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Issue 161 (September 2012) - Upgrade today

Click here to get the DVD via BitTorrent

Click here to get the just the source code used in tutorials

Upgrade today: take the fear out of buying new hardware. We've been benchmarking, testing and generally doing time-consuming things for this issue, sifting through piles of SSD's graphics cards and other bits and bobs to find what works best with Linux. To be honest, it's been a massive pain in the behind, which is a good thing: we've taken one for the team, so when you come to upgrade your Linux machine you'll be able to stand on our shoulders and things will Just Work. In other news, we're blown away by Trine 2 (if you have any love for wizards and knights you really should try it today), talk to Canonical's CEO Jane Silber about what direction Ubuntu's going to take now that it's no longer the world's favourite distro, and dissect a hard drive to find out what makes it tick. Our intrepid Staff Writer Jon Roberts bravely boosts his CV with a Red Hat training course and sysadmin qualification to find out whether it's worth the money (and what it can do for your job prospects), plus we've insight and techie tips on PHP, Python, FreeNAS and more.

Features

Upgrade today

Team LXF has have spend the month testing motherboards, CPUs, SSDs and graphics cards so you don't have to. Here are the results. (Graham Morrison, Jonathan Roberts, Ben Everard)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Anatomy of a hard drive

What's going on inside your computer's storage device? And why does it matter to us Linux users. (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Get certified with Red Hat

Are expensive certifications worth the money? Do they really improve your career prospects? Jonathan Roberts finds out. (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Dr Brown's Administeria

Bitvise Tunnelier and part one of our series on how to be a sysadmin (Chris Brown)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Interview: The big boss

We Meet Canonical's CEO, Jan Silber, to find out what the future holds for Ubuntu. (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Coverdisc

DVD Pages

Rosa, Vector and Fedora LXDE grace this month's DVD. (Ben Everard)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

The best new open source software on the planet

DigiKam, PacketFence, Tor, Timeline, GFeedline, CPULimit, XTide, DCCNightmare, Billiards and Rapid Photo Downloader (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Tutorials

FreeNAS

We take a trip to BSDland to show you how to use this excellent NAS system. (Mike Saunders)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Raspberry Pi

Introducing the ideal beginner's programming environment: Guido van Robot. (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Moodle

Teach the world with your own online courses. (Ben Everard)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Data encryption

Keep your data safe regardless of how many different computers and operating systems you're using. (Neil Bothwick)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

VirtualBox

Create computers within computers. (Shashank Sharma)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Coding Academy

Code Concepts: Types of data

We take you through the basics of data types in Python (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

PHP: Web APIs

Retrieve, store and display your recent Twitter updates using PHP (Mike Mackay)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Python: Get with Google

Build your very own Google Drive app for Linux (Nick Veitch)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Reviews

Scroll Engage

A quality tablet at an affordable price? (Jonathan Roberts)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Fit PC 3 Pro

An almost-silent mini PC with the same specifications as the MintBox. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

QTractor

An audio/MIDI sequencer with a bit of finess. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Trine 2

Questing through fine and water, exploring the supernatural in a glorious world, Alex Cox feels like he's in a fairytale. Lock up your beanstalks. (Alex Cox)

Click here to read!

Zorin OS

Can Zorin provide the fabled gateway into the world of Linux for Windows users? (Ben Everard)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Content Management Systems

We take a look at Concrete5, ExponentCMS, Contonti, Drupal and Joomla and find out how they stack up. (Shashank Sharma)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

News: Red Hat, Linus Torvalds, Mandriva, Grub, KDE, Samsung and Salix OS

Red Hat and Ubuntu anounce their SecureBoot Stratergies. Linus gets a bit offensive (again). Mandriva is still going. And more. (Andrew Gregory)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

Distrowatch: This month's roundup of news from the vaults of Linux distro development

Fedora make a deal with Microsoft, one last throw of the dice for Mandriva and SolusOS gains some admirers. (Susan Linton)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.

What on Earth: OpenStack

Send your computing to the clouds. (Graham Morrison)

Available as a PDF to subscribers.