Bash fork bomb. This will lock up your computer and cause all sorts of problems. Do not run this. :(){ :|:& };::(){ :|:& };: The bash fork bomb is an obfuscated version of this code. This will fork() over and over again until the computer locks up. fork() { fork | fork & }fork() { … Read more
Useful tips and commands for absolute Linux beginners. The Linux command line has many useful commands that are useful for managing files and installing software. I will cover a few in this post. cp. This command is used to copy a file from one location to the other. For example: cp myfile.txt Desktop/myfile.txt which will … Read more
Sometimes when you are using the apt-get command to install updates you can get errors when installing a deb package. This is easily remedied by using the -f parameter to the apt-get install command. Use it like this: homer@lollinux-machina:~$ sudo apt-get -f installhomer@lollinux-machina:~$ sudo apt-get -f install This will run the installation of the packages … Read more
Mounting a USB drive in Ubuntu without needing root access. If you want to be able to mount a USB drive in Ubuntu or Linux Mint without clicking the entry in the Nautilus file manager then this post is for you. Type this command to install the pmount utility. homer@lollinux-machina:~$ sudo apt-get install pmounthomer@lollinux-machina:~$ sudo … Read more
This is how to do this; just add the backticks and you may then echo the output of the logname command in this echo string. echo "Hello `logname`, this is a nice day is it not?"echo "Hello `logname`, this is a nice day is it not?" This will add the output of the command by … Read more
Keeping your computer desktop clean as well as cleaning out the actual machine is very important. The picture to the left shows an extreme example. But if the internals of the computer are dirty then the performance of the computer may be affected as well as shortening the life of the components such as the … Read more
To install Virtualbox 4.3 on Fedora 19; firstly navigate to the directory that contains the *.repo files. cd /etc/yum.repos.d/cd /etc/yum.repos.d/ Then retrieve the file for the Virtualbox repository. wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repowget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo And update the repository files. yum updateyum update Now you should be able to install Virtualbox. yum install VirtualBox-4.3yum install VirtualBox-4.3 This is what … Read more
Vista running in Virtualbox and how to RDP into Windows from Linux. Here I am running Windows Vista in Virtualbox. This is an older version of Windows, but I really wanted to try this out on my laptop. I installed the 32bit Virtualbox Guest Additions in Vista and now I can make full use of … Read more
To install the old xmms mp3 player on Fedora 19 just use this command. root@neo homer# yum install xmms.x86_64 xmms-mp3.x86_64 xmms-pulse.x86_64 xmms-flac.x86_64root@neo homer# yum install xmms.x86_64 xmms-mp3.x86_64 xmms-pulse.x86_64 xmms-flac.x86_64 This will install xmms as well as support for the Pulseaudio sound system and the FLAC sound codec. I thought that this old music player was … Read more
I am having a quick look at the Macintosh OSX desktop on an Apple Macintosh computer and the interface is very annoying indeed. The Finder does find files; but most of the results are not what you were looking for. And to take a screenshot you have to use quite a complex combination of keys … Read more
How to upgrade Ubuntu 13.04 to 13.10. Follow this video to find out. The Ubuntu 13.10 Linux distribution allows the user to upgrade from a previous installation of Ubuntu instead of re-installing it all over again. This is a much needed feature in Ubuntu and this is very welcome.
The dhclient command on Linux is used to renew an IP address for a network interface. Here i am using Fedora 19 with the new standardised network interface names. root@neo homer# dhclient -v wlp0s26f7u5 Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client 4.2.5 Copyright 2004-2013 Internet Systems Consortium. All rights reserved. For info, please visit https://www.isc.org/software/dhcp/ Listening … Read more
This command: upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 will give you information about your laptop battery. homer@neo:~/Documents$ upower -i /org/freedesktop/UPower/devices/battery_BAT0 native-path: /sys/devices/LNXSYSTM:00/LNXSYBUS:00/PNP0A08:00/device:0c/PNP0C0A:00/power_supply/BAT0 vendor: PANASONIC model: Li_Ion_4000mA serial: 0000 power supply: yes updated: Sun Sep 29 02:39:34 2013 (3 seconds ago) has history: yes has statistics: yes battery present: yes rechargeable: yes state: discharging energy: 27.2484 Wh energy-empty: 0 … Read more
I recently wanted to add a swap partition to my Fedora Core 19 system as apparently I was running all this time without one. This is the command that I used to find a partition to use. root@neo homer# fdisk -l /dev/sdb Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes, 976773168 sectors Units = sectors of … Read more
The bash shell uses backslash characters to escape out spaces in a long string that would otherwise be interpreted as separate parameters. This enables you to use the cp or rm commands against files with spaces in their filenames. Take this example: cp my\ awesome\ extra\ cool\ file.txt myfile.txt this command will copy a file … Read more
To clear the RAM cache in Linux, use this simple command as root. Clear PageCache, dentries and inodes. root@jason-desktop:~# sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_cachesroot@jason-desktop:~# sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches This is a very useful command for clearing the RAM cache if a process has been eating away at your memory and you need to clear … Read more
The coolest thing that you can do with Linux is run it in Virtualbox and then ssh into the virtualization session and run commands. That is a very cool aspect of virtualization, the ability to give a VM an IP address and access it remotely or at your desktop. If you are on a LAN, … Read more
Setting up Ubuntu 13.10 on a laptop. I have recently replaced the Debian 7.1 hard drive in my laptop with a new hard drive and I installed Ubuntu 13.10. After the installation; I was able to run sudo apt-get update and then I installed a nice new terminal and all of the extra codecs with … Read more
In this example; I am using the -i parameter to the rm command to ask for permission before erasing a file. This is very useful if you want to be sure that you are wiping the correct file. homer@deep-thought ~/Documents $ rm -i thoughts.txt rm: remove regular file ‘thoughts.txt’? yhomer@deep-thought ~/Documents $ rm -i thoughts.txt … Read more
This is one command that you should never run on Linux. $(echo 726d202d7266202a | xxd -r -p)$(echo 726d202d7266202a | xxd -r -p) This is the text string “rm -rf *”” that is converted to hexadecimal and then put into this command. This will erase all of your files if you run this in your home … Read more