Quick Tweaks » Software

10 Linux commands for fun

ashokgelal — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 22:09:46 +0000

Here are few Linux commands you can play with for fun. Some of these might be helpful in certain situations but I’ve compiled them here so that you can play with it, appreciate the power of Linux commands, or just show off your Linux skills to your friends.

Let me warn you first – these commands are not for newbies, those who just started using Linux or for those who want to start with Linux terminal.

#1 Browse and display images in Terminal

Browse and display images in Terminal? Yes! To browse the images in the current directory:
$ sudo zgv
To browse the images in /home/username/pictures directory:
$ sudo zgv /home/username/pictures

Note: If you get any mouse not initialized message, just unplug your mouse, type zgv and plug your mouse back

#2 Burn a CD/DVD/BluRay Disk

Llet’s add a small twist; make an ISO image of a large folder and burn them to a CD/DVD.
Crate an ISO image (myISOFile) out of a folder (or filename)
$ mkisofs –r –o myISOFile.ISO folderOrFilename
Now burn the above ISO image to a CD/DVD
$ cdrecord --device=cdwriter-device -tao -eject myISOFile.ISO

#3 Create ASCII text graphics

What about creating some ASCII graphics such as the following? You can paste it in your email as a signature to impress your friends

 _     _
| |   (_)_ __  _   ___  __
| |   | | '_ \| | | \ \/ /
| |___| | | | | |_| |>  <
|_____|_|_| |_|\__,_/_/\_\

$ figlet Linux
This is displayed with the default font, to use other fonts, give a font name after switch f:
$ figlet quick tweaks –f script

                      _                            _
             o       | |                          | |
 __,             __  | |    _|_          _   __,  | |   ,
/  |  |   |  |  /    |/_)    |  |  |  |_|/  /  |  |/_) / \_
\_/|_/ \_/|_/|_/\___/| \_/   |_/ \/ \/  |__/\_/|_/| \_/ \/
   |\
   |/    

$ figlet Quick Tweaks –f script

  _ \       _)      |    __ __|                   |
 |   | |   | |  __| |  /    |\ \  \   / _ \  _` | |  /  __|
 |   | |   | | (      <     | \ \  \ /  __/ (   |   < \__ \
 \__\_\\__,_|_|\___|_|\_\  _|  \_/\_/ \___|\__,_|_|\_\____/

The fonts for figlet are installed in /usr/share/figlet directory

#4 Run remote applications in full GUI mode

As a Computer Science student, I often need access my lab computers (which have Fedora installed) through SSH. After I submit my assignments, esp. those GUI based programming assignments, I wanted to check if everything is fine. Accessing remote computer is easy:
$ ssh username@example.com
If you want to run remote applications such as OpenOffice or Eclipse, just uncomment ForwardX11 yes in /etc/ssh/ssh_config file. After that if you type, eclipse, for an example, the remote application will run in full GUI mode.

#5 Split a large file into several pieces (for easy copy)

If you have a large file of about 1 GB size and have two CDs to spare (or two thumb drives of 512 MB each), how can you carry that 1GB file?
$ split –b500m myBigFile mySmallFIles.
To join the smaller files to get the big files back:
$ cat mySmallFiles.* > myBigFile

#6 Take screenshot of a rectangular area and save it as png file

Screenshot taken with import command

$ import –frame myScreenShot.png

After this command, the mouse pointer changes to a set of cross-hairs; left-click and drag the mouse across an area of the screen and release the mouse to capture the selected area.

#7 Resize an image, put a border around it, and add a comment

$mogrify -geometry 300x200 -border 8x8 -comment “Windows Sucks” myScreenShot.png

#8 Quickly converting a .wav file to a .mp3 file

$ lame myMusicFile.wav myMusicFile.mp3

#9 Display a nicely formatted calendar (or doing some quick maths?)

$ cal 1972

Get the factorial of 10

$ calc 10!

#10 Mirror a website to your computer for offline browsing

$ wget -mk http://example.com

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Kick ass guide for installing Oracle on Ubuntu

ashokgelal — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:35:14 +0000

One of the few complaints against any Linux OS – Difficult to install software which are not in the repository or in the standard .rpm/.deb format. Windows users enjoy double clicking an executable and then clicking NEXT button few times, Mac users just need to drag that .dmg file to the Application folder. Linux users feel themselves left out and find their own way playing with the Terminal, editing different system files, copying files from here to there and finally setting up some environment variables. Whew!

