Installing Programs in Linux – It’s No Longer Difficult

By S Austin

There are quite a few myths that are still common today about the Linux operating system. One of these myths is that programs are very difficult to install.

There was a time in Linux when you had to do something called compiling a program. This involved going to the terminal and manually installing all of the files. If you did this incorrectly, the program would not load. If you needed another program installed to make this one work, you would have no idea what to do. You had to do intensive research to make sure you had all the dependencies installed. It really a serious pain and much too difficult for even an expert computer user.

This misery is still remembered by many who will tell others that installing programs in Linux is simply too hard to do. Today, after about a decade of improvements (which in computer years is quite a bit) installing programs in Linux is easy. In fact, it might be easier than what most people are used to with their current systems.

Most versions of Linux have some sort of package manager. This means that a group of people have checked certain programs to make sure they work, maintain all the updates for you, and make sure all the dependencies will install when you want to put an application on your computer.

In Ubuntu, you open the Applications menu and click on Add/Remove. Search for the program you want to install. Check a box. Then hit Apply Changes. That’s it. As you can see, this is a very simple process. To remove the program you just uncheck the box and hit Apply Changes and it’s gone. That’s easy enough for almost anyone to do. Additionally, you know these packages and programs are safe for your computer since a human being has manually approved them for your computer.

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How to Use Your Palm Pilot With Ubuntu

By Linda McDermott

Palm Pilots can work with Ubuntu. Learn which program you will need and how to use this to install software to your device.

If you are using Ubuntu, there are times where you can’t use older hardware since it was never ever made for Linux. One older popular piece of hardware is the Palm Pilot. While you might not expect something like this to work, it will with your Ubuntu installation.

There is a program that comes with the distribution called Gpilot. If you don’t have this, it can be installed from the repositories depending on if you have a Debian based distribution. Otherwise you will have to manually install the software to get it to work.

Gpilot is an open source program that was written so that devices like the Palm Pilot and Ubuntu could interact.

Under System and Preferences you can find a program called PalmOS Devices. This is what you need to do in order to set up your Palm Pilot to be recognized with your system. You will need to select the port that your hardware is plugged into. Once you have successfully done this, you can use Gpilot in order to install software to your machine.

Unfortunately there is not a graphical user interface for this program so you have to use the terminal. Open the terminal and type in “gpilot-install-file” followed by the file that you want to install and press enter. You will then have to hot sync your data with your Palm Pilot which will install the software to your device.

A second way of installing software if you do not like doing it this way, is to get an old Palm SD card assuming your computer can read this type of data. You can drag and drop the files you need to install from your computer onto the SD card. For most things, you Palm Pilot will recognize this data. It can be read off the card or copied over the hard drive on the device which generally helps the application run a bit faster.

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It’s that time of the year again, the spring release of the latest Ubuntu distro, 10.4, Lucid Lynx! It’s always very exciting to be one of the first users of the latest Ubuntu offering, and this time proves to be no exception. The latest features are fresh and exciting and we will outline some of the highlights below.

• Greater support for nVidia graphics drivers
• more seamless integration of social networking services like Twitter and Facebook
• removal of HAL from boot process to speed startup
• The latest GNOME environment for the default version of Ubuntu
• Kubuntu features KDE SC 4.4
• New themes and wallpapers are also added
• Ubuntu One file synching
• Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud is updated
• Ubuntu One Music Store will be unveiled
• Linux kernel 2.6.32
• Mozilla Firefox browser default search engine changed to Yahoo!

It certainly looks like this update to the most popular Linux distro is more than just minor changes, and more profound improvements to this great package are arriving.

Get your copy of Ubuntu today!

Running Commands at Startup in Debian and Ubuntu – The Simplest Approach

By Austin White

Running custom scripts on startup is a common operation in the Linux community. In my case, when the machine hosting my website needs to be rebooted or even crashes, it is critical that the backend processes that the website depends on start correctly. For other Linux or BSD users, it can be useful to start up useful background processes, perhaps servers for accessing your machine remotely.

The Classic Method for Running Processes at Startup

The most documented way of starting processes when the machine boots is to add a control script to /etc/init.d. This script must take an argument that can be one of “stop,” “start,” and “restart.” An example of such a script would be /etc/init.d/ssh, which is used to start and stop the ssh server. When a machine shuts down, it is important for many daemons to clean up their pid files and otherwise shut down nicely. However, for user-run processes, simply being sent SIGTERM as part of normal shutdown is sufficient.

