Digit April 2006... and FLOSS

For a long time, I had this impression that DIGIT was too Windows-focussed. The April 2006 issue (www.thinkdigit.com price Rs 125) was a welcome change.

Below are some details of what the issue contains. Go for it:

* Fast track to [GNU]Linux, a 178-page handy guide small-sized. Includes What is [GNU]Linux, getting GNU/Linux running, inside Linux, the X Windows system, tools and applications, multimedia and gaming, networking, distributions, system administration, resources. (My only regret is that page 178 lists just five user-groups in big cities -- Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Trivandrum... while completely overlooking smaller but active user-groups, Goa for instance.]

* On the CD: Gentoo 2006.0, AmaroK, Drupal 4.6.x, Damn Small Linux, Fluxbox, GNOME Sensors Applet. Also Byzantine OS, Puppy Linux 1.0.8r1, Epiphany, Evolution, Galeon 2.0.1, XFCE4, Ubuntu 5.10. Portable Firefox 1.5, OpenOffice.org.

* Damn Small Linux has a nearly complete desktop, and many command line tools. All applications are chosen with the best balance of functionality, size and speed. Damn Small also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off of a live CD.

* Kplayer is the KDE media player based on MPlayer. With Kplayer you can easily play a wide variety of video and audio files and streams using a rich and friendly interface that follows KDE standards.

--------------------------------------------------------- Articles in the magazine... ---------------------------------------------------------

* Fandom of the Opera. (Not really Free Software, but comes with a version for GNU/Linux.) * Enjay Network Solutions www.enjayworld.com offers solutions for ThinClients, supporting Win2K,2K3, Linux, fullscreen DOS and Citrix MetaFrame (ICA). * Digital Tools | Tips & Tricks covers (i) Damn Small Linux (ii) View HTML mail in Dillo * Set up an Internet Connection on DSL (iv) Keeping track of network traffic on GNU/Linux (v) MP3 in text mode, MP3Blaster. * Mix tracks using Audacity. One-page article. * Life in a USB nutshell."Portable applications are built for the sole purpose of being run off a USB stick -- no installation, no writing settings to anything other than its own folder, and best of all, nearly all of them are free." Talks a lot about OpenOffice.org, AbiWord, i.Scribe, Firefox, MPlayer, etc. * An article: "Is Piracy Good?" "Let's say Microsoft makes a Windows version that is un-crackable. Let's say it's Vista for this example. What happens then?... a lot of people start using Linux! Lindows, SuSE, Ubunut, you chooose..."