Learn about Linux
Download Linux
Get Linux helpSpecial Offers
Linux.com : Reviews
Network Security Toolkit distribution aids network security administrators
Network Security Toolkit is one of many live CD Linux distributions focusing on network monitoring, analysis, and security. NST was designed to give network security administrators easy access to a comprehensive set of open source network applications, many of which are among the top 100 security tools recommended by insecure.org.
The power of cross-platform synchronization
These days there are plenty of ways to back up your computer files. The options are easy when you're dealing with one computer -- just back up your files to an external hard drive and forget about it -- but when several machines are involved, each with a different operating system, things can get complicated. If you frequently work on more than one computer, having access to your synchronized files no matter where you are can also be useful. PowerFolder, a backup and file synchronizing service, helps you cover all your bases, no matter what platform or how many computers you're using.
Firefox add-on Glubble too clunky and restrictive as a children's Internet filter
Glubble is a free proprietary Firefox add-on from Glaxstar that limits the activity your child can perform online by blocking access to Web sites and filtering Google search results. For parents, a tool like Glubble can seem like the perfect answer to the problem of protecting kids from the unsavory elements of the Internet. But as I discovered through my use of Glubble, the questions surrounding the idea of Internet filtering don't come with easy answers.
Explore your database with Talend Open Profiler
Over time, organizations replicate, migrate, or add complexity within database systems, often times losing control of the quality of their data. When applications begin to fail because of invalid, corrupted, or out-of-date data, the free, GPL-licensed Talend Open Profiler can give data analysts, database administrators (DBA), and business users the ability to research data structures and improve data quality. Through the use of Open Profiler, users can be alerted to hidden inconsistencies and incompatibilities between data sources and target applications. Through data analysis, business users and technical analysts can communicate both data structure and content needs.
Arch Linux for the DIY Linux user
There's no dearth of Linux distributions for desktop users or even for running high availability servers. But if you are a do-it-yourself computer user, your choice of Linux distros is fairly limited. You can build Linux from scratch with Linux from Scratch or compile your own set of packages with Gentoo. But if you want a distro that teaches you the basics of Linux as you set it up; is well documented, lightweight, and zippy; and has a dependency-resolving packaging system, you need Arch Linux.
Myah OS: Not quite ready
Myah OS is a desktop-oriented distribution built from the ground up around a custom package manager. When things go right, it has the potential to be an easy to use, simplistic deskop operating system. As you will see, however, not everything always goes right.
SliTaz, a mighty micro Linux distro
SliTaz is a new micro GNU/Linux live distribution designed to run from RAM (a recommended minimum of 128MB) and installable to a hard drive or USB device. The current version, SliTaz 1.0, weighs in at a light 24.8MB and provides a nice selection of applications that run on a lightweight desktop. You can store user data and settings on persistent media, and support for more than 400 additional download packages is available.
Fast, powerful Geany editor offers IDE features
Geany is a lightweight text editor for Linux based on the GTK2 toolkit. Geany supports internal and external plugins, and it excels as a source code editor, since it includes basic integrated development environment (IDE) functionality. Here's an introduction to using Geany's built-in features, including the IDE and built-in development capabilities.
Book review: Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery
You probably know the open source 3-D modeler Blender for its animation tools, which have brought audiences short films Elephants Dream and Big Buck Bunny. But Blender can create realistic 3-D models for any purpose, as Allan Brito's Blender 3D: Architecture, Buildings, and Scenery (Packt Publishing, $45) presents. This book approaches Blender as an architecture visualization tool, detailing the features built in to the editor and the techniques that make architectural modeling differ from crafting game or video effects.
OpenOffice.org extension will add PDF editing
Easy PDF editing is coming to OpenOffice.org, but you'll have to be patient for a few months. Recently posted to the OpenOffice.org Extensions site, the Sun PDF Import extension (SPI) is only in beta, and only works with recent developer builds of OpenOffice.org 3.0, which is scheduled for September release. Right now, the quality of the final release is anybody's guess, but the beta's capabilities fall squarely in the middle of the available PDF import tools.
