arena: Reloaded Edition

Big-brained aliens, grungy maps, and lots of cattle combine to produce a fun, kitch FPS. (Jonathan Roberts)

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Chrome vs Opera

Your browser isn't just a browser anymore. It's an e-mail client, file server and a whole lot more. We take a look at two heavy weights. (Adam Oxford)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Raspbian

Our favourite diminutive computer gets a new distro. (Ben Everard)

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News: OSCON 2012: the front line of geekery

Plus: Microsoft signs a new patent deal, Linux kernel 3.5 released, Steam comes to Linux, Raspberry Pi gets some competition and Meego lives on as Jolla, (Andrew Gregory)

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Distrowatch: This month's roundup of news from the vaults of Linux distro development

OpenSUSE, Fuduntu and PureOS all come under the microscope. (Susan Linton)

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What on Earth: Secure Boot

We take a look at Microsoft's controversial overhaul of your computer's boot process. (Mayank Sharma)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.