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One of the best uses for Linux is special-purpose, tightly managed distributions for a single purpose, and Untangle has created one of the most impressive applications of this principle. The Untangle Gateway bundles together a list of applications that even seasoned sysadmins couldn't install and effectively manage in a timely manner.

The Ubuntu desktop may look a little brown and boring to first-time Linux users but beneath that conservative skin lurks a powerhouse of desktop features just waiting to come out, if you are using Compiz Fusion. Here we look at five of the better Compiz features that actually make us more productive as well as looking good. When you have multiple windows open on your desktop, all piled on top of one another, it’s hard to find what you want. With Scale you simply hit a key … and all the open windows are scaled down and tiled across the screen. Clicking on one of them brings it to the front. It’s a real time saver.

Do you have some mundane task that you have to do regularly through a Web browser? Are you a developer who wants to automatically test the interface of your latest Web application? Maybe you want to log into all of the sites you visit on a daily basis with one click. If you fall into any of these categories, you should check out the iMacros Firefox extension.

Daniel Robbins, the original creator of the Gentoo Linux distribution, has offered to return to the Gentoo Foundation as president in order to resolve what he described as the recent “Gentoo leadership crisis“.

KDE released a significantly revamped version of its Linux graphical interfaces software on Friday, incorporating several features that also appear in Windows Vista and Mac OS X. Among new features in KDE 4.0 are an enhanced start menu called Kickoff, new ways of viewing widgets and applications, a revamped file browser, and a new look to some entertainment applications.

LXer Feature: 13-Jan-2008

In this weeks Roundup we learn how to burn a Linux ISO image on CD, some nifty OpenOffice.org extensions, gOS 2.0 Screenshots, KDE 4.0 is Released, The VAR guy dumps Open Source for Microsoft Office, an interview with Linus Torvalds, a whole slew of articles on the OLPC and XO laptop. In our FUD section we have McAfee throwing FUD at the GPL and how to be creative with an article title.

Konqueror, KDE's default file manager and browser, is a good all-around tool, but that doesn't necessarily mean it fits all your file management needs. Sometimes a dedicated file manager can be a better choice for daily computing. Krusader is a powerful and versatile file manager that can make your work more efficient and productive. Krusader is available with most KDE-based major Linux distributions, including Kubuntu (and Ubuntu with KDE), PCLinuxOS, KANOTIX and so on, and you can install the tool easily using your distro's package manager.

Mobile phone handsets based on Google's Android platform are due to appear some time in the second half of this year but hackers have already got a cut-down version of the software running on devices. By combining an Android Software Development kit with an emulator and a Poky Linux kernel, a hacker called Cortez has created an installer which enables interested parties to run the platform on the Sharp Zaurus PDA. A similar approach allowed the platform to run from an Atmark-Techno Armadillo-500 CPU board, Telecoms.com reports.

Setting your desktop's wallpaper is only the beginning. Before we get started, "centre" is how KDE spells the word using UK English. Localisation is a wonderful thing, and it's one reason Linux and KDE are so popular in Europe and Asia. Here in Wales, about a million of my fellow citizens prefer Welsh to English, and there's a KDE for them too. We'll discuss regions and languages another time, but for now, if you are reading this in the Americas, please forgive my UK spell-checker! (Look out for colour and favourite too.)

PC vendor Lenovo has promised ThinkPads with pre-installed Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 for some time now. Lenovo will deliver the goods the week of Jan. 14. Lenovo will release pre-installed SLED 10 on its Intel Centrino processor-powered ThinkPad T61 and R61 14-inch-wide notebooks. In February, Lenovo's pre-integrated Novell Linux offering will expand to include some Penryn-based ThinkPads.

The Asus Eee PC has been heralded as a groundbreaking new computing experience and great for children. While the computer didn't bowl me over, my kids were another matter. When you hear about how small the Eee is, believe it: the unit measures approximately nine by six inches and weighs a mere two pounds. It's hard to take something that small seriously because it looks like a toy (and its name sounds like a sneeze). Open the lid, however, and you'll find power and features that belie its diminutive size.