Banshee 1.0 is more than an audio player (video)
Banshee 1.0 is finally here, and the development team has added a truck load of new features; making it not only an audio player but a full blown media player and manager. This video discusses all of the new and improved features of version 1.
One live DVD, one ton of Linux games
LinuX-Gamers Live is a live DVD from Germany based on Arch Linux that includes nothing but games. Version 0.9.3 was released in June and provides an excellent means of sampling Linux games or setting up a home arcade, although a few of the games wouldn't run on my machine.
Win4Lin 5.0 makes big improvements
There is no dearth of software that can help you run that indispensable Windows app over Linux. Win4Lin has managed to survive through the years as an inexpensive tool for people who like to pay for support. The recently released Win4Lin 5, available for $30 a pop, has shrugged off the shortcomings of its predecessor and delivers on its "near native-performance" promise.
Synchronize directories with Komparator and KDiff3
If you work some of the time on your laptop and some of the time on your desktop box, making sure that your work is updated on both machines is a must. Many tools can help you accomplish this, from command-line tools such as scp and rsync to generic graphical applications like Konqueror or Krusader, to more specific tools like Unison. Komparator and KDiff3, a couple of KDE applications with interesting features, may offer better ways of syncing your work.
Free Locknote for Windows offers fast free file encryption
Steganos Locknote is a handy little GPL-licensed utility for Windows, built using the Crypto++ class library. It is designed to keep text files secure, so you can store your sensitive information and passwords without having to worry about the information falling into the wrong hands.
OpenLX and KalCulate pair Linux distro with proprietary accounting app
Most free-libre accounting applications that ship with GNU/Linux distributions are for personal accounting only: they manage one person's finances. Corporations and accounting firms need far greater functionality, however, such as the ability to maintain a complete sets of multi-company accounts, tally final accounts automatically, generate MIS reports, and function synchronously across multiple offices. Though there are some free-libre applications with such functionality, such as SQL Ledger and Ledger-SMB, the lay user may find their installation complicated, as it can involve manual configuration with the PostgreSQL database, possibly the programming language Perl, and the remote access software Samba. And these accounting apps are not installed by default in any distribution. But OpenLX is a distro with an accounting app.
Gizmo5 - a more open VoIP solution
With Gizmo5, not only can you use your PC to make or get phone calls on Linux, Windows, and Macintosh PCs. But unlike similar programs, such as Skype, Gizmo5 uses open standards like Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and Jabber, which makes it interoperable with a variety of clients.
New media center OS is pleasing to the eye and ear
Acoustic Reality is a Danish company that sells speakers, amplifiers, storage devices, cables, and other products to build top-shelf home entertainment centers. It recently released eAR OS Free Edition, a free media center system built on top of Ubuntu that features a free version of the Acoustic Reality software technology used in the $100 eAR RT-OS Enterprise Edition and in the company's hardware Media 4 products. It provides a user-friendly media center along with a nice implementation of Ubuntu.
Opera 9.5 gives Firefox 3 a run for its money
Two of the most popular Linux browsers were unveiled this month after years of development -- the open source Firefox 3 and the proprietary Opera 9.5. Opera's launch a week before Firefox was like any other launch, unlike Firefox's much publicized world record attempt. But Opera 9.5 is no less revolutionary than Firefox, matching its open source rival feature for feature, from security-related enhancements to improved multilingual text rendering.
Streamlined Firefox 3 makes browsing safer, more productive
Desktop users, developers, and reviewers all had their download managers aimed at the Firefox Web site Monday to grab Firefox 3 as soon as it launched and also help Mozilla set a world record. World record or not, the latest Firefox release is a world-class Web browser. It looks impressive, renders text and images better than its predecessor, and helps you browse safely. But while it delivers pages faster by cutting down crucial milliseconds, its memory footprint (in unscientific tests) is still as big as a yeti.
