An easy to read, accurate and in plain language guide to the linux operating system.
Preface
Some of my readers today will be aware of a beautiful operating system that goes by the name of Linux. For those who are not already familiar, here is a brief introduction: Linux is a free open-source alternative to Windows and Macintosh. Based off of Unix, Linus Torvalds laid the framework for the kernel many years ago and then made the source code open to all. He still works on the kernel today, but he’s not alone; millions of programmers around the world work to improve Linux with their free time. They’ve worked hard to bring Linux to maturity, and as of the past couple years, it has reached a mature stage where the average computer user is more than capable of using it. In other words, you no longer need to know how a computer works or how to program in order for Linux to be useful to you.
So why am I bringing up this topic? Quite frankly, there aren’t enough Linux users accessing TechwareLabs, and I believe this needs to change.
Continue reading ‘An Introduction to Linux Operating System’
KWin, the standard KDE window manager in KDE4.0, ships with the first version of built-in support for compositing, making it also to compositing manager. This allows KWin to provide advanced graphical effects, similar to Compiz, while also providing all the features from previous KDE releases. Unlike Compiz, KWin still functions even when not system support for compositing is available, with only the compositing features being unavailable. KWin in KDE4.0 is also relatively new tails and has not been extensively optimized yet, therefore its performance may not be in loads areas comparable with performance of other compositing managers. In such cases performance should be improved with newer versions.Smoothness of KWin rendering can be improved by setting the env.variable KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK to 1. This sets ‘ _ _ GL_YIELD=NOTHING’ for KWin, letting KWin use more CPU Time for OpenGL operations, however at the expense of affecting performance of other applications. Therefore, this is disabled by default. This setting may be removed in the future if the negative impact becomes insignificant.
Open ~/.profile file and the following line:
export KWIN_NVIDIA_HACK=1
For more on this check COMPOSITE_HOWTO. Now see the difference.
Tip: In loads cases, overall smoothness may be increased by turning off direct rendering in advanced options in the Desktop Effects configuration module (Alt+F3->Configure Window Behavior).
No optimastion or tweaks for ATI video cards that I have noticed so far. If you know, let us know.
Some industrious programmers have found a way to hack the Archos 605 WiFi portable video player to run the Qtopia Linux platform. By the looks of it, the Qtopia hack doesn’t add much in the way of extra media features (the Archos does pretty well as-is), but it opens the door to developing the Archos 605 WiFi as a more generally useful and configurable tablet PC. The Qtopia hack appears to work on older models of the Archos players as well, although the Archos fifth-generation players seem to be easier to configure.
Each day, I come across someone on the blogosphere complaining about the design of a Web site. Some don’t like screaming text, others don’t like banners, and still others hate ads. My pet peeves include pop-ups and unwanted JavaScript and cookies. Removing such junk can speed up your Internet connection, since you’re no longer wasting bandwidth downloading data you find useless. Here are some tools you can use to filter the content a Web site renders to you.
Privoxy
Privoxy is a standalone application full of impressive features. It’s a breeze to install. Its default settings are ideal for most users. Fedora and Ubuntu users can respectively install it with the commands yum install privoxy and sudo apt-get install privoxy, or you can grab the source tarball and install it with the commands ./configure, make, make install. Once installed, Privoxy will bind to localhost (127.0.0.1) at port 8118. You can choose a different port and network interface during the manual installation, or specify it under section 4.1 of the /etc/privoxy/config file.
Continue reading ‘Keep Internet junk content away with content filters’
Creating an AS400 terminal with an Old PC and Ubuntu
This how to uses Ubuntu 7.10 Server install. I am sure that this could be done with a much smaller install base, rather than server - I might have used the Alternative CD, or maybe even some other distribution like DSL, or Puppy Linux (if you needed GUI [graphical user interface] ). But for proof of concept this worked fine. I used an Old Dell GX100 Optiplex with 256 MB of RAM (I don’t think I need any more that 128 [maybe even 64MB], but this is what was in the box when I pulled it out of the pile). It has a small form factor, and runs pretty quiet. My steps are geared toward English & US, so you may want to change those if your using something else =).
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Build A HylaFax Server With AvantFax Frontend Using Debian Etch
Install Debian. I used the basic barebones install option. I did
some things that were done because of preference, and not necessary. I
have marked them approriately. I encourage contributions from anyone
who would like to add or correct something in this HowTo to contact me
so I can fix it. I have installed this setup twice following these
instructions and used Avantfax 2.3.0. Thanks to all the resources who
helped me figure this out. Especially Razametal, who submitted a
fantastic Spanish language walkthrough on ecualug.org.
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Writing Snort Rules On EnGarde
There are already tons of written Snort rules, but there just might
be a time where you need to write one yourself. You can think of
writing Snort rules as writing a program. They can include variables,
keywords and functions. Why do we need to write rules? The reason is,
without rules Snort will never detect someone trying to hack your
machine. This HOWTO will give you confidence to write your own rules.
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How To Masquerade On Linux (Internet Connection Sharing)
It’s very simple to masquerade (internet connection sharing in
Windows language ) on Linux with a few lines of iptables and ip_forward
commands.
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