Review of Featherweight Browsers

Browsers, if anything, are the greatest paradox within computer programs. As much as people need them to obtain information (compare clicking a link to using 'wget' or 'curl'), they are the easiest doors to be exploited by attackers, and resource-heavy by comparison. However, browsers do evolve with these issues, and are constantly working on them - except that savvy users are never really satisfied. So one of the key terms for Browsers today is the concept of "lightweight." Every modern browser available for download today refers to itself as lightweight. The only problem is that nobody knows its exact definition.

Firefox and Chrome(-ium) are both decent browsers in my opinion, and call themselves light. In truth, however, they support everything you can think of. The outcome is the standard recipe web-browser which takes a good 100MB off the RAM to run your favorite page, and a couple more to load a full browsing session. This may be adequate to you, provided you have the memory to spend, but it's kind of a waste to burn this much just to view a few tabs of content just to search something in Google. Hence, a lightweight browser isn't enough. It's time to dig for something deeper, a featherweight browser.

How to create a Linux LiveUSB without Unetbootin

If you've been introduced to Linux by a hardcore fan, or just been adventuring yourself for a while now, chances are you've ran into a piece of software called UNetbootIn. It stands for "Universal Netboot Installer," but what it really does is create bootable USB drives from Linux CD images (.iso). It's a great program. Geza Kovacs (the developer) had a great idea in making it, and I personally still use it quite a lot. However, as with any program you can write, it has its own limitations. And today I will show you how to work around them, using a UNIX program called "dd."

Everyone should have a Hacking Machine

My computing experience and opinions have changed slowly, but drastically over time. I resist change for as long as I can, but when it comes, the change is immensely radical. Many people (including me) condemn this "dive straight in" attitude, as it's bound for frustration and sometimes irreversible damage to the computers. In fact, I have gone through these two problems a more than a couple of times already. The difficulty of reverting determinate situations with Linux is probably one of the reasons many people are hesitant to try it at first. Sure, the LiveCD is one way of playing it safe, but has limitations on speed and extensibility. So what is the best solution to try new things without fear, you ask? Simple, use a hacking machine.

Gaming in Linux: how to get the best of it

The title of this post is a paradox itself. If you're a Linux user, you already know that. If you're not, let's just say that the procedure to play a popular game in Linux is usually something like the following:

• Think about some game not too heavy for the box you own (even when you ran Windows);
• Look said game up on WineHQ's AppDB section;
• Pray it's rated Platinum (or at least Gold, for mercy);
• Torrent said game (unless you actually have a CD of it);
• Install said game and play it, only to find out a few side glitches that were not there with Windows;

This is the standard procedure with most of the games I've ran, or currently run. Most of them (which were AppDB checked beforehand) ran seamlessly, and only two presented glitches that had to be tweaked out. So, though I know that gaming in Linux is a lost cause by definition, I find that the Wine workarounds have worked pretty damn well so far. And that is to say:

I am pretty damn satisfied with Desktop Linux as it is at the moment - and gaming IS included in my satisfaction rating.

What... do you want more explanations? Well, I guess I do owe them in this case... It'll also help you to understand how to get the best Gaming experience in your Linux box.

How to install a program from source in Linux

Installing software in Linux is not the nightmare that Linux virgins tend to believe. There are package managers, repositories and precompiled binaries that make this task much easier. So much easier and cleaner that in fact, you must always refer to these methods FIRST before even thinking about installing from the source code.

There are only two "last stands" situations in which I would install from source: