Monthly Archives: June 2013
30 Days of GNU/Linux : Day 14,15
One thing I am still struggling with, is getting my dang brightness control to work on my Macbook, other than that, the land of Linux is quite peachy. I am still mulling around the idea of Plex vs. XBMC, but Plex is just so convenient, I have to keep it for now. I am still addicted to Intrusion 2 on Linux, which is highly entertaining. Also, I have signed up for Fosscon 2013 and re-dedicated time to helping out others on IRC again, which is highly rewarding, at least to me. Not much has changed, since I have been away, so I haven’t had much chance to try out many new things. I am however, heavily reading the Linux Handbook buy O’ Reilly Media, which will result in some nice helpful posts for all you.
Till next time,
_professor
Getting To Know Your System: Basic Terminal Operations Guide
Knowing how to get around the Terminal is crucial to getting any further in its understanding in the first place. On any given command, appending “–help” or typing “man” and the command name will list very helpful informatino and additional options. Keep in mind, when specifying multipled options, you may add them together, i.e. “ls -lah” instead of “ls -l -a -h” Let’s go over the basic operations:
Quick Tip: Change Your Default Editor
EDITOR = emacs
VISUAL = emacs
export EDITOR VISUAL (optional, makes changes globally)
I prefer vim/vi, but you may prefer something entirely different. The EDITOR variable is for text manipulation in the Terminal window. On the flipside, VISUAL represents the GUI based text editor side.
_professor
Quick Tip: Checking Disk And File Usage In Linux
After restoring a friends iMac last night I thought it would nice to do a quick How To on exploring usage statistics in Linux, which by extension is “Unix-like” and pretty much interchangeable. Mac OS X is more BSD based, but Unix in nature. This will be a simple post, but some useful commands to try out no doubt, if you don’t already know them.
Quick Tip: Clear Terminal Command History
If you’ve ever wanted to erase your command history (much like your browser history), take note of these two commands:
List history of entered commands:
history
Clear the history of entered commands:
history -c
That’s it. There really isn’t a huge reason to clear the command cache other than cleaning your slate, just in case you did something you are not supposed to 😉
_professor
30 Days of GNU\Linux : Day 12,13
In the last few days I have focusing on getting involved with the Linux Mint community in events, help, and general IRC chat. It has been fun getting to know the Central Pa LUG folks again. I still doubt many follow this site, as of writing I think it is 12? Needless to say I enjoy getting my thoughts out, it is quite a healthy exercise. I am well on my way to archiving all my Blu Ray movies so I can watch them via Plex on the Roku. I am continuing to watch the Steam on Linux progress quite closely. It is exciting to see the cogs moving in that area. For games not on the Linux Steam client, there is Crossover for Linux, which nicely fills the gap, enabling me to play recent games like RAGE and Dirt 3. It is not perfect but it works. I am getting quite comfortable in this Linux skin at home, and I have no intention of installing Windows again, other than a fallback Virtual Machine for work.
_professor
Event: FOSSCON 2013
For those of you local to Pennsylvania, U.S., I will happily be attending FOSSCON 2013 this year. Thankfully there is at least ONE Linux con near me! Registration for the event is FREE , but it sure helps to donate a little moneymoneymoneyyyyyyy. Plus, you get a FREE T-Shirt! Sign up now. I mean now now. Now Now Now.
Fosscon: http://fosscon.org/
Date: Saturday August 10th 2013 in Central Philadelphia.
Details: Fosscon will be held at: The Friends Center on Cherry Street, easily reachable from Market East Station and Suburban Station. Both can be reached from Philadelphia International Airport by train.
Ubuntu-Pa: http://ubuntupennsylvania.org/
_professor
Prime Podcasts : Hacker Public Radio
Came across this sweet podcast this week after watching clips from Linuxfest 2013. Community supported, the podcast has a strong following, and really interesting topics. Some may be over some peoples heads, and some not, and that is the beauty of it. Check it out and decide for yourself:
Website: http://hackerpublicradio.org/
Contact: http://hackerpublicradio.org/contact.php
_professor
Hot Hardware : The Little Black Box
Google it, I dare you. “little black box” will likely present you with a Lingerie store, so be sure to search “little black box media player.” That stated, I wanted to present this nifty little piece of hardware today. That hardware is The Little Black Box.
Read on for more.
The Linux Cauldron 