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The sysadmin community, once the backbone of Linux adoption, keeps asking "but what about me?". Indeed. What about them? What are we doing about these heroes? The heroes that ssh in the middle of the night to a remote server to fix a database; The heroes that remove a chubby log file clogging the web server arteries; The very same heroes that restore a backup after we drag and dropped the /bin directory into the trashcan?

While there are many open-source games available (just see the recent discussion about the most advanced GPL-ed FPS), most of them are based upon the ioquake3 game engine that in turn is based upon id Software's open-source id Tech 3 engine. There's also games like Nexuiz that use the DarkPlaces engine and then also Warsow that uses QFusion. There have also been projects like XreaL that seek to greatly expand upon the visual capabilities of the ioquake3 engine, but many of these projects go on without ever making it to a release stage. Today there is yet another open-source game engine in development.

Eeebuntu, the Linux distribution for netbooks which won the Sourceforge Choice Awards: BEST NEW PROJECT in 2009 has released the first beta of the new version 4.

The AirJaldi Mesh Router (AJMR) is built around a SBCs (Single Board Computers) which we extract from low-cost popular WiFi devices such as Linksys WRT54G . Most of the SBCs used, utilize a 200mhz MIPS CPU with 4Mb of Flash memory and 16Mb of RAM. However, we also use some lower-scale units and recently also developed more powerful units. The Netgear WGT634U appears to be most suitable for our application but it was recently discontinued. This small SBC draws less power then its bulkier cousins, features a MiniPCI slot for radio card, hosting a great Atheros b/g radio, double the flash and ram of the WRT54G and maybe the greatest feature of all is a USB2.0 port.

The main objective of this blog is to help narrow down the list of Linux- and BSD-based distributions that a new user will feel comfortable using. Distributions that provide the same or better level of user-friendliness than the malware-infested and DRM-riddled operating system that they currently use. With more than 600 distributions listed at Distrowatch (only about 300 of which are active), finding the perfect distribution, or finding the one that fits your particular usage requirements can be daunting.

Ksplice Uptrack is a subscription service that lets you apply 100% of the important kernel security updates released by your Linux vendor without rebooting. Ksplice Uptrack is freely available for the desktop versions of Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic and Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty. This tutorial shows how to install and use it on an Ubuntu 9.10 desktop.

While it's exciting to have kernel mode-setting, RandR, and EXA / X-Video acceleration for NVIDIA hardware in an open-source driver that is reliable since the mainlining of its DRM code and its adoption in Ubuntu 10.04 and other distributions, Fedora has already employed Nouveau support to various extents in their recent releases.

Welcome to part 5, the final article in our little series on the KDE 4.3 System Settings control panel. I first off want to thank the KDE devs for creating such a great desktop environment (DE) and for simplifying the control panel (now known as "System Settings"). The last time I had to do an article series like this, it took me 10 articles and nearly a month to pull it off. But don't let the fact that it has a more compact control panel fool you. It's just as powerful as ever. But you don't have to work quite as hard to administrate your KDE 4.x desktop. But that aside, let's have a look at the last section in the System Settings control panel and what it has to offer.

Opera 10.50 beta is out, and it’s a real speed demon! In testing that I’ve carried out lately, I’ve found that Google’s Chrome browser has been ahead of the pack now ever since it was released. Now with Opera 10.50 beta out, we have a new pace-setter. I ran Opera 10.50 beta and the latest release of Google Chrome (4.0.249.89) through the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark and Google’s V8 Benchmark Suite v5. My benchmark of choice is Sunspider JavaScript, and it’s the main benchmark that I use. V8 is secondary.

In Mac and Windows, you can easily sync your iPhone/iPod Touch with iTunes, but in Linux, there is no easy way to sync your iDevice’s music library with any of the media player. Even if you are willing to jailbreak your phone, there are still plenty of complicated steps that you need to do to get the syncing to work. With the release of iFuse (and a bunch of other library), things have changed. Not only can you mount your iPhone as an external drive in Ubuntu, you can also use it to sync your music library with Rhythmbox. The following tutorial only works in Ubuntu Karmic (and other karmic-derivative distro).

I looked back in the blog, and I began running Debian Lenny as my main desktop distribution just about two months ago. Debian is snappy, as it has always been for me, even with GNOME. I don't even see any performance issues due to using fully encrypted LVM. And with that encryption on my laptop, any anxiety over it being lost or stolen is gone. The machine's worth nothing, and the data on it can't be accessed without the passphrase. I've got unencrypted backups in different locations, so I'm covered for any issues with the laptop disappearing, being destroyed or having some kind of disk issue.

So much for the cross-platform promises: Bjorn Olstad, a Microsoft Distinguished Engineer and the CTO of FAST, has revealed that beyond 2010 there will be no more Microsoft FAST enterprise search products which support Linux and UNIX search cores.

A document processor is a document preparation system. Unlike a word processor, this type of application leads the author to concentrate on the structure of the document rather than its appearance. The author therefore focuses on what he/she wants to say, instead of fretting over page borders, font attributes, or formatting. Moreover, the author will be guided in the organisation, structure, and flow within the document.

We are proud to officially announce the launch of our Affiliate program. Effective IMMEDIATELY, any individual or organisation may contact The Bordeaux Group about participation in our brand new Affiliate Program.

Out of work? Interested in finding a more challenging job? Facebook, Google, Yahoo, TekSystems and others will have recruiters at the Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE 8x) who are interested in your expertise in Linux, open source and free software. SCALE 8x will offer an onsite job board where prospective employers and recruiters can list openings..

A mother explains how and why her and her autistic son really like Ubuntu, but are still forced to use Windows in certain moments

Keith Packard has just made available the first release candidate of X Server 1.8 and confirms that its release schedule is still on track. Snapshots and the Git code for X Server 1.8 go back to last year, but with a planned release by the end of March, Keith has now started working on release candidates.

I recently read an article about some “Papercuts” a user experienced with Ubuntu 9.10, and it inspired me to write about my thoughts regarding the latest Ubuntu release, four months after its release. Ubuntu 9.10 was reviewed right here on this site. At the time, I found that the temporary theme wasn’t the greatest thing that I’ve ever seen, though it was a worthy upgrade to anyone using 9.04. However, since then my experiences with it have changed my view considerably. While I almost completely switched to Arch Linux for all of my computers, my wife is still an Ubuntu girl, and probably always will be. She just loves it, and all of her computers run it. She recently purchased a netbook that came with Windows 7, and she immediately wanted me to wipe it and put Ubuntu on it. While I offered to install the UNR version (Ubuntu Netbook Remix) on it she made it clear that she just wanted standard Ubuntu, and that’s what I did. In addition, I inherited a netbook as well, though I decided that I would give the UNR edition a try.

We are pleased to announce the Plasma Javascript Jam Session. This friendly competition will reward creators of the most original, interesting and beautiful Plasma widgets (Plasmoids) written in Javascript with some great prizes and community recognition.

And here is another solution to one of my problems. Ever since I use awesome and awsetbg to switch wallpapers every 5 minutes, feh sometimes bugs up a popup. Well, that is now solved since there were some problems with filename characters. A massive rename solves it. And with Massive I mean over 1500 wallpapers ;).