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Skype is being bought by Microsoft, which is bad for Linux users. However, there is no way I'm convincing my contacts to switch to Ekiga or Empathy. What else can I do?

Pinguy OS 11.04 (based on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal) has been released yesterday. The new Pinguy OS comes with GNOME 2.32.1 and uses the classic GNOME desktop while Unity has been completely removed from the CD. Let's take a look at what's new in the latest Pinguy OS 11.04. Read on!

During non-peak times, we would fool with my laptop and I would show him my Linux install. He had played with Linux on and off but hadn't really had anyone mentor him. It was during those slow times that I would do so. After a while, he did a dual boot on his laptop and we would talk about how Linux worked and many of the advantages it held. "Mike" eventually took a job at Dell and I eventually crossed enough lines to deem it mutually acceptable that I find employment elsewhere. We have talked from time to time via Facebook but really haven't kept in contact much otherwise. Yesterday, I got a private message from "Mike". I won't pretend that it didn't please me.

In the past, the best way to get KeePass running on Linux is to install KeePassX, which is a port over version of KeePass 1.x. To get KeePass 2.x to run in Linux, you will need to install a whole bunch of mono libraries and manually install the source file. Worst still, it might not work in the end. Luckily, that kind of days is over. Julian Taylor has released a PPA that allows you to install KeePass 2 easily (only work in Ubuntu or other debian based distro).

There are many Ubuntu users who like Unity interface and its ability to optimize screen space. But the default main menu is a bit of pain as all the categories are hidden by default and it does not support wine menus. There is an application lens but it is way down at the bottom, not movable and most of the time it is folded as I pin lots of applications on Unity launcher. But, you can now permanently have another classic Gnome style menu in Unity itself, thanks to Cardapio. Cardapio has an excellent plug-in system which not only provide similar functionality to the default Unity menu but is actually more powerful than it.

The PCLinuxOS Magazine staff is pleased to announce the release of the Enlightenment Special Edition of the PCLinuxOS Magazine.

Back in 2006, LWN looked at the rather complicated story around the maintainership of the RPM package manager. Given the importance of this tool for any RPM-based distribution, the lack of a clear story on how it was being maintained was somewhat discouraging. Later that year, the Fedora project announced the creation of a new, community-oriented project around RPM. Since then, things have been on the quiet side, but recent events show that the RPM story has not yet run its course.

Thinking back, I was 10 years old when I saw my first real home computer. It was a dark winter's evening, sometime in the early '80s, and in the corner of a friend's bedroom sat a small CRT television screen, complete with scrolling bands of interference and a 50hz buzz. Underneath the screen was the totally underwhelming body of a Sinclair ZX80, but this didn't interest me. What did interest me was the flashing grey cursor on the screen.

Testing has always been a part of software development. Testing includes many different styles including unit testing, integration testing, acceptance testing, smoke testing, load testing, and countless others.

In this article i’ll show you how to select the best mirror for your favorite distribution. Debian Netselect-apt is very helpful to find which Debian mirror is the fastest one to download the latest packages or to install ones very quickly.

Being a long time linux user, I occasionally find myself as a stranger in a strange land using MacOSX on my wife's macbook. The lack of certain specific keys for common text navigation (for example PageUp/PageDown keys, Home/End keys and Backspace key) makes keyboard navigation of text documents very cumbersome and slow. I hate having to take my fingers away from the keyboard to use the mouse to navigate around a text document. Furthermore, it's not that easy to find lists of key combinations just for text navigation on MacOSX, so I've compiled my own.

The plethora of free games available for Linux makes it time-consuming for gamers to randomly try even more than a small fraction of them. A good proportion of these titles are entertaining, highly addictive, offer captivating gameplay, and are challenging. Whilst there are a variety of both printed publications and online resources which point gamers to the hottest Linux gaming titles, there are still many free games that receive little or no promotion but which exhibit real promise and merit publicity.

West Virginia is setting up 60 public access computer centers in volunteer fire stations. The computers will dual boot Ubuntu Linux and Windows, with the default being Ubuntu. The computers will be used by firefighters, too.

The new Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) operating system introduced a new user interface, designed by Canonical, called Unity. With it, the Ubuntu development team also released some keyboard shortcuts for easy usage.

Y PPA Manager lets you search, add, remove or even purge PPA's in Ubuntu the easiest way. This is not a command line tool and is very easy for even a newbie Ubuntu user to understand and use.

Google's I/O conference, which was held this week, was highly anticipated for one primary reason: Chrome OS. The internet has been abuzz with speculation that Google would officially release its long-awaited Chrome operating system. What the search giant announced was Angry Birds for Chrome and Chromebook. The first extends the birds' global domination while the second could well extend Google's already broad reach.

More and more I realize that there is a misconception about free software. Many people tend to believe that free software actually means software that should not cost any money. They somehow find natural and fair the fact that some people may work voluntarily in order to produce software, which the rest can use to make money without having any legal obligation to contribute either money or effort back upstream.

Yesterday I’ve attended the Nagios World Conference Europe hosted in Bozen (Italy) by Wurth-Phoenix, so as first thing thanks to Wurst-Phoenix for the organization this meeting, for the free access provided to the event , and for the good meal that we have enjoyed.

These are some notes I’ve took during the meeting.

Do you have an older PC that does not support booting from USB devices, and really want to boot from USB devices? You can, thanks to the Plop boot manager. This weekend, turn that aging computer into a USB-booting powerhouse.

It would take me a week just to write a sketch of all the new things that were discussed on the Ubuntu Developer Summit that took place in Budapest this week (which has ended today), so I'll only write a short overview of what's to come in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot.