zedomax.com » Ubuntu

Ubuntu Hack – How to Restore GRUB Boot Loader After Installing Windows!

max — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 06:41:14 +0000

Here’s a quick one, how to restore GRUB boot loader after installing Windows for those of you Ubuntu users. I used to know how to do this but keep forgetting, hence the point of this post.

This tutorial will explain how to restore Grub after installing Windows 7/Vista/Xp.If you are using dual boot PC with windows,Ubuntu for some reason you reinstall your windows now you may not see your grub 2 is loading because your windows installation might have been over written MBR (Master boot record).

via ubuntugeek

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Ubuntu Hack – How to Restore GRUB Boot Loader After Installing Windows!

Linux Hack – How to Sync your iPhone/iPod Touch on Linux!

max — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:39:55 +0000

For those of you who need to sync iPhone to your linux (and only God knows why Apple doesn’t support Linux out of the box), you might want to read up on this guide on which packages to install and how to do it. (well, coming soon really…)

As an avid linux user, I think this is something Apple must definitely look at as there are more linux users, Linux is still the most widely used operating system for websites including this one, that should give them some clue.

Well, I’m happy to say that all of this is coming to an end and that Linux will finally get quite complete iPhone/iPod Touch syncing support soon, thanks to the work of many dedicated people. This is what the software stack looks like:

via hackaday

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Linux Hack – How to Sync your iPhone/iPod Touch on Linux!

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Launched!

max — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:34:54 +0000

Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala is introduced today, I might have to try it out soon. I don’t think there’s too many upgrades from the last version but according to Engadget, the Ubuntu features:

featuring a faster graphical boot sequence (no more scary text scrolls), a revamped audio framework that improves sound control across multiple applications, and a new Software Center that visually simplifies the Add/Remove Applications tool. These are just a few of the user-centric improvements meant to have a “transformative effect” on the OS experience and help bring “the world of open source closer to the user.”

Not bad I think, probably a much better option than Windows 7, that’s for sure.

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Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala Launched!

Ubuntu DIY – How to Install Opera Web Browser in Ubuntu!

max — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:10:17 +0000

I know installing browsers with flash support in Ubuntu sometimes can simply be a pain in the rear, especially if you are running on non-standard CPUs.
Well, here’s how to install Opera web browser for Ubuntu, with support for flash and java. The new Opera browser has proved to be super-fast btw, from what I hear.

sudo dpkg -i opera_10.00.4585.gcc4.qt3_i386.deb

sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin ubuntu-restricted-extras

I think these tips will be very helpful for those who are having trouble installing Opera on their Ubuntu.

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Ubuntu DIY – How to Install Opera Web Browser in Ubuntu!

Wordpress Hack – How to Run a Wordpress Blog on Lighttpd!

max — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 09:02:40 +0000

For the last couple months, I have been playing around with a lot of different web servers. Because my web servers kept going down, I had to find a new solution to help minimize my on-growing web server hosting costs.

About 2 years ago, one of the tech support guys at the dedicated server hosting company told me there’s a lighter web server called “Lighttpd”.

Well, I digged all the information I could on Lighttpd and found pieces of information that could let me run Zedomax.com on Lighttpd. (I also did find many other good web server alternatives like Nginx and Cherokee but I won’t go into that today, I will keep experimenting and reporting over at WebServerHacks.com, my new blog for that subject.)

Anyways, after 2 days of no sleep and digging the internet and trying on my test web servers, I finally mastered the art of running Lighttpd on my Wordpress blog.

Yes, this blog now runs Lighttpd, no more Apache. It runs waaay faster, handles waaay more web traffic, AND I saved a bunch of money on web server upgrades.

Anyways, I’ve detailed every step as best I can on how to run a Wordpress Blog on Lighttpd, step-by-step over at my new Web Server Hacks Blog, so check it out if you are running Wordpress blog and you need to save money/run sites faster.

In my recent conversions, my web servers are now able to handle about 2-3 times more web traffic than before using Lighttpd.

Before, my servers went down every couple days because of too much traffic.

Now, my servers “almost” never go down.

…

…

My web hosting costs went down from $1500 a month to $600 because my web servers now can handle 2-3 times more traffic. Over a year, that’s about $8,000 in savings. It made enough of a difference where I could use the money saved for other things in my blogging business.

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Wordpress Hack – How to Run a Wordpress Blog on Lighttpd!

Linux DIY – How to Record Desktop Activities!

max — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:51 +0000

In Windows, there’s free desktop recording software like CamStudio. For linux, you might want to consider using RecordMyDesktop to record your desktop activities. For that, check out the tutorial by Shibuvarkala, he also details instructions on how to convert .ogv to .avi. These instructions are for Ubuntu, which many of you use but should be similar for many other Linux distros using yum, rpm, or something other than apt-get.

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Linux DIY – How to Record Desktop Activities!

FREE Linux GNOME Wallpapers!

max — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:08:01 +0000

GNOME is a popular GUI choice for linux users, here’s a bunch of free linux GNOME wallpapers you can download.

Of course, you don’t need to use to download these, you can also simply use FTP to download to your Mac/Windows computer too.

First you need to create a directory in your home directory, lets call it Wallpapers
mkdir ~/Wallpapers

Now you need to connect to gnome.org ftp servers
ftp ftp.gnome.org
Next you will be asked to enter a username and password. “anonymous” will be your username and just press enter when prompted for the password.
Now lets navigate to the wallpapers on their servers
cd cd /pub/GNOME/teams/art.gnome.org/backgrounds
You will also need to turn prompting off, you don’t want it bugging you asking you if you want to download each single file
prompt off
Now lets download all 1280×1024 (assuming thats your resolution)
mget *1280x1024.jpg

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FREE Linux GNOME Wallpapers!

Mac Hack – How to Clean CPU Fan and Replace Hard Disk on a PowerBook G4!

max — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 07:17:50 +0000

Recently, one of my friends who is a plumber in San Francisco, gave me an old PowerBook G4. Well, since I am not an Apple fan boy (sorry Apple fan boys), I’ve figured I can install Windows XP.

I ran into the big problem that Windows XP is not supported on a PowerPC CPU, which is what the PowerBook G4 has. Since I do also run a bunch of linux machines at my home, I figured I could run some linux on the PowerBook. It turns out there’s a bunch of PowerPC-supported linux systems including Ubuntu, which I ended up installing. (I should have a HOWTO guide on that coming up pretty soon so watch for that!)

Of course, this Powerbook G4 has more problems as the hard disk was dead so I had to replace the hard disk. I also figured I could take some shots on how to replace the hard disk while I was doing it.

Most laptops are pretty easy to disassemble once you get the hang of it. You simply remove all the screws and most of the time, the laptop comes apart pretty easily.

So here it goes, step-by-step instructions on how to take an old Powerbook G4 apart. (other Powerbooks should be similar)

Note this is the very first time I have worked with Mac laptops in my whole life but I did it my first time so it must be easy. (and you should be able to do it too)

Tools required:

couple small screw drivers. (You can get a set of these at your dollar store by the way)

1 1.5mm hex screw driver.

Step By Step Instructions

1) You will need to get the battery out, simply use a coin and turn the big metal thing until the battery pops out like below:

2) Now, unscrew the 4 screws that hold the memory compartment in the middle of the laptop.

3) Pull the metal tabs on the left and right side of the memory. The memory should pop out easily.

4) Take all the memory out, usually no more than two since there’s two memory slots.

5) Take the four long screws at the top(where the LCD screen is connected to).

6) Also take the 2 screws off near where the memory slots are. (Oops, I lost one of the screws while trying to take a pictures. Don’t worry too much about lost screws when you open up a laptop, I find that you don’t have to be so perfect, your laptop will still function fine with couple lost screws.)

7) Next take the two screws off one of the sides of the Powerbook G4.

