Out of the box, Linux runs just fine for many uses. But if you find yourself needing to ferret out performance problems or tune the kernel for better performance, Linux has more than enough tools to measure and tweak system performance. In this guide, we'll take a look at five of the best utilities to measure system performance and tweak the Linux kernel.

You'll find many, many, many utilities for measuring and improving Linux system performance. The utilities discussed here are chosen because they're widely available, and provide a good scope functionality. Also, I chose to avoid tools that have too steep a learning curve. As an example, SystemTap is a bit more complex than should be covered in an overview article. I left out some of the more basic tools such as ps and top because most Linux users are exposed to them fairly early on. And I didn't try to tackle any application-specific tools.

This won't be the last word on system performance and administration on Linux.com, so don't worry. In future tutorials, I'll dive in a bit deeper with specific tools and tuning: but this should be a good starter kit for newer Linux admins.

What was once old is new again and the desktop-centric computing is making way for return of thin client/mainframe computing again. This tutorial will walk you through setting up a Ubuntu desktop to act as a "mainframe", capable of being accessed by a thin clients or regular desktops, using the excellent FreeNX server

Last night a colleague of mine was giving me a lesson in accounting (as I am going to start rolling out Point Of Sale systems with him). The lesson was valuable and, in a word, confusing (accountants do have a language of their own). At one point in the lesson I brought up open source, and he nearly turned red saying, “Nothing is free.” That statement got me to thinking about free, open source, and open source projects. He is right - nothing is free. At some point, someone had to make some sort of investment into a project to bring it to life (be that investment money, time, labor, etc). This thought sparked another and led me to, are you ready…