Happy hackers

Linux remains the number one destination for hackers: white hat, black hat or any colour in between. A key part of that is the ability to engineer open source code to do your bidding, but also that the tools are open source and available under open licenses.

With Jonni fully refreshed and updated from his sabbatical now – packing a techno boat to live on – he’s crowbarring Kali Linux onto the DVD and writing up a handy guide to using its hacking playground the Metasploit framework. We’re not saying you’re going to become elite hackers overnight, but it might offer a sense of how systems become vulnerable and the basic ways you can stop attacks.

A while back (perhaps even when I started) many thought Linux was only good for hacking, coding and running servers – I expect this is still the case – but this issue we’re delving into a good chunk of creative software, kicking off with an extra-big slice of Blender and how it’s taking over the 3D rendering world. One reason for Blender’s unstoppable rise is that commercial competitors couldn’t just buy it and shut it down when it became a threat, precisely because of its GPL open source licence.

Besides that we have audio editors, ideal for podcasts, video and more. We look at music notation software and MIDI control. We show how Libreoffice can be automated across the board from the terminal, and we still have plenty of technical nonsense like designing your own processor, building micro:bit walkie-talkies and a fun sprinkling of Raspberry Pi projects for you to try, so enjoy!