Creating Symlink To a File

At terminal :

ln -s source_file symbolic_link

https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-create-symbolic-links-in-linux-using-the-ln-command/#creating-symlink-to-a-file

Linux Desktop Fun: Summon Swarms Of Penguins To Waddle About The Desktop

XPenguins is a program for animating cute cartoons animals in your root window. By default it will be penguins they drop in from the top of the screen, walk along the tops of your windows, up the side of your windows, levitate, skateboard, and do other similarly exciting things. Now you can send an army of cute little penguins to invade the screen of someone else on your network.

Install XPenguins

Open a command-line terminal (select Applications

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Download of The Day: Paint Program For Young Children [ Linux / Apple OS X / MS-Windows ]

Tux Paint is a simple graphics educational painting programs for young children. It is free, Open Source software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The program can be installed all all versions of Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X v10.3

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Synaptic Removed From Ubuntu Linux v11.10

Synaptic is a front-end for the apt package management system. The program allows you to perform all actions of the command line tool apt-get in a graphical environment such as installing, upgrading, downgrading and removing of single packages or even upgrading your whole system. The upcoming Ubuntu Linux version 11.10 (code named Oneiric Ocelot) has removed Synaptic Package Manager.

To be frank, I never used Synaptic or so called the Software Center. I use apt-get all the time to install, remove, and update the system or apt-cache to search required packages. Synaptic is fine tool and I'm not sure why Canonical decided to remove the same. Canonical is making lots of new decisions and no one in the enterprise environment like new changes.

How Do I Install Synaptic?

Open a command-line terminal (select Applications

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Debian Linux Version 6.0.2 Released

Debian Linux version 6.0.2 has been released. This update mainly adds corrections for security problems to the stable release, along with a few adjustments to serious problems. The kernel image used by the installer has been updated to incorporate a number of important and security-related fixes together with support for additional hardware.

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Record your Linux desktop from the command line

If you do not wish to install a dedicated application for recording your desktop, you can do it with this one-liner:

ffmpeg -f x11grab -s wxga -r 25 -i :0.0 -sameq /home/user/out.mpg

All you need is have ffmpeg already installed (and most systems do). Navigate to /home/user and you’ll find you MPEG video file there.

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Check your unread GMail e-mails using the Linux command line

All you need to display your latest GMail messages in the command line is this one-liner:

curl -u username:password --silent “https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom”

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Monitor your changed files in real-time in Linux

Everybody knows top or htop. Ever wished there was something similar but to monitor your files instead of CPU usage and processes? Well, there is.
Run this:

watch -d -n 2 ‘df; ls -FlAt;’

and you’ll get to spy on which files are getting written on your system. Every time a file gets modified it will get highlighted for a second or so. The above command is useful when you grant someone SSH access to your box and wish to know exactly what they’re modifying.

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Impress your friends with your CLI magic in Linux

Here are two one-liners to have fun with. The first one takes a block of text you input it and displays it one character at a time, creating the impression that someone else is typing:

echo “I have a troll in my Linux box that is doing all the work for me”

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Make that last command into a Linux script

You have been trying combinations to see which command line options best fit your needs, and you’ve finally found it. Now let’s make that into a script. You could revert to the last command using your Up key, copy the string, create a new file, paste the string, save the file. Or you could simply

echo “!!” > awesome-script.sh

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Benchmarks: Doom3 on machine AMD3000 + with a tested on Windows NT and Linux Nvidia Gainward graphics card

LinuxReviews.org benchmarks show that Windows XP outperforms Linux on the same material and same official Nvidia drivers. Windows XP was simply a better job to run games on this configuration.

The tests are carried out by Michael Taoushanis

The tests were conducted with Windows XP version 66.81 and Gentoo Linux using X.Org version 6.8. The two operating systems have received the official Nvidia drivers. The figures show clearly more frames per second when using Windows XP, even if numbers should ideally be the same, numbers higher on both operating systems.

Windows XP 66.81

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How to build a Linux cluster using the virtual server Linux kernel modules

right v0.0.1, of author GNU Copyleft Linuxreviews.org the Internet is growing very rapidly, and if you're lucky, your server load grows with it. Serving a significant number of people simultaneously presents many challenges. You can make a cluster for load balancing for all kinds of services using any Linux box and a LAN of mixed boxes very easily using LVS kernel modules.

Why have a Linux cluster virtual server that you need to 2.1. Necessary configuration of the 2.2 kernel. Software: ipvsadm and iptables create a server cluster and choose algorytm module redirect traffic entering the single point of failure not as easy as it sounds... ?

1. Why have a Linux virtual server cluster

The idea is simple:

The user search your website .l ' user is connected to the computer of LVS load balancing.The connection is forwarded to one of the real servers on the local network.A service like the Apache web server or an FTP client on the real server handles the request.The user is presented content quickly requested even if the site is heavily used.?Benefit!

