Cooking with Linux

The Award-Winning "Cooking with Linux"

With the December 2007 issue of Linux Journal, I celebrated 8 years of uninterrupted "Cooking with Linux"! Every month, in the pages of Linux Journal, I do a rather interesting little column called "Cooking with Linux". Apparently, a great number of you like the column because it was awarded the Linux Journal Readers' Choice Award for the fifth year in a row (!!), 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and now, 2005! (Note: There was no Readers' Choice Award handed out for 2006 or 2007, so for now, I remain undefeated for 7 years). Despite this and for reasons that are still unclear, "Cooking with Linux" is apparently one of the most controversial things every published by Linux Journal. Go figure. Love it or hate it, there's lots of information here. To everyone who voted for me, I thank you most sincerely. You people are the best!

Make sure you pick up your monthly issues at the newstand for a visit with Chef Marcel and his faithful waiter François, for the "Cooking with Linux" column. In case you missed them, here's a sample of what the kitchen served up.

• Jan 2008, Words, words, words . . . whether spoken by a fool or a genius, they are stil
  l the first line of defense in system security. (passwords, encryption, and secure access)
• Dec 2007, Exciting arcade action in glorious ASCII! (Just like it sounds)
• Nov 2007, Because nothing says high performance like a good race . . . (Racing games!)
• Oct 2007, Your voice, forever etched in electrons. (audio editing, sound recording, Audacity)
• Sep 2007, Still searching for the ultimate Linux distro? (virtualization programs, qemu, etc)
• Aug 2007, It's Like Déja vu, but at a higher resolution. (Digikam and Amarok)
• Jul 2007, Let Me Show You How It's Done With A Little Video (desktop video recording and screencast software)
• Jun 2007, Languages Build Character, or Vice Versa (Using special characters)
• May 2007, When AJAX Held The World On His Shoulders (AJAX Web chat software)
• Apr 2007, Security for your data. It's totally mondo! (MondoBackup and Restore)
• Mar 2007, Free Long Distance. Really! (SIP phones. Ekiga, WengoPhone, Gizmo)
• Feb 2007, Words, words, words . . . (ODF, document formats, and document converters)
• Jan 2007, It's About Time! (clocks, clocks, and more clocks)
• Dec 2006, Tonight's Menu : Diner's Choice! (Readers pick their favourite of the last 7 years)
• Nov 2006, The Dynamic Web : For Those Who Like To Watch (Democracy video player)
• Oct 2006, Your Media; Out of the Kitchen, and Into Every Other Place (sharing your media tastes)
• Sep 2006, Operating Your Body At Peak Performance (Exercices at your desktop, anti-RSI stuff)
• Aug 2006, Searching for the Ultimate Desktop Enhancements! (Desktop search, beagles,and more!)
• Jul 2006, Gem of an Idea! (Games that focus on gems or jewels)
• Jun 2006, If Only You Could Restore Wine (Backup tools, Keep, dar, Kdar, Simple Backup)
• May 2006, Virtual Streets of $HOME (Virtual consoles, ps3, BZFlag, LinCity)
• Apr 2006, Podcasts on the Menu (bashpodder, goldenpod, CastPodder)
• Mar 2006, Security and Firewalls (FireStarter, GuardDog)
• Feb 2006, Little Bitty Applications (KDE and GNOME panel applets)
• Jan 2006, Install and Build helpers (checkinstall, kinstaller, Kconfigure)
• Dec 2005, Amarokking the night away (amarok)
• Nov 2005, Ode to NetHack (NetHack, SLASH'EM, Falcon's Eye)
• Oct 2005, Searching the Desktop Jungle (find tools, KDE and GNOME search, Kat)
• Sep 2005, Wireless tools (ndiswrapper, NetGo, Wireless Assistant)
• Aug 2005, Tiny Linux Distros (Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, etc)
• Jul 2005, Tricked out terminals (Eterm, GNOME-Terminal, Konsole, QuadKonsole)
• Jun 2005, L'Intranet Originale! (Text BBS software.)
• May 2005, Crossing Platforms (Platform games!)
• Apr 2005, The Cook's Collection (Tellico, a collections manager)
• Feb 2005, Eye-Popping Panels! (KDE Panel and Kicker replacements, 3D Desktop)
• Jan 2005, Forgotten Security (Password vaults, steganography, KDE wallet)
• Dec 2004, Lights . . . Camera . . . Action!(Cheap movie-making, Kino, xvidcap, ffmpeg, dvgrab)
• Nov 2004, Performing at the Speed of Light (Lightspeed, Celestia, and Kstars)
• Oct 2004, The Game of Security(Games where you strike back at malware)
• Sept 2004, The Wireless Kitchen (Wireless desktop apps)
• Aug 2004, The Ultimate Cooking Box (Manage recipe collections with Linux)
• Jul 2004, It's a Cross-Platform, Alright! (Samba client tools)