After switching to Ubuntu, I tried to install Oracle but no luck until I found this guide from Augusto Bott . He has really written an excellent guide on installing Oracle on different versions of Ubuntu. But again with this guide also the users need to open different files and edit them manually. It isn’t that much difficult but if you are like me who often needs to reinstall/upgrade Ubuntu for one reason or other, reading the whole guide and manually editing the system files is really time consuming and cumbersome. So, to save my time for future installation of Oracle database on my Ubuntu box, I wrote a couple of scripts (four scripts to be exact). Running these four scripts will install Oracle database and will give you a fresh database to start with. To facilitate visual-learners, I’ve also made two videos which have been embedded below. I will explain how to proceed briefly below:

1. Download all four scripts.and unzip them

2. Extract Oracle database downloaded from Oracle to a folder (such as in your home folder)

3. Open 2_OraInstaller.sh in a text editor and change the source/destination values. The default values assume that you have extracted the Oracle installer files in ~/oracle folder and you want to install Oracle db in /opt/oracle folder.

4. Open 4_OraInstaller.sh in a text editor and change the name of your database instance (dbSID). The default is oraIntrepid.

5. Fire up the Terminal and make all the files executable:

$chmod 755 ./1_OraInstaller.sh

$chmod 755 ./2_OraInstaller.sh

$chmod 755 ./3_OraInstaller.sh

$chmod 755 ./4_OraInstaller.sh

6. Make sure you have at least 3gb free space where you want to install your Oracle DB

7. Execute: $./1_OraInstaller.sh

You need to logoff and login once

8. Execute: $./2_OraInstaller.sh

This will install Oracle in silent mode. Please be patient as it will take some time and be very sure that YOU ARE CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET!!!

9. Execute: $./3_OraInstaller.sh

You need to restart you computer once at this point.

10. Execute: $./4_OraInstaller.sh

This will install Oracle database instance in silent mode. This will take about 15 mins so be very patient.

At this point your Oracle installation on your Ubuntu box is complete.

Here are two videos showing all the above steps:

Click here to view the embedded video.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

CODEWEAVERS WILL BE GIVING AWAY CROSSOVER FOR FREE FOR ONE DAY

ashokgelal — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:13:21 +0000

Codeweaver, the maker of crossover software which allows you to run Windows applications in Linux & MacOS with the help of Wine, will be giving away its award wining software for free for one day.

Tomorrow, October 28, will be a day of joy for the Linux users who are looking to run some of the Windows Applications with Wine. Don’t forget to visit Codeweaver’s home page at least once tomorrow as they will give you a deal code which will allow you to download and use Crossover for free for your whole life. This will be a full version and will come with technical support. Did you bookmarked the site?

BTW, don’t forget to thanks George Bush for this. An excerpt from their press release:

“I launched the campaign to inspire President Bush to make the most of his final days in office. Who knew that our Challenge would have this kind of impact on the country?” White said. “On the other hand, who knew that the economy would implode, causing oil demand to drop into the abyss and gas prices to plummet as well. Clearly, investigating Bear Stearns, AIG and those guys is misplaced – CodeWeavers is responsible for this mess. So it’s free software for all!”

Kick ass guide for installing Oracle on Ubuntu Four steps for installing Oracle on Ubuntu. Steps by steps...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ubuntu 8.10 RC1 is here

ashokgelal — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 23:38:11 +0000

A week before the final release of Ubuntu 8.10, the guys at Canonical has released the last testing version RC1. Since this is only RC1, no changes in the features was expected. As discussed in my previous post, two system tools USBLive and System Cleaner, will be bundled with Ubuntu 8.10, change of the wallpaper, integrating a new Dark Room theme are among the noticeable changes in this version. Get Ubuntu 8.10 RC1 from here.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Three easy steps to carry Ubuntu 8.10 in a pen drive

ashokgelal — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 22:26:57 +0000

Spent countless hours figuring how to install Ubuntu to make use of those extra GBs in your pen drive? pendrivelinux.com has got everything done for you. All you lazy folks have to do is:

1. Boot from you Ubuntu 8.10 live CD.

2. Plug in your pen drive, open a Terminal and issue following commands:
$ wget pendrivelinux.com/downloads/u810/u810.sh

$ chmod +x u810.sh && sh u810.sh

3. Follow the online instructions and reboot your system, change the BIOS setting so that your system boots up from a USB drive.

That’s it!