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Top 5 Open Source Linux Server Provisioning Software

Server provisioning is nothing but load the Linux or UNIX like operating systems automatically with actual operating systems, device drivers, data, and make a server ready for network operation without any user input. Typically you select a server from a pool of available servers, load the operating systems (such as RHEL, Fedora, FreeBSD, Debian), and finally customize storage, network (IP, gateway, bounding etc), drivers, applications, users etc. Using the following tools you can perform automated unattended operating system installation, configuration, set virtual machines and much more. These software can be used to install a lot (say thousands) of Linux and UNIX systems at the same time.

Kickstart

From the official Redhat guide:

Many system administrators would prefer to use an automated installation method to install Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora Linux on their machines. To answer this need, Red Hat created the kickstart installation method. Using kickstart, a system administrator can create a single file containing the answers to all the questions that would normally be asked during a typical Red Hat Linux installation. Kickstart provides a way for users to automate a Red Hat Enterprise Linux installation.

Kickstart Configurator allows you to create or modify a kickstart file using a graphical user interface, so that you do not have to remember the correct syntax of the file.

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Linux / UNIX Desktop Fun: Terminal ASCII Aquarium

by Vivek Gite on January 5, 2011 · 29 comments

You can now enjoy mysteries of the sea from the safety of your own terminal using ASCIIQuarium. It is an aquarium/sea animation in ASCII art created using perl.

Install Term::Animation

First, you need to install Perl module called Term-Animation. Open a command-line terminal (select Applications

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Download Debian Linux 6 Squeeze ISO / CD / DVD Images

Debian GNU/Linux version 6.0 has been released ( jump to download ) after 24 months of constant development and available for download in various media format. Debian 6.0 is a free operating system, coming for the first time in two flavours. Alongside Debian GNU/Linux, Debian GNU/kFreeBSD is introduced with this version as a "technology preview". It also supports various processor architectures and includes the KDE, GNOME, Xfce, LXDE and other desktop environments. It also features compatibility with the FHS v2.3 and software developed for version 3.2 of the LSB.

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Top 5 Linux DVD RIP Software

A DVD ripper software allows you to copying the content of a DVD to a hard disk drive. You transfer video on DVDs to different formats, or make a backup of DVD content, and to convert DVD video for playback on media players, streaming, and mobile phone. A few DVD rippers software can copy protected disks so that you can make discs unrestricted and region-free.

Please note that most of the following programs can rip encrypted DVDs, as long as you have libdvdcss2 installed as described here. Please check the copyright laws for your country regarding the backup of any copyright-protected DVDs and other media.

#1: AcidRIP

AcidRip is an automated front end for MPlayer/Mencoder (ripping and encoding DVD tool using mplayer and mencoder) written in Perl, using Gtk2::Perl for a graphical interface. Makes encoding a DVD just one button click! You can install it as follows under Debian / Ubuntu Linux:
$ sudo apt-get install acidrip


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5 Best Linux Distribution With No Proprietary Components

Linux is a free and open source operating system. However, Linux (and other open source operating system) can use and load device drivers without publicly available source code. These are vendor-compiled binary drivers without any source code and known as Binary Blobs. Die hard open source fans and Free Software Foundation (FSF) recommends completely removing all proprietary components including blobs. In this post I will list five best Linux distribution that meets the FSF's strict guidelines and contains no proprietary components such as firmware and drivers.

Top 5 Reasons to Avoid Binary BlobsModification & distribution - Binary blobs can not be improved or fixed by open source developers. You can not distribute modified versions.Reliability - Binary blobs can be unsupported by vendors at any time by abandoning driver maintenance.Auditing - Binary blobs cannot be audited for security and bugs. You are forced to trust vendors not to put backdoors and spyware into the blob.Bugs - Binary blobs hide many bugs. Also, it can motivate people to buy new hardware.Portability - Binary blobs can not be ported on different hardware architectures. It typically runs on a few hardware architectures.Look Ma Not Just Free Software!

The following are not just a distribution but offers additional benefits too:

Learn how a distribution works on the inside.Ease of use.An active community providing quick and helpful support.#1: gNewSense

gNewSense is a GNU/Linux distribution based on Ubuntu Linux. However, gNewSense v3.0 will be based on Debian instead of Ubuntu. The current version is same as Ubuntu, but with all non-free software and binary blobs removed. The FSF considers gNewSense to be a GNU/Linux distribution composed entirely of free software.