The wealth of applications on a modern Linux system is phenomenal, but sifting through screen after screen of menu items is no fun. Likewise, it's convenient to have all of your files in one place, but the more you have the longer you have to look for the one you need. Blacktree software's free Quicksilver Mac OS X utility won over users by letting them start typing the name of the file or app they need, and popping up the best matches in a launcher. Quicksilver went open source recently, but you don't have to wait for a port to start using it on your Linux machines. Two clones already exist: Katapult for KDE (which we looked at in July) and the newest competitor, GNOME Do

One great thing about Linux is that you can transplant a hard disk from a machine that runs a 32-bit AMD XP processor into a new 64-bit Intel Core 2 machine, and the Linux installation will continue to work. However, if you do this, you'll be running a 32-bit kernel, a C library, and a complete system install on a processor that could happily run 64-bit code. You'll waste even more resources if your new machine has 4GB or more of system memory, and you'll be forced to either not use some of it or run a 32-bit Physical Address Extension (PAE) kernel. Cross-grading to the 64-bit variant of your Linux distribution can help you use your resources more wisely.

Apparently Nick Negroponte is willing to work with some huge powerful corporations whose interests compete with his own. Negroponte told IDG News Service Wednesday that the OLPC project is working with Microsoft on a version of the XO laptop that would be capable of booting either Linux--the current OS--or Windows. It appears the two organizations are shooting for something like Apple's Boot Camp: not true virtualization, but the ability to boot either operating system depending on the applications you'd need to run

In this week's KDE Commit-Digest: Final commits for KDE 4.0 Final before the tagging freeze. KDE 4.0 Final tagged for release. Lots of optimisations and bugs fixed across KDE. Kickoff menu items can now be added to the Plasma desktop or panel. Improved resize and rotate for Plasma applets. Document list sorting in Kate. Various progress in KDevelop. Mailody moves towards using Akonadi for its IMAP functionality, various improvements in Akonadi. Start of a KHotNewStuff2 implementation in Kalzium for downloading molecular files..

Thanks to Linux kernel updates and newly added drivers, wireless broadband access is now easy to set up on laptops. However, some vendors, such as Verizon, don't support broadband PCMCIA adapters. A script can help, but trying to edit a script can be difficult for entry-level users, and Internet service providers (ISP) often provide little information that can help. Enter openSUSE's YaST, a graphical program that can help users configure their laptops to use wireless broadband PC Cards and other types of modems to connect to a network.

Western & Southern Financial Group provides insurance and investment advice for businesses and consumers. The conservative nature of the business means that Western & Southern needed the most secure and reliable infrastructure available. After years of running the Sybase database on Sun's Solaris servers, IT Systems Manager Paul Jackson recognized the need to get the platform "up to speed." When he checked on the cost to replace the proprietary hardware and operating system the company had relied on for so long, it was so expensive that he began looking for another solution.

Konqueror, KDE's default file manager and browser, is a good all-around tool, but that doesn't necessarily mean it fits all your file management needs. Sometimes a dedicated file manager can be a better choice for daily computing. Krusader is a powerful and versatile file manager that can make your work more efficient and productive. Krusader is available with most KDE-based major Linux distributions, including Kubuntu (and Ubuntu with KDE), PCLinuxOS, KANOTIX and so on, and you can install the tool easily using your distro's package manager.

It's a common belief that Samba shares cannot be accessed across subnets. But actually Samba can cross subnets. It's easy for Linux hosts, and a bit less easy for Windows clients. But fear not, for we shall guide you through safely past the traps and pitfalls.

Wine allows users to run Windows programs natively under Linux without paying a dime. However, there's a tiny problem: programs running in Wine don't look so great. They don't even try to fit into your native GNOME or KDE color scheme or use your preferred fonts. You could use a Windows theme, but themes make Wine run extremely slowly. Luckily, with a little configuration editing, it's easy to make Wine applications look at lot more like the rest of the apps on your desktop.