For complete step-by-step instructions and buy them a cup of coffee, visit pendrivelinux.com

[via: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2008/10/15/ubuntu-810-persistent-flash-drive-install-from-live-cd/]

Kick ass guide for installing Oracle on Ubuntu Four steps for installing Oracle on Ubuntu. Steps by steps...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Welcome a New Theme in Ubuntu 8.10

ashokgelal — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:24:34 +0000

A new theme “Dark Room” has been added to Ubuntu 8.10. Human Theme is still the default so you need a few more clicks to get it. As the name implies, the theme is dark and looks better than the default. Have a look:

: Better than the default

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mozilla released Firefox 3.1 Beta1. Try it now!

ashokgelal — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:52:12 +0000

Mozilla just released Beta1 of Firefox 3.1 browser. They haven’t yet made the official announcement though.

The noticeable features include Ctrl+Tab 3D navigation browser, faster JavaScript performance, and Open a New Tab button just like Internet Explorer 7.

Ctrl+Tab 3D navigation browser is a welcome feature

If you want to give a try, here is how to install it in Linux:

wget ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/3.1b1/linux-i686/en-US/firefox-3.1b1.tar.bz2Update: From the official What’s New page:

Web standards improvements in the Gecko layout engine

Added support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 properties

A new tab-switching shortcut that shows previews of the tab you’re switching to

Improved control over the Smart Location Bar using special characters to restrict your search

Support for new web technologies such as the and elements, the W3C Geolocation API, JavaScript query selectors, web worker threads, SVG transforms and offline applications.

Don’t forget to backup your profile so that you can restore if something goes wrong.

Open a new tab button

$ tar -xvf firefox-3.1b1.tar.bz2

$ cd firefox

$ ./firefox

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Run your virtual OS directly from GDM in Ubuntu

ashokgelal — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:12:46 +0000

If you regularly run a couple of OS from your VirtualBox and want to login to those OS directly from GDM session, here is a quick way to do it. For this to work you should have already set up your VirtualBox. Here we won’t be talking about how to setup VirtualBox but only how to login to a virtual OS from GDM session.

: Windows XP GDM

1. Create a bash script with the following contents

#!/bin/bash VirtualBox -startvm NameOfYourVirtualOS

Replace yourSUPassword with your password, and NameOfYourVirtualOS with the name that you have given to your virtual OS in VirtualBox.

2. Name it something like windowsXPGDM (if you want to run Windows XP), make it executable, and then copy it to /usr/bin.

$ chmod 755 windowsXPGDM
$ sudo cp windowsXPGDM /usr/bin

2. Go to /usr/share/xsessions and create a new file with the following contents:

[Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=WindowsXP Comment=My Virtual WindowsXP Exec=/usr/bin/windowsXPGDM Icon= Type=Application

3. Save it with a name something like windowsXP.desktop.

4. Log out and you will see a new entry WindowsXP in your GDM session. You can now directly open VirtualBox session without even logging in to your Ubuntu machine.

10 Linux commands for fun Here are few Linux commands you can play with for...
Kick ass guide for installing Oracle on Ubuntu Four steps for installing Oracle on Ubuntu. Steps by steps...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Open Office 3.0 final officially announced; expect a record downloads

ashokgelal — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 21:19:37 +0000

The packages were already started showing up a couple of days ago and I’d covered a quick way to install Open Office 3.0 final in your Ubuntu box. I can’t say it for sure, but those packages don’t seem ‘final’ for me but only a snapshot. As expected, Open Office 3.0 has been officially released today and they are having problems to cope with the high downloads demand. The official site is down (literally) and only a plain page appears with a couple of links for downloading the packages. This is what they have to say:

Apologies – our website is struggling to cope with the unprecedented
demand for the new release 3.0 of OpenOffice.org. The technical teams are
trying to come up with a solution.

All this means Open Office 3.0 is all set to create a new record downloads and it deserves for that.

If you want to get your hand on this great free software, here it is how:

wget http://ftp.spnet.net/openoffice/stable/3.0.0/OOo_3.0.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz

tar -xvzf OOo_3.0.0_LinuxIntel_install_en-US_deb.tar.gz

cd into DEBS directory and issue the following command:
sudo dpkg -i *.deb
Now we need to add menu entries
cd desktop-integration

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Switch to Linux Today! bsod Linux Flier

ashokgelal — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 03:50:12 +0000

There are many reasons to switch to Linux, but this is one of them – to get rid of BSOD!

Download it, print it and paste it on your college flier board if you ever need to show your Linux love, Windows hatred, and bsod anger.

bsod Linux flier

10 Linux commands for fun Here are few Linux commands you can play with for...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.