Today R1Soft announced the beta release of Hot Copy for Linux, a command-line utility that takes instant readable and writeable snapshots of disks or volumes on any Linux server.

Open source developer Tobias Oetiker, in his presentation at the USENIX LISA conference in San Diego, described how he could help one thousand Windows users at Swisscom.com speed up their computers.

The famous Unix admin utility known as Top has many imitators. We take a look at some of the top Top tools.

Fully Automated Nagios (FAN) is a CD distribution that should simplify the installation of Nagios along with numerous tools on a network monitoring server. FAN 1.0 is the current version.

Nagiosgraph, an extension of the Nagios monitoring software, is available as version 1.0.0. The program merges the performance data from the Nagios plug-in and presents them graphically on a webpage.

GroundWork is a user-friendly front-end for the Nagios monitoring tool.

Klaus Knopper is the creator of Knoppix and co-founder of the LinuxTag expo. He currently works as a teacher, programmer, and consultant. If you have a configuration problem, or if you just want to learn more about how Linux works, send your questions to: klaus@linux-magazine. com

A system monitor lets you query the system’s current health state. If you are unhappy with the spartan Top tool, try one of these easy alternatives.