Here is an example of a script that is used only for starting a process.

$ cat /etc/init.d/boot_server

#!/bin/sh -e

case "$1" in

start)

/home/prod/start_server.sh

;;

stop)

;;

reload|restart|force-reload)

/home/prod/start_server.sh

;;

*)

echo "Usage: [this] {start|stop|restart|reload|force-reload}" >&2

exit 1

;;

esac

exit 0

To ensure that daemons are started and stopped, particularly in the correct order, the machine runs special symlinks to these scripts. The symlinks have special names that either begin with an S or a K. For example, my machine has /etc/rc3.d/S20lighttpd and /etc/rc0.d/K20lighttpd. (The numbers in the rc directory names are known as runlevels. A discussion of runlevels is beyond the scope of this article, and if you wish to know more, there are a number of good resources on the internet.) Scripts beginning with S are used to start a process during bootup. Those beginning with K are used to kill a process during shutdown. The number in the link name is used to determine the order in which these processes are started and killed.

Thus, to run a process at startup on your Linux machine, you would need to both add a script to /etc/init.d that takes “start” as an argument, and you would want to add symlinks to your script to the /etc/rc*.d directories. Your scripts have to follow the naming convention described above, probably starting with S99 or S98 to ensure that your processes start after all the important system daemons. The K symlink is unnecessary.

Using /etc/rc.local – A Better Way to Start Processes on Debian and Ubuntu

Instead of adding a startup script and the related symlinks, a much easier approach is to add your commands to the bash script /etc/rc.local. A quick look at /etc/rc.local demonstrates that it is rather self-explanatory.

$ cat /etc/rc.local

#!/bin/sh -e

#

# rc.local

#

# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.

# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other

# value on error.

#

# In order to enable or disable this script just change the execution

# bits.

#

# By default this script does nothing.

exit 0

At the end of /etc/rc.local, but before the exit 0 line, I can simply add a call to my server startup script:

# Run website processes

/home/prod/start_server.sh

It is a one-line change, instead of adding an overly complicated script and the related symlinks. Of course, this is not an option if you require additional commands to be run at shutdown. In addition, if you need your process to be started before some other system process, you must resort to the classic startup script as discussed above. /etc/rc.local almost the last script to be run as part of the boot process.

Conclusion: Use /etc/rc.local to Run Processes at Startup in Linux

Classic startup scripts in /etc/init.d and /etc/rc*.d are appropriate for many daemons and some more complicated user processes that must either start before a system process or be cleaned up during shutdown. However, /etc/rc.local is preferred for all other cases. It is a simple bash script you can edit as root on your machine.

Austin is a software engineer working on askR.com, a social recommendations site.

View his personal website.

The Free Ubuntu Operating System

By Carl Broady

My Compaq Presario XP recently got infected with a particularly malicious virus. This is the second time that this PC had been infected. The first time I used the system restore disks and completely restored the PC to its original day one configuration. What a pain that was.

When I hooked the restored PC up to the Internet it seemed to take the best part of a week downloading and configuring updates. After the second infection I was unable to find the system restore disks which was almost a relief. I disconnected the computer and was even considering throwing it away.

I had heard about the free open source Linux operating system: Ubuntu, and so using another computer I Googled Ubuntu and went to their site.

I read the download and installation instructions on the page. It all seemed pretty straightforward so I went ahead and downloaded the latest version: Ubuntu 9.10 and then transferred the downloaded program to a CD-R as per the instructions.

My infected Compaq Presario would boot up to the desktop but none of the icons would load. I could access some of the programs using the control alt delete command but it gave stripped down versions of the programs with limited functionality.

I put the Ubuntu CD-R into my infected Compaq Presario’s CD drive and booted it as per the instructions on the Ubuntu website. The on-screen instructions asked if I wanted to have both operating systems on my machine or just Ubuntu. I decided to completely erase XP which of course was infected and replace it with Ubuntu. I clicked 100% Ubuntu. It warmed me one last time that windows XP would be completely erased from my computer. I click okay and the installation began.

The installation was pretty straightforward and it took just a few minutes before I had the fully functional Ubuntu operating system on my PC and within a very short space of time I had my PC up and running.

Ubuntu is different than Windows but has many of the same features and is pretty intuitive.