Take the three screws on the other side of the Powerbook G4. Don’t you just love Macs? They are so easy to disassemble.

9) Take the four screws on the top of the Powerbook G4.

10) Now using the hex screwdriver thingee and open the two hexa-nuts at the front of the laptop where your keyboard is.

11) The top of the Mac Powerbook G4 should pop right out easily like this.

12)Now jiggle the keyboard a little (being careful not to pull the too attached lines) and the whole thing should be fully detachable from the main board.

13) Set the keyboard laying against the LCD, and gently pull the orangish looking line, it should pop right off. (This is the touchpad connection to your Powerbook’s motherboard btw.)

14) Now, pull the side tabs off the keyboard connectors. The white-striped keyboard connector should slide out easily.

15) Now you have the keyboard/touchpad module completely detached! Yey, you can now pretty much access most of your PowerBook G4’s internals including the CPU fan (Left arrow), graphic card fan (Right arrow), hard disk (blue arrow), and more.

16) Since the hard disk was broken, I figured this Powerbook must be super old and checked out both the CPU and graphic card fans. (I found out that there were already super clean but this should be a handy guide for you if you have an old Powerbook that makes a lot of CPU fan noise and need to clean them.)

You can skip to Step 27 here if you simply need to swap out your hard drive on the Powerbook G4 but if you want to clean/check your CPU fans, keep going.

How to Clean the Graphic Card CPU fan

First, I decided to check out the graphic card fan (the one on the right), simply pop off the LCD connector horizontally. It should pop right off pretty easily.

17) Pull the LCD connector and stickers away from you. (Yes, VOID the warranty, you probably don’t have it on this old Mac anyways!)

18) Pull the fan connector out.

19) Unscrew the two screws and the fan assembly should be “bent” out. Check the metal fins to see if there’s any dust piled up and if it is, CLEAN! After cleaning, re-assemble the graphic fan card reversing the steps from this step to Step 16. (then continue)

20) Next, we can take a look at the CPU fan to see if dust has piled up. CPU fans are #1 cause of laptop failures these days so…

How to Clean the Main CPU fan!

Pull the metal connector thingee (the copper lookin thingee) up, it should pop right out. I am not sure what this is for but oh well…

21) Next, pull the CPU fan connector out.

22) Take the connector next to it out so you can access the CPU fan case.

23) Unscrew the four screws holding the CPU fan.

24) Clean the metal fans if it’s dirty. Like I said, mine was super clean. I think someone just dropped the Powerbook G4 on the ground and broke the hard disk.

25) Clean the fans, metal fins and put it back together by reversing steps from this step to Step 20.

How to Replace the Hard Disk!

Next, we will replace the broken 60GB hard disk with a new 80GB hard disk.

Simply pull the harddisk connector on the top of the harddisk.

26) Unscrew the 2 big screws on the left of the hard drive of the Powerbook G4.

27) Pull that thing out of the way…

28) There’s two screws on the right side of the hard disk you need to unscrew (red circles) and pull the metal tab thingee out.

There’s also two screws on the left side of the hard disk you need to unscrew a little (blue circles), you don’t need to take them out completely, just unscrew them so they are loose and you can pull the hard disk out. Also note to take the connector out (red arrow) if you have hard time accessing the screws.

29) Jiggle the hard disk out, it should come out. If you get to this step, swapping the new hard drive you be a piece of cake. Simply swap the harddisk connector and the plastic isolation thingee to the new drive and reverse steps from this step to Step 25.

30) Now you have done it! Give yourself a thumbs up for replacing the hard drive! Mac Powerbook is a really, really old laptop from the stone ages but the new Macbooks should actually be a lot easier than this. (or any other laptops for that matter)

Most of the new laptops also allow easier access to the harddisk and the CPU fans without disassembling most of your laptop. You might void warranty but if you learn to disassemble laptops, you should be able to open up most laptops today with a screwdriver. I find disassembling laptops addicting now, I didn’t know it was this easy.

31) Assemble everything back by reversing steps from Step 16 through Step 1.

32) Boot your laptop to make sure everything is working and you didn’t forget to connect any connectors. If you did, you will have to repeat and go into vicious cycle until you get it right. Just take a deep breath and take everthing SLOWLY. Don’t need to be in a hurry ever.

33) If you are like me, just install Ubuntu PowerPC version of Jaunty 9.04, which works well right out of the box including Touchpad, keyboard, LCD, Wifi, and sound.

This is the very first Mac laptop I own and disassembled, and of course, it doesn’t run Mac OSX. (will have to wait another 20 years before I consider doing that. But there’s Hackintosh for those of you who want to run Mac OSX on PCs… and why would I want to do that???)

(Breathing new, fresh open-source life into the old Mac Powerbook G4 with Ubuntu Jaunty…yey go Linus! Now I have 2 mobile linux devices, a Palm Pre and a Powerbook.)

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Mac Hack – How to Clean CPU Fan and Replace Hard Disk on a PowerBook G4!

Mac DIY – How to Install Ubuntu Linux on your Mac!

max — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 00:52:02 +0000

Tuaw has a great tutorial on how to install Ubuntu Linux on your Mac machine. This uses Sun’s VirtualBox, which essentially lets you install any kind of operating system. This is a great way to have another operating system under your main machine. Of course, this isn’t a real install since it’s virtual but it still is a great way to have another operating system on your Mac without re-installing your main OS.

You can also use this on PCs in a similar way and works just as well FYI.

Why would you want to run Linux on a Mac? There are probably a few good reasons — learning about a different OS, using software that’s not available on the Mac platform, or for a Linux class in school. While you can create a bootable partition on your Mac and boot Linux from it, I prefer to do things the lazy way. In this short how-to post, I’ll demonstrate how I installed Ubuntu Linux 9.04, also known as “Jaunty Jackalope.”

via tuaw

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Mac DIY – How to Install Ubuntu Linux on your Mac!

Linux Hack – How to Resume SCP Transfers after Interruption!

max — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 07:32:17 +0000

For those of you who need to “resume” SCP file transfers that have been interrupted, there’s an easy way to resume them using rsync command.

Use this:

alias scpresume="rsync --partial --progress --rsh=ssh"

For Ubuntu or Debian add sudo:

alias scpresume="sudo rsync --partial --progress --rsh=ssh"

This is great since you won’t have to restart your file transfers if you happened to be transferring files around 100GB.

Perks include understanding the same user@host:path syntax as scp as well as being able to resume a broken scp download (Note: I’m not guaranteeing this, but after downloading 90% of 400MB I was able to pick up the rest using this).

via panela

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Linux Hack – How to Resume SCP Transfers after Interruption!

Linux Ubuntu DIY – How to Setup DDNS on your Ubuntu!

max — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:32:09 +0000

I have a nice little Linux Ubuntu box I setup here in my apartment with a KVM switch but most of the time, I use command lines to SSH into my linux box.

When I am away from from home and I want to access my linux box, I can access it (SSH into it) using DDNS (dynamic DNS). This is great since I have my own backup server plus I can test out my web servers on my linux box before going live.

Anyways, if you are looking for easy solution on how to setup DDNS on your Ubuntu machine, ddclient is probably the easiest. You can check out detailed instructions from MexPolk, who has a great step-by-step tutorial on how to accomplish this.

And also, you need to either set your linux box to “DMZ” mode if you have a router at home. Or better, just set your port forwarding so port 22 doesn’t get blocked. (port 22 for SSH)

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Linux Ubuntu DIY – How to Setup DDNS on your Ubuntu!

Amazon Hack – Kindle 2 Hacked to Run Ubuntu Linux!

max — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:56:59 +0000

It looks like Jesse Vincent has hacked an Amazon Kindle 2 to run a custom version of Ubuntu Linux! Well, the Kindle 2 does run on ARM, there’s a lot of linux software out there that’s running on ARM including the Palm Pre but this is pretty amazing indeed.

