Unix/Linux OS

Move to Triple Boot with Grub

endoftheline — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:46:36 GMT

Ihave 1 HD with Ubuntu 9.10 Desktop Installed, and windows 7 Ultimateinstalled. When I boot grub gives me the option to choose betweenUbuntu or Windows 7.
I would now like to also install Windows XP Professional. I'm wonderingif installing windows XP Pro now, will cause any issues with my currentgrub boot menu. Is there anything special I might need to do to ensurethat Grub stays as the boot menu and allows me to boot between Ubuntu,Win 7, and Win XP?

data salvage

kcihtred2 — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 21:37:22 GMT

ok heres what happened, my dad had a desktop he dual booted between xp and fedora 10, and now he needs the data off it. When we plug it into a linux machine (ubuntu or fedora) we cannot seem to see the fedora partition of the computer, however the grub boot loader and windows parition comes up fine... any ideas on how to get the data off?

Runbook: Linux.Reprioriting Processes

root — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:22:06 GMT

Intro

Some of you might be aware of this, others may not, but you can actually prioritize your applications in an OS. Windows you can do it under Task Manager, and Linux you can use something called 'nice' or 'renice'.

Why?

Why would one want to change the prioritize or an application/script/process/etc? There are a few situations where you want a process to have a lower priority than others. Take for instance you are trans-coding a video (heavy CPU task) but you don't want it to interfere with your web browsing or movie watching when you're on the computer. This can be done by setting the trans-code process to a lower priority than everything else. Meaning, when you are away from you computer (say, sleeping), the trans-coding can take on all the unused CPU process.

How?

Two ways of going about it. You can either start an application/script/etc at a certain level or you can re-prioritize it after you've started it. But before we get into this, let's touch brieflly on nice. There are varing degree's of priority with nice, ranging from -20 to 19. -20 is the highest priority a task can have while 19 is the lowest priority. If that sounds backwards to you, think of the nice number as being "how nice will this play with others?"

Most distros start an application as 0. So how do we change this? Let's say we want to run a script called 'transcode.sh' on the lowest priority, there are two ways about it:

Start it at 19...

nice 19 ./transcode.sh

or change it to 19 after it's been started...

./transcode.sh
ps aux | grep transcode.sh
renice 19 12543

Where 12543 is the process ID found in the 'ps' output (hint: it's right next to the user name).

Now, when you are surfing the net or doing general tasks on the computer, the transcode process will have the lowest priority and it won't hinder your webbrowsing. But when you step away, and you're no longer using the browser, the transcode process will take up all your CPU power.

Footnotes

1. If you nice a process into the negatives, you must have root privileges.

2. If you don't specify a nice value, it defaults to 10.

Netbooks, Win XP to Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook (No Help)

aesman — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:28:57 GMT

About a year ago I bought an HP Mini netbook (Not to be confused with Notebook).

The HP I bought has a Solid State HDD. It isn't as large as the disk drives, being only 8GB for a HDD, but netbooks are very small and therefore drop more than notebooks. So, going for a 60GB HDD was not worth the risk of damage (Trust me it paid off). Anyway, I didn't buy the netbook to do other than surf the net and socialize. So, I didn't need more then 8GB's.

However, HP had the bright Idea to load the machine with Windows XP, and not some small device version, I am talking about the FULL version with SP2. Then on top of that, they only through in a 512MB stick of RAM, even though SP2 requires 1GB of RAM.

After only about two months of very slow use, the 8GB's on the HDD were filled very fast with updates and basic programs. No images, No music, and No video were on the drive. Nothing but OS and a few other needed Web based programs like Adobe Flash and Microsoft Sivlerlight.

Eventually, it got to the point where the 8GB's were completely filled with this necessary stuff to run properly. I couldn't even preform a defragmentation because I didn't have enough space available to complete the process.

GREAT!

HP and Microsoft FAIL because they took the easy way out, and tried to load a heavy OS, with some 50 million lines of code (I don't know the exact amount anymore).

So, the other day, I decided to give Ubuntu a go. As I was reading through the website, i came across this little NETbook Gem!

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-netbook

An Operating System designed for a NETBOOK - Brilliant!!!!!

I installed this bad boy and have noticed so many advantages, that listing them here would take for ever, but the major improvement is in the GUI because the Desktop is not the average Desktop. It is designed Specifically for netbooks, not towers (with a P4 or Dual Core), and therefore far more superior.

I was ready to just junk this machine until Google Chrome OS came out. It is almost as if HP and MS don't want the netbook to succssed, because they set them up for failure. Shame on them.

Thumbs up to the Open Source Community!

If you are interested in giving it a try as well, check this page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Netbooks to see if there are any recorded issues with your model.

PCLinuxOS LXDE for low powered computers

ladytekki — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:30:07 GMT

PCLinuxOS LXDE (PCLXDE) 2009 is for older computers or new ones with low powered specs. Includes wireless support in a 313 MB self-booting/installable Live CD. With the later option of a myriad of software/drivers updates available through the Synaptic.

For download: PCLinuxOS LXDE (PCLXDE) 2009

For support and changes: PCLinuxOS Forum

Runbook: Linux.Creating RAID5 Software Array

root — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 06:04:46 GMT

This post is geared towards people who know enough about basic linux commands to get by, and have read the Storage FAQ's RAID post.

Required:

At least 3 sata drives, of the same size, that you either don't have any data on or don't mind blowing away anything on them.
mdadm installed (hint: "apt-get install mdadm")

Where to start?

Best place to start is to get your drive locations. Start by doing a simple ls command.

ls /dev/sd*

I would recommend NOT using partitions for your arrays. What do I mean by this? I mean use /dev/sdb not /dev/sdb1. Why? Because if you are doing any type of maintenance work on them, it makes things easier to manage. This is because you can now say 'only devices that don't have partitions are in the array', and it helps in situations where you accidently fat finger in adding/removing drives and you forgot to don't specify the partition--especially in adding an existing one to an array.

So if you already have created partitions, get into fdisk utility and clear them out:

ls /dev/sd(letter)

d

w

If you need help, type 'm'. Do this for every disk... Note: the moment you do the d / w commands, ANY DATA ON THOSE DRIVES IS GONE. Granted, you can get them back with some specific tools, but be VERY careful when dealing with fdisk. I'd even go so far as to recommend unplugging all but the drives you want to create the array with and boot from a live CD. One can't be too careful!

Now write down all the drives you'll be using. I'm going to assume you have four drives called /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, /dev/sdd, and /dev/sde. Note: I would NOT recommend making a RAID5 array any larger than 8 drives.

Creating the array

Here is the easy part. We're going to create a 4 drive RAID5 array called /dev/md0. To do this, you can type in short hand:

mdadm -C -l5 -n4 /dev/md0 /dev/sd[bcde]

Let's disect this real quick. The "-C" part means to "create" or "rebuild", the "-l5" (lowcase L) means "layout 5" or "RAID 5", the "-n4" tells it to expect 4 drives in the array, the next part (/dev/md0) is giving it a device name, and the last part is listing all the devices. The brackets, for those of you familiar with bash commands, makes it "/dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde". As you can see, it's much easier to do the brackets.

Watching it build

Assuming there were no issues, it should say 'mdadm: /dev/md0 array started' or something to that affect. To watch the progress, you have two options:

mdadm --detail /dev/md0

or

cat /proc/mdstat

I prefer the latter, and I use the 'watch' program like so:

watch -n 1 cat /proc/mdstat

To get out of the watch, CTRL + C it.

Now what?

Technically, right now, you can throw your new RAID5 device (/dev/md0) into LVM or put a filesystem on it... but I'd highly recommend waiting until it's fully built. I'd also highly recommend that you take a look at the other mdadm commands. Some helpful ones to get you started in the right direction:

mdadm --manage --help (-arfS are some good ones)

mdadm --assemble --help (-s is only one I really use)

mdadm --misc --help (-QDE and --zero-superblock I use... but DON'T DO THE --zero-superblock unless you want to delete the array information from a drive)

mdadm --grow --help (-lpn)

mdadm --monitor --help (-mcfl)

Example: If you reboot and for whatever reason it doesn't start up automatically you can run:

mdadm --assemble -s

Note that most commands require that you specify the array first and then the devices that you want to change. I highly recommend consulting the man pages on the command you wish to run before you try anything out (hint: "man mdadm" and type '/' to search for keywords).

Note #2: superblock is a term you might hear while reading up on the man pages of mdadm. Basically it's like a file that's written to all the drives in your array that says "I'm part of ___ array that's a RAID __ and I'm number __ in line of the array". Superblock allows you to physically move your drives to another linux machine and 'import' them in with "mdadm --assemble -s" command. As long as your superblock is good on all of your drives, you can port them to any machine and start the array at any time. Pretty neat huh?

Tip

After you've created your array, I would HIGHLY recommend writing down the order in which you created your array. In fact, I'd do exactly this (which I do now):

mdadm --detail /dev/md0
hdparm -i /dev/sd[bcdef...n] | grep Serial

You'll probably recognize the first command, but the second command might look new to you. What this tells you is what a particular device's (example: /dev/sdb) make/model/serial is. This is just incase you accidently swap SATA cables for whatever reason (hint: the /dev/sde drive might not be the same physical drive when you swap it's SATA cable with another drive). So having these outputs in a file and stored, say, in your backup hard drive (NOT ON YOUR ARRAY) and--say--as a 'draft' email in your Gmail account (lolz), would make rebuilding your array much easier. I made the mistake of getting one drive out of order when one of my superblocks got corrupted and I had to rebuild the array. Bye bye data.

Ending Notes

I'll try and create a runbook tomorrow on how to properly align/use LVM and (my favorite filesystem) XFS with a RAID5 array.