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Linux Advanced Hardening With the Capability Bounding Set

The last time I wrote about basic "Linux Server Hardening Security" tips. In this post I will write about the /proc/sys/kernel/cap-bound file which act as a powerful Linux hardening tool. This file holds the value of the kernel capability bounding set (expressed as a signed decimal number). This set is ANDed against the capabilities permitted to a process during exec. You can make changes to this file (bit value of cap-bound) and you can restrict many capabilities of process and put restrictions on root related process too. Using capability you can enable or disable Linux kernel modules loading, firewall, routing, raw sockets, locking of memory segments, restrictions on changing file ownership, restrictions on read and search of files and directories, sending signals to processes owned by others, modification of immutable and append-only file attributes, use of chroot(), rebooting the system, conman sys admin tasks such as mount, quotas, swapping and much more.

How Do I See Default or Current Capability Values?

Type the following command:
$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/cap-bound
Sample outputs:

-257How Do I Set New Capability Values?

Use the echo command as follows:

 echo 0xHexValue > /proc/sys/kernel/cap-bound 

The bounding set is expressed as a bitmask so you can use hexnumber or use bash shell left bit bitwise shifts ARITHMETIC EVALUATION operators. A word of warning - be very careful when making changes to the bounding set. You may end up locking the system due to wrong values.

Example: Stop Loading Modules (Drivers) After System Has Booted

The CAP_SYS_MODULE allows to insert and remove kernel modules without limit. The capability number is 16 for CAP_SYS_MODULE. So you can use bash shell left bit bitwise shifts as follows to disable loading of drivers as follows (you must be root user):

 echo 0xFFFEFFFF > /proc/sys/kernel/cap-bound 

Now try to load or unload modules:
# modprobe ide_cd
Sample outputs:

FATAL: Error inserting ide_cd (/lib/modules/2.6.18-194.3.1.el5/kernel/drivers/ide/ide-cd.ko): Operation not permitted

OR try to remove module:
# modprobe -r cdrom
Sample outputs:

FATAL: Error removing cdrom (/lib/modules/2.6.18-194.3.1.el5/kernel/drivers/cdrom/cdrom.ko): Operation not permittedHow Do I Make Changes To Capability Permanently?

To make changes to /proc filesystem permanently, add them to /etc/sysctl.conf file:
# vi /etc/sysctl.conf
Append the following line:

 # Do not load or remove any kernel drivers# Clear bit # 16echo 0xFFFEFFFF > /proc/sys/kernel/cap-bound 

Save and close the file. Load changes:
# sysctl -p

How Do I Find Out List Of All Supported Capabilities?

To get an overview of Linux capabilities and its numbers see /usr/src/linux/include/linux/capability.h file, enter:
$ vi /usr/src/linux/include/linux/capability.h
OR use the grep command to find out numbers quickly:

 grep '#define CAP' /usr/src/linux/include/linux/capability.h 

Sample outputs:

#define CAP_CHOWN 0#define CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE 1#define CAP_DAC_READ_SEARCH 2#define CAP_FOWNER 3#define CAP_FSETID 4#define CAP_KILL 5#define CAP_SETGID 6#define CAP_SETUID 7#define CAP_SETPCAP 8#define CAP_LINUX_IMMUTABLE 9#define CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE 10#define CAP_NET_BROADCAST 11#define CAP_NET_ADMIN 12#define CAP_NET_RAW 13#define CAP_IPC_LOCK 14#define CAP_IPC_OWNER 15#define CAP_SYS_MODULE 16#define CAP_SYS_RAWIO 17#define CAP_SYS_CHROOT 18#define CAP_SYS_PTRACE 19#define CAP_SYS_PACCT 20#define CAP_SYS_ADMIN 21#define CAP_SYS_BOOT 22#define CAP_SYS_NICE 23#define CAP_SYS_RESOURCE 24#define CAP_SYS_TIME 25#define CAP_SYS_TTY_CONFIG 26#define CAP_MKNOD 27#define CAP_LEASE 28#define CAP_AUDIT_WRITE 29#define CAP_AUDIT_CONTROL 30#define CAP_SETFCAP 31#define CAP_MAC_OVERRIDE 32#define CAP_MAC_ADMIN 33#define CAP_LAST_CAP CAP_MAC_ADMIN#define CAP_TO_INDEX(x) ((x)

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Linux / UNIX Desktop Fun: Steam Locomotive

ls; but then you may miss out the steam train with whistle.

sl is a joke software or classic UNIX game. It is a steam locomotive runs across your screen if you type "sl" (Steam Locomotive) instead of "ls" by mistake.

Install sl

Type the following command under Debian / Ubuntu Linux, enter:
# apt-get install sl
It is also available on FreeBSD and other UNIX like operating systems. Next, mistyped ls command as sl:
$ sl


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The Perfect Desktop - Linux Mint 11 (Katya)

The system boots and starts a desktop that is run entirely in the RAM of your system (the Linux Mint installation DVD is also a Live-DVD) without changing anything on your hard disk. This has the advantage that you can test how Linux Mint works on your hardware before you finally install it.

This is how the Linux Mint desktop looks. Double-click the Install Linux Mint icon on the desktop to start the installation to the hard drive:

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