Ubuntu commandline tips

Did you know that you can get useful command line hints in Ubuntu? Simply install the fortunes ubuntu server-package with the following command:

 sudo apt-get install fortunes-ubuntu-server 

You can now execute the command below to get random useful tips.

 ubuntu-server-tip 

You could also add this command to the .bashrc to get random useful tips every time you open the terminal!

Guide: Xubuntu minimal install

Sometimes you need a bare minimum Xubuntu install, like when you’re dealing with weak hardware, or if you just want a minimal install without all the added extra programs/libraries.  When setting up a Xubntu minimal install, I usually base the install on the Ubuntu MinimalCD ISOs. Step 1 – Download Ubuntu MinmalCD: The Ubuntu MinmalCD … Continue reading

wget – Prebuilt binary for Mac OSX Lion, Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion

I love wget. Its simplicity, speed, and small size. I use wget all the time on my linux boxes, and on my macs. Sadly, there are no new binarys of wget for Mac, so you’ll have to build them yourself. This involves downloading Xcode, a massive beast with a size of over 2 GB, and … Continue reading

Copy files from computer to computer securely using SCP – A short guide

SCP is a program that enables you to copy a file from one machine to another using an encrypted SSH stream. This makes sure that no-one can read or alter your data while it’s been transmitted. I regulary use this to copy files from my university to my apartment in a secure manner.  You can also use SCP to pull … Continue reading

Monitoring harddrive write and reads individual processes and programs in Ubuntu/Debian using iotops

iotop in an application that enables you to monitor the hard drive write and reads for individual processes, much like in the same way top monitors cpu/memory usage. iotop can easily be installed in Ubuntu, or other Debian based distros by entering this command in a terminal: iotop can only run under a Linux 2.6.20 or later kernel built … Continue reading

Monitoring bandwidth usage of individual processes and programs in Ubuntu/Debian using NetHogs

Have you ever wondered what programs/processes  are using your bandwidth, and at what rate? With NetHogs, this is very easy. NetHogs groups the usage by processes so you at a glance can see what is using bandwidth.  NetHogs version 0.5 supports both IPv4 and IPv6, and both Ethernet and PPP. The program can easily be installed using the standard repos of … Continue reading

Using and mounting a RAM disk in Ubuntu – The easy way

Conventional hard drives are great for storing large amounts of information at low-cost, but their speed is not that great.  A SSD boosts the speed to extreme levels in comparison, but they’re still quite expensive. By storing data on a RAM disk, you can get more than the speed of an SSD, without paying the extra cost for  the … Continue reading

Sad FreeNAS Box

As my earlier post stated, I bought a new CPU to replace the old one, which I suspected was the culprit behind all the checksum errors.  The problem is still persisting. The box is still throwing new checksum errors. I’m starting to suspect that my RAM might be the problem here. I’ll swap them out alternately with another pair I’ve … Continue reading

Bringing the FreeNAS Box back to life

A few months ago my beloved FreeNAS Boxed died on me. I was running a ZFS Raidz based system, with a redundancy level similar to a Raid5 setup. The box behaved strangely for a few months after the initial setup, but soon some files on the shared folder refused to load in VLC, giving me … Continue reading

Self-inflicted Rick Roll

Now and then I look through my old bookmarks. I have a bad habit, I usually don’t label them, or even name them. So my list of bookmarks consists of a whole bunch of URLs. Here the other day I went on my bi-monthly bookmark safari, randomly clicking at unlabeled and un-named bookmarks. One of them was a … Continue reading