Two New Articles

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My original plan was to tell you about a new article that is the centerpiece of Bookpool.com’s Open Source sale. It’s called “Making DVD Movies with Linux” and yes, it’s written by me. This article was a lot of fun and I do recommend that you check it out if you want to transfer those home movies to DVD using Linux. I said original plan because I happened to discover that there is a second article out there by me that I didn’t even know about. Actually, it’s an excerpt from my new book and it’s available at InformIT.com (Pearson, …

A Process Smorgasbord (Cooking with Linux)

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by Marcel Gagné This article first appeared in the December 2002 Linux Journal François, vite! Our guests will be here any moment. Quoi? You say that you have already prepared everything? Excellent, François! I see that you have already brought up a healthy supply of the 1998 Barossa Valley Shiraz. It will pair nicely with tonight’s menu, don’t you think? Qu’avez-vous dit? Ah, the theme of this issue . . . it is System Administration, mon ami, and tonight I have decided to look into process management. But of course, François, even something as basic as processes can be the …

Eye-Popping Panels (Cooking with Linux)

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By Marcel Gagné This article was originally published in the February 2005 issue of Linux Journal. Mon Dieu, François? You look a little green. What is wrong? Ah, you were playing with the 3D desktop switcher and got a little motion sickness. Perhaps with your delicate condition, we should stick to the more classic desktop pagers. Not at all, mon ami, I am not making fun of you. You are just more of a down to Earth kind of waiter and things zooming through space, toward you, or away from you, are obviously not for meant for one such as …

Regarding Podcasts

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I’ve been busy this evening working on my new book, something my editor will surely be glad to hear. After a few hours at it, I took a much needed break. That’s when I remembered that I had mentioned podcasting in a recent Monday night chat. In fact, the current poll question asks about podcasts. The bottom line appears to be that most people don’t know what a podcast is. If I enter the word “podcasting” into Wikipedia, I get some interesting information. “Podcasting” is making audio files (most commonly in mp3 format) online in a way that allows software …

Processor trivia revealed by your Linux system

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Do you sometoimes feel like really getting to know the processor in your computer? You know, getting up close and personal? Then try this at home (or work, or wherever). Open up a shell prompt and type the following. cat /proc/cpuinfo Lots of cool information related to your processor will appear, such as your processor’s speed, the model, who makes it, and the ever popular bogomips, to name a few. Another way to see this information is to run kinfocenter and click on the Processor item in the sidebar (see image below). http://www.marcelgagne.com/images/kinfocenter_processor.jpg Look at the “flags” though and the …

Call for Help . . . the show, that is.

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As many of you know, I’ve been doing a couple of shows a month on Call for Help (with Leo Laporte and company) talking about, wait for it, Linux. As I was prepping the segment for the next show I’m taping (taking place on Tuesday), I remembered something Leo said on air at my last taping. He specifically made a point of asking people if they would like to see more Linux content in general and to call with Linux questions — the show is called “Call for Help”, after all. So, if you would like to see more Linux …

New server, at last!

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Hurrah! It has finally happened. After what seems like forever, the new server is finally online. About three weeks ago, I tried replacing my old Web server with something bigger, faster, and stronger (insert theme from Six Million Dollar Man here) but that quickly became a nightmare. After a great deal of head banging, I discovered that the BIOS was flaky when it came to supporting more than one network card. My new machine was crashing hard every few hours without any kind of message or warning . . . just plain dead. Eventually, I discovered that there was a …

Linux and the WFTL-LUG . . . truly international.

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I run a mailing list called the WFTL-LUG. It is made up of readers, fans, and other Linux enthusiasts. On a whim, I decided to list the member e-mail addresses and look up any top level domain codes (.com, .br, .uk, etc) that I didn’t immediately know. The majority of members are from the United States with Canadian members being the second largest group. That said, we also have representative members from a number of contries around the world. Here’s the list in no particular order (well, the US and Canada are first only because I mentioned them a second …

Connecting to the Internet with Kppp

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by Marcel Gagné Note : This article is an excerpt from chapter 9 of my book, “Moving to the Linux Business Desktop”. Most ISPs provide dial-up access through the Point-to-Point Protocol, or PPP. The KDE program that gets you connected to the Internet with a modem is called kppp. On a standard KDE setup, you’ll find it under Kicker’s big K by choosing the Internet menu, then clicking Internet Dialer. On Mandrake, look under Networking, then Remote Access; and Red Hat has it under Extras and Internet. You can always just start the application with the command kppp & from …

Cooking with Linux : It’s a Cross Platform, Alright!

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By Marcel Gagné This article was originally published in the July 2004 issue of Linux Journal. It’s A Cross Platform Alright! Note : Images have been scaled down to fit the pages. To see the full sized version, click on any of the images. Yes, I admit it, François. That’s very funny. When I told you that this month’s theme was cross-platform development, I didn’t mean platforms that make you cross, though I can understand thinking of Windows as a cross platform. As amusing as those images are, I think the artwork you chose for the menus tonight might raise …

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