Today, two Slackware-based Linux distributions from the lightweight division will square off to find out once and for all, who has the clear edge.

On the left corner, please welcome the Brazilian sensation, GoblinX. On the right corner, put your hands together for the Zenmaster, Zenwalk.

I will be the sole and fair (hopefully) judge of this Slack-off as I have recently tried and tested the latest versions of the two distros. I know that it is kind of unfair to compare the two as Zenwalk is bigger than GoblinX “Mini Edition” in terms of size and therefore has more pre-installed applications and features. And, I could have used the “Standard Edition” edition instead. But, we are all just having fun here so we shall push through. Who knows, this could somehow end up like the fight between David and Goliath.

Decoding:
Both GoblinX and Zenwalk were completely installed at almost the same speed, so I just gave a draw verdict on “Installation Time”. Zenwalk took about 41 seconds to boot (measured from Grub menu to the main desktop) compared to GoblinX’s 45 seconds. They were both very responsive since the two are using the same lightweight window manager which is XFCE.

GoblinX won the entire "Aesthetics" category because of its unique and artistic appeal. Zenwalk was just too plain and simple. Though for me, simplicity in design is not a disadvantage, I just thought that GoblinX has that X-factor in terms of looks.

Being the bigger distro, Zenwalk has the obvious advantage against the smaller GoblinX for available “pre-installed applications”. But, they both have plenty of packages on hand from their software repositories. Also, they were both user-friendly and I had a hard time choosing which one is better so I'm giving a draw verdict for “Ease of Use”.

The minor predicament in GoblinX during installation is the reason why Zenwalk won “Hardware Detection” and “Error Handling”. Zenwalk was just too smooth and trouble-free during the set-up. Since both have the same package management system, it’s a tie for “Software Management”.

The older and more experienced Zenwalk Linux won, but by just a slim margin. Its stability and added features were just too much for the young GoblinX to take. Nonetheless, GoblinX didn’t just easily go down because it fought until the end. I think it has a huge potential to succeed, and perhaps, could someday become a distro to be reckoned with.

A well-deserved win by Zenwalk in my own view, but as always, I want more opinions from our dear readers.

DSL (Damn Small Linux) is a minuscule distro that is based on Knoppix. It has a business card size of around 50MB (48.5 MB to be exact). The main aim of DSL is still pretty much the same when it first started, and that is to provide those with ancient computer hardware a highly functional and capable desktop loaded with just the right amount of essential software applications.

My last peek at Damn Small Linux was with version 3.4.3. So I decided that it is about time to have a look at the latest release which is 4.2.5 and see what’s up. I downloaded the ISO image, and then tested it on VMWare. I used only 128MB of virtual RAM which is lower than what’s recommended. It is said that DSL can even run on machines with only 16MB of RAM. You can get DSL from its project’s download page HERE.

Here’s my in-depth look at DSL 4.2.5:

Installation/Setup:
There are plenty of ways to run DSL. You can use it as a live CD which is ideal for rescuing a broken system. For those who travel a lot, DSL can be installed on a USB stick. You can also install it directly on your hard drive. You can even run it within a Windows operating system through virtualization.

Once the ISO image is loaded, you will have a choice to begin or see the boot time options. I didn’t have to add any parameters and just did a normal boot. In a blink of an eye, I was taken to DSL’s main desktop. Up to now, I’m still amazed at the super fast boot speed and wished that bigger or regular-sized distros can do the same.



Look and Feel:
DSL 4.2.5 is utilizing Joe’s Window Manger (JWM) by default which I find user-friendlier than Fluxbox Window Manager (FWM). However, you can quickly switch to FWM if you prefer. JWM is not really as customizable especially when you weigh it against XFCE or Gnome. But, I love the default dark look and I wanted to keep it that way. The desktop theme looks a lot better now compared to before. The default wallpaper has a modern feel to it and there’s now a desktop system monitor. DSL has really no flashy eye-candy whatsoever. The overall look is just plain and simple and just what I expect for in an extremely lightweight distro.



