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The Samsung Galaxy Tab is the first true contender to Apple’s tablet crown, but has Samsung bitten off more than it can chew? Russell Barnes spends a week with the Tab to find out…

We, as computer users, run applications -- all sorts of them. We browse the web with an program, send e-mail via another, write up reports, crunch numbers, listen to music, transfer files and store contacts using a long list of different applications. There are thousands upon thousands of programs floating around the digital world and there's one problem: they don't all run on your operating system.

One of the most common queries I get from our readers is regarding the availability of quality themes in Ubuntu. As you all know there are plenty of themes out there and the difficult thing is to choose good from bad. So here is our collection of 6 brilliant GNOME GTK themes you should definitely give a try in your Ubuntu.

Linux is fast. That's why 90%+ of the Top 500 fastest supercomputers run it. What some people don't realize is that Linux is much better at delivering speed for servers and supercomputers than it is on the desktop. That was by design. But over the last few years, there's been more interest in delivering fast desktop performance. Now there's a Linux kernel patch that may give you a faster, much faster, desktop experience.

This article explains how to set up (and monitor) an Active/Passive PostgreSQL Cluster, using Pacemaker with Corosync and DRBD. We use two nodes, one active (that answers requests from apps) and the other one in passive mode. If the active server is down, the passive one will automatically take its position (being the active node). We are using the CentOS 5.5 (64bits) distribution, but it will probably work on Fedora (and Red Hat, for sure) as well.

The MeeGo Conference in Dublin has attracted over a thousand attendees from all over the world. The diverse audience includes Linux hackers, engineers from prominent hardware manufacturing companies, mobile technology enthusiasts, third-party application developers, and software consultants. The conference-goers exhibit a powerful sense of optimism about MeeGo--despite the fact that the emerging platform doesn't ship on practically any mainstream devices, yet.

Jared Smith, Fedora Project Leader, has announced some personnel changes within the Fedora project that show, as Smith says, "every person in the Fedora community is a potential leader." According to Smith, Fedora's "policies of rotating leadership help ensure that everyone who is so inclined has a chance to lead and serve."

Two weeks have passed since the release of the Linux 2.6.37-rc1 kernel that finally allowed the core kernel code to built without the the Big Kernel Lock. It also brought many open-source graphics improvements and other improvements and new drivers (such as a Intel Poulsbo driver and Broadcom's WiFi driver). Now the Linux 2.6.37-rc2 kernel is available as regressions are addressed in time for the final Linux 2.6.37 kernel release several weeks down the road.

awk supports user defined variables as well as variables that are predefined. These variables do not need to be declared like they do in bash scripts. There are three types of variables.

Fuduntu is a Fedora 14 remix (remaster) designed especially for Asus Eee (but you can of course use it on other netbooks and any laptop/desktop computer) and comes with some interesting performance tweaks by default. It was created by Fewt, the Jupiter (an hardware and power management applet for netbooks and Laptops) developer.

Mandriva was recently forked into a new distribution called Mageia Linux where several Mandriva developers parted ways with this distribution once known as Mandrake due to the uncertainty of the future direction of Mandriva Linux with its corporate backer having underwent some financial hardship. While there isn't yet a release of Mageia, the Mandriva Cooker Manager has finally been permitted to release details concerning the next two releases of Mandriva Linux.

You want a good end-user live CD? Go with Knoppix. You want an admin's toolbox with minimal fluff and maximum usability? Go with grml, a Debian-based live CD/USB that packs in more than 1,700 applications and utilities. If you've only used standard Linux distros, you're going to be in for a treat with grml — and also a few surprises. Most distros default to Bash as a shell, but grml uses zsh. (One of the grml taglines is "Linux for zsh lovers," so they really must dig zsh.) Be aware that you won't get a standard desktop experience. By default grml will start at the command line with a menu of options, including starting X.

What do you get when you put together 80 to 100 hard-core database geeks from ten different open source databases for a weekend? OpenSQLCamp, which was held most recently at MIT. Begun three years ago, OpenSQLCamp is a semi-annual unconference for open source database hackers to meet and collaborate on ideas and theories in the industry. It's held at various locations alternately in Europe and the United States, and organized and run by volunteers. This year's conference was organized by Sheeri Cabral, a MySQL community leader who works for PalominoDB.

If you have ever wished for a much more faster software downloads in Ubuntu, well, apt-fast could possibly make your wishes come true. Apt-fast is a simple bash script that accelerates apt-get download speeds coinsiderably.

When I do an upgrade, no matter the operating system, I prefer to blow everything away and install the new version from scratch. I've done straight upgrades, and they run fine, but I find every upgrade leaves some "cruft" from the old system. So I always reformat and reinstall.

A full review of Linux Mint 10. Whenever a new version of Ubuntu is released, you can be sure a new version of Linux Mint will soon follow. This time around it’s Linux Mint 10. Linux Mint, as you may already know, is one of the most popular Ubuntu remasters. It’s known for its excellent tools, great selection of software and bundled multimedia codecs.

In recent weeks and months there has been quite a bit of work towards improving the responsiveness of the Linux desktop with some very significant milestones building up recently and new patches continuing to come. This work is greatly improving the experience of the Linux desktop when the computer is withstanding a great deal of CPU load and memory strain. Fortunately, the exciting improvements are far from over. There is a new patch that has not yet been merged but has undergone a few revisions over the past several weeks and it is quite small -- just over 200 lines of code -- but it does wonders for the Linux desktop.

Content filtering is a requirement of the home desktop system configuration build I'm working on. Young children are part of the client base so it's mandatory. DansGuardian is basically the only free option available. It's a server daemon so it has command-line configuration only. Once it's running parents don't need to mess with the basic settings but they need to be able to set filtering controls for children without a lot of hassle. On Ubuntu it doesn't come with any blacklists but third-party lists are available. Shalla Secure Services has one of the most comprehensive list that's free for home use but installing and updating it is also a hassle. I wrote a pair of scripts to solve both of these problems.

Forget Perl’s claims, Emacs really is the Swiss Army chainsaw of the *NIX world. Join Richard Smedley for the conclusion of his three-part series this time exploring how you can live your life online and do it faster and better with Emacs…

Got a Canon compact camera? Then you ought to give CHDK a try. This alternative firmware turns your humble Canon point-and-shoot camera into a powerful photographic tool.