Most Popular Linux Downloads and Posts of 2011 [Best Of Lifehacker 2011]

Linux may not be the world's most popular desktop OS, but that doesn't mean it has to take a back seat to its proprietary brethren. Here are our best Linux downloads and posts from 2011.

If you have two or more computers at one desk, you don't want two or more sets of keyboards and mice cluttering up your workspace, too. You can buy a hardware gadget that lets you share a single keyboard and mouse with several computers (which involves a mess of tangled wires), or you could use a free software solution called Synergy. More »

The command line can be quite powerful, but typing in long commands and file paths gets tedious pretty quickly. Here are some shortcuts that will have you running long, tedious, or complex commands with just a few keystrokes. More »

If you're out of the house a lot but still want access to files on your home computer, one of the best ways to solve that problem involves setting up your computer as a remotely accessible home media server. More »

In its latest update, much-beloved media center application XBMC added one-click add-on installation, bringing browser-like extensions to your Media center. More »

More and more, the fragments of your life exist as particles on a disk mounted inside your computer—disks susceptible to temperature changes, power surges, fire, theft, static, and just plain wear and tear. More »

Like most Ubuntu updates, version 11.10 isn't a huge overhaul; rather, it improves on the big changes made in 11.04, by cleaning up the Dash, overhauling the Ubuntu Software Center, and bringing in some new default software. More »

Your desktop is your virtual home, and much like you're real home, customizing it to fit your needs and style can make the difference between between a drab and depressing workspace and one you're excited to work on. More »

Want to secure your computer with the same techniques used by the National Security Agency? Turns out the NSA has published guides for securing Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris operating systems using methods that "are currently being used throughout the government and by numerous entities as a security baseline for their systems." More »

Google recently released their own line of Chrome OS-clad netbooks, but with only a few choices and a somewhat high price tag, you might be more comfortable running Chrome OS on your own machine. More »

If you've been meaning to try out Linux but felt too overwhelmed, we've got all the info you need to get started. Here are our five lessons on getting a working Linux partition up and running. More »

Linux may not be the most popular OS around, but we're not about to sit here and ignore it. Here are our favorite downloads for everyone's favorite open source operating system. More »

The popular Linux distribution Ubuntu recently finalized its move to the new Unity interface, while other Linux distributions are moving to the new GNOME 3 shell. More »

You can customize nearly every last inch of your Linux installation to fit your liking, and it starts with choosing the right desktop environment. Whether you're a Linux beginner or you're just looking for a new interface, here's an overview of how desktop environments work and how to pick the right one for you. More »

Netbooks aren't the fastest computers, but they can be useful-as long as they're usable. If you want your netbook to work and feel like a real computer rather than a toy, I can't recommend Lubuntu enough-it makes my netbook feel like a whole new machine. More »

Lightweight Portable Security (LPS-Public) is a bootable live CD designed by the Department of Defense so that government employees can access data from a public computer without worrying about security violations. More »

Whether your computer already boots pretty quickly or you're trying to eke some extra spee dout of your old computer, free command line tool E4rat will seriously decrease your boot time. More »

The Unity-powered Ubuntu 11.04 is finally out, and with it comes a slew of new keyboard shortcuts for the Unity interface. They can seem a bit overwhelming at first, so spend a few days getting acclimated with this wallpaper-formatted shortcut list. More »

If you're in love with Arch Linux but are tired of the painstaking installation process, ArchBang is the perfect distribution for you. It has everything you love about Arch, but installs in just a few minutes with everything you need. More »

Kristóf Kovács put together a list of 20 hugely useful command-line tools, most of which are available for Linux. Many of them are somewhat obscure, improved versions of simpler (more ancient) tools, while others are staples for experienced command-line users the world over. More »

We've gone through Windows and Mac maintenance, but what about Linux users? Luckily, it's pretty simple. More »

There you have it. Despite its lower popularity, Linux is full of great tools and endless possibilities. Note that we left out a few of our more cross-platform posts to make room for the Linux-centric stuff we know you guys wanted to see—so you might want to take a quick gander at our most popular Windows and Mac posts of the year to check out some other Linux-compatible projects we covered this year. And, whether your favorite made the list or not, we'd love to hear about the Linux downloads and posts you loved this year in the comments.

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How to Use Facebook's New Timeline Feature (and Hide Your Embarrassing Old Posts) [Video]

Facebook finally rolled out its much-anticipated Timeline feature today, which brings a snazzy new interface to your profile, not to mention the ability to see every post anyone's ever made back to their first day on Facebook. Here are the things you need to know about using it.

You can get the Timeline feature right now, but Facebook gives you seven days to adjust the look of your timeline before it goes public. Chances are, you'll want to tweak a few things before you publish it, so here are the things you'll want to look at during the next week before it goes live.