Software/Package Management:
Damn Small Linux as always, crammed as many useful software applications as possible. Here is a long list of pre-installed packages:

*Dillo and *Firefox web browser *Netrik text-based web browser *Ted word processor *Sylpheed email client *Xzgv picture viewer *Xpaint image editor *emelFM file manager *Naim instant messaging client *VoIP Gphone *Beaver GUI text editor *Scheme In A Grid spreadsheet *Xpdf PDF reader *XMMS audio and video player *Vim *Assorted Xbase utilities (Xcalc etc.) *ssh, sshd *betaftpd *Sqlite *Nano *MS Office Viwer *Postscript Viewer *AxY FTP *Telnet client *Microcom *Midnight Commander *Bash Burn, CD Burning App *Fast and Light GUI Admin tools *Monkey web server *VNCviewer *Rdesktop

…and more!

Amazing list isn’t it? The only downside is that some of these programs are still in their older versions. Like Mozilla Firefox is still in version 1.0.6.

You can also use Debian’s Advanced Packaging Tool if you want to get or download additional packages.



Stability/Hardware Support:
DSL handled my Virtual hardware quite well. It properly detected the audio, video, and USB. Ethernet was already working without the need for additional configurations. I also had no problem switching to different screen resolutions. I find DSL Control Panel very handy for setting up several key hardware and software components.

I've encountered minor problems in DSL 4.2.5, like the occasional failure to switch between window managers. Though, I still think that the general stability and security of DSL is exceptional based on my overall evaluation after using and testing it for an extended period of time. Its speed and responsiveness is also very noticeable despite using lesser RAM.



Conclusion:
I have used several versions of DSL already and I would say that there are significant progresses in each and every release. Version 4.2.5 is no different and had some noteworthy improvements over its predecessor. However, in spite of all the changes made, Damn Small Linux is still Damn Small Linux; fast, dependable, efficient and very much valuable. Hats off to DSL!

Do you think that geeks are boring? If your answer is yes, then perhaps some of the photographs that I’m going to show to you can change your mind.

1. Bill Gates arrested for running a red light and driving without a license in New Mexico in 1977 (What's with the smile?):


2. Steve Jobs the Hippie (taken during the 70's I guess):


3. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page in a hot tub and pleasuring each other:


4. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer doing his impersonation of Michael Jordan at the NASDAQ launching of Windows Vista and Office 2007.


5. Linus Torvalds is not all brains, he's got the body too. Although, he needs to work more on his sit-ups:


6. Hacker and writer Eric S. Raymond shows off his bad boy image:


7. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak together with rockstar David Lee Roth of Van Halen (Woz this way!):


8. Free software revolutionary Richard M. Stallman posed like Saint Ignacius in a developers meeting.


9. The other side of Sergey Brin (photo taken during his College years)


10. Bill Gates had too much pie.


*Note that these are all for the spirit of fun and should not be taken seriously. Correct me if some of the photos shown here are not real or just edited. You can also share some links to other bizarre photos of famous geeks that I failed to include here.

Astronomy, considered as one of the oldest sciences, is the scientific study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere (such as the cosmic background radiation).


I have here a list of well-recognized free and open source Astronomy software for all the Galileo-wannabe out there:

Celestia
*Celestia is a 3D astronomy program created by Chris Laurel. The program, based on the Hipparcos Catalogue, allows the user to display objects ranging in scale from artificial satellites to entire galaxies in three dimensions using OpenGL, from perspectives which would not be possible from a classic planetarium or other ground based display.

NASA and ESA have used Celestia in their educational and outreach programs, as well as for interfacing to trajectory analysis software.

Celestia is available for Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows. Released under the GNU General Public License, Celestia is free software.


INDI
*INDI (an abbreviation of Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface) is a Distributed Control System protocol to enable control, data acquisition and exchange among hardware devices and software front ends, with particular focus on astronomical instrumentation.

