I am angry. It’s not a good state to be in, and it’s definitely not healthy. However, today I just can’t help it.

The main problem is that I have a bet going on, and I feel I am going to lose it. My bet is that by 2010, more than 50% of the world’s laptop sales will have GNU/Linux preinstalled, rather than Windows.

Until a little while ago, I was feeling optimistic. However, my optimism fell after I decided that I needed a new laptop.

You’ve probably guessed already: I want a laptop with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled, and I’m having a great deal of trouble finding one.

What is free software? Should you care and if so, why and what does it have to do with cakes and my mother?

My mother and computers

The picturesque village of Yankeetown on Florida’s Nature Coast has been the recent target of a large time-sharing resort condominium development proposal. Several townsfolk looked into the development and discovered what appeared to be corrupt practices in the town government. A loosely organized group of citizens decided to coordinate and share information via a web presence. Beyond any expectations, the picture albums, message boards, and mailing lists they used have been the catalyst for gaining state-wide attention and have led to direct intervention from the Governor’s office.

Processing digital images is a very common task today. Image processing tools are so common that users often process images by trial and error, without really knowing what they are doing. One of the operations people fail most commonly is resizing an image.

In this article I will explain how to resize images. This is a way for me to celebrate 10 years since I started studying digital image processing!

Fundamentals

Astronomy software comes in many forms—from the details of computer intensive Grid computing of the distribution of stars (okay that’s astrophysics) to rendering the night sky in artistically detailed and sumptuous graphics. Being a devoted backseat observer to the evolution of the Universe in general and GNU/Linux software in specific, I thought it was time to show off what I consider to be the elite of desktop elegance. I will describe the installation and use of two astronomy related software packages: Stellarium and Celestia. These packages are visually appealing and fun to use.

We can’t all afford four-figure priced twelve megapixel digital cameras with wide angle lenses. We can, however, all use free software to embellish the photographs taken by our modest equipment and belie their resolution and viewing angle. Set the GIMP aside for a moment and launch Hugin, a powerful cross-platform GTK frontend that will help you quickly and easily stitch individual photographs into one, large, seamless panorama.

Panoramas from start to finish

The aim of this article is to introduce the reader to Bzflags. Bzflags is a free software multiplayer 3D tank game that is frantic, full of immediate action, with a kill or be killed emphasis. The game is best served in multiplayer mode where you can hunt in packs, fight to the last ounce while chatting. Instant violent fun, gratification for those of you that need to let off steam and clear your minds living for the moment.

Genealogy is a burgeoning hobby and to help the home genealogist, a whole range of software is available. Much of it is commercial but here I’ll look at one of the most popular free software options—GRAMPS. Charting your family history needn’t mean compromising on licensing.

Finding your roots

This article is intended for new Linux users who wish to use their Linux-box for some real work. Speed control of an industrial motor? Sounds complicated?

For a long time, hibernation has been associated with proprietary operating systems. Now, the feature has started taking the front row in GNU/Linux systems too. What’s more, it’s fast, flexible and is a real time saver!

Introduction

Free software Content Management Systems (CMS) are capable of running most websites these days. Indeed, low initial costs and strong community-based support mean that many sites which can’t afford a proprietary CMS can now benefit from the facilities a CMS provides. In the first part of this article I looked at how a CMS might help and what you need to do to define your site’s target audience and structure. Now I’ll get down to the nitty gritty of selecting a CMS, installing it and setting up and promoting your site.

How do I choose the CMS?

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What CMSs are available?

In the last article we parted ways after configuring a base FreeBSD system, enabling it with upgrades via cvsup and portsupgrade, and securing it with a simple ipfw2 firewall. The previous article created a solid foundation which this article will build on, covering the configuration of Postfix, amavisd-new, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, MySQL and finally SquirrelMail for web mail.