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The universe of UNIX tools changes constantly. Here are 10 tools—some you may have overlooked and some new—to tinker with. Much like a vernacular, the universe of UNIX tools changes almost perpetually. New tools crop up frequently, while others are eternally modernized and adapted to suit emerging best practices. Certain tools are used commonly; others are used more infrequently. Some tools are perennial; occasionally, some are obsoleted outright. To speak UNIX fluently, you have to keep up with the "lingo."

The hard drive is the biggest speed bottleneck in any computer system. Linux has a number of tools for optimizing your hard drives and speeding up performance for different tasks. Paul Rubens shows us how.

Every day finds another rumor regarding the release date for the Palm Pre. Palm and Sprint are still not forthcoming about a specific launch. At first, it seemed that both companies were simply building excitement over the Pre, but as time drags on — and believe me it has started to drag — it feels like something else is at work. Back in January, when Palm first announced the Pre and granted many of us a one-on-one look at the phone, it wasn’t surprising that Palm wouldn’t let anyone actually hold the phone. Most of us just wrote that off to the fact that the Pre was in the very early beta stage and Palm wanted to control the demos to make sure that things not quite ready weren’t fussed over. I can understand that.

Step By Step Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) LAMP Server Setup. In around 15 minutes, the time it takes to install Ubuntu Server Edition, you can have a LAMP (Linux,Apache, MySQL and PHP) server up and ready to go. This feature, exclusive to Ubuntu Server Edition, is available at the time of installation.The LAMP option means you don’t have to install and integrate each of the four separate LAMP components, a process which can take hours and requires someone who is skilled in the installation and configuration of the individual applications.

Last year we provided benchmarks looking at Ubuntu versus Mac OS X when it came to using the latest releases for both software platforms at the time. Both operating systems had performed competitively -- in some tests, the Apple OS wound up on top while in other areas Canonical had the advantage. Since that article back in November, Apple has released a minor update to Leopard (v10.5.6) and Canonical last month released Ubuntu 9.04. We have already looked at the performance of Ubuntu's Jaunty Jackalope, and even found it to perform with old hardware, but how does it now compete with Mac OS X? We have more benchmarks this morning to continue this performance investigation.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global Linux based Android smartphone shipments will grow 900% in 2009.

Despite a national open source strategy and a well-publicised set of minimum interoperability standards for government, the South African education department has launched a teacher laptop project that excludes free and open source software (FOSS).

This tutorial shows how to set up a Mandriva 2009.1 Free (x86_64) server that offers all services needed by ISPs and hosters: Apache web server (SSL-capable), Postfix mail server with SMTP-AUTH and TLS, BIND DNS server, Proftpd FTP server, MySQL server, Dovecot POP3/IMAP, Quota, Firewall, etc. In the end you should have a system that works reliably, and if you like you can install the free webhosting control panel ISPConfig 2 (i.e., ISPConfig runs on it out of the box). This tutorial is written for the 64-bit version of Mandriva 2009.1.

I've recently made the switch to the command line, and I'm going to make a series of tutorials for the apps I use. In this part I'll cover the basics of Elinks and Moc. In the viewpoint of a regular user like me.

The latest Firefox may still be in beta but it boasts a number of behind-the-scenes features that will make developing for the web easier as well as end-user changes that add new functionality, like private browsing and support for drag and drop.

Canonical has begun beta testing a managed storage service — known as Ubuntu One (pictured) — that allows Ubuntu 9.04 users to share and sync files between multiple Ubuntu PCs. Here’s the scoop from The VAR Guy.

The companies that create and modernize operating systems are under the same economic pressures as the IT departments of corporations - large and small - that create and maintain their own applications atop those operating systems. And it comes as no surprise that the development of the venerable OpenVMS proprietary operating system - under the control of Hewlett-Packard since its 2001 acquisition of Compaq - is moving largely to India. The news of the changes in the OpenVMS development organization came to light when Ann McQuaid, general manager of the OpenVMS platform, sent out a letter to AlphaServer and Integrity shops that have applications running on OpenVMS.

Today, we at Qt Software have opened our repositories to the public. Any developer can now help guide and shape the future development of Qt by contributions of code, translations, examples and other material to Qt and Qt-related projects. We have also published our roadmap and released Qt Jambi under the LGPL. Read on for details.

Announcing the release of AVG 8.5 for Linux, AVG says the solution is available in both server and free workstation editions, and offers “streamlined scanning capabilities, new anti-virus filtering and improved performance and ease of use for Linux-based users.” AVG Australia’s Lloyd Borrett says AVG Server Edition 8.5 for Linux/Free BSD provides protection for both e-mail and file servers in a single distribution package, and is robust enough to support millions of e-mails a day, and is suitable for use even by large enterprises and ISPs.

Microsoft Corp., for the first time in the company's history, sold bonds to investors, capitalizing on its sterling credit rating and investor appetite to raise $3.75 billion. The software giant Monday was able to sell bonds at interest rates that were only a slight premium to U.S. government debt and at much lower rates than other corporations. The move sparked speculation that the Redmond, Wash., giant could be planning to use the money for an acquisition as it seeks to revive growth. But people familiar with the matter said the company doesn't have a specific deal in mind for the cash, moving instead to take advantage of market conditions. Analysts predicted Microsoft is more likely to use the funds to continue to buy back its stock, which has fallen more than 30% over the past year.

According to Dell's Ubuntu page in recent months, the number of machines that Dell has offered in the UK with Ubuntu Linux instead of Microsoft Windows has dwindled from three (a netbook, laptop and desktop) to, apparently, none. Meanwhile the news from Dell US is that there is a new version of Ubuntu coming for the Dell Mini 10 netbook.

This week we have more straight reporting from Studio Dave with a look at some conference activity, cool developments in the world of Ardour and news about some new and updated programs for your complete Linux music production studio.

"I would like to make a case for asserting that what we usually refer to as "Linux" (or "GNU/Linux" regardless) is not really an operating system. In fact I believe that referring to it as such and spending money and effort on marketing it as such is actually doing "it" a disservice, if that's even possible."

Back in March we witnessed the release of Qt 4.5 which was also met by an announcement that Qt Extended was to be discontinued and that was just weeks after the announcement came down that Qt Jambi would be discontinued. There have certainly been many changes since Nokia bought out Trolltech and then renamed it to Qt Software...

Despite being overshadowed by the popularity of Ubuntu in recent years, SimplyMepis is still one of the most friendly desktop distributions in the Linux landscape. Installation is easy, as most Linuxes are these days, but that's only the first step. Susan Linton reports on how SimplyMepis performs over the long run.