The main key concept in INDI is that devices have the ability to describe themselves. This is accomplished by using XML to describe a generic hierarchy that can represent both canonical and non-canonical devices. In INDI, all devices may contain one or more properties. Any property may contain one or more elements. A property in the INDI paradigm describes a specific function of the device. There are five types of INDI properties:

-Text property
-Number property.
-Switch property (Represented in GUI by buttons or check boxes).
-Light property (Represented in GUI by colored LEDs).
-Blob property (Binary data).

INDI provides powerful scripting facilities that enables complete device automation.


KStars
*KStars is a planetarium program for the KDE desktop for Unix-like computer operating systems. It provides an accurate graphical representation of the night sky, from any location on Earth, at any date and time. The display includes up to 126,000 stars, 13,000 deep sky objects, all 88 constellations, all 8 planets, the Sun and Moon, and thousands of comets and asteroids. It has features to appeal to users of all levels, from informative hypertext articles about astronomy, to robust control of telescopes and CCD cameras, and logging of observations of specific objects.

KStars has been packaged by many Linux/BSD distributions, including Red Hat Linux, Suse, Mandriva, and Debian. Some distributions package KStars as a separate application, some just provide a kdeedu package, which includes KStars. KStars is distributed with KDE as part of the kdeedu "Edutainment" module. Occasionally, independent releases will be available as a gzipped tar archive from the following website:

The latest version of KStars is 1.3.0, released with KDE 4.0. Released under the GNU General Public License, Kstars is free software.


PP3
*PP3 is a free software that produces sky charts, focussing on high quality graphics and typography. It is distributed under a slightly modified MIT License and available for Linux and Windows.

Sky charts are produced as LaTeX files, so an installation of LaTeX and Ghostscript is required to obtain results in PostScript or PDF formats. Knowledge of command line syntax for these packages is however not required, as PP3 can run the conversions automatically.

Wikipedia's own star charts are produced by PP3. Most of these are in the constellations category.


Stellarium
*Stellarium is a free software planetarium, licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It uses OpenGL to render a realistic sky in real time. With Stellarium, it's possible to see what one cannot see with the naked eye, binoculars or a small telescope.

Stellarium is developed by the French programmer Fabien Chéreau, who launched the project in the summer of 2001. Other prominent developers include Robert Spearman, Johannes Gajdosik, Matthew Gates, Nigel Kerr and Johan Meuris, who is responsible for the artwork.


XEphem
*XEphem is a Motif based ephemeris and planetarium program for Unix-like operating systems developed by Elwood C. Downey.

XEphem uses:

-the VSOP87D planetary theory (full and reduced precision) for Solar System ephemeris, approximation to DE200 for the outer planets and Pluto
-Formulae from J. Meeus (1982) for Jovian and Saturnian natural satellites
-Model by the Bureau des Longitudes for Martian and Uranian natural satellites
-About 452 million stars from both the Tycho-2 Catalogue and a magnitude limited subset of the Guide Star Catalog II.
-About 1 million deep sky objects mainly from a subset of HYPERLEDA
-About 288,000 minor planets and comets orbital elements from the IAU Minor Planet Center and Lowell Observatory (that can be updated), and other specialized catalogs.
-It also includes the Digital Lunar Orbiter Photographic Atlas of the Moon.

XEphem is a client for Internet data sources such as the Digitized Sky Survey, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, AAVSO light curves, and global temperature and cloud coverage. Through the Instrument Neutral Distributed Interface, XEphem can control some models of amateur telescopes, such as by Meade, Celestron, and Vixen, and auxiliary telescope components.


If you know of other free and open source Astronomy software that I failed to include above, please share them with us via comment.

In my noble aim to play at least one game for Linux per week, I bumped into a 3D car racing simulator called TORCS.

