How to use the touch command to create a file with an arbitrary filename.

The touch command ordinarily does not allow the user to create files with a filename like –rf, but if you want to really annoy someone then you may use this command to create one. homer@debian:~$ touch — ‘–rf ‘homer@debian:~$ touch — ‘–rf ‘ And now you have a file named –rf. -rw-r–r– 1 homer homer … Read more

Goat Simulator game now available for Linux and Apple Macintosh.

The popular PC game Goat Simulator for Windows is now available for Linux. This game is very entertaining; you can run around a small suburb and cause all kinds of havoc. Based upon the Unreal Tournament 3 engine; this is a sandbox game that allows all kinds of exploration and destruction. There are many achievements … Read more

How to disable fast boot on Windows 8.1 that prevents mounting the partition from Linux.

The fast boot feature of Windows 8.1 allows a user to load Windows faster than ever before; but this can interfere with the mounting of the Windows partition from Linux. This forces the user to mount the partition read-only. But if you use this command in a command prompt on Windows, this problem will go … Read more

Some awesome Fluxbox themes for your Linux desktop.

Some gorgeous themes for Fluxbox that will make your Linux desktop look even better! Java Fluxbox: http://box-look.org/content/show.php/Solaris%3A+Java+Fluxbox+System?content=63303. A Solaris inspired Fluxbox theme. Amiga inspired Fluxbox theme: http://box-look.org/content/show.php/AMIGA?content=86836. This brings the look of the old Amiga desktops to Linux. Squared LMDE: http://box-look.org/content/show.php/Squared+LMDE?content=146219. MacFly: http://box-look.org/content/show.php/MacFly+Fluxbox+Theme?content=59374. A Macintosh inspired theme for Fluxbox. Debian Squeeze: http://box-look.org/content/show.php/DebianSqueeze?content=128911. This is a … Read more

Installing Windows HyperV Server 2012 and creating a new VM instance.

HyperV Server is a standalone hypervisor that allows a machine to host server instances without the overhead of a server operating system like Server 2012 R2. Firstly, download the ISO image here: http://care.dlservice.microsoft.com/dl/download/3/4/7/347A95F0-A63C-492F-BE43-F376AE30C9FE/9200.16384.WIN8_RTM.120725-1247_X64FRE_SERVERHYPERCORE_EN-US-HRM_SHV_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5.ISO. 1.6 Gigabytes. Then burn this at a slow speed to a suitable DVDR disk. Boot from the disk and choose to install … Read more

How to see if a port is open on a Linux system using netcat.

The netcat command is a program for querying network connections. This little program may be used to query whether a port is open on a Linux system or not. Here I am determining whether port 443 is open on this Linux Mint machine. homer@deusexmachina ~ $ nc -zv localhost 443 Connection to localhost 443 port … Read more

Cool Russian Soyuz software demo. This is the coolest DOS software ever.

Download this from: http://astronaut.ru/bookcase/prog.htm. click on “программой” unzip the file and run inpu.exe in Dosbox. I used the following command: dosbox -c “mount c: soyuz” -c “c:” -c “inpu” -c “exit” Where soyuz is the directory that holds the files. This software has no mouse support, the arrow keys move the cursor and ENTER selects … Read more

How to get hardware information about your network adapters on Windows Server 2012.

Windows Server 2012 R2 supports quite a few cmdlets that allow the user to gain quite a bit of information about the networking configuration of the server machine. Here are a few examples with output. This command: Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo gets hardware information about your wireless adapters. PS C:\Users\Administrator> Get-NetAdapterHardwareInfo   Name Segment Bus Device Function Slot … Read more

How to make the best use of apt on Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

This is how to automatically remove unneeded packages on your Linux Mint system. jason@jason-desktop:~$ sudo apt-get autoremove [sudo] password for jason: Reading package lists… Done Building dependency tree Reading state information… Done The following packages will be REMOVED: libglib2.0-0:i386 libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0 libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-0:i386 libgstreamer0.10-0 libgstreamer0.10-0:i386 liborc-0.4-0:i386 libpgm-5.1-0 libpoppler57 libpth20 libsndio6.0 libzmq3 qtdeclarative5-qtfeedback-plugin qtdeclarative5-ubuntu-web-plugin 0 to upgrade, 0 … Read more

How we could get to a planet 500 light years away in 12 years with a special type of spaceship.

One way that we could get to another planet 500 light-years away without warp drive is a interstellar ram-scoop ship. This would allow us to reach an exoplanet in 12 years ship time. But 500 years would pass on Earth. This could be used to reach the center of the Milky Way Galaxy in 21 … Read more

Useful Linux networking tricks.

Change the mac address of your network adapter. sudo ifconfig wlan0 down && sudo ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55 && sudo ifconfig wlan0 upsudo ifconfig wlan0 down && sudo ifconfig wlan0 hw ether 00:11:22:33:44:55 && sudo ifconfig wlan0 up This will change the mac address of your network interface instantly. Below is an example. homer@deusexmachina … Read more

FreeBSD. A very useful UNIX distribution that makes using your computer a lot of fun.

I have just setup FreeBSD with a high resolution framebuffer console easily. I just typed vidcontrol -i mode to list all available framebuffer video modes and then I set the appropriate mode for my laptop screen. I then added this line to the /etc/rc.conf file: allscreens_flags=”MODE_332″. This sets a 1366*768 resolution for the framebuffer console. … Read more

Australian piracy to be curbed with large fines for illegal downloads of Game Of Thrones and other shows.

This is the beginning of the end for the Internet if the Attorney-General George Brandis gets his way. There are a large number of people downloading the latest episodes of Game Of Thrones, but this is a massively popular TV show. The battle at the wall was well worth watching. People want the episodes as … Read more

I managed to compile the 14.4 ATI drivers on Linux Mint 16 against the 3.15 kernel.

I have managed to get the 14.4 ATI drivers to compile against the new 3.15 kernel on Linux Mint 16. I followed this guide: http://bluehatrecord.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/amd-catalyst-14-4-for-linux-loses-support-for-linux-kernel-versions-above-3-11/ and I used the commands on this page as well as this linked patch. This is how I managed to do it. I am now running a 3.15 kernel with … Read more

How to compile a 3.15 kernel on Linux the easy way using the command line.

Compiling a kernel on Linux is very easy using the command line. You may download the latest mainline kernel from kernel.org. This is 3.15. Extract the file using this command. tar -xvf linux-3.15.tar.xztar -xvf linux-3.15.tar.xz Clean the source tree using this command. make mrpropermake mrproper Then open the configuration menus using this command. make menuconfigmake … Read more

Fixing the failed checksum from server error on FreeBSD 10 with the command line.

The failed checksum from server error is very annoying on FreeBSD 10. I fixed this by using the following command. pkg update -fpkg update -f This updated the package repositories information for FreeBSD 10 and allowed me to install the packages I required. This is a good command to run from time to time that … Read more

Watchdogs game showcasing more realistic hacking with Linux and SSH; but the crashes spoil this fine game.

The watchdogs game is a new shooter game that uses strategies such as hacking into phones and streetlights to achieve various game strategies. The intro shows a reverse SSH tunnel and various Linux hacking tools that the protagonist and his friends use against the enemies. This is rather common in modern films as well, Dredd … Read more