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Issue 176 (November 2013) - Build your own distro

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Click here to get just the source code used in tutorials

Making stuff is fun. Putting bits together, taking them apart again to see how it works, putting them back together in a slightly different way: it's incredibly satisfying. This is why we decided to devote eight pages to building your own distro. Three different methods, infinite possibilities. The only limit is the number of rainy days you'll have to do it all (let's face it: we have plenty of rainy days to play with). Also in the issue: hear from the Gnome Foundation's executive director, and come away buzzing with fresh enthusiasm for free software. If you're into buzzwords – or deploying web apps to the cloud easily – you'll appreciate Mr Nick Veitch's tutorial on Juju Charms. And if you like talking to other human beings you'll want to know all about the Ubuntu for Phones OS, which looks to us like a real winner. or at least, it will be, if Canonical can get it to market before Sailfish. All this, plus coding, reviews and more, only in Linux Format!
On the DVD: Rosa Linux, Perppermint, Sonar and FourM. Plus hotpicks, code books and more.

 Features

Build your own distro

Stand our from the distrowatch crowd and create your own distro. (Mayank Sharma)
 Click here to read!

Ubuntu Phone

Witness the birth of a new phone OS (Jono Bacon)
 Click here to read!

Raspberry Pi add-ons

Discover three of the best Raspberry Pi addons (Ben Everard)
 Click here to read!

Dr Brown's Administeria

Smoothwall and Sed. (Chris Brown)
 Click here to read!

Interview: Gnomic Cyborg

LXF chats with Karen Sandler. (Andrew Gregory)
 Click here to read!

 Coverdisc

On the disc

ROAS Fresh, Pepperming Four, Sonar and 4M (Neil Bothwick)
 Click here to read!

The best new open source software on the planet

Griffon, Puddletag, Mobik, PyHIDS, Potamus, Loping, Dateutils, UBee512, Vinterm, S2png (Mike Saunders)
 Click here to read!

 Tutorials

Dual Boot

Get another distro going on an external drive. (Andrew Gregory)
 Click here to read!

Bit Torrent

Create your own torrents and trackers. (Neil Bothwick)
 Click here to read!

Amazon Web Services

Get started with cloud computing (Rob Dobozy)
 Click here to read!

FPM

Build your own packages (Mike Saunders)
 Click here to read!

Juju

deploy web apps quickly and easily (Nick Veitch)
 Click here to read!

 Coding Academy

Code Concepts

JPEG Compression (Ben Everard)
 Click here to read!

OpenEuphoria

It's fast to read, fast learn and fast to run. (Juliet Kemp)
 Click here to read!

HTML

Create scrolling effects with Skrollr (Ben Everard)
 Click here to read!

 Reviews

PC-BSD

We discover a BSD that's easy to use. (Ben Everard)
 Click here to read!

Firefox vs Chrome

The battle of the browsers (Mayank Sharma)
 Click here to read!

Devolo LiveCam

The powerline ethernet webcam promises Linux support. (Graham Morrison)
 Click here to read!

OS4 OpenLinux

It tries to be easy to use, but does it succeed. (Les Pounder)
 Click here to read!

Collection Managers

Find out the best way of keeping your stuff in order (Marco Fioretti)
 Click here to read!

 More

News: All the latest news from the Linux universe

Groklaw, Ubuntu Edge, Guns, Samsung and Microsoft. (Andrew Gregory)
 Click here to read!

What on Earth: Open vSwitch

discover the wonderful world of virtual networking (Marco Fioretti)
 Click here to read!