Posted 11/09/2007 at 12:23:46pm

Linux itself is relatively immune to viruses. Some do exist, but they are mostly experimental and don't propagate in the wild. However, Linux is perfectly capable of spreading Windows viruses, so I recommend running an antivirus app if your Linux box coexists with Windows PCs on your network.

Posted 08/13/2007 at 03:42:32pm

Whoever invented Heelys should be shot once in the leg for every time some 11-year-old brat plowed into my grocery kart at top speed as I was shopping. Or maybe they should have to fund a trip to this space station for my wife and I on our 12th wedding anniversary. That would just about compensate for my pain and suffering.

Posted 08/05/2007 at 12:02:00am

Very true, Kennon. That's exactly why I chose a thumb drive for the example above. For completely erasing a hard drive with a modern journaling filesystem, it's best to use a boot-and-nuke utility like DBAN (http://dban.sourceforge.net/).

Posted 07/31/2007 at 07:00:51pm

An easy way to find the command (or executable filename) for an app you aren't sure about is to look at its properties in the Main Menu. Click System > Preferences > Main Menu, and then look for your app in there. Right-click it, and then select Properties to see the command used to launch the app.

Posted 07/31/2007 at 12:19:34pm

The command for pidgin is simply 'pidgin'

Posted 07/26/2007 at 09:13:39am

Thanks for chiming in with these, joboha. I always seem to overlook Avast and Panda. I think I'll do a bigger AV roundup with all of these sometime in the near future. -Robert

Posted 07/25/2007 at 12:13:47pm

I don't want to send mixed signals here (although I probably am), but I don't really recommend running out and spending actual money on an antivirus app for your Linux machine. While some Linux threats do exist, the good news is that (as I mention in my post above) there are very few of them. The main reasons to scan your Linux PC for viruses are to A: be prepared for the inevitable creation of new Linux-specific threats and B: avoid acting as an infection vector for Windows viruses. But you can accomplish both of those tasks just fine with either of the two free tools mentioned above, so why buy the cow?

Posted 07/07/2007 at 09:54:13am

You're perfectly right to call me on the incendiary headline. (It's deliberately so, bein' a headline and all.) But do you really believe Linux isn't picking up momentum? I'm not claiming that 2008 will be the year Linux will overtake Windows, or even OS X for that matter. That would be stupid. I do, however, think that the gradual upswell of Linux users -- which has been taking place over the past decade -- is reaching some kind of critical mass, and that it will make itself evident in the coming year. The outcome will be subtle, but definite: Of the millions who download and install Linux over the coming year, a significant number will actually keep their Linux installations up and running, rather than fiddling with a few menus and then wiping it out to reinstall Windows. Will the world remember 2008 as the year everyone ran Linux? Of course not.

Posted 06/15/2007 at 09:23:14pm

Just for clarification, the above instructions for Fedora 7 add the Livna repos to Yum. Without adding repos, you only get the official open-source updates, not the proprietary stuff like Flash and MP3 codecs.

Posted 06/14/2007 at 10:31:59am

The trouble many people have with adding codecs is that the default repositories in Fedora and openSUSE don't include proprietary software. But if you add in third-party repos, (Google "distro_name repositories"), you can get the same level of point-and-click simplicity from Fedora 7 or openSUSE 10.2 as you get from Ubuntu Feisty. (This is an oversimplification to some degree. Ubuntu's actual update utility is a little more intuitive than the ones included in Fedora and openSUSE.) I should probably do a post about this soon.