• Jun 2004, When Democracy Becomes Crazy (Polling and Voting applications)
• May 2004, Eye Candy For Admins (SuperKaramba)
• Apr 2004, François, Can You Keep a Secret? (Encrypting and signing email)
• Mar 2004, Can't Get Enough Desktops (Running Nested X Servers)
• Feb 2004, The Customer is Always Served (CRM and Groupware systems)
• Jan 2004, Scalability: From Simplicity, Comes Complexity (Electronic building toys)
• Dec 2003, Put another nickel in . . ." (Jukebox software for your MP3s and OGGs)
• Nov 2003, Diners, start your processors! (Way cool 3D race games)
• Oct 2003, Mirror, mirror, of it all. (File and system synchronization and backup)
• Aug 2003, Illuminating your network's darkest corners (Sniffers, network stats)
• Jul 2003, Exploring strange new languages (Language translation tools)
• Jun 2003, Visit to a strange program (Silly, pointless, but fun programs)
• May 2003, Battles inside your computer (TRON lives! 2D/3D Tron games.)
• Apr 2003, Sometimes, you have to do it yourself (Remotely controlling other systems)
• Mar 2003, Chatting up the chef (Chat server programs and instant messaging)
• Feb 2003, Charting the Enterprise (Gantt charts, project management)
• Jan 2003, When I'm calling you . . . on video! (GnomeMeeting)
• Dec 2002, A Process Smorgasbord (All about processes : TreePS, LavaPS, pstree)
• Nov 2002, Serving up the all Linux Office (LTSP, thin clients, X -query)
• Oct 2002, Security, with a sprinkle of Video (Video security, motion detection)
• Sep 2002, The Ultimate (but small) Linux box (Doing more with less; IceWM, Dillo)
• Aug 2002, Strike up the band and celebrate! (XMMS, and NoAtun)
• Jul 2002, Art is but Engineered Reality (Fractals and digital reality)
• Jun 2002, Programming Life! (Software robots, mobile AIs, battlebots)
• May 2002, Getting to know you, my Kernel (MlvWM, AmiWM, and 3DWM)
• Apr 2002, Interoperate with Me (MlvWM, AmiWM, and 3DWM)
• Mar 2002, Scriptwriting for ze Web, and Everywhere else (Think, emacs outlines, bbspot, and Phorum)
• Feb 2002, Observe, Mon Cher Ami (GqCam, XawTV, MASH, and Vic, oh my!)
• Jan 2002, Networking for Pleasure (Classic board games, networked!)
• Dec 2001, Lighter Admin Fare with Depth (3D file managers)
• Nov 2001, Enterprise Help for Networks (Netsaint and others)
• Oct 2001, Engineering Intelligence (The latest on AI)
• Sep 2001, Brochettes de Sécurité (Recovering lost data and making sure deleted data stays deleted)
• Aug 2001, Launch, Not Lunch Platforms (Program launchers and launchpads)
• Jul 2001, Programming Silence Out (Speech synthesis and recognition under Linux)
• Jun 2001, A Taste of the World (World building, conquest, visualization)
• May 2001, Fly me to the Wine Cellar (Flight simulators, etc)
• Apr 2001, Managing Multiple Cooks (Your own Intranet with Grand Salmar Station)
• Mar 2001, Not Cooking the Books (Accounting and time tracking packages)
• Feb 2001, The Smell of Fresh-Baked Kernels (Kernel building made easier)
• Jan 2001, Music to Feed Your Soul (Music software)
• Dec 2000, Saucy Administration Tools (Time tracking, trouble ticket systems, etc)
• Nov 2000, Aging Systems for Flavour (C64, DOS, and Atari emulators)
• Oct 2000, A Few Recipes for Easier Firewalls (Easyfw, ipchains, gfcc)
• Sep 2000, The Ghost of Fun Times Past (Classic text games)
• Aug 2000, Organizing Your $HOME (File cleanup, ical, XnotesPlus)
• Jul 2000, An Appetite for Discovery (Astronomy programs)
• Jun 2000, I'll Have My People Call Your People (A web-based PostgreSQL/CGI phone book)
• May 2000, RPM : Rapid Program Delivery Morsels (Building your own RPMs)
• Apr 2000, Cookie Cutters, Munchers, and Crunchers (Cleaning up browser cookies)
• Mar 2000, Fun, Educational Morsels, Linux Style (Educational games for kids)
• Feb 2000, Tasty KDE Desktop Themes (Creating KDE desktop themes)
• Jan 2000, The PPP Connection (Setting up, you guessed it, PPP connections)

Historical note : The September 1999 issue featured the first of the "Cooking with Linux" articles (it was the issue's theme for that month). You can now read that one right here by clicking this text.

Misc Other Articles

One of the back issue articles (from the print magazine) you can still check online is this one :
April 1999 issue of Linux Journal where you can read his exciting
review of Corel/Rebel.Com's Netwinder. It's the cover story. The December issue, with a cool "Y2K Ready!" flash on the cover (!) features an article called Multifax : Web-based fax tools. You can download the software from here.

Stay tuned!