A basic introduction to what CUPS is and why you might want to use it rather than LPD.

CUPS is what its name says: a common UNIX printing system. It is aimed at providing a common printing interface across a local network, masking differences among the printing systems on each computer.

A tutorial penned by Joe Barr that explores the world of manual installation, covering those situations where the software developer has not yet released the version/software in one of those handy .rpm's,.deb's, etc.

Read about using CheckInstall...

The Linux Journal offers this programming tutorial for OpenOffice interfacing.

I have opted to use OpenOffice.org and UNO. The first element is well known and my choice is easily justifiable--OOo is reliable, widely used and cross-platform. But what about UNO? UNO, short for Universal Network Objects, is an interprocess communication technology designed by OpenOffice.org and Sun to allow software developers to control the programs that form the homonymous product.

O'Reilly presents this tutorial on setting up Linux routers with redundancy.

Redundancy is one of the key ways you can increase the reliability of your network. As the concept of RAID (redundant arrays of inexpensive disks) has shown, it can be much more cost effective to group a number of inexpensive components together than to spend much more money on one high-priced item. You can apply the same idea to your network: instead of investing in one very expensive proprietary router, why not install several redundant Linux routers made out of commodity parts and free software? This article shows how easy it is to do just that with Keepalived on Linux.

Linux.com offers another tutorial on their favorite topic, the shell.

When you're at the CLI, you're where it's at. Why else would Microsoft -- the glutton for GUI -- be slaving so feverishly to add a shell to their next release? At the risk of sounding like Yogi Berra and that duck in the barbershop commercial, I've got to say although Microsoft found replacing the DOS command line to be too tough a shell to crack, others did not, and that's why Monad is no longer on the feature list for Vista. Never fear, gentle readers, Linux has shells enough for all, and this week we'll look at two different ways to change the one you're using.

I couldn't resist a trip down memory lane, when I found this tutorial on FVWM at Linux.com.

In my last article on FVWM, the F Virtual Windows Manager, I wrote about its basic setup, how to create a task bar, and how to create your own menus. In this article I'll be looking at further ways of customizing the windows manager to improve the basic desktop.

Big Blue offers this tutorial on the differences between LILO and Grub.

Most Linux® users, from the casual desktop user to the Linux system administrator, have used a utility known as a boot loader. Different variations of this utility provide varying levels of support and functionality. In many cases, the default boot loader installed with a Linux distribution is not always the best for your needs; the same can be said for the default settings of each boot loader. In this article, Laurence Bonney discusses the pros and cons of two of the more popular boot loaders -- LILO and GRUB -- and suggests a number of configurations to get the most from your machine.

O'Reilly presents a look at the X Window System.

The X Window System (commonly referred to as X or X11) is a network-transparent graphical windowing system based on a client/server model. Primarily used on Unix and Unix-like systems such as Linux, versions of X are also available for many other operating systems. Although it was developed in 1984, X is not only still viable but also is in fact the standard environment for Unix windowing systems.

Linux.com continues their Command-Line-Interface series with a tutorial on crontab.

Last week we looked at the at command, which will run a set of commands once and once only. For more complex regular scheduling, get to know your crontab file.

The Linux Journal provides a step by step HOWTO on upgrading your video card in Linux.

It might be nice to claim that Linux fans are a purely serious crowd, using our machines purely for tasks such as Web serving, Web surfing, writing or sorting out real-world problems. The truth is, there comes a time when it is nice to put the real world to one side and use our machines to relax. In other words, play games. That can mean pretending to be a pilot with the Flight Gear simulator, a penguin going after herring in Tux Racer or a marine chasing demons in Doom 3. Although other platforms, such as the dedicated game consoles, have a greater range of choices available to them, some great games are available for Linux.

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