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Issue 112 (December 2008) - Get creative!

Write music, build a website and make a movie with free software

Fix KDE 4 problems and get a killer desktop

Learn how to switch distros without losing your data and settings

On our 4GB DVD: super-solid CentOS Linux with over 2,400 packages

Tutorials on customising Gnome, Python game programming, photo geotagging, and LVM

Features

Get creative: OpenOffice.org

Designing a calendar in OOo is not only rewarding in itself, it can also stop you missing anniversaries, birthdays and magazine on-sale dates. (Andy Channelle)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Get creative: music making

Linux is a great platform for audio production - even newbies can get started with making sweet music. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Get creative: video editing

Whether you're editing the video of your Christmas party or crafting a blockbuster, Linux can do it all! (Daniel James)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Get creative: make a website

Anybody who's anybody has a web presence thesedays. We show you how to create a website quickly and easily with the help of WYSIWYG tool Kompozer. (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Tuning KDE 4.1

Now that KDE 4 is stable enough for day-to-day use, we fill the remaining cracks in the desktop with some hard-earned tips and tricks. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Switch distros

Do you want to try the latest distros but are afraid of losing all your previous work? We show you how to get the best of both worlds. (Neil Bothwick)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Dr Brown's Administeria

Manage your servers from your iPhone, understand file permissions and audit your boxes. (Chris Brown)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Interview: Max spevack

The former Fedora Project Leader tells us why Fedora is not a beta for RHEL. (Mike Saunders, Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Coverdisc

CentOS 5.2

Ultra-reliable Linux built with Fedora and Red Hat goodness. Plus: USB key distro kit (with Puppy Linux), VirtualBox 2.0, and more. (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

HotPicks

Bonnie++, Critterding, KChildlock, Leafpad, Lordsawar!, Nemo, ORDrumbox, Pidgin, Tofu, Wally (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Tutorials

First steps

Redesign your Gnome desktop and then head into space with Stellarium. (Andy Channelle)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Make a racing game

Expand your Python and PyGame skills with a top-down racer in under 100 lines of code. Vroom! (Mike Saunders)

Click here to read!

Geotag your photos

Get your holiday snaps and add geographical information galore. (Marco Fioretti)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Multimedia tips

We introduce a promising editor for RAW digital pictures, enliven your desktop and help you let the whole world know what you're listening to. (Marco Fioretti)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Hardcore: LVM

Struggling to partition your system during an installation? Need flexible filesystem sizes or filesystems bigger than one disk? Here's the solution. (Rob Dobozy)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Reviews

Ubuntu Desktop Training

We investigate Canonical's online training programme for the ubiquitous Ubuntu and discover things we never Gnu before. (Leo Maxwell)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Bubba 2

Rather than being forced to watch the sequel to a film about hillbillies, Graham finds the best Linux NAS money can buy. Yee-haw! (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Intel Classmate II

We go back to school with Intel's competitor to the OLPC XO. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Kerio MailServer 6.5.2

Linux is hardly short of free, high quality mail servers - so is there room for this commercial offering? (Neil Bothwick)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Focusrite Saffire LE

To help with the creation of the music section of this month's Get Creative feature, we look at an external audio device. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

VirtualBox 2.0.0

Is anything really real? Is Juliet just a brain in a jar? If a tree falls in the forest and lands on a virtual machine does it make a sound? Let's find out... (Juliet Kemp)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Web browsers

On test: Dillo, Epiphany, Firefox, Konqueror, Lynx, Opera (Andy Channelle)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

News: WWW.orld War 3

Google leaps into the browser battle armed with Chrome. Also: Linux and the Large Hadron Collider; Ubuntu to get OS X-style facelift; Cisco buys PostPath and Jabber; Maemo upgrade; Cray's Linux-based personal cluster. (Andy Channelle)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Distrowatch: On schedule

Debian, Fedora, Mandriva, OpenSUSE and Ubuntu gear up for their next releases. Plus: GNewSense 2.1 and MIB Live Games. (Susan Linton)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

What on Earth: GIS

We explain the power of geography-enabled databases and why you should use them. (Marco Fioretti)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.