I could not find any further details on how to accomplish this but I can say one thing, if you can make use of Kindle 2’s EDVO connection, you might just have hacked a “free” per-say, linux computer that uses very little energy. Jesse tells not to think about it but I say go ahead and try it out, why not? (Turn the GPS off before you do and setup anonymous proxies.)

This guy makes it sound too easy, maybe it is?

What you see there is a Kindle 2 with the Ubuntu 9.04 port to ARM running in a chrooted environment. On the screen you see xdaliclock in front of an xterm with the remains of a “top” command and a few mildly embarrassing typos.

To open up the Kindle, I used the USB networking debug mode Amazon left hanging around when they first shipped the Kindle 2, a statically linked telnetd and a cross-compiler to bootstrap myself. From there, I built a daemon that can convert DRM-free PDFs and ePubs into something Amazon’s reader on the Kindle can deal with.

After that, I started to get curious about what else might be possible. It only took a few evenings to get a moderately usable Ubuntu environment running.

Mostly, the Kindle is a lovely little Linux box. Getting X working took a bit of hacking, but everything else “just works” with very little configuration.

via gizmodo, boingboing

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Amazon Hack – Kindle 2 Hacked to Run Ubuntu Linux!

Web Server Hack – How to Use DDoS Deflate to Protect Against DoS Flooding!

max — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:58:30 +0000

I have been using DDoS Deflate, which is a simple script that will automatically help you against DoS attacks on your server. Basically it works by killing any HTTPD processes/banning IPs that reach more than set number of TCP connections.

It’s a great script since it’s free, simple, and works well against DoS attacks. Yes, forget paying that extra hundred dollars to your server company, who’s going to probably install this script anyways.

The real gem of the DDoS Deflate script lies in configuration. Depending on how you configure the DDoS script, you can protect yourself in number of different ways.

To install, simply follow these directions on your SSH command prompt in the linux server:

wget http://www.inetbase.com/scripts/ddos/install.sh
chmod 0700 install.sh
./install.sh

After installing, go to the directory /usr/local/ddos, where the configuration files are.

If you open up ddos.conf file using your favorite editor, you can edit the following settings for getting the most out of the script:

NO_OF_CONNECTIONS=150

This is the number of connections before your server kills/bans that IP address for a set amount of time. I think 150 works well but if you are suddenly getting attacked from smart hackers with many, many IPs, you could probably adjust this to a very low number.

BAN_PERIOD=600

You can adjust the BAN_PERIOD setting to set amount of time to ban that IP since you don’t want to ban the IP permanently, there could be other innocent visitors sharing the same IP.

You can first use the default settings in the beginning and play around a bit.

The script will also e-mail you under the default domain name root@mysite.com whenever an IP reaches beyond the maximum number of allowed connections. Make sure you set the e-mail correctly so you receive those alerts if you want them by editing the EMAIL_TO variable in the ddos.conf.

Using More than 1 server?

For example, you can also “whitelist” IP addresses that might be connected to your server such as your MySQL server by editing the file ignore.ip.list file under the same directory. By the way, I’ve accidently forgot to whitelist my MySQL server before and my website started showing “Database Connection Error”, don’t let that happen to you.

Well, that’s about it, this script is pretty good against DoS flooding so you don’t have to be manually messing with your iptables or whatnot. I install this script on everyone of my VPS/dedicated servers and you should too just in case some hacker decided to flood you with garbage.

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Web Server Hack – How to Use DDoS Deflate to Protect Against DoS Flooding!

Web Server Hack – How To Auto Restart HTTPD service script!

max — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 02:45:23 +0000

Here’s a simple script I made up that will auto restart your HTTPD service if it reaches a high load.

The script will actually stop your HTTPD server when your load is higher than the maximum load settings and will re-start when the load is back to zero.

If you are on a server that’s overloaded, this script can help you “temporarily” get by instead of your web server dying and you manually rebooting your web server.

There’s also an extra “mail” feature that will email you whenever the server is stopped or restarted. (Code after the first one)

Download the test.txt here (Save it as test.sh)

Download the mail.txt here (Save it as mail.php)

Save both files as test.sh and mail.php, respectively, and put it in the same directory such as /root/ in your linux server where it can’t be seen by the public.

Then run a cron job every couple minutes, something like this in your /etc/cron.d/mycronjob file:

*/10 * * * * root sh /root/test.sh

(This will run every 10 minutes.)

The second code is a simple PHP file that will e-mail. It actually takes the first argument as part of its subject so you can use this PHP code for many other things for notifying you when something happens to your web server.

For test.sh script, you can change the 20 in this line to the maximum load settings before the HTTPD server shuts down:

if [ "$thisloadavg" -ge "20" ]; then

You can also change this line to higher value if you don’t want your server to wait until it reaches load of 0 before restarting:

elif [ "$thisloadavg" -le "1" ]; then

For mail.php, make sure you change the e-mail addresses to your e-mail address for it to work correctly.

You can probably play with this script and come up with something better. Let me know if you do!

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Web Server Hack – How To Auto Restart HTTPD service script!

Linux Time – How to Set the Time and Date using Command Date!

max — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 23:33:28 +0000

I just noticed that my web server’s time was ahead by 10 hours for some reasons. If you run linux dedicated servers, you will want to know how to do this. I know there’s many ways to do it but this is the simplest/fastest method.

Here’s a really simple way to set time and date on any linux/unix system:

date – Would list the date and time of the server. Below is an example of the output.

Thu Feb 8 16:47:32 MST 2001

date -s “11/20/2003 12:48:00″ – Set the date to the date and time shown.

date ‘+DATE: %m/%d/%y%nTIME:%H:%M:%S’ – Would list the time and date in the below format:

DATE: 02/08/01
TIME:16:44:55

via computerhope

(Image Credit)

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Linux Time – How to Set the Time and Date using Command Date!

Linux DIY – How to Create an SSH Tunnel and Share Internet Through Another Computer!

max — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 18:03:55 +0000

Well, I am in the process of creating a local tunnel connection between two of my web servers from MediaTemple (thanks Eric for the help btw), I stumbled across this cool Linux DIY that shows you how to create an SSH Tunnel between two linux computers and share the internet via proxy port number 2020.

This might be very useful if you happen to run a bunch of linux machines and run out of ethernet lines. (and you are not using WiFi)

To create a tunnel you need to check that ssh service is running on the computer that you want to connect.
For Ubuntu or Debian based distribution: sudo /etc/init.d/sshd start

For fedora or other RedHat based distribution: /etc/init.d/ssh start

On the machine or the computer that you will use to browse the internet. Open a terminal window and type the following:
ssh -fND 2020 username@192.168.xxx.xxx

To start the proxy, SSH will ask you for the authenticity of your host, just type “yes” and enter your password. It will look as nothing has happened but SSH tunneling is already working.

via raxso

(Image Credit)

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Linux DIY – How to Create an SSH Tunnel and Share Internet Through Another Computer!

Linux Hack – How to Batch Image Resize!

max — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 09:39:49 +0000

Well, one of the worst things you can encounter is to individually resize hundreds of images for a future blog post.

I am not sure if Windows or Macs have free software to do this but if you have access to a Linux computer like me, you can get stuff done much faster using Image Magick, a free open-source image auto-resizer also used on many web-platform programs.

I assuming that you have installed Ubuntu Gutsy:

sudo apt-get install imagemagick

After ImageMagick installation, you can use mogrify. For example, I have a folder called “holidays” locate in “/home/user/photos/“. I have to change my path, make a thumbs folder and copy original images on “thumbs folder”. After that I can start image resizing process:

cd /home/user/photos/holidays
mkdir thumbs
cp /home/user/photos/holidays/* /home/user/photos/holidays/thumbs/
cd thumbs

mogrify -resize 640 *.jpg

Now I can see on “/home/user/photos/holidays/thumbs/” every my image file resized to 640 of width. If you want force resizing to a particulare size without mantaining original aspect ratio you could change mogrify options:

mogrify -resize 640×480! *.jpg

Good Job Man! I hope this howto will be useful for you.

via smokinglinux

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Linux Hack – How to Batch Image Resize!

