Anyone who knows me, knows me to be a bit of a Fanboy, I love using Linux I use it on the Desktop, i've migrated may of our servers to it and am a firm advocate for Desktop Linux as an alternative for Windows. Using Linux is an entrance to a whole new world and I don' just mean with Linux, its the gateway to other OS's.

My trip into the wonderful world of *nix operating systems started over 20 years ago when working for the BBC a Sun Indigo was plonked onto my desk. I'd been using different OS's for a while, very early in my career i was using OS/2 instead of Windows 3.1 and this sparked an interested I guess in what was to be come the path for the future.

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The latest release of XBMC my preferred application for viewing my Movie collection on the TV and there has been an updated release just recently. I was urged to give this a whirl as it has an Apple Airplay server built in for streaming video on the TV from the iPad.

I have been running XBMC 10.0 on a Sabayon system for the past few months and it's beeen running well, however always one for the new and change I wanted to give XBMC 11 a bit of a go. The first stage was to see if the Sabayon repositories had an update, they did however it wasn't to the release version it was to the release candidate 2. This doesn't include the airplay functionality so an alternative was needed.

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Just a bit of rambling about Linux, as well as reflections and meanderings about computer history in general

Take a look out at the Linux Distro landscape and there are no end of small business server distributions, these are the distros which provide you with a cheap alternative to create a small business server which in turn provides eMail, DNS, DHCP, Web Servers and many other services you'd need on a server when running a small business.

Usually the scenario would be that you use Microsoft's server products to provide your staff with a reliable back end server system, however over the last few years some of the Linux alternatives have risen like cream does to the top. Everything you could do with a Microsoft server can now be done for free on a Linux Small business distro. Zentayal is an example of this type of Distro. Its polished, there are support options, its well documented, it runs on Ubuntu as a core OS.

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LMDE is a mixed bag. On one hand, you get a Debian install with the Mint specific user software that makes the end user a very nice experience. On the other hand, it's still being tweaked and played with. This can lead to some frustration with apps that haven't had all the kinks worked out yet.

Just been reading an interesting piece on zdnet.com by the love him or hate him auther who is Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols which talks about the possible rise of Ubuntu as a server platform when compared to RHEL. The article quotes the Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth on some figures from W3Tech.

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I've tried to include a few that are a bit less like on the other lists you might find..

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If you installed the Linux boot loader to the MBR and want to restore the Windows boot loader, this short tutorial shows you how to do it. It is an easy, point-and-click process. And the application that makes it that easy is called EasyBCD, a free-for-personal-use application from Neosmart Technologies.

Directly on the various Mobile operator sites there seems to be a choice of the iPad 2 going very strong 1 week before the new Ipad release, very little mention of "the new iPad coming soon" and either the Samsung Galaxy 10.1 or Orange are offering their own Tablet or th HTC 7" offering.

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While as a Sysadmin our world is generally speaking goverend by Windows Desktops and servers, Microsoft's OS isn't the best one out there at every task, for some tasks Linux is the answer, I've written on other blogs on a similar topic, about Linux Distros and which ones you will get he most out of. The idea behind most of these Linux Distros is they act as a tool or a set of tools to perform a certain task.
Each one of thses distros is free, downloads as an ISO and can be run (apart from one) booted from a CD without installation.

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The broad objective, if it is not already evident from the title of this article, is to: Dual-boot Windows 7 and Chakra Archimedes on a computer with one hard drive; then, create an NTFS partition at the end of the drive that will be shared between both operating systems. When completed, you should see this screen when you reboot or restart the computer.

One of those, is BackTrack, a hackers delight, one that is loaded with all the best Free Software and Open Source penetration testing applications available. The latest edition is BackTrack 5, code-named Revolution. We are actually at BackTrack 5 R2. Keep in mind that BackTrack is not a distribution for newbies. This is serious stuff.

A new installation of Linux Deepin 11.12.1 does not have any of the network security applications that you find on Ubuntu enabled: A default installation of Linux Deepin 11.12.1, the latest edition, will leave your computer wide open for the bad guys to mess with.

Linux Deepin is a desktop distribution based on Ubuntu Desktop, but using a modifed GNOME 3 shell, not Ubuntu’s Unity desktop. It was founded by Liu Wenhuan, who is also a co-founder of Wuhan Linux User Group (LUG), a LUG in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, China.

If you think that the encryption keys that your smart phone or tablet computer uses to protect data you want to keep others from accessing is secure, well … think again.

Crypto researchers have demonstrated that those encryption keys can be stolen using techniques that are not that difficult to assemble.

SalineOS is a desktop Linux distribution based on Debian and uses the Xfce desktop environment. The first version reviewed on this website was SalineOS 1.1, and that was back in February 2011 . There has been several versions published since then – SalineOS 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5. This article is a review of the latest version, SalineOS 1.6, which was released on February 1 2011.

Though I tend to stay away from publicly reviewing distributions that use the default GNOME 3 desktop, I evaluate them privately and if I come across one that has been modified to look like a true desktop operating system, then I will take the time to do what it takes to publish a review on it. Linux Deepin falls into that category. So expect a review of Linux Deepin soon.

Yet another screen shot post on yet another pre-stable release distribution. This time, it is from Kubuntu 12.04 beta 1, the first beta release of what will become Kubuntu 12.04 LTS (Long Term Support).

The first beta version of what will become Ubuntu 12.04, Precise Pangolin, has just been released. The final, stable version will be released by the end of April. This beta release, as with all pre-stable distribution releases, is an invitation for bug hunters to get busy.

This article lists the top ten features that will appeal primarily to enterprise users. Keep in mind that most of them have not been fully implemented in Fedora 17 alpha, the first public release of what would become Fedora 17.

The features in alphabetical order, are:

Read the complete article at http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2012/03/01/top-10-enterprise-grade-features-to-expect-in-fedora-17/