Post up if you have any questions/issues.

Great Linux Applications (updated on 8-26-2009)

ladytekki — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:10:55 GMT

Note on what was updated: Multimedia players.

This is intended to be a work in progress, so I hope we all contribute to it. Please post your applications, and I will add it to the first post.

All the distributions come with a set of very useful applications, but sometimes the default ones aren't the best out there. It's a wonderful thing we can change them, or add new ones (free of charge) using the package manager that comes with the distro. Mostly Open Source Software. Some of these applications are cross-platform . Another detail to keep in mind is that most of them will work with any distribution. Regardless of the desktop. However, some of them need to replace libraries, which will affect other applications, or even to change the desktop from KDE to Gnome for example. Which could completely change your current settings. I'm posting the website of the developer so if your package manager doesn't have it in it's repository, you can get it from there.

Browsers/Internet/Messengers

Flock is a browser with social networking built into its user interface.

Dillo is a light browser for slower computers and embedded systems.

aMSN is a free open source MSN Messenger clone.

Kopete is a multi-protocol, free software instant messaging client.

CD/DVD/authoring, burning, backup.

K9Copy is a free, open source DVD backup and DVD authoring program.

K3b - The CD/DVD creator for Linux.

Educational Children Games

Childplay

Gcompris

Graphics

GimPhoto is a modification of (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop.

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite.

Hardware Information/Benchmarking

HardInfo Similar to PCWizard, details installed hardware, included basic benchmarking tools.

lshw extracts detailed information on the hardware configuration of the machine.

Networking Tools

SSH clients which use the secure shell protocol:

PuTTY

OpenSSH

Dropbear

Office/Word-processors/Editors

KOffice is an office suite for KDE.

OpenOffice is a cross-platform office suite.

LyX The Document Processor.

Celtx Free screenwriting software.

Online resources for more Linux Applications:

http://www.opendesktop.org/

http://linuxappfinder.com/alternatives

Multimedia players.

aTunes Supports portable players, or anything that could be mounted as a file system; includes a cd ripper tool.

Banshee Music manager that Sync your music and videos to your G1, iPod, or other device.

VLC The cross-platform open-source multimedia framework, player and server.

Smplayer: Multi-platform front-end for mplayer.

Exaile: music manager and player for GTK+

System maintenance:

BleachBit The privacy and disk space cleaner for Linux.

Choosing a Linux Distribution

ladytekki — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 18:59:11 GMT

The purpose of this thread is to help choosing a distribution, learning about other's experiences, and keeping all this information neat and handy.

Post any question, or new experience about a Linux distribution here. Only the information about the distribution itself, please. If having hardware problems, or any other installation issues, feel free to open a new thread about it.

For a quick reference about Linux essential TheManPages Series

To download or pick a distribution Distrowatch

All threads containing valued contributions made by some of the members of EggXpert are listed below for easy access:

PCLinuxOS 2009

Linux anyone

Which Distro to choose for a newbie

Which linux distro?

Looking for a new distro of linux

Favorite Linux distro

Which kind of Linux?

Enlightenment (elive) Linux

Best Linux for running a dedicated server?

Easy PuppyLinux

The different Linux distributions

Resources for running Linux from a USB drive.

ladytekki — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:17:02 GMT

Running Linux from a USB flash drive is a great way to test it, and at the same time to have a distribution, that one can easily move from one machine to another.

I'd been testing different methods to do so, and at the end of this post I'll list them, with a comment about it. If you know any other resources, please post it, so we all can share it.

The first thing is to be sure that your computer's BIOS support USB Boot. Check your computer's manual to know how to get into the BIOS, once there, in the Boot options look for something like: USB-HDD, USB-ZIP or HDD Generic USB SD Reader.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that USB flash drives have a limited erase/write cycles of about 100,000.00, and the OS writes every two seconds to it. Which it means, the installation would be good just for a few months/weeks only. Depending how much one uses it.

Right now, I'm using this USB reader. Which allows me to change the card easy and inexpensively. I have flash cards for each of the different distros I'm using. All I do is change the card, according to the one I feel using at the moment.

Regardless of which method you choose to use, the best way is to download the ISO of the distribution before hand. Use an empty USB flash drive, and if there are files to erase, Windows can be use to format it fat32.

Here is the list of the resources I tried:

For Ubuntu

http://rudd-o.com/new-projects/portablelinux

https://launchpad.net/usb-creator

For Fedora

https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/

Great utility, easy to run, I liked the most the choice to choose the size of the Persistent Storage.

For any distribution:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Great detailed tutorials.

And the one, which I considered the best, because it's easier, faster and works with all the distributions.

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

It can be implemented from Windows. Indeed, it works better from it. So if you don't want to double boot Linux and Windows, but still want to use Linux, this is a better option than a Live CD. Of course, UNetbootin can also be run from an existing Linux installation.