Ubuntu comes with a whole bundle of great preinstalled programs. The Open Office suite, which rivals Microsoft office. A web browser: Mozilla Firefox, which has most of the same controls as Explorer but in different places. It has a preinstalled games package with several popular card games: Blackjack, Solitaire etc. Ubuntu has it’s own media player for MP3s and videos etc which works very well.

Ubuntu also has a built-in software link where you can access approximately 2700 free Ubuntu programs.

My first impression of Ubuntu is that I like it, a lot. It seems very stable seems to be very user-friendly and easy-to-use.

The installation process for software and applications is slightly different from Windows, but not very difficult. I downloaded and easily installed Skype for Linux and made a few International phone calls. It worked just fine.

Ubuntu has a several advantages over Windows. One of the major advantages of Ubuntu is that it is almost immune from viruses. Ubuntu is free of charge. Ubuntu seems to take up far less room on the hard drive and because it is almost immune from viruses it does not require an antivirus program gobbling up resources. My PC now seems to run four times faster with Ubuntu than it did with Microsoft XP but admittedly when I installed Ubuntu it got rid of a lot of junk: old unused software, probably a few orphaned files and a lot of old e-mails.

Most popular Windows program seem to have an Ubuntu/Linux version or counterpart. Windows programs will not run on Ubuntu unless you install a program called wine to run them. I haven’t had the need to do this as of yet.

I have another Desktop PC running Vista. I bought a switch which allows me to use two computers with just one mouse, one keyboard and one monitor. This has worked out very well for me because now I don’t have Ubuntu instead of but as well as Microsoft Windows.

If you have just upgraded and have an old PC or laptop lying around then I strongly recommend before you get rid of your old machine that you install Ubuntu and give it a try. I think you will be very pleased and very impressed. I know I was.

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Recently my nephew came to visit and brought his computer. It was running WinXP and he said the CD drives were broken, and it needed a new motherboard! Well, since he’s only 12 his diagnosis was understandably quite a bit off. There’s no need to pay a technician huge sums of money to “fix” this broken system, with my trusty case full of live Linux discs I was ready to start.

First, we booted into Windows– It did not recognize the CD drives in the computer, Device Manager reported a problem with the drivers, indicated by yellow exclamation points.

Now, normally a casual Windows user would have to start jumping through hoops trying to figure out how to fix the drivers problem, but in this case he was done with Windows, what with all the spyware and general instability problems, and he was ready to give Linux a try. So, we turned off the PC, let it sit for 10 seconds, then turned it on, inserted the Linux Live disc (Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala), and booted up into Linux.

Some argue that Windows is inherently easier to use than Linux, while that may have been true 15 years ago before the Graphical User Interface became increasingly popular for Linux distros, nowadays there are new advantages to the less-savvy computer to really like about Linux.

For instance, look at this example about problems with drivers for CD-ROM drives. Most Linux distros come complete with CD-ROM drivers, video drivers, USB device drivers (Like my Linksys Wireless-G stick) which has never been the case with Microsoft’s Windows. When you first install Windows on a PC you aren’t done yet–Oh no, it will probably a couple hours for you to track down all the proper drivers for your system. Linux- put your Live CD in the drive, boot up and go!

And, if you want to add more software to your Linux system, you have the convenience of Package Managers.  All the biggest Linux distros have thousands of all different types of applications available from games, to business, to development specifically put together for that particular distro. For instance, Ubuntu has over 20,000 different programs known as “packages” that are each uniquely tailored to your particular ditribution. Package managers resolve dependency problems which have historically plagued operating systems like Linux because there were specific versions of individual files required by some programs that weren’t already installed on the system, resulting in problems.

Getting out of the “Windows mindset” gives one the freedom to expand his horizons when it comes to getting the most out of one’s computer system with the least cost.

#1 Families with kids who use the computer

Those of us who have kids know that they aren’t so savvy about what not to click on especially when surfing the Internet. Without a mindful grownup watching everything his child does online, problems are soon to crop up. Leave a 10 year old alone for an hour by himself on the family PC and I will say with almost 100% certainty that their will be spyware and viruses on that computer! Besides the obvious danger involved in letting kids surf the web without proper filters, the great chance of them clicking on those fancy “animated cursor ads”, or any of a vast number of fancy Flash attention grabbers will absolutely fill your Windows PC with security threats.

So what’s the solution, you ask

The solution to this problem is to use a Linux Live CD on that computer! Simply put a Live CD in the CD-ROM drive, shutdown your Windows machine, and when you turn it back on, you will have a menu appear that will allow you to boot into one of many Linux Operating Systems, and they can click and surf with abandon since the Linux Live environment will not touch your installed Windows system.

The image above shows what you see when you put in the Linux disc, in this case we use Ubuntu, it’s the most popular but there are surely scores of other Linux distros that will work very well.

Using Linux as a Live CD is certainly a fun endeavor, but it does have a few drawbacks–namely, the most important difference for most of them is that anything you do in Linux while in the Live environment will not be save once you’re done and restart the computer. Anything you change, like adding programs, changing system settings, etc., will all be gone for next time. But this shouldn’t be a problem for the casual Linux dabbler.

#2 People who use many different computers

What do you do when find yourself with several different computers at home, and you like to go to your friends’ houses and use their computers? Maybe you want to show them what your doing on your computer, but you don’t really want to drag an entire desktop computer to someone’s house, do you?

So what’s the solution, you ask

The answer is, you can install your entire system onto one of those small USB memory sticks. As long as the computer you stick it into supports booting from USB (and most modern computer do), then you can simply take your PC with you in your pocket!

And Ubuntu makes this very simple to do since they have a command to create a “USB Startup Disk”:

It’s really that simple- Once you have your “Startup Disk”, you really have a full Ubuntu installation on a Flash drive that ’s only limited by the capacity of the drive.

As you can see, these are just two examples of how people who wouldn’t normally think that they would have a good use for that “other” operating system, there really are some great “out-of-the-box” uses for Linux besides the everyday use some may find intimidating.

Check back here for more great uses of Linux and thanks for reading!

Convert Your Old Computer to a Linux Server

By Jan Pascal

Linux is a very popular platform. Not just because it is free but also because it is reliable and supports anything you can imagine. A popular setup is a Linux server without any graphical user interface. It can be used for web hosting, as a file server, as a database server, or for anything you need. Most people comfortable with Windows operating system are afraid to start thinking in a different way. In fact, installing and using Linux is pretty simple.

Once you decide to go for it you have already made the first step. The next step is to get some basic information about installing Linux. There are many Linux distributions. One that is very popular is Ubuntu. Simply Google for “ubuntu server” and learn about what do you need to install Linux. In general, things are pretty simple. You can install Linux on almost any machine. Your old computer that was replaced some time ago is a perfect choice for Linux. You only need some space on the hard drive, a CD or DVD drive, a network card and a lot of patience.

The first step is to make a bootable CD with the latest Ubuntu server image. Download the image file and burn it on a CD. Then you boot your computer with this CD and start installing Linux. It is a good idea to do this installation next to your main computer with internet accesses. This way you will be able to browse for any problem you may encounter. The most important thing you should know is that for every question you may have, there is an answer on some web page waiting for you. You only have to find it.

The installation process is pretty straight-forward. If you don’t understand what the installer is asking you then simply select the default option. Of course, you can also ask Google for it and then choose appropriate option. You should understand that the Linux principle is very different from the Windows one. But once you become familiar with Linux shell and basic commands it will be very easy to work with Linux and to install and configure new software.

Having a Linux server is a great upgrade to your home network. This server will be your reliable storage for large peer-to-peer files, web server for website development or a computer to play with. And remember, sooner or later you will encounter a problem. Something will not work or you will not know how to change some setting. All you have to do is to search for the answer on the web. Web pages offer a giant encyclopedia on Linux.

The author is a big Linux fan and all his websites were developed on a home Linux server. One such project is http://hydronicfloorheating.org/ which offers some basic information on Hydronic Floor Heating.

What Is Ubuntu?

By Roharme D

Ubuntu is an easy version of Linux. It is not windows,but it is almost user friendly like windows. No all applications have graphical interface. Many applications force users to use commands to run them.Commands are mandatory to work with Linux and Ubuntu is not an exception.

Useful Commands:

* apt-get – Call Advanced Packaging Tool.

* clear – Clears terminal screen

* cat [filename] – Opens the file in terminal

* cat > [filename] – Createsa file with name mentioned

* chmod – Change the mode of a file to read, write, execute, extract etc.

* gedit – Opens gnome editor

* gksudo [program name] – Open graphic interface of an application with administrator

* install – Install a package or a component

* pon – Trigger a dsl-connection

* poff – Turn of a dsl-connection

* plog -PPPOE Log file.

