Linux Journal
Coolest Desktop Screenshot Wins Prize
Take a screenshot of your desktop and post it to the Linux Journal Flickr pool (or e-mail it to us). Our editors will pick the 5 they deem "coolest" on Monday and we'll post them here for all to revel in.
More Fun With Bash Quoting
I've written about bash quoting before, and yes, it's about as exciting as watching paint dry or listening to the corn grow. It can also be extremely frustrating when it doesn't do what you want, case in point: trying to script the updating of a field in a mysql table when the field to be changed contains quote characters.
Renaming Groups of Files From the Command Line
Introducing OpenShot
As promised, I've continued to research and test desktop video editors for Linux. This week we'll look at OpenShot, a GTK-based project.
Tech Tip: Find Directories Over a Certain Size
It's fairly simple to find large files on your system using commands such as find, but if you're looking for directories over a certain size find won't help you. The Perl script presented here can help you track down those explosively large directories.
Nokia N900: First Look
The Nokia N900 has just started shipping and there are already a number of reviews of the device out on the net. I've had the opportunity evaluate a pre-release N900 for a few weeks now, and while you can expect a full review in an upcoming issue of Linux Journal, I wanted to give you a quick look into what the N900 is like from the perspective of your average Linux geek.
Give the Gift of Linux Journal
With the holiday season upon us, consider that Linux Journal is a terrific gift to give, as well as receive.
- Give the gift of Linux Journal
They'll thank you with every monthly issue.
Free gift card with order.
http://www.linuxjournal.com/giftsub
Nicaragua Builds An Innovative Agricultural Information System Using Open Source Software
An experiment in Nicaragua shows just how powerful Open Source software can be in leveling the playing field. The second poorest country of the Americas now has one of the best software solutions for displaying agricultural data in the western hemisphere.
Book Excerpt: Exploratory Software Testing
This chapter excerpt is from Exploratory Software Testing: Tips, Tricks, Tours, and Techniques to Guide Test Design by James Whittaker, published by Addison-Wesley Professional, Aug. 2009
Take the Survey, Enter to Win a 2010 Linux Journal Wall Calendar
Thank you for your interest, however this survey is now closed. The winners of the 2010 Linux Journal wall calendars have been notified.
If you were not a winner there's still time to pick yours up -- 25% OFF CALENDARS when you buy two or more. Use coupon code 'giftcalendar' when checking out. Expires Nov 30, 2009.
Learning with Gcompris
In my last article, Teaching with Tux, I wrote about teaching children with the Tux Educational programs. Today, I'm going to discuss the Gcompris education suite. Gcompris is meant for younger children from 2 to 10 years old, though it seems to focus on the younger part of this range.
Android 2.0 Makes The Phone
The first phone to use Version 2.0 of Google's Android mobile operating system hit the shelves over the weekend in the form of the Motorola Droid, being peddled by Verizon Wireless. Android, as usual, wowed customers with a wide variety of new and exciting features — the handset housing it, however, did not.
Let's Act on ACTA Before it's Too Late
It was over a year ago that I wrote about the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA), a new global standard for the enforcement of intellectual monopolies currently being discussed by representatives of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand. Since then, the secret negotiations have been continuing, and the threats it poses to the Internet as we know it grow ever larger.
Package Management With Zypper
As I've mentioned before I'm an openSUSE user, and as long as they don't make the "U" lower case again, I'll probably stick with it. When it comes to package management, OpenSUSE and SUSE Linux Enterprice (and SuSE before them) are usually associated with YaST (and yes, I'm still waiting for them to upper case the "a"). YaST works well but it's a bit verbose for installing a single package, and of course that's just more fodder for the apt-getters with all their apt-get install this and their apt-get install thats. And you can't argue with them, but there are other options with openSUSE: yum and apt4rpm come to mind, but the preferred solution is zypper.
Court Gets A Torrent-full About Linux
BitTorrent is one of the most contentious technologies available. At least, that is, to the Old Order, those lovely suit-clad corporate types bent on holding technology forever in the days of the — manual — typewriter. The technology, and the suits' dreams of a world free of it, are on trial in Australia, where Linux made an appearance today — at the defense table.
Tech Tip: Restore Ctrl-Alt-Backspace in Ubuntu
In the last release of Ubuntu (9.04) the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace key sequence normally used to kill the X server was disabled by default. Apparently many people like to kill their X server this way so a workaround "dontzap" package was used to enable it. With the latest Ubuntu release (9.10, aka Karmic) it's even simpler to enable it.
