It seems most PC users have heard of Linux and, at the very least, the idea of open source software has piqued their curiosity. Here, we explain open source in greater detail so, if you are interested in getting started with Linux, now is the time to give it a try.

This was actually supposed to be a follow-up to my tests of startup performance of various desktop environments, primarily KDE of course :). In fact I even did most of the benchmarks some time after the startup ones, but, alas, I'm much better at writing things that computers are supposed to read than at writing things that people will read :-/ (some volunteer to write good user documentation for KWin's window specific settings, BTW ;) ?) I even meant to make a somewhat more extensive analysis of the numbers, but having never found time to write that, I decided I should publish at least a shorter variant with all the numbers and some conclusions. You can do your own analyses of the numbers if you will.

Q I dual boot with XP and Linux and I have heard that Linux can read and write to NTFS partitions, but I can’t do it. Can you help? Matt Sanders

After several months of writing and revising, I have made available the “Easiest Linux Guide You’ll Ever Read”. It is a 160-page book geared towards people who are competent with using Windows, who have never attempted to use Linux but are interested in giving it a try.

This article describes a simple backup method that I use every day to backup my home Linux systems. It's an easy method that non-technical Linux users can use to backup their important data. We'll discuss the decisions you have to make in order to do a thorough backup.

The Linux® kernel continues to evolve, incorporating new technologies and gaining in reliability, scalability, and performance. One of the most important features of the 2.6 kernel is a scheduler implemented by Ingo Molnar. This scheduler is dynamic, supports load-balancing, and operates in constant time -- O(1). This article explores these attributes of the Linux 2.6 scheduler, and more.

This little how-to will show you how the default log rotation works, based on syslog and logrotate. There are other ways to achieve this, like using syslog-ng instead of syslog that I will cover in a future article.

This mini how-to shows you how to dual boot between AIX® and Linux® operating systems in a clustering environment, where available hardware resources are limited. The information presented in this document is based on actual experience. It should be used only by those who have some knowledge of system administration and skills in working with the IBM System p5™ (formerly pSeries®) architecture.

The Nautilus program in GNOME is not only the default file manager, it creates and manages the desktop. While it looks simple on the surface, there is a lot of hidden power under the shell. The latest version of Nautilus is 2.14.0, which is included in Fedora Core 5. That's the one I poked with a stick.

Puru Govind has provided a tutorial on how to compile the Linux kernel.

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