Top 5 Geek’s Linux Distros!

max — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:39:55 +0000

Call me old school but I tend to like Fedora and Ubuntu for Linux distro of my choice but here’s a good list and explanation of the Top 5 geek’s linux distros.

Of course, now I might have to try them all out and see which one is actually the best. My Ubuntu has been failing as of lately on my spare desktop, everything is SLOW!

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Top 5 Geek’s Linux Distros!

Linux Boot Hack – How to Password Protect GRUB!

max — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:11:34 +0000

If you are a linux user like me, you know the value of being able to password-protect your GRUB entries so even if your whole PC gets stolen, no one should be able to access your valuable, classified data. (or porn?)

When talking of security in computer systems one often needs to analyse the situation one is in and choose the appropriate options. If you have hackers getting physical access to your computer system the GRUB security measures won’t last a second (pretty much nothing would do). Your best bet in such a situation is to keep the hard drive encrypted, or if your hard drive can be password protected, use that option.

However, the majority of us don’t have to worry about hackers with physical access as much as our not-so-computer savvy relatives and friends fiddling around with the system. That is what we have the log in passwords for (they are not secure enough for hackers, trust me!), and that is the situation where you would be wise to make use of GRUB security features.

via makeuseof

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Linux Boot Hack – How to Password Protect GRUB!

OLPC Hack – How to Run OLPC on any Laptop!

max — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:16:12 +0000

OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), can now be run on any computer via a USB flash drive. If you wanted to get your child one of these OLPCs, you no longer have to buy an OLPC. Just get a used laptop for 50 bucks then simply stick one of these Sugar on Stick USB flash devices that will run OLPC operating system.

There are two versions of Sugar on a Stick available at the moment. One is based on Fedora 10, while the other is basedo n Ubuntu 8.10. I tried out the Fedora version, which also makes it easy to create persistant storage space on the flash drive, which means you can save any changes to the USB stick. In other words, while Sugar on a Stick boots like a LiveUSB, since you can save changes you can treat it like a portable operating system. You can carry it with you and plug it into any computer to pull up your operating environment.

via liliputing

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OLPC Hack – How to Run OLPC on any Laptop!

Wii Hack – How to Make Wii Remote work in Ubuntu!

max — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:29:48 +0000

Here’s a cool Wii hack that some of you Ubuntu hackers might want to do, how to make Wiimote work in Ubuntu. As a Ubuntu user myself, this could come handy if you are thinking of making your own Ubuntu/Wiimote multi-touch device.

Open up a terminal (Applications –> Accessories –> Terminal) and enter the following command

sudo aptitude install wminput wmgui lswm

Next, we need to find the bluetooth device address of your Wii remote, this will allow you to connect to your Wii remote faster in future, and will let you know if your system can connect to your Wii remote via bluetooth.

In a terminal type the following command

lswm

And press buttons 1 & 2 on your wiimote to put it in discovery mode.

If you don’t see something that looks like 00:2A:34:95:FE:B0 then keep on running lswm / pressing buttons 1 + 2 on your Wii remote until you do.

Please note down the number that lswm returns (that looks similar to 00:2A:34:95:FE:B0), this is your Wii remote bluetooth address (Keep in mind that the number given here is an example).

Check to see if all the capabilities of your Wii Remote (and extra controllers) work

Start up wmgui (Applications –> Accessories –> Wmgui).

wmgui is an easy application that’s good to use for simple diagnostics on your wiimote, nunchuk and classic controller.

Full instructions here

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Wii Hack – How to Make Wii Remote work in Ubuntu!

Ubuntu Hack – How To VPN from Ubuntu 8.10!

max — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 21:43:27 +0000

Here’s a little Ubuntu hack that might help you VPN on a Ubuntu 8.10:

I started off by clicking on the network icon on the top-right of the menu bar and then Configure VPN (under VPN Connections). The VPN tab had the Add button disabled so I went to the command prompt (Application, Accessories, Terminal) and typed the following command:
sudo apt-get -y install network-manager-pptp

I then entered my password (for the sudo), after which it downloads and installs PPTP support. To make sure Add button under VPN is now enabled, I also type the command:
sudo NetworkManager restart

Now, I simply click the network icon (from the top-right of the menu bar), click Configure VPN (under VPN Connections), I click the Add button, type in the IP address of the VPN server for the Gateway, my ActiveDirectory (from the Windows domain) username and password, followed by the domain name. I click the Advanced button and check the “Use Point-to-Point encryption (MPPE)” checkbox and click Ok on both dialog boxes.

To connect to the VPN, I click the network icon and under VPN Connections, I select the VPN connection that I just created.

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Ubuntu Hack – How To VPN from Ubuntu 8.10!

Ubuntu Linux Hack – How to Install Fresh Copy of Ubuntu without Losing your Current Program Settings!

max — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:42:32 +0000

If you are a hard-core Ubuntu/Linux supporter like me, you will need to learn how to save your programs when you install a fresh copy of Ubuntu.

Here’s how to do it:

Configuration

Keeping your configuration intact is pretty straight forward and obvious. Just backup your /home folder onto an external drive or whatever. Make sure you also grab the hidden files, don’t do my mistake!
Applications

Now for the current applications. Basically we just need to make a full list of the installed apps.
sudo dpkg –get-selections > /home/user/package.selections

Of course don’t forget to backup package.selections on the external hard-drive. Also you should backup your /etc/apt/sources.list file since you probably have some extra sources listed over there. Now you can go about your business and do a fresh install.
Restore

Once your done with the fresh install, copy the file package.selections into your home. Then copy your sources.list file into /etc/apt/ and update it to match your current distro (e.g Gutsy –> Intrepid) you can use CTRL + H in gedit for that. Then do a “sudo apt-get update” ,and finally invoke:
sudo dpkg –set-selections /home/package.selections && apt-get dselect-upgrade

apt-get will now start downloading all your apps, this will take some time depending on the number of apps you have installed.

Once that’s done, just copy your backup-ed /home over the current /home (again don’t forget hidden folders).

Log out and log back in to your shiny new fresh install!

source

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Ubuntu Linux Hack – How to Install Fresh Copy of Ubuntu without Losing your Current Program Settings!

Download New Ubuntu 8.10!

max — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:33:37 +0000

As a person who dislikes Apple and Microsoft’s deceptive advertising practices, I am glad that the new version of Ubuntu 8.10 is now available for download. Although I have too many apps working on my Windows PC, I will be trying out Ubuntu 8.10 on my spare laptops and see how well it performs. Maybe I might even swap out my main PC too soon.

Productivity tools: Ubuntu supports all of your favourite web-based mail programs like Yahoo(TM) or Gmail (TM). But for the office, Evolution provides all the calendering, contacts and full function office email you need. Pidgin IM also puts you in instant touch with colleagues and integrates with your personal IM services simply and easily.

Browsing: Includes Mozilla’s Firefox 3 as the default browser. Faster, safer and themed browsing for users.

Photos: Upload from your camera or phone to F-Spot and manage, tag, share and sort your photos and upload easily to you favourite social networking sites.

Music and video: Plug in your PSP, iPod, MP3 player; share playlists with your friends; buy in the creative commons online music stores, stream more live radio and content from the BBC and plug in more devices with UPnP.

Office applications: Word processing, spreadsheets and presentations can all be delivered through Open Office. And, they completely integrate with the proprietary office applications out there. The big difference is that they are free.

