Top 25 LinuxJournal.com Articles of All Time, Part 4

This week we take a look at the all-time favorite articles ever featured on LinuxJournal.com. We'll feature the top 25 in this series, presenting you with five each day this week. These 25 articles alone represent tens of millions of page views on LinuxJournal.com.

Top Articles 6 - 10

10. Exchange Functionality for Linux by Hans-Cees Speel
Bynari InsightServer is here already, and Kroupware is coming up.

Previously I reviewed a mail server for Linux that features integration with Microsoft's Outlook and offers calendaring/scheduling options with shared busy/free information. However, it did not have many features that Outlook offers in corporate mode, including sending meeting requests to groups of users who can then reply and delegating rights so secretaries can manage their bosses agendas on-line. This current review shows a year's time was enough for Linux solutions to arise that can compete with Microsoft Exchange and Outlook and offer a lower price, with all the important features included. Read more.

9. 3D Xgl Compiz Eye Candy for Ubuntu/Kubuntu Dapper and NVidia by Nicholas Petreley
As the title says, these instructions are for Ubuntu/Kubuntu dapper with an NVidia binary driver.

To each his own, but I love eye candy. When I heard that you could get the 3D Xgl and Compiz environment running on Ubuntu/Kubuntu dapper (my default distribution), I immediately searched the web for instructions. Most of the instructions take a reasonably timid approach, which gets your 3D environment running in a test console (the second display, or :1). I'm more adventurous, however, and I immediately went for a total replacement. What follows are instructions for doing the same. Read more.

8. Industrial Light and Magic by Robin Rowe
Discussing the move to Linux on ILM's renderfarm, with speed and stability comes responsibility.

Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones, released in May 2002, is Industrial Light & Magic's (ILM) first movie produced after converting its workstations and renderfarm to Linux last year. Located north of San Francisco in San Rafael, California, ILM was founded in 1975 to produce the visual effects for Star Wars. Although owned by George Lucas, ILM produces visual effects for more than Lucasfilm productions, such as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. Many other studios seeking that bit of something extra on the cutting edge of special effects use ILM. ILM has received 14 Academy Awards, including ones for its work on Forrest Gump, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and E.T. Read more.

7. Building a Call Center with LTSP and Soft Phones by Michael George
Need to equip an office with terminals and phones, all on a small budget? With LTSP and KPhone, you can do it with only terminals, sound cards and headsets.

A new customer approached us with a need to provision the office. The customer was receptive to open-source software and was interested in using Linux. Being a nonprofit organization, the budget for the project was tight. Read more.

6. Python Programming for Beginners by Jacek Artymiak
If you want to outsmart the Spanish Inquisition, learn Python. This article is a practical introduction to writing non-trivial applications in Python.

Despite what assembly code and C coders might tell us, high-level languages do have their place in every programmer's toolbox, and some of them are much more than a computer-science curiosity. Out of the many high-level languages we can choose from today, Python seems to be the most interesting for those who want to learn something new and do real work at the same time. Its no-nonsense implementation of object-oriented programming and its clean and easy-to-understand syntax make it a language that is fun to learn and use, which is not something we can say about most other languages. Read more.
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