* sudo -To become an administration for that particular transaction / terminal session alone.

* privileges.

* synaptic – Open package installer

* vi – Opens VI editor

Installing a software:

Ubuntu does not support direct executable files. You will either be provided with a compiled object that can be installed as such or the complete source code itself. In case of source code, it must be compiled first to proceed with the installation. There is no fixed way to compile the code. It depends upon the language in which the software has been written.

Fully compiled software will have standard extensions which Ubuntu understands by their extension.Some standard file type are

*.run – These files types must be executed with shell command as

* sh.run

*.deb – Deb is the abbreviated form of Debian packages. These packages can be installed right away by double clicking.It opens itself in package installer.

*.bin – These are standard binary files. They might be locked sometimes. They must be provided privileges before executing. The privileges can be changed by the command chmod with the switch +x.To install the software, use the command./[FILENAME].bin (note the dot in the beginning)

There are many other ways of installing a software.

Synaptic Manager:

This is a built-in Ubuntu installer. Ubuntu, keeps track of many useful and popular packages. They are indexed in the synaptic manager. You can install the software using the synaptic manager, if the software is listed in it.

To start synaptic manager, use the command sudo synaptic

Application Package Tool:

APT is one of the typical features of Ubuntu. There are plenty of software and utilities that can directly be installed in your system without having a downloaded soft copy. Just naming the package would suffice. Some famous package that can be installed with APT are

sudo apt-get install sun-java6-sdk sudo apt-get install xmms sudo apt-get install vlc sudo apt-get install mvn sudo apt-get install ant sudo apt-get install svn

Almost all applications can be opened using a command line. Command line version of software are faster than graphic interface as they occupy less memory.This could be a handy guide for beginners. But this is just a piece of Ubuntu. There are many things are there to be learnt to play with Ubuntu.

Linux Operating System – Things I’ve Learned About This System Over the Years
By Richard S. Corbin

The Linux operating system is being talked about more and more these days. The current financial crisis has had large corporations as well as governments rethinking what it costs to be online and just how much is being spent on computing technology.

A recent BBC news feed reported that a portion of the government dealing with the public could save millions of pounds yearly by switching to Open Source for it’s computer needs and indeed would be switching this year.

Here are some things I’ve learned in the last 5 years of using Linux( Ubuntu and Kubuntu versions):

• Easy to acquire this technology. Linux is everywhere on the internet. You simply download it or send for a CD copy of it. I think the cds cost about $5.00. Not bad for a complete operating system.
• The system includes a full office suite, e-mail program, web browser, audio and video programs, graphics programs, photo software, CD/DVD software etc. Also, there are many different types of the software mentioned to pick and choose from. I’ve seen lists of over 20,000 different software packages to choose from. It’s simply amazing. However, I must mention, just because this software is free does not mean it is cheap or poorly made. An example is the Open Office Suite that comes with the operating system. This suite is made by Sun Microsystems and is equal to and better than Microsoft Office in many ways. (Have you priced Microsoft Office lately?)
• Very user friendly software. You can run it from the CD and try it out before you even load it on your computer. Also, you can install it along side your existing software so that you can compare them and decide for yourself which one is better.
• I have learned how to set it up and simply use it or with the help of support from around the world I have tweaked it and changed it to suit how I wanted it to operate. Don’t get me wrong, I have totally messed up my system also. However, with all of the free support I have fixed the problems I have created too.
• I have tried different distributions of Linux also. Sometimes having three versions on my computer at one time, just to see how they compare!
• It was surprisingly liberating to get out from under the restrictions of Windows. I could do whatever I wanted. Upgrade, downgrade, tweak, and even mess up, knowing that I could just download a new version if I totally screwed up my computer. No registration, always supported, no costly upgrades. Freedom with my computer. And if I chose to set it up and not mess with it but use it continually I could do that. I actually have a second computer to try different stuff on.

I would have to say that my experience with Linux over the years has been a blast. I feel like I am in control. I have never had to take my computer in to have it serviced. Which I might add was why I switched from Windows. I was in service a lot and paying big bucks to have someone fix it because I couldn’t afford to call support and get them to try on the phone to fix it. I was very frustrated to say the least.

Now you can try the Linux operating system for yourself and have some fun and freedom.

At the following site you can see a comparison of Windows software to Linux software. There is also a free gift. http://www.linuxez.info