As the year comes to a close, it is time for year-end reflections. In our case that means sharing the most popular articles of 2011. The following were viewed the most, and in some case created a lot of discussion as well. 1. Readers' Choice Awards 2011

Many Linux users who have been GNOME fans for years find themselves in a sudden quandary. GNOME 3.0 has completely abandoned the desktop experience we've come to love during the years. That's not to say change is bad, it's just that many folks (even Linus Torvalds) don't really want to change.

This article is a bit different from my usual column in two ways. First, it's starting with a hardware and software combo—something I've not done before. Second, the projects are linked to each other and come recommended to me by Perth LUG member, Simon Newton.

Packet capture is one of the most fundamental and powerful ways to do network analysis. You can learn virtually anything about what is going on within a network by intercepting and examining the raw data that crosses it. Modern network analysis tools are able to capture, interpret and describe this network traffic in a human-friendly manner.

This video is from our good friends at USENIX's recent LISA conference in Boston. "Linux Systems Capacity Planning: Beyond RRD and top", by Rodrigo Campos

According to its Freshmeat entry: Fpdb is a free/open-source tracker/HUD for use with on-line poker. The intent is to make fpdb capable of supporting all games on all sites.

It's starting to look like the end of an era for Ubuntu users as Canonical mull the creation of an ISO that won't fit onto a CDR. The question is, does it matter?

This past summer, I went to a beach resort in Mexico with my wife. It made sense to get into a little better shape so as not to cause any beached-whale rumors while I soaked in the rays. Typical geek that I am, I wanted to track my every move so I could see how much exercise I really was doing. And, I wanted to do that with technology.

If you use a dedicated e-reader to read Linux Journal every month, chances are you want to read other material on it as well. Thanks to a free service called Instapaper, if you have an e-reader like the Linux-powered Kindle, you can take your favorite Web articles with you on the go, even if your destination doesn't have Internet access!