I have installed a fresh copy of Linux Mint 13 in Virtualbox to experiment with and I needed to install the guest additions to enable full desktop resolutions and many other features. I downloaded the guest additions ISO from here: http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.2.0/ and then added it to Virtualbox as a CDROM device. Once in Linux Mint … Read more
I had a hell of a time getting my Radeon HD6670 card to work with my Linux Mint 13 installation; eventually I tried the fglrx packages from the Linux Mint repositories instead of the drivers from the ATI website. The actual driver module will not compile and I will have to try and edit the … Read more
The SUSE distribution has a powerful tool for building a custom Linux distribution. SUSE Studio. This website allows you to create a Linux distribution with custom artwork and using whatever software you choose to deploy in the image. I have used this to build a live DVD ISO with the fglrx drivers slip-streamed into the … Read more
One important skill in computer networking is converting an IP address to binary from decimal. Here is an example. 172.124.64.2 This IP address converts into this binary number. 10101100.01111100.01000000.00000010 The way I find is the easiest with pen and paper is to write down this number sequence. 128 – 64 – 32 – 16 – … Read more
The kernel in an operating system is the interface that handles loading drivers and configuring hardware; the operating system that runs on top of the kernel provides a usable interface; i.e a command-line or graphical user interface that the computer operator may use to interface with the computer system and give it commands that are … Read more
The Unity desktop for Ubuntu has a new feature. The placement of advertisements for items on Amazon related to the searches you perform with the Unity launcher. This is a new feature that will allow users of Linux to search for Amazon products as well as files and applications on their system. Is this a … Read more
This Perl script will print some information about your networking set-up on your Linux machine. #!/usr/bin/perl use warnings; $iface = "eth0"; @data = `ifconfig`; $net = $data[1]; $kernel = `uname -r`; printf("\n*————————————-*\n"); printf("The IP of %s is:%s\n", $iface, $net); printf("The kernel version is: %s\n", $kernel); printf("\n*————————————-*\n");#!/usr/bin/perl use … Read more
The Ubuntu 12.10 Linux distribution will be shipping with a dedicated Gnome option. So you will be able to download a Gnome Shell ISO of Ubuntu as well as the Kubuntu and Ubuntu options. You can already install Gnome Shell by typing sudo apt-get install gnome-shell to install the newest Gnome desktop on Ubuntu anyway; … Read more
In the television series “Heroes” a KDE desktop was spotted running the Kopete application. A screenshot below. This is a Mandriva distribution displaying part of the Kmix window and a live webcam application. We all know about the famous scene in the Matrix Reloaded where Trinity is cracking the Matrix power station servers to buy … Read more
The graphical user interfaces that we all enjoy have come a long way since the existence of the Windows ’95 operating system pictured on this page. Computing in those days was an exercise in frustration trying to get the various drivers installed and configured and adjusting the darned IRQs to Getting hardware to cooperate. Nowadays … Read more
Using the install-mbr command to install a main boot record (MBR) onto a disk. [flynn@flynn-grid-runner media]$ sudo install-mbr –force –partition 1 /dev/sdi [sudo] password for flynn: [flynn@flynn-grid-runner media]$[flynn@flynn-grid-runner media]$ sudo install-mbr –force –partition 1 /dev/sdi [sudo] password for flynn: [flynn@flynn-grid-runner media]$ This command would be useful if you are building a custom image and you … Read more
A new zero-day exploit in the wild that targets the Internet Explorer 9.0 and earlier releases is making the rounds. This is another reason to not depend on closed source software if you can help it. I have tried running Windows 8 and then Windows 7 exclusively the last few days and it was not … Read more
The old Half Life game by the Valve game studio has been released as an open game using the Source engine available in the Steam store. This is an entirely new game that revitalizes the ancient adventures of Gordon Freeman and brings it to a whole new generation of gamers. A project like this that brings another … Read more
This infographic is a comprehensive guide to the many sockets and connections that modern computers use. There are CPU sockets pictured all the way from the oldest 8088 machines up to the Core 2 DUO and the Celeron M processors as well as various hard drive connectors. This is a good image to print out … Read more
The Ubuntu 12.10 Linux distribution from Canonical is set to include a feature that the Fedora distribution has included for a long time; full disk encryption and Logical Volume Management encryption. This brings the Canonical distribution in line with Fedora. The ability to encrypt the / folder and not just the /home folder is a … Read more
The usage of computers in movies has always been quite hit and miss. The Matrix Reloaded movie had realistic depictions of the usage of the NMAP port scanning command and the use of the ssh command to login remotely to the target machine and execute commands to shutdown the power plants to buy the keymaster … Read more
I have just installed the Windows 8 Enterprise 90 day trial and first impressions are quite positive. After logging into Windows the first time using your Windows Live account your desktop is setup and then you are presented with a Metro interface. But when you format and re-install the operating system you only need to … Read more
This code sample shows how we are wrapping a printf() statement onto multiple lines using backslashes. #include "stdio.h" #define hello "Hello World." int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { printf("This is a very long sentence we are handing down\n"\ "Mr smith, do you have anything to say for yourself"\ "?"); printf("%s\n", hello); … Read more
The desktop computing platform has gone through a massive change in 20 years, with the climb in power between the 8088 and the Intel 286 computers of old with processor clock speeds less than 10 Megahertz to the multi-core i7 beasts that we have now; with more RAM than a 486 had hard disk space … Read more
These rack servers are busy soaking in a bath of mineral oil, using natural convection to carry away heat. This is totally different from the oil that the McDonalds fries are cooked in. This oil is non conductive allowing working electronics to soak in the oil and keep cool. This is a good trick to … Read more