GNU Linux

Most linux users are aware of the basic Linux terminal commands such as cd, ls, rm, rmdir, mkdir etc. Now let us take a look at some other commands which will help you make the best of the linux shell/terminal.

The find command available in GNU/Linux shells is a versatile tool for finding files matching the given conditions in a folder and performing a specific action on the files found. The following command will find all files greater than 1M size in your current folder and ask you if you would like to delete the file

find . -size +1M -exec rm -i {} \;


md5sum stands for message digest version 5, which is used to check file integrity whether the transferred files are corrupted or not. md5 is a command line utility used in both LINUX or MS-DOS/WINDOWS which generates and verifies message digests using the md5 algorithm. The md5 hash comparison detects changes in files that would cause errors. The possibility of errors is proportional to the size of the file. The possibility of errors will increase with the increase in size of the file.

Zyxware Technologies conducted a series of GNU/Linux workshops on Free Software Tools, as part of the Free Software training imparted to the Staff of Santhigiri Ashram. Santhigiri Ashram at Pothencode, Trivandrum is an Ashram pursuing the cause of a spiritual awakening in society.

It's another Friday Morning at the office, and Sandeep's fingers are running across his keyboard at twice the speed of light (or well, at a few fractions of the speed of light).

STATUATORY WARNING: Get ready to be Terminally Surprised

(and you thought you knew programming?)

It was one normal Friday Morning, and Tingu was thinking of how to spend the rest of her day, when Binny came along with sl and bb to make Tingu's day...

Networking in Ubuntu means that you will need to know how to conduct Samba server configuration. Samba is the standard Windows interoperability suite of programs for Linux and Unix. Samba server configuration is essential to seamlessly integrate Linux/Unix Servers and Desktops into Active Directory environments.

We have added more than 170 new GNU/Linux distribution CDs and DVDs to our RequestCD program within the last 30 days. Please find below the list of all the newly added products. You can visit our online shop to buy GNU/Linux CDs and DVDs or visit any of the links below to buy the specific item.

We have updated our online Request CD shop to include all the latest and most popular GNU/Linux Distros so that you can get GNULinux CD's  delivered to your doorstep. Trying out all your favourite distros is hard if you do not want to rely too much on your Internet connection. As part of our initiative in promoting Free Software and GNU/Linux  we are trying to provide GNU/Linux fans with an alternative, easy and cost effective way of delivering GNU/Linux Distros. We have all the Top 10 Linux Distros ready for shipping. Other lesser known distros are also available and the rare ones can be made available on order. Have a look at the Top 10 GNU/Linux Distros available in the shop.

When a file is deleted, only the pointer to the file is overwritten and the original file will still reside in the blocks of the storage device and will be kept there until it is overwritten by another file. In a sense, you can always write a file but you can never delete it. So if you have ever faced the dilemma of trying to recover a deleted file in Ubuntu then look no further. Linux offers a wide range of tools for recovering deleted files. These tools work by retrieving the pointer to the deleted files.

Wireless connectivity is one reason why laptops have become so popular in today’s world. But then there are a wide variety of laptops having a wide combination of parts from different manufacturers. This makes support for wireless vary across laptops with respect to Ubuntu/Linux. Not every laptop’s wireless network connectivity works directly from the installation of Ubuntu/Linux which is apparent from the numerous posts on the issue on the web. One needs to configure and tweak the settings to make it work. One such issue is found in the ThinkpadZ570 as described below.

Converting videos have come to be a pain in the back for most new Ubuntu users due to the hassle involved in installation of formats and finding a suitable software package. As usual like everything else in Ubuntu the scenario is changing rapidly. Contrary to popular belief, video converting is pretty easy in Ubuntu once your get to know the right tools for the job. FFmpeg is a versatile tool when it comes to converting videos as it is a video converter and so much more. If you know how to use the command line then no other video conversion package matches the power and flexibility of FFmpeg. For those you who would rather prefer a GUI based conversion package, FFmpeg also offers you a graphical frontend. We have compiled a step by step guide to using FFMPEG to convert videos in Ubuntu.

We now have the full Repositories for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Lucid Lynx. The full set of Ubuntu Repository DVDs (set of 8 DVDs) are now available and you can order it through our RequestCD Program. The repositories (both 32bit and 64 bit) are available as DVD repositories or as full repository folders on an External Hard Drive. Get your copy and enjoy the glory of GNU Linux.

BSNL had recently launched their 3G services in India with speeds of up to 3.6Mbps. Interestingly the 3G USB modem provided by BSNL also comes with a wvdial front end targeting GNU Linux users. Welcome change from the national telecom provider. Unfortunately the 3G USB device(ZTE MF626 HSDPA with device id 19d2:2000) had the same problem with switching the mode from the storage device, that it gets detected by default, like its predecessors. Here are the steps for configuring the BSNL 3G modem in Ubuntu. This should work with minor variations in other GNU Linux distros as well.

Counterpath X-Lite is free SIP based softphone that is pretty popular. The X-Lite is a stripped down version of the premium SIP solutions offered by the same company. X-Lite is available for GNU/Linux as well but only as a 32bit binary. Recently one of our customers walked in with X-Lite software and a 64bit Arch Linux installation requesting us to set up the 32bit X-Lite soft phone on the 64bit machine. The following steps describe how we did it on Arch Linux. It should work fine on any other 64bit GNU/Linux distributions with minor variations.

When you you wish to run multiple services bound to different IPs possibly under different subnets from a single machine the simple way is to create multiple virtual adapters tied to a single physical card. The following instructions are for CentOS but should also work for RedHat and Fedora.

If you install sendmail on your desktop and have not configured your system correctly you will very likely come across this problem. Ubuntu boot up slows down considerably and stops for a long time at the "Starting Mail Transport Agent (MTA) sendmail" line. This is because sendmail is trying to resolve your host and times out failing to do so. You can fix this problem easily by making a few changes in to yours hosts file.

OpenOffice is possibly one among the finest examples on what can be achieved in the world of Free Software. For starters, OpenOffice is an office application suite in the lines of Microsoft Office and is available for Windows, Mac and Linux. The latest stable release is OpenOffice 3.1. You may want to know how to install OpenOffice 3.1 in Ubuntu. Now let us take a look at the list of extensions you could use in OpenOffice.

Rar used to be a favorite compression format when the compressed files were to be split into multiple pieces to fit into legacy external storage devices like Floppy, Zip disk, CD etc. WinRAR is a popular GUI application that can rar and unrar files in the rar format. If however you come across rar files that are split into multiple parts then you can extract and combine them as follows

Firefox is readying itself for yet another major release. That is an amazing feat by itself when you consider the fact that, they had another major release, called Firefox 3.0, less than a year ago. Now it is time for highly revised and improved Firefox 3.5. You can even give it a try by installing the release candidate vesrion called Firefox 3.5RC2 in your Ubuntu. But we recommend you to wait until the official release of Firefox 3.5 which is safer. Firefox 3.5RC2 is only for testing purposes.