When you first visit the new interface, you'll see that it is, in fact, a timeline of all your posts on Facebook, going from newest at the top to oldest at the bottom. By default, it shows all your posts from this month. If you scroll down to the bottom, it will automatically load all of your posts from last month. If you scroll to the bottom of that, it'll show the "highlights" from the rest of that year.

You'll also see on the right that you have a sidebar, from which you can jump to specific time periods. Click on a year and it'll jump to the Highlights view for that year, and expand the sidebar to show every month from that year. Click on a month, and it'll show you all the posts from that month. You can go to any time period you want, from now all the way back to your first day on Facebook.

Also note that you can jump to a specific time period using the dropdown menus at the top of the page, if you don't like the sidebar tree. If at any point, you want to see all posts instead of just Facebook's Highlights, you can choose "All Posts" from the dropdown menu as well.

You might also want to check out the top of your profile, from which you can access a list of your friends, a new view of all your photos (which is actually pretty great), your Likes, and so on. You can also click the tiny "About" link under your profile picture to view your basic info, About Me, work and education, and so on.

While you can add a status or photo to the top of your timeline as normal, the new view also allows you to add blocks on earlier sections of the timeline as well. Say you have a baby picture you want to upload to Facebook. You could go back to the year you were born and add it there, so it appears in chronological order, rather than putting it at the top. To do this, just find the desired spot on the timeline, and hover over the blue line in the middle. Your cursor will turn into a plus sign. You can then click there to add any kind of post you want, be it a new status, photo, place, or other life event (such as a change in relationship status, change in city, or others).

If you want to move a post that already exists—whether you posted it at the top or whether someone else posted an old picture of you—you can move it to a different spot on the timeline as well. Just hover over the post and click the pencil icon that shows up. Hit "Change Date" to move it anywhere you want on your timeline, and it'll show up there from now on.

You'll notice that while the interface is very different, Facebook doesn't work all that differently from the way it used to. At the top of your timeline, you can add a new status update, photo, or place, and you can read all your wall posts just by scrolling down the timeline. The only new features you really need to learn about are those that directly relate to how your timeline looks.

The first thing you'll want to check out is the cover. Essentially, you have two main photos on the front of your profile—one is your profile picture, which you should already see. The other is a "cover", a large, high-res photo that will appear behind your profile picture, and you can make this whatever you want. To add one, click the "Add a Cover" button on the right side or your profile. You can choose one of your existing photos or upload one from your hard drive. You can change your cover photo at any time just by hovering over it and clicking the "Change Cover" button that appears.

The other new feature you'll want to try is starring a post. If there's a post you or someone else has made that you want to draw more attention to on your timeline, just hover over it and click the star button. This will make it wider, stretching across both columns of your timeline, to make it more noticeable. It'll also help break up the two-column view and keep the whole thing more interesting, which is nice. To delete a post or hide it from your timeline, click the pencil icon next to the star.

The one big downside to the Timeline layout is that you can easily see every post you've ever made or received on Facebook. All anyone needs to do is go to a certain year on your profile and click the "All Posts" button. For a lot of us, that means posts you made when you were in high school—and I don't need to tell you how embarrassing it can be to look at some of the things you used to say in high school.

You have a few choices here, and unfortunately neither is very ideal. You can go through your timeline and hide or delete individual posts by clicking the pencil icon, but depending on how long you've been on Facebook and how active you are, this could take forever.

Alternatively, if you have any old posts that are public or shared with friends of friends, you can change the privacy of all those posts to "Friends Only" with one click. It won't hide those posts from your friends, but it will at least keep everyone else on Facebook from being able to browse every post you've ever made public. Click the arrow next to the "Home" button in the upper right hand corner of Facebook. Head to Privacy Settings, then scroll down to "Limit the Audience for Past Posts". Click "Manage Past Post Visibility" and click the "Limit Old Posts" button. This will make all your past posts visible to Friends Only.

Going forward, all posts you make will be subject to the same privacy settings you had before—so if it was set to Public, every post you make after hitting "Limit Old Posts" will still be public. Check out our guide to managing your Facebook privacy for more info.

Again, this feature isn't perfect, since those posts will still be visible to all your friends, but it's up to you how deeply you want to cultivate those old posts that everyone now has easy access to. Remember, though, you have 7 days before the Timeline goes public, so if you did want to dig in and go through every year, you could at least spread the work over a few days.

The new timeline feature is much more of a cosmetic update than a functional one, though it can be cool to go back and see all your old posts (as long as they aren't embarrassing), and being able to add posts anywhere on the timeline is a neat twist. If you haven't enabled it yet, head to Facebook's Timeline page to check it out, and let us know what you think of the new design in the comments.

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