The Open Racing Car Simulator (TORCS) is considered among the best open source games available for Linux. TORCS is based upon the open source, cross-platform libraries OpenGL, Mesa 3D and OpenGL Utility Toolkit, thus it is highly portable and can also run on FreeBSD, Mac OS X and Windows. It is primarily used as ordinary car racing game, as AI racing game and as research platform.

I downloaded and installed TORCS by simply using Synaptic Package Manager. You can also get it straight from its project website HERE.

Sounds and Graphics:
Having played Gran Turismo and Need for Speed before, I would say that TORCS is not as graphically pleasing compared to those games. However, the racing environment in TORCS is quite good and should probably impress a lot of typical gamers. Also, it is not as resource hungry as those popular Windows racing simulator. Using only my low-end ATI X1050 graphics card, the FPS is high enough, meaning the game is very much responsive even in full screen mode. There were also several available options to tweak the graphical display settings to suit whatever your hardware needs.

Now about the sound quality; I can say that it is at par with some of the most valuable car racing simulation games today. The sound of the roaring engine and the screeching tires were very realistic indeed.



Gameplay:



The game offers a wide variety of real-life high-performance vehicles as well as Formula 1 racers and off-road rally racers. They are categorized by performance level and drivetrain configuration: These are some of the vehicles:

Peugeot 406
Lotus GT1 (RWD)
McLaren F1
Porsche GT
Dodge Viper GTS-R
Jaguar XJ-220
Ferrari 360 Modena
Mercedes-Benz CLK DTM
Ford GT40 Conceptual
Acura NSX Type S-Zero
Alfa Romeo 155 DTM

Conclusion:
TORCS is a must try game for Linux users who want a quality racing simulator. It is fully-featured and it can be played after getting bored of watching too much Oprah. Seriously, TORCS is really enjoyable to play, and the controls using the keyboard are simple and easy to remember. I’m still playing the game in easy mode, so, it makes the game even more fun because I always win (hehe). Although, I’m thinking of getting a joystick to fully enjoy the game. All in all, TORCS is highly recommended. And, did I already say that it’s free?

Today, I’m supposed to write a review of an open-source game called TORCS. However, something came up that took away most of my time.

When I tried to access my uploaded files, I received this sad message:

The bandwidth or page view limit for this site has been exceeded and the page cannot be viewed at this time. Once the site is below the limit, it will once again begin serving as normal.

A quick advice for those who are using Google Pages to host files for their websites or blogs: Make a separate Google Page Creator account for separate websites to avoid bandwidth issues. I already did, although a little bit late.

Who says nature and technology can’t mix? According to an article from Boholweb.com, my home province of Bohol has increasingly attracted small IT Companies; most of which are owned or financed by foreign nationals. Already based here are firms that specializes in software development, drafting services, web development, and several call centers.

I won’t fail to mention a Boholano-owned tech company called Auza.net which has a main office that's located at Tagbilaran City. They provide dedicated Internet access service for call center operations, develop and maintain free information web sites, resell web hosting services, give IT consulting services and offer training on Linux and other open source software.

This has definitely been a welcome development as more jobs are created in effect and thus improves the economic state of the province. Bohol is known as a great tourist destination due to its pristine environment and white sand beaches. This could be one of the key reasons why foreign companies are attracted to invest here. The other possible main factor for this surge of interest is the low cost of manpower.

I hope Bohol will continue to attract more foreign investors for the good of those who are living here and for our country. However, I do hope that the preservation of this beautiful island of ours should be considered first and foremost.

Zenwalk Linux is probably one of the most if not the most well-known Slackware-based Linux distribution today. It is ranked consistently high on Distrowatch and has a good number of active users and community members. The popularity is mainly due to Zenwalk’s simplicity, ease-of-use, and Slackware-like stability. I can clearly prove this as I have been a Zenwalker before.


