Linux Format, Issue 151 (December 2011)
Language: English
Pages: 132
ISBN: 2:00056568
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Conquer the command line - Immense power is at your fingertips - you just need to know how to use it. Here's how to get to grips with the CLI... (Jonathan Roberts)
Recycle old kit - Neil dusts off some ancient PCs and discovers there's plenty of life left in them yet. (Neil Bothwick)
18 steps to better Data Security - The jewel in your computer's crown isn't the OS, or the hardware - it's your data, some of which might be irreplaceable. Here are some safety tips. (Neil Bothwick)
Inside Mandriva - Sacked developers, financial headaches and technology trials - it's been a tough year for Mandriva. We investigate... (Mayank Sharma)
Dr Brown's Administeria - Server rollouts striking a bad chord? Let Ubuntu Orchestra bring some harmony back into your life. Plus: getting started with virtualisation. (Chris Brown)
Interview: Chase Douglas - Canonical's user interface coder spills the guts on squeezing multi-touch into Ubuntu... (Mike Saunders)
File encryption: keeping secrets - Got a super new business idea you don't want your competitors finding out about? Here's how to lock down your computer. (Jonathan Roberts)
LibreOffice: The way with Word - Make incomprehensible fonts and bizarre layouts a forgotten footnote with these tips and advice on document harmony. (Ben Everard)
Arch: Master the User Repository - We tackle one of the best aspects of the ever popular Arch distribution and show you how to install the latest cutting-edge software. (Graham Morrison)
Arduino: Build your own board - Tired of inadvertently blowing up hardware? Nick decides to have a go at putting together one of his own - and finds it's easier than he thought. (Nick Veitch)
XBMC: Set up a media centre - We can't supply the giant HDTV or the top-of-the-range surround-sound but we can help you build the digital media hub to plug it all into. (Simon Quain)
Build your own firewall - You could protect your system with any old firewall but it's much more fun to construct a bespoke Linux-based installation. Here's how. (James Litton)
Modern Perl: Track your reading - Modern Perl makes it simple to write a database program - say, for example, to keep tabs on your books - without using SQL. (Dave Cross)
Back to basics: Using conditionals - Any non-trival program needs to make decisions based on circumstances: We explain coding ifs and buts. (Mike Saunders)
Python: Make custom tooltips - Build a simple working music player and add custom tooltips to the file list. Nick is the man who knows how. (Nick Veitch)
Android: Music on the move - In the first of this two-part tutorial, we look at MediaPlayer and get a basic MP3 player up and running. (Juliet Kemp)
Mandriva 2011.0 - Has a change of ownership saved Mandriva or should we rely on the community fork? We find out what a difference a year makes. (Bob Moss)
FlightGear 2.4.0 - Alex clips on his epaulettes, downs a quick whiskey, and straps himself into the cockpit for the latest instalment of this classic indie flight sim. (Alex Cox)
Qt Creator 2.3 - A major IDE update gives Graham one less excuse for resurrecting KAlbum. (Graham Morrison)
RawTherapee 3.0 - The camera mat not lie, but it can be obstinate with the truth. We discover the most terrifying way to torture images into confession. (Adam Oxford)
Email clients - On test: Evolution, KMail, Thunderbird, Claws Mail, Zimbra Desktop (Shashank Sharma)
News: Ubuntu to go monthly? - Canonical dev suggests revitalising distro's release cycle. Plus: Ubuntu developer portal; KDE gains from Summer of Code; Microsoft moves to lock out Linux with UEFI; Casio pays Microsoft for right to use Linux; Red Hat reveals staggering growth. (Andrew Gregory)
Distrowatch: Mandriva 2011 - An old kernel, a new RPM and a strange desktop characterise the new-look distribution. Plus: Arch Linux 2011.08.19, Fedora 16, KDE 5 coming up. (Susan Linton)
What on Earth: Do Not Track - Discover how to keep advertisers off your trail with the latest browsing privacy feature. (Jonathan Roberts)
Creator 2.3 .........27 Free software projects that get a 10/10 for documentation are like hens’ teeth made out of gold dust. That’s why, if you like to mess about with KDE and you need a new IDE, you need to try Qt Creator. Book reviews p36 RawTherapee 3...... 29 Photography is complicated, and if you’re going to bolster your geek credentials by fiddling with obscure settings, you’ll need a suitably complex tool for the job. Hello, RawTherapee! Books..................... 36 This month
better to check the website for the latest release, and acquire it by cloning the Git repository before building (also remember to set the install location properly). The results are surprisingly good. Security tool GnuPG Version 2.0.18 Web www.gnupg.org F ew tools have a more interesting history than GnuPG and the encryption tools that preceded it. You may not know it, but there was a time when there was no way of encrypting a message (or authenticating it) that wasn’t trivial to break with
(aren’t you all) will know that we often have a battle of the tops to see which top-like tool (eg iotop, nettop, powertop) is our top of the tops. Obviously Arnout Engelen, author of this app, has now spoilt all our fun by choosing a non-top-based name for this rather excellent tool. How selfish. Nethogs is another bandwidth monitoring tool, which rather like nettop or iftop, shows the current bandwidth usage on your Linux box. Unlike the aforementioned, though, it concentrates on the processes
conditional statement is something like this. if x == 10: print “X is ten” somefunction() else: anotherfunction() In this case, if X contains 10 we print the message as before, but then call the somefunction routine elsewhere in the code. That could be a big function that calls other functions and so forth, thereby turning this into a long branch in the code. There are alternatives to the double-equals we’ve used: if x > 10 If X is greater than 10 if x < 10 If X is less than 10 if x >= 10 If X
DVD to use a basic video driver. This will disable 3D, and the full Gnome 3 experience, but will get you a working desktop. From there you can set up the Intel driver, as above, and then try switching to the full Gnome 3 at the login screen. JR 6 Missing channels Q I am trying to set up MythTV on Mint 11.04. My TBS 6920 card is recognised after loading the firmware, and, after looking at an article on the net, I installed dvb-apps and mplayer and Terminals and superusers We often give a