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One of the first things to do with a new release of Ubuntu is to check for updates. Typically, I won't upgrade to the latest release immediately, so there's always quite a few updates since the release. There's a handy Software Updater tool which makes the updating process painless.

We can use the tail utility to monitor a log file. But it's often not that effective. An administrator of a system can suffer from information overload. Reviewing the log files in an efficient way can be a very time consuming task. There's a need for an alternative.

We can all admire the vast number of open source apps and tools that are available on modern operating systems. They come in all shapes and sizes. Small console tools that can be easily integrated into large projects, feature-rich apps that offer everything bar the the kitchen sink, well designed tools, and eye catching candy. Open source software holds numerous compelling advantages over proprietary software.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts is a very famous quote from Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and scientist. This quote is particularly pertinent to Linux. In my view, one of Linux's biggest strengths is its synergy. The usefulness of Linux doesn't derive only from the huge raft of open source (command line) utilities. Instead, it's the synergy generated by using them together, sometimes in conjunction with larger applications.

There are so many things to like about XBian; in particular snapshots and rolling releases. It's also the best out-of-the box configured Raspberry Pi 2 Kodi distribution. There are bugs and glitches evident, but these do not distract from the overall experience. For home theatre on the Raspberry Pi 2, XBian is my distribution of choice.

This is the largest set of group tests available identifying the best software that is available to download. The collection includes more than 220 different group tests, with comprehensive sections on internet, graphics, games, programming, science, office, utilities, and more. Almost all of the software is released under a freely distributable license.

OSMC turns a Raspberry Pi 2 into an impressive media centre. While it has much to offer, OpenELEC is likely to be a better choice for most users.

OpenELEC uses very little system resources for processor or memory. There's no need to use any special customization tips to get good performance with the RPi2. There's also no need to overclock the machine, reduce the resolution of videos, or use a different skin (although I really like the Amber skin).

With the release of the Raspberry Pi 2 Model B and its ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, users are offered a number of ways of running Ubuntu. If you like being at the cutting edge, you may be interested in trying an image of Vivid Vervet, the code name for Ubuntu 15.04. This is a development release, as Ubuntu 15.04 is not scheduled for release until next month. It offers a number of interesting features and improvements.

Imagination Technologies is a British company that has recently entered full production of a board based on MIPS computer architecture. The single-board computer has been designed to allow developers to create applications for mobiles, gaming, Internet of Things, and wearables.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation make it pretty clear that Raspbian is the recommended operating system for the Raspberry Pi series of computers. Most of the Foundation's documentation and support directs users to Raspbian. The downloads section of their website does list other operating system images. But there are many more images available, and one really piqued my curiosity; a Ubuntu 14.10 / Linaro 15.01 "developer" image. Unlike Raspbian, this image is compiled for ARMv7/armhf.

The latest chapter of the Raspberry Pi promises so much, but does it deliver? The Raspberry Pi is a series of credit-card sized single-board computers. The original Raspberry Pi was acclaimed by some reviewers as a desktop PC replacement. The reality was vastly different.

Linux has a good range of extremely strong chess engines such as Stockfish, Critter, Togo II, Crafty, GNU Chess, and Komodo. The chess engines featured in this article offer no match to a good chess engine, but they show how much can be achieved with a minuscule codebase.

Learning to code still remains a buzz. The problem facing any budding new programmer is how to start. Questions abound. What's the best programming language for a beginner? What's the best way to learn? In my opinion, it is best to first get interested in programming, then seek out some experienced coders and discuss and discuss, and learn programming by doing, practising with lots of practical examples and the aid of an excellent introductory book.

CD audio grabbers are designed to extract ("rip") the raw digital audio (in a format commonly called CDDA) from a compact disc to a file or other output. This type of software enables a user to encode the digital audio into a variety of formats, and download and upload disc info from freedb, an internet compact disc database.

Assembly language is infrequently used by programmers nowadays, but there are still good reasons to learn the language. It is the most powerful computer programming language available. Whilst assembly language shares very little with high level languages (such as Java, C#, Python etc), and assembly languages for different CPU architectures often have little in common, it gives programmers the insight required to write effective code in high-level languages. Assembly language is also used primarily for direct hardware manipulation, access to specialized processor instructions, or to address critical performance issues. Assembly is excellent for speed optimization.

LaTeX is a high-quality document preparation system and document markup language which was written by Leslie Lamport. It is a very mature system and has been in development for more than 20 years. It includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation.

TeX is a system for computer typesetting. It is a powerful low-level markup and programming language that creates professional quality typeset text. The system was developed by Donald Knuth at Stanford University with the purpose of enabling anyone to generate high-quality books, and to develop a system that yields the same results whatever computer is used.

The phrase 'terminal multiplexer' sounds a bit of a mouthful and a large dollop of jargon. Multiplexing is a method of combining multiple data streams into one stream over a shared medium. This gives us a hint of the function of a terminal multiplexer. It is computer software that can be used to multiplex several video consoles. In English? Well, it allows you to make use of multiple separate terminal sessions inside a single terminal. So one terminal session can act like many sessions.

Git is the most widely used version control system, in part because of the popularity of GitHub, a web-based Git repository hosting service, which offers all of the distributed revision control and source code management) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features.