I got the Standard Edition (SE), which I usually do, and then installed and tested it on VMWare Server. I utilized 8 GB of virtual storage (preformatted to IDE), 256 MB of VM RAM, and just a single CPU of my Intel Pentium D 3.4 GHz machine. I’ve been using and testing the distro for several days already, so, here is what I found out about Zenwalk 5.0:

Installation:
Zenwalk 5.0 SE has the same old-fashioned Ncurses-based text-mode installer. The set-up is actually very straightforward that new-to-Linux users shouldn’t fear. It’s even a lot easier if the partition is already prepared. Like in my case, I only selected the “Autoinstall” option because I dedicated the entire VM disk for Zenwalk. The installer took care of creating the root and /home partition, and then copied the necessary system and application files. The whole process took only around 10-15 minutes to complete.



After that, I configured the LILO bootloader, hardware clock and timezone, plus other services. Then, the system rebooted for the first time and midway through booting, some license agreement forms will appear (blah 3x). Lastly, I configured the sound device, language, and the user accounts. I considered the whole installation a complete success as it was pretty much flawless.


Look and Feel:
As always, XFCE is Zenwalk’s default desktop manager. The theme and artwork had a very cool and light aura. The theme now which is called “Zen” is actually different from version 4.8, which I can’t remember the name. It’s rounded and sleeker looking than the previous version. The default wallpaper is just very plain and simple. The desktop arrangement in Zenwalk is its trademark two panels, with the lower panel shorter but a little bit wider than the top panel. I’m not really into this kind of setup as it takes too much desk space, so I easily removed the lower one and just settled for the one on top. XFCE is highly customizable but you may need some patience to tweak everything because it is not as easy to do compare to in KDE or in Gnome. Anyway, the best thing about XFCE is its speed and efficiency.



Software/Package Management:
Zenwalk is packed with free/open-source goodies despite its limited size. It has a wide array of software applications for productive uses such as IceWeasel (Firefox Rebranded) web browser, GIMP image editor, Pidgin IM client, Brasero CD burner, Abiword and Gnumeric office programs, and plenty more. By the way, Flash and Java is not installed by default just like in previous versions of Zenwalk. However, there’s a graphical package manager called Netpkg that will take care of downloading and installing additional packages as well as for removing and updating software. I installed Flash without a hitch and I was watching Youtube in no time. However, I still hate IceWeasel’s HTML rendering in Zenwalk. Anyway, I find Netpkg not as clear-cut as other package management tool like Synaptic for example. Beginners might find it difficult to use at first but will love it for its reliability. Zenwalk has also a handy system tool manager called “Zenpanel” that basically functions like a control center for important hardware devices and system configurations.



Stability/Hardware Support:
For me, a distro’s stability can be first noticed or observed based on how it detects and supports key hardware devices. Zenwalk 5.0 did it incredibly well by correctly configuring my important hardware components like audio, USB, and CDROM. Ethernet was also working immediately after the first reboot without the need for additional setup. My monitor's screen resolution was also properly configured and could be adjusted to my desired size without any trouble. However, I encountered a few minor hiccups while running some applications, but it didn’t affect the overall performance.



Conclusion:
From version 3.0 up to now, Zenwalk didn’t fail to impress me. In fact, I think it keeps on getting better and better after every release. The speed, ease-of-use, and stability were much improved in this latest release. The light footprint and the featherweight desktop still make Zenwalk ideal for low-end computer hardware. I will definitely install it if I have a Pentium III class machine with less than 256 MB of RAM.

Using Zenwalk may not be a walk in the park if used by Linux beginners, but it’s almost there. Minus the installation, particularly the partitioning portion, I would say without doubt that it can easily become a newbie-friendly distro. A little bit of patience and some Linux love are all you need to fully appreciate a wonderful distro like Zenwalk.

I have noticed that Linux newbies take so much pride with their newly installed distro that they will most likely spend a lot of time searching the web for Linux-themed desktop wallpapers. So, I decided to provide here or share some of the best (in my own opinion) Linux desktop wallpapers that I have collected before. I hope you will like a few of them, at least.

Here are my "25 Coolest Linux Wallpapers" in no particular order: