Top 7 Best Linux Distributions 2013

Back in 2010 Linux.com published a list of the year's top Linux distributions, and the popularity of the topic made it an instant annual tradition. There have been several shifts and shakeups on the lists presented since then, of course, and – as you'll soon see – this year's offering holds true to that pattern. In fact, I think it's safe to say that the past year has...

Read More

SteamOS could really help desktop Linux adoption, says Torvalds

The Linux desktop revolution is just around the corner! This is a familiar refrain that has received new life in recent months thanks to Valve and its efforts to turn Linux into a gaming platform with the Steam client for Linux (shown above) and the Linux-based SteamOS. Even Lars Gustavsson, the chief game maker for DICE, which is the EA-owned studio responsible for the...

Read More

Linux Lite Is Heavy on Features and Usability

In a computing world distracted by distro overload, Linux Lite is a lightweight Linux OS that has no trouble handling a heavy workload. Long gone are the days when it took hours to install and set up Linux on a computer, but most Linux distros still need a bit of configuration to adjust the massive desktop options to your liking. Not so with Linux Lite. It is one of...

Read More

Reviving My Old PC with 3 Best Linux Operating Systems

Windows 8 may be lighter than Windows 7 yet lightest than Vista, but it’s nowhere near as lightweight as these free Linux distributions. If you have an old Windows XP PC or a netbook, you can revive it with a lightweight Linux system. All of these Linux distributions can run from a live USB drive, so you could even boot them directly from a USB drive. This may be faster than...

Read More

My Five Best Linux LiveCD OS

Linux is so useful, you don't even need to install it before it gets to work. One of the popular uses of Linux is to create live media that can be used to run desktop systems or to create utility discs for all kinds of administration. Confused about the live CD that's right for you? No worries, we've got the top five live Linux CDs to get you started. The popularity of live...

Read More

Alfa AWUS036NHR / BackTrack5 Installation Guide

Alfa’s AWUS036NHR is Linux compatible. It also works with Backtrack 5, but is not plug and play. Driver installation is needed (note: at this time it does not appear to be possible to get AWUS036NHR into monitor mode AND have 802.11n capabilities at the same time, see Alfa’s AWUS036NH or AWUS036NEH for 802.11n and monitor mode capability in Backtrack 5). The following...

Read More

Ethernet bonding with Linux and 802.3ad

Nowadays, most desktop mainboards provide more than one gigabit ethernet port. Connecting them both to the same switch causes most Linux distros by default to get a individual IP on each device and route traffic only on the primary device (based on device metric) or round-robin. A single connection always starts at one IP and so all traffic goes through one device, limiting...

Read More

TP-LINK TL-WR703N - a tiny Linux-capable device for under $23

Update June 2012: As many have noted in the comments, TP-Link sadly decided not to release the TL-WR703N in Europe / America. The TL-WR702N looks identical and is available internationally, but it will not work (it only has 2MB flash)! The closest alternative is the MR3020. This has the same internal hardware as the TL-WR703N, but its case is a little bigger (7.4cm x 6.7cm). Unless...

Read More

Valve Hints at Steam Box

Valve is teasing new hardware-related announcements coming next week. As reported by Ars Technica, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell spoke at LinuxCon in New Orleans today, saying, “It feels a little bit funny coming here and telling you guys that Linux and open source are the future of gaming. It's sort of like going to Rome and teaching Catholicism to the pope." He continued by teasing, “Next week we're going to be rolling out more information about how we get there and what are the hardware opportunities we see for bringing Linux into the living...

Read More

LACP/Etherchannel Algorithms & Linux Bonding Modes

The LACP Mode in Enterasys or the Port-channel mode in Cisco, have their own algorithms for the priority selection for the slave interfaces involved in the bonding. As I am a Linux Guy I am more familiar with the Bonding in Linux envoirnment. We can create bonding in the /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-bond0,here we can define the Master Interface with the IP address and then the slave interfaces involved in the bonding process along with the Mode of the Bonding. The Switch connected for the bonding also has it's own aggregation algorithm present...

Read More

How to create and extract zip, tar, tar.gz and tar.bz2 files in Linux

Data compression has been extremely useful to us over the years. Whether its a zip file containing images to be sent in a mail or a compressed data backup stored on a server, we use data compression to save valuable hard drive space or to make the downloading of files easier. There are compression formats out there which allow us to sometimes compress our data by 60% or more. I’ll run you through using some of these formats to compress and decompress files and directories on a Linux machine. We’ll cover the basic usage of zip, tar, tar.gz and...

Read More

How-To Make Live USB Bootable Ubuntu 9.04

Ubuntu 9.04 is the latest in line of Ubuntu Linux operating system, which is faster and has a more improved user experience. I have only 3 partitions on my hard disk, one for Windows Vista, one for Windows 7 beta, and one for my local files. I am used to 3 partitions maximum, since it looks less cluttered this way. Instead of creating a fourth partition, why not try installing...

Read More

5 Ways to Crack or Reset a Forgotten Windows XP Administrator Password

I recently helped a client recover his forgotten Windows Administrator password by using a couple of different tools. We eventually were able to reset the Administrator password to a blank password so that he could log into Windows. Unfortunately, there is no “one” way to reset a Windows password and depending on what version of Windows you are running, you might have to try...

Read More

"Rocha" : Pear OS 8 Review

I have been following Pear Linux/OS for quite sometime. In fact, in between, I used Pear OS 6, the LTS one, as my main production distro for quite sometime last year. Pear OS intrigues me primarily because of it's striking resemblance to Mac OS X and inherent simplicity of the controls. Pear OS 8, based on Ubuntu 13.04 or Ubuntu Raring Ringtail, is the latest release...

Read More