Accessibility: At the core of the Ubuntu philosophy is the belief that computing is for everyone and access should be free and complete whatever your economic or physical circumstances. Ubuntu is one of the most accessible desktop operating systems around.

Download Ubuntu HERE

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Download New Ubuntu 8.10!

Debian Hack – How to Setup your Mirror!

max — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:39:15 +0000

This might not be for all of you but for those Linuxers out there, here’s an example of how to setup your mirror:

(Mirror is a way of replicating one server to another btw if you didn’t know.)

To download the mirrors I use this script:

To setup the permissions I use this script:

And then to pull it all together I have thefollowing directory structure (mirrors left out as it’s a ling list of files)
/home/debian-mirror/
|-- debian
|-- debian-backports
|-- debian-multimedia
|-- debian-security
|-- debian-volatile
|-- scripts
|   |-- permissions.sh
|   `-- sync_mirror.sh
`-- scripts.d
    |-- mirror_backports -> ../scripts/sync_mirror.sh
    |-- mirror_debian -> ../scripts/sync_mirror.sh
    |-- mirror_multimedia -> ../scripts/sync_mirror.sh
    |-- mirror_security -> ../scripts/sync_mirror.sh
    |-- mirror_volatile -> ../scripts/sync_mirror.sh
    |-- permissions_backports -> ../scripts/permissions.sh
    |-- permissions_debian -> ../scripts/permissions.sh
    |-- permissions_multimedia -> ../scripts/permissions.sh
    |-- permissions_security -> ../scripts/permissions.sh
    `-- permissions_volatile -> ../scripts/permissions.sh
And then I just setup a cronjob:
0 0     * * 0   root    /bin/run-parts --verbose /home/debian-mirror/scripts.d | /usr/bin/mailx -s "`uname -n` - Debian mirror sync completed" root
This was to disable the mirroring of one of the repositories I just need to remove the symlink from the scripts.d folder

via nighthawk

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Debian Hack – How to Setup your Mirror!

Ubuntu Hack – How to Make Ubuntu run Super Fast!

max — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:25:18 +0000

For those of us who are anti-Windows and anti-Mac, we will benefit from learning how to make Ubuntu run super fast.

Here’s some great tips on minimizing processes to make your Ubuntu run faster than ever:

1. Remove Network Manager if you do not need it “sudo apt-get remove network-manager”. If possible give yourself a static IP in /etc/network/interfaces like so:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address 192.168.1.150
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 192.168.1.100
broadcast 192.168.0.255
gateway 192.168.1.1

Having a static IP helps with boot time as your machine doesn’t have to communicate with the router/dhcp server as much to obtain an address.

2. Also remove firestarter or whatever graphical firewall frontend you’re using. Learn to control iptables at boot up and shutdown. It’ll be much snappier.

3. Install bum, “sudo apt-get install bum” and run it with root access. Shut off all unnecessary services. If you’re not sure about a service research it before shutting it off. Also, install sysv-rc-conf. Run the application as root. This will allow you to control, in an easy way, what services start at which run level. It’s like bum, but more detailed. Be very careful with which services you are removing from which run-level. If you don’t know what you’re doing here, research it or don’t touch it. After you do this you may want to reboot to make sure you didn’t break anything.

4. Turn off usplash in grub. (Mind you, you’re bootup won’t be as pretty as the splash will go away).

vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

on the kernel line delete the words “splash” and “quiet”

Reboot to see the changes.

5. If you have a dual core processor, you can decrease your boot time with concurrency.

sudo vim /etc/init.d/rc

and find the line CONCURRENCY=none and change it to: CONCURRENCY=shell

Reboot to see the changes. (tired of rebooting yet?)

6. Remove some TTYs

I could easily do this by editing /etc/inittab and then commenting the extra TTYs there. With the new upstart mechanism in place, things are a little different.

You have to edit /etc/default/console-setup file. This file defines how many ttys should you get.

Change ACTIVE_CONSOLES=”/dev/tty[1-6]” to the number of consoles you want. Lets say, 3 ttys, then change it to “/dev/tty[1-3]“.

And then goto /etc/event.d/ and change the ttyx files that you DONOT want. Edit them and comment lines starting with “start on runlevel”. So, in this case, you’ll comment the start line in tty4..tty6 files.

Rebooting shoud minimize the number of consoles for you. Worked for me!! Good luck, NOTE: Even though you’ve reduced the tty number, X is still on Alt-F7. Again, go ahead and reboot to make sure you didn’t break anything.

more via tuxtraining

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Ubuntu Hack – How to Make Ubuntu run Super Fast!

Linux Server Hack – How to Limit Bandwidth with Linux, TC, and iproute2!

max — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:40:28 +0000

Remember I did a quick post on how to write a load-balancing script (or bandwidth throttling)?

Well, today I found another cool script for limiting bandwidth. I believe this one if more complicated but if you need it, it might be greatly helpful.

Here’s the code via Adamsinfo.com:

# Set some variables #!/bin/bash EXT_IFACE=”eth0″ INT_IFACE=”eth1″ TC=”tc” UNITS=”kbit” LINE=”10000″ #maximum ext link speed LIMIT=”5000″ #maximum that we’ll allow

# Set some variables for individual “classes” that we’ll use to shape internal upload speed, i.e. shaping eth0
CLS1_RATE=”200″ # High Priority traffic class has 200kbit
CLS2_RATE=”300″ # Medium Priority class has 300kbit
CLS3_RATE=”4500″ # Bulk class has 4500kbit
# (We’ll set which ones can borrow from which later)

# Set some variables for individual “classes” that we’ll use to shape internal download speed, i.e. shaping eth1
INT_CLS1_RATE=”1000″ #Priority
INT_CLS2_RATE=”4000″ #Bulk

# Delete current qdiscs. i.e. clean up
${TC} qdisc del dev ${INT_IFACE} root
${TC} qdisc del dev ${EXT_IFACE} root

# Attach root qdiscs. We are using HTB here, and attaching this qdisc to both interfaces. We’ll label it “1:0″
${TC} qdisc add dev ${INT_IFACE} root handle 1:0 htb
${TC} qdisc add dev ${EXT_IFACE} root handle 1:0 htb

# Create root classes, with the maximum limits defined
# One for eth1
${TC} class add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:0 classid 1:1 htb rate ${LIMIT}${UNITS} ceil ${LIMIT}${UNITS}
# One for eth0
${TC} class add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:0 classid 1:1 htb rate ${LIMIT}${UNITS} ceil ${LIMIT}${UNITS}

# Create child classes
# These are for our internal interface eth1
# Create a class labelled “1:2″ and give it the limit defined above
${TC} class add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:1 classid 1:2 htb rate ${INT_CLS1_RATE}${UNITS} ceil ${LIMIT}${UNITS}
# Create a class labelled “1:3″ and give it the limit defined above
${TC} class add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:1 classid 1:3 htb rate ${INT_CLS2_RATE}${UNITS} ceil ${INT_CLS2_RATE}${UNITS}

# EXT_IF (upload) now. We also set which classes can borrow and lend.
# This class is guaranteed 200kbit and can burst up to 5000kbit if available
${TC} class add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:1 classid 1:2 htb rate ${CLS1_RATE}${UNITS} ceil ${LIMIT}${UNITS}
# This class is guaranteed 300kbit and can burst up to 5000kbit-200kbit=4800kbit if available
${TC} class add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:1 classid 1:3 htb rate ${CLS2_RATE}${UNITS} ceil `echo ${LIMIT}-${CLS1_RATE}|bc`${UNITS}
# This class can is guaranteed 4500kbit and can’t burst past it (5000kbit-200kbit-300kbit=4500kbit).
# I.e. even if our bulk traffic goes crazy, the two classes above are still guaranteed availability.
${TC} class add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:1 classid 1:4 htb rate ${CLS3_RATE}${UNITS} ceil `echo ${LIMIT}-${CLS1_RATE}-${CLS2_RATE}|bc`${UNITS}

# Add pfifo. Read more about pfifo elsewhere, it’s outside the scope of this howto.
${TC} qdisc add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:2 handle 12: pfifo limit 10
${TC} qdisc add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:3 handle 13: pfifo limit 10
${TC} qdisc add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:2 handle 12: pfifo limit 10
${TC} qdisc add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:3 handle 13: pfifo limit 10
${TC} qdisc add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:4 handle 14: pfifo limit 10

### Done adding all the classes, now set up some rules! ###
# INT_IFACE
# Note the ‘dst’ direction. Traffic that goes OUT of our internal interface and to our servers is out server’s download speed, so SOME_IMPORTANT_IP is allocated to 1:2 class for download.
${TC} filter add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip dst SOME_IMPORTANT_IP/32 flowid 1:2
${TC} filter add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip dst SOME_OTHER_IMPORTANT_IP/32 flowid 1:2
#All other servers download speed goes to 1:3 – not as important as the above two
${TC} filter add dev ${INT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip dst 0.0.0.0/0 flowid 1:3

# EXT_IFACE
# Prioritize DNS requests
${TC} filter add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip src IMPORTANT_IP/32 match ip sport 53 0xffff flowid 1:2
# SSH is important
${TC} filter add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip src IMPORTANT_IP/32 match ip sport 22 0xffff flowid 1:2
# Our exim SMTP server is important too
${TC} filter add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip src 217.10.156.197/32 match ip sport 25 0xffff flowid 1:3
# The bulk
${TC} filter add dev ${EXT_IFACE} parent 1:0 protocol ip prio 1 u32 match ip src 0.0.0.0/0 flowid 1:4

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Linux Server Hack – How to Limit Bandwidth with Linux, TC, and iproute2!

Linus Torvalds – Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free

max — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:05:21 +0000

I remember first hearing about Linus Travolds back in the early 90s and I thought Linux was going to be a hit in year 2000.

Well, it turns out I was right, just about 10 years early. You have to admit, Linux is really taking over the world right now with web servers (including this one) and Eee PCs and other laptops that come loaded with Linux.

Anyways, I don’t want to bore my readers, here’s the 15 Great Quotes from the Linus Travolds and Stallman:

1. “To be able to choose between proprietary software packages is to be able to choose your master. Freedom means not having a master. And in the area of computing, freedom means not using proprietary software.”
-Richard M. Stallman

2. “Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free.”
-Linus Torvalds

3. “Value your freedom or you will lose it, teaches history. ‘Don’t bother us with politics’, respond those who don’t want to learn.”
-Richard M. Stallman

4. “Software patents are a huge potential threat to the ability of people to work together on open source. Making it easier for companies and communities that have patents to make those patents available in a common pool for people to use is one way to try to help developers deal with the threat.”
-Linus Torvalds

5. “If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs.”
-Richard M. Stallman

6. “One of the questions I’ve always hated answering is how do people make money in open source. And I think that Caldera and Red Hat — and there are a number of other Linux companies going public — basically show that yes, you can actually make money in the open-source area.”
-Linus Torvalds

7. “Control over the use of one’s ideas really constitutes control over other people’s lives; and it is usually used to make their lives more difficult.”
-Richard M. Stallman

8. “It just makes it even harder for people to even approach the (open source) side, when they then end up having to worry about … public humiliation.”
-Linus Torvalds

9. “I founded the free software movement, a movement for freedom to cooperate. Open source was a reaction against our idealism. We are still here and the open-source people have not wiped us out.”
-Richard M. Stallman

10. “When it comes to software, I much prefer free software, because I have very seldom seen a program that has worked well enough for my needs, and having sources available can be a life-saver.”
-Linus Torvalds

11. “If you focus your mind on the freedom and community that you can build by staying firm, you will find the strength to do it.”
-Richard M. Stallman

12. “Anybody who tells me I can’t use a program because it’s not open source, go suck on rms. I’m not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that’s _my_ choice, dammit.”
-Linus Torvalds

13. “’Free software’ is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer’.”
-Richard M. Stallman

14. “I’m doing a free operating system just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu for 386 (486) AT clones.”
-Linus Torvalds

15. “Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.”
-Richard M. Stallman

via junauza

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Linus Torvalds – Software is like sex: it’s better when it’s free

Wine Version 1.1.5 Now Available for Download!

max — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:58:01 +0000

Wine, a Linux application that lets you run Windows programs, has now released version 1.1.5: (Go knock yourself out now, drink too much wine!)

The Wine development release 1.1.5 is now available.

What's new in this release (see below for details):
  - Substantial JavaScript implementation.
  - Partial support for layered windows.
  - Support for Unicode file export in Regedit.
  - Proper exception handling in widl-generated code.
  - Asynchronous requests and cookies support in WinHTTP.
  - Various bug fixes.

The source is available from the following locations:

  http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/emulators/wine/wine-1.1.5.tar.bz2
  http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/wine/wine-1.1.5.tar.bz2

Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:

  http://www.winehq.org/site/download

You will find documentation on http://www.winehq.org/site/documentation

You can also get the current source directly from the git
repository. Check http://www.winehq.org/site/git for details.

Wine is available thanks to the work of many people. See the file
AUTHORS in the distribution for the complete list.

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Wine Version 1.1.5 Now Available for Download!

Eee PC Hack – How to install Ubuntu Eee for ASUS Eee PCs!

max — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 06:57:21 +0000

In case you have bought an ASUS Eee PC with Windows, there’s a special version of Ubuntu, customized just for the Eee PC models.

This allows you to install the Ubuntu on Eee PCs without too much headache as it has already been configured for the factory hardware.

Ubuntu Eee is not only Ubuntu optimized for the Asus Eee PC. It’s an operating system, using the Netbook Remix interface, which favors the best software available instead of open source alternatives (ie. Skype instead of Ekiga). Sounds great! How can I help out? Please consider contributing with knowledge or money. And while you’re at it, please become a fan on Facebook and add yourself to the map of users

Here’s some resources for Ubuntu Eee for all you Eee PC lovers:

Ubuntu Eee Official Site

How install Ubuntu Eee

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Eee PC Hack – How to install Ubuntu Eee for ASUS Eee PCs!

DIY Linux HACK – HOW TO optimize your Wordpress Blog, MediaWiki, or any other high load website with Compression!

max — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 02:37:55 +0000

Well, we did a lot of server hacking before with some MySQL, eAccelerator, and httpd.

There’s a lot of major blogs out there I have checked using Web Page Compression Tool that are not using compression. (For one, I checked John Chow’s blog)

Try to check one of your posts instead of checking your main URL as the tool is funky with root domains. (e.g. Check http://zedomax.com/blog/2008/02/23/never-give-up-especially-your-blog-dude/ instead of http://zedomax.com)

Here’s a screenshow of compression test I did for one of John Chow’s posts:

As you can see, John Chow’s blog does not use compression. As a result, he’s losing out on almost 5 times of bandwidth!!!

With level 9 compression, his site could be loaded on your web browser at 21K instead of the whopping 100K.

Now the compression might not be for all of you with slow CPUs. Our Zedomax.com runs on Quad-CPU server which has a lot of CPU processing power.

Here’s a screenshow of my server under normal load:

As you can see, most of the time, my CPU is idling at 80.8%! That means my CPU is pretty much sitting on its ass instead of doing work for me.

Now, if you have a similar situation, compression will help your site load faster and also bring your load down so you can handle more traffic.

Here’s how to enable compression if you have a dedicated or access to root on your server:

(Most servers have zlib installed, if you don’t have zlib installed, you will have to install that first, you can check it by making a test file and putting and search for zlib)

Add the following lines to your /etc/php.ini:

zlib.output_compression = on
zlib.output_compression_level = 5

and then restart apache! (of course):

httpd -k restart

Now, go check one of your posts on the Compression Test Tool here.

As you can see above, I just compressed one of my blog posts by a whopping 76.1%!

If you are using Super Cache plugin for Wordpress, make sure to go to options and do this too:

Now, your server will run faster since there’s less data being transmitted to your visitors, meaning you save bandwith, time, and most importantly, the ability to handle more traffic.

At 70% increase in bandwidth, that could translate to that many more visitors too as bandwidth is directly proportional to amount of time a visitor stays on your site. (Yes, I did take Calculus in college, I failed miserably before passing.) The less time a visitor takes to load a page on your blog or your site, the more time and bandwidth you have for other visitors.)

I was searching through the web for many ways to use compression for server optimization but I couldn’t find any so I sort put everything together here.

Hopefully, it helps you.

And one more thing, you can also check out this great tutorial on your httpd.conf setup.

You can always check out HOWTO decrease load on your server by 5 times also.

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DIY Linux HACK – HOW TO optimize your Wordpress Blog, MediaWiki, or any other high load website with Compression!

DIY HACK – HOWTO Upgrade (or downgrade) from Vista to Windows XP!

max — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 03:45:07 +0000

(Your computer will be faster and more reliable using Windows XP vs. Vista)

After testing out Windows Vista on one of my 6 PCs laying around my apartment, I finally decided it was time to scrap Vista for Windows XP.

Well, it turns out my HP a6040n desktop I bought off the shelf at Fry’s sucked at downgrading to XP. Why?

You go to HP’s driver downloads and they don’t even have XP drivers. I think HP has to at least put the specs of all the parts on their site. I had to open up the case and track down the motherboard, and then found a generic Intel ethernet driver just to get the internet working.

What a hassle. I love HP computers but this was probably the worst experience. (Well, I could’ve called their tech support but I am too lazy.)

Another problem I encountered? Basically I got one of those blue screen of death because the harddrive is set to “RAID” on BIOS setup and Windows XP cannot detect that unless you got a driver for it.

So all I did was set the settings back to “IDE” on BIOS setup and the blue screen of death disappeared. Wala!
(Trust me, you really don’t need RAID unless you are thinking about running bunch of servers.)

I also did some research and found you can also completely re-format your harddrive using DBAN. Although it took me some 6 hours to DBAN my HP harddrive, it was worth it. DBAN is great if your harddrive seems to be protected or whatever. Just nuke it and go along.
I also made sure to re-partition with room for Ubuntu, which I will be installing next on this experimental PC.

I used to run all Linux computers with VMware running windows on it. It did pretty good and my computer never gave me a blue screen of death. All I had to do was reboot the Virtual Machine but I might be headed down that path again soon.

Now I feel so good, it feels like I really flushed that “hard stool” that was sitting in my gut for 6 months.

Good bye Vista!

Next up we will be covering a step-by-step transition on how to install Ubuntu and use VMware to experience a new way to access the internet. Of couse, if you get bored of our tutorials, you can always go buy a Mac, we like Macs too. (they are unix based, which is pretty much a fancy Linux machine really)

You should also check out the Vista-XP parody ad we made couple months earlier.

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DIY HACK – HOWTO Upgrade (or downgrade) from Vista to Windows XP!

DIY Linux Web Server HACK – Automate your MySQL MySQL database backups

max — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 01:24:29 +0000

Okay, I’ve been running dedicated servers for couple years now and I used to mess around with Linux boxes back in college.

Here’s an essential automatic script and a cron job you will need in order to keep your backup automatic.

Yes, if you get a dedicated server, don’t get their stupid extra $15/month for backing up your database. (All they do is make scripts like this one and charge you for it)

You can follow this example and go spend that money on junk food.

So all you have to do is FTP your backup files.

This is way better than going into your phpMyAdmin and downloading from the web interface since the file is already ready for you to download.

Here’s how you do it:

1) Make a new file called backup.sh in your home directory. 2) Use the following syntax:

mysqldump -u[USERNAME] -p[PASSWORD] --opt [DATABASE NAME] > /root/backup/DATABASE1.sql

Here’s an example backup.sh file if you had 2 databases:

mysqldump -uUser1 -pPassword1 --opt Database1 > /root/backup/Database1.sql
mysqldump -uUser2 -pPassword2 --opt Database2 > /root/backup/Database2.sql
tar cvf /root/backup/sqlbackup.tar /root/backup/*

You can test your script by typing this:

sh backup.sh

(The mysqldump will overwrite the older file if you run this more than once)

3) If everything is working good, now you can put that script to be run once a day in your cron job.

For Fedora Core, you can edit this file /etc/cron.d/sa-update

Add the following line:

10 3 * * * root sh /root/backup/backup.sh

This will execute the script once a day at 3:10AM.

Now simply download one tar ball file whenever you feel like backing up your database.

You can probably change this a little bit and use it for many other things like backing up all your files too. (which I do)

If you have multiple servers like me, you can also automate your scripts to download backup databases to each server. That keeps things real redundant in case of server failure.

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DIY Linux Web Server HACK – Automate your MySQL MySQL database backups

DIY Linux DoS HACK – HOWTO Limit your the max number of TCP connections to your Web Server!

max — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:25:14 +0000

I have been reading the following book called, Linux Server Hacks, which shows you many ways you can hack your Linux server so your server doesn’t die.

This actually works since we just had a DoS attack about 5 minutes ago. (It seems like we are getting more and more DoS attacks these days. You can refer to the DDOS Deflate script also)

Here’s HACK #47 I read about last week in my bath room from the book and I just used it to prevent DoS attackers from bringing my precious Quad-CPU dedicated server down.

Enter the following commands and you will limit number of TCP connections to your server to 12 connections per second after 24 connections have been seen. (It means that no matter what, your server will not try to serve more than 12 visitors during one second of period when your server gets digged, farked, stumbled, or whatever)
iptables -t nat -N syn-flood

iptables -t nat -A syn-flood -m limit —limit 12/s —limit-burst 24 -j RETURN

iptables -t nat -A syn-flood -j DROP

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i $EXT_IFACE -d $DEST_IP -p tcp –syn -j syn-flood
I think you can increase the values steadily if your server can handle more. But it seems to have brought our server load from 33.00 somethin’ to under 1.0. Yey!

If you are a hacker, sorry dude. You are gonna have to try a little harder hacking Zedomax since we are hackers too.

P.S. You know what I try to do when I find out where the hackers are coming from, I do a DoS attack back on them. This usually pisses them off enough to DoS me more but I kinda enjoy the battle so bring it on! :p

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY Linux DoS HACK – HOWTO Limit your the max number of TCP connections to your Web Server!

Dell Ubuntu

max — Thu, 03 May 2007 01:50:00 +0000

Cool, Dell is going to be supporting Ubuntu! This is a sign that Linux and open source movement are taking over the world soon not to mention the cool open source CMS softwares like Wordpress, Joomla, Pligg, etc…etc… This is a surprise from the company that announced to not ship their products with Linux in the past.

Ever since we heard that Dell would ship computers with Linux pre-installed, we wondered which flavor it would be. It doesn’t really come as a surprise that it will be Ubuntu, which Michael Dell uses it on his home laptop.

The official announcement is expected anytime now, but we got the heads up from Ubuntu contributor Fabián Rodríguez. His post is down (thanks, Digg) but can be seen on Dugg Mirror.

[via] ifacethoughts

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Dell Ubuntu

Free Software Open Source heckler while Bill Gates speaking at a China university

max — Sat, 21 Apr 2007 02:19:27 +0000

Cool, this guy jumped out while Bill Gates was speaking at Peking University in China. I think Microsoft should go open-source…

Wen sez, “On April, 20th, Bill Gates went to Peking University to give a talk titled “Creativity, China, Future”. After the talk, someone held a piece of paper written with ‘Free software, Open source’ rushed to the stage before Mr. Gates while spoke word to support open source software. It is said that that man is named Yang Wang, and he is a representative of LPI (Linux Professional Institute)

via boingboing

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Free Software Open Source heckler while Bill Gates speaking at a China university

DIY LINUX HACK – XEYES

max — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 18:40:07 +0000

If you use Linux, you know Xeyes is a simple program that follows your mouse movements. You can check out some web examples of Xeyes. You can even paste this javascript code on your website for Xeyes on the web.

Anyway, Hunz created physical Xeyes that stands on his window and follow people’s walking movements. Tight! We want one.

The eyes are made from large pizza boxes cardboard and rolled by RC-servos that are controlled by an ATTiny2313 that’s connected to the PC using the low-speed software usb stack. The camera is connected using USB as well. Since I disassembled my webcam and hooked it up to an FPGA for some experiments, I used an analog one and a USB video digitizer.

The video processing is done using mplayer. It’s cropped first to get only the street and no neighbour estates. Then a tiny & quick&dirty video filter plugin looks for the column with the strongest Y-component difference between the last & current frame and if the difference exceeds a certain threshold, that column is passed to the microcontroller using libusb.

[via]

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY LINUX HACK – XEYES

DIY Linux/Ubuntu – How to set up a custom firewall using iptables

max — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 10:35:06 +0000

Here’s a cool DIY I stumbled onto today that shows you how to setup a custom firewall using iptables. This might not be for those of you who already have a GUI server management system but it’s good to know just in case your GUI goes down…

After getting some problems with firestarter i decided to get knowledge about iptables and how to set my own firewall script and want to share this experience for users who want to set a custom firewall up quickly.
The purpose of this guide is to provide a basic knowledge about iptables and then help to create a firewall script.
The final step will be to make the script running on each boot.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY Linux/Ubuntu – How to set up a custom firewall using iptables

DIY – VMware HOWTOs

max — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:56:20 +0000

Do you need to learn to install VMware on your new Fedora or Ubuntu? Here’s a cool site that has a massive collection on VMware howtos.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY – VMware HOWTOs

HowtoHut.com for HOWTOs and DIYs

max — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:44:49 +0000

Check out HowtoHut for some cool howtos and DIYs. I think they are new but I see some cool info so…

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

HowtoHut.com for HOWTOs and DIYs

DIY HACK – How to install Ubuntu Linux on a flash drive

max — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 19:20:40 +0000

Here’s a cool howto on installing your Ubuntu to a flash drive!

This’d be great for people like me since I can take Ubuntu with me everywhere.

via lifehacker

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

DIY HACK – How to install Ubuntu Linux on a flash drive

Ubuntu 6.10 – free alternative over Windows Vista

max — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 05:49:19 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Check out this video of the new Ubuntu 6.10!

Tight!

via

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Ubuntu 6.10 – free alternative over Windows Vista

More Matchstick rockets from Mr. Blank

max — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 11:42:23 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

You can submit your DIY ideas to Mr. Blank if it is too classified or you are too shy. Mr. Blank is an open-source guy personality, cool…
Also, check out his first matchstick rocket video! (yes, up there dude…or grrrr….)

Blank (me) is an open-source identity that web denizens can use if they want to show the world some great DIY, but are too shy (or if the DIY is of a necessarily anonymous nature

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

More Matchstick rockets from Mr. Blank

Hacking and Network Security

max — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:46:48 +0000

Here’s some cool list of hacking and network security websites:

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Hacking and Network Security

HACK – Changing Your MAC Address In Window XP/Vista, Linux And Mac OS X

max — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 22:39:17 +0000

Remember we found a MAC Address HACK for Windows the other day?

Well, here’s more ways for hacking your MAC Address that includes Windows XP, Vista, Linux, AND MAC OSX!
I think these are simpler than the ones before.

BSD

1) Bring down the interface: “ifconfig xl0 down”

2) Enter new MAC address: “ifconfig xl0 link 00:00:00:AA:AA:AA”

3) Bring up the interface: “ifconfig xl0 up”

Linux

1) Bring down the interface: “ifconfig eth0 down”

2) Enter new MAC address: “ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:00:00:AA:AA:AA”

3) Bring up the interface: “ifconfig eth0 up”

Windows 2000/XP
Method 1:

This is depending on the type of Network Interface Card (NIC) you have. If you have a card that doesn’t support Clone MAC address, then you have to go to second method.

a) Go to Start->Settings->Control Panel and double click on Network and Dial-up Connections.

b) Right click on the NIC you want to change the MAC address and click on properties.

c) Under “General” tab, click on the “Configure” button

d) Click on “Advanced” tab

e) Under “Property section”, you should see an item called “Network Address” or “Locally Administered Address”, click on it.

f) On the right side, under “Value”, type in the New MAC address you want to assign to your NIC. Usually this value is entered without the “-” between the MAC address numbers.

g) Goto command prompt and type in “ipconfig /all” or “net config rdr” to verify the changes. If the changes are not materialized, then use the second method.

h) If successful, reboot your system.

Method 2:

This should work on all Windows 2000/XP systems

a) Go to Start -> Run, type “regedt32″ to start registry editor. Do not use “Regedit”.

b) Go to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}”. Double click on it to expand the tree. The subkeys are 4-digit numbers, which represent particular network adapters. You should see it starts with 0000, then 0001, 0002, 0003 and so on.

c) Find the interface you want by searching for the proper “DriverDesc” key.

d) Edit, or add, the string key “NetworkAddress” (has the data type “REG_SZ”) to contain the new MAC address.

e) Disable then re-enable the network interface that you changed (or reboot the system).

Method 3:

Use the program Etherchange from http://ntsecurity.nu/toolbox/etherchange/

Windows 9x

Use the same method as Windows 2000/XP except for the registry key location is “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\Net” and you must reboot your system.

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

HACK – Changing Your MAC Address In Window XP/Vista, Linux And Mac OS X

List of Free Linux Games

max — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 05:35:14 +0000

Check out this list of games that are free for Linux!

via wagthis

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

List of Free Linux Games

Cool Free Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial

max — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:31:06 +0000

Here’s a cool free linux shell scripting tutorial for all you Linux hackers!

via wagthis

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Cool Free Linux Shell Scripting Tutorial

Wii HACK – Christmas Wii-remote xmms hack

max — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 03:26:40 +0000

[gv data="W534DhzufrM"][/gv]

Cool XMMS hack for linux or ubuntu users using the wii remote!
The funny thing is he doesn’t even own a Wii console, just the Wii remote!
Well, we’d probably give it some good hacks if we just had some Wii remotes too.
Two thumbs up for doing XMMS on Ubuntu!

But I don’t own a Wii console. So I hacked away in linux and got it to control my xmms mp3 player. All buttons except power button work as follows:

via

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Wii HACK – Christmas Wii-remote xmms hack

Wii HACK – Wiimote + FlightGear = Ultimate Flight Simulator?

max — Wed, 27 Dec 2006 02:26:25 +0000

Download latest version of Flash to view video!.

Click Here to View in Full Screen Mode

Remember we made a sixaxis controller for PC the other day?
Well here’s a cool one using wii controller and a Linux flight simulator,
tight!

via

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Wii HACK – Wiimote + FlightGear = Ultimate Flight Simulator?

Make your Linux box look like a MAC

max — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 20:53:52 +0000

I don’t know what it is lately, MACs have been very appealing to me lately. Maybe because the
new MACs are unix based or what… Regardless of how much money I don’t have in my pocket
to buy one, here’s a way you can make your PC look like a MAC and fool people if you have Linux
installed…

Brought to you by: Zedomax.com

Make your Linux box look like a MAC

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