News: BlackArch 2015.03.29 Released

Gaurov Soni has announced the release of BlackArch Linux version 2015.03.29, an Arch Linux-based distribution designed for penetration testers and security researchers: 

Today we have released new BlackArch Linux ISO images. The new ISO images include over 1,200 tools for i686 and x86_64 architectures and over 1,000 tools for armv6h and armv7h architectures. Here's a short changelog: lots of bug fixes; change splash for bootloader (syslinux / GRUB); updated pacman.conf settings; updated /etc/motd and /etc/issue updated BlackArch install scripts (version bump: 0.8); minor tweaks related to ISO builds; updated menu entries for Fluxbox, Awesome and Openbox; updated all tools; added more than 150 new tools. We wish to thank all of BlackArch's users, mirrors, and supporters. Thanks for your help.

News: Zentyal 4.1 Released

The Zentyal development team has announced the launch of Zentyal 4.1. The Ubuntu-based server distribution is designed to be easy to install and configure and ships with a powerful collection of web-based system administration modules.

Zentyal development team is proud to announce Zentyal Server 4.1, a new release of the Zentyal open-source Linux small business server with native Microsoft Exchange protocol implementation and Active Directory interoperability. This release is completely focused on improving the stability and set of features delivered by the OpenChange module, based on Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS to provide the latest stable packages. Zentyal server comes in two different flavors: development version, for bleeding-edge testing of the latest available features and commercial version for stable production environments. Features: support for Microsoft Outlook 2007, 2010, 2013; multiple virtual mail domains; synchronization with mobile devices (ActiveSync support); central domain directory management...

News: NethServer 6.0 Released

Alessio Fattorini has announced the release of NethServer 6.6, the new stable version of the project's CentOS-based specialist distribution for servers.

We are proud to announce a new NethServer release. This is a thrilling day for the whole NethServer community. It has been a journey to get to this point and we are so excited about the journey ahead of us. Upgrading from 6.6 RC1 is straightforward. From the Software Center page, just check for available updates. For previous releases, check out the release notes. At first login after system installation, the Server Manager displays the First Configuration wizard, where the administrator (root user) can set the password, change the host name, select the time zone and tune other security-related settings. We simplified the interactive installer removing some sections that were moved to the first configuration wizard. The Package Manager page has been renamed Software Center, and moved to the Administration section.

News: Black Lab Linux 6.5 Released

The Black Lab Linux team has announced the launch of Black Lab Linux 6.5. The new release is available in a number of desktop editions and features improved hardware compatibility and fallback options for older machines.

Today we are pleased to announce the release of Black Lab Linux 6.5. With this release we continue to enhance and improve Black Lab Linux for public consumption. While the base is the same, the Open Distribution Release comes in four flavors. GNOME, MATE, Xfce and KDE. The Xfce release is built into the GNOME release because of customer demand. Some of our users run things like legacy 64-bit hardware, terminal services and certain systems where GNOME may not run all that great. So with that said here are some of the new features of Black Lab Linux: GNOME 3.10.4, MATE 1.8.1, KDE 4.14.2, Xfce 4.12, Linux kernel 3.13 LTS compatible, Linux kernel 3.16 default, VLC 2.2, Firefox 36, Thunderbird 31.5, Rhythmbox 3.1, FFmpeg 2.6, Google Chrome 41...

News: Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2 Released

Martin Wimpress has announced the release of Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2, an updated build of the Ubuntu-based distribution featuring the MATE desktop environment. Although the DVD image name sports the LTS (long-term support) tag, this version of Ubuntu MATE is not an "official" Ubuntu flavour as the project was formally accepted as an Ubuntu family member just before the recent 15.04 beta 1 release. From the release announcement: 

Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2 is available for download. This release fixes a few issues that were present in 14.04.1, adds some new features and updates some packages. It is important to state clearly that Ubuntu MATE 14.04.2 is not an official Ubuntu flavour! The upside of maintaining an unofficial Ubuntu deriative is that we can roll out new features and package updates. So we did, most notably LibreOffice 4.4.1. The advantage of the newer Linux kernel is that it resolves most of the screen tearing issues some people experienced in Ubuntu MATE 14.04.1.

News: antiX 14.4 "MX" Released

antiX 14.4 "MX" has been released. This is the latest update of the project's special edition developed in collaboration with the MEPIS Community and featuring the Xfce desktop.

MX 14.4 'Symbiosis' available. Upgraded bug-fix editions (PAE and non-PAE) of MX 14 are now available. This version has fixed some bugs found in MX 14.3 and Debian upstream. MX 14.4 is based on Debian 'Wheezy' uses SysVInit so MX 14.4 offers a rock-solid systemd-free experience for those who would prefer to stick with SysVInit. MX is designed to be fast, stable and light on resources. The MX 14 series will be supported until the end of life of Debian 'Wheezy'. Bug-fix and upgrade release including quite a few new enhancements. What applications are used? Clementine for music, VLC for video, full LibreOffice suite, Iceweasel for web browsing, Claws-Mail for email, Mirage for image viewing, Minitube for watching YouTube videos...

News: SuperX 3.0 (Grace) Released

Sunit Kumar Nandi has announced the launch of SuperX 3.0, code name "Grace". The new release, which is named after computing pioneer Grace Hopper, focuses on providing an attractive desktop solution on top of a stable platform. The release announcement mentions some of the features that go into making the distribution's desktop responsive.

Grace gives more priority to application responsiveness; you will feel it right from the start - a fast, smooth, responsive system. Grace, by default, compresses unused memory pages within RAM rather than swapping out to the swap partition, making it responsive even when the system memory is low. Commonly used applications are preloaded and cached in memory for faster start-up of your favorite applications. Grace features a beautiful startup splash that changes its background to whatever the user’s wallpaper is, giving SuperX a really smooth transition from the splash screen to the desktop. It features a flat design theme for the desktop shell, with bright, contrasting colors.

Tips: Shortcuts on the current line

Try these useful bash shell shortcuts:

News: Pinugy 14.04.2 Released

A particular favourite of mine, and one I'm considering re-visiting soon - Antoni Norman has announced the release of Pinguy OS 14.04.2, a point update of the project's Ubuntu-based Linux distribution with a customised GNOME Shell desktop.

I am happy to announce the availability of 14.04.2 point release. Apart from bug fixes and updating packages not a lot has changed from 14.04 Papercuts. So if you are running 14.04 Papercuts and have kept it updated there is no need to install the point release. Pinguy OS 14.04.2 is running Linux kernel 3.13 and the UEFI version of GRUB. If you had issues installing Pinguy OS on a UEFI-enabled system in the past, this should now be fixed. List of some of the pre-installed applications: Mozilla Firefox 36.0.4, Mozilla Thunderbird 31.5.0, Synaptic package manager 0.81.1, VLC media player 2.2.0 RC2, GNOME Tweak Tool 3.10.4, LibreOffice 4.2.7, Clementine 1.2.3, Shutter 0.93.1, PlayOnLinux 4.2.2, WINE 1.7.38.

News: Neptune 4.3 Released

A new stable release of the Neptune distribution has been made available. The new release, version 4.3, provides users with more up-to-date software and a number of bug fixes.

This is the third service release to Neptune 4 and comes with improvements, bug fixes and updates. This includes Chromium in version 41, VLC in version 2.2, LibreOffice 4.3.3 as well as Icedove 31.5 and many more. The foundation of this release is represented by the current Debian 7.8 ('Wheezy').

News: Oracle Linux 7.1 Released

Michele Casey has announced the release of Oracle Linux 7.1, a distribution rebuilt from the source code for RedHat Enterprise Linux 7.1, but featuring a custom kernel and enhancements:

We're happy to announce the general availability of Oracle Linux 7 Update 1, the first update release for Oracle Linux 7. All packages are currently available on ULN and public yum; ISO installation images will be freely available for download from the Oracle Software Delivery Cloud soon. Oracle Linux 7 Update 1 ships with the following kernel packages: Unbreakable Enterprise Kernel (UEK) Release 3 (kernel 3.8.13) for x86-64; Red Hat Compatible Kernel (kernel 3.10.0) for x86-64. Oracle Linux 7 update 1 provides the latest features and innovations, such as: Linux container support using either Docker or LXC with UEK Release 3; comprehensive dynamic tracing with DTrace and UEK Release 3; production support for Btrfs with UEK Release 3; the latest 3rd party hardware support.

News: Chakra Linux 2015.03 Released

Neophytos Kolokotronis has announced the release of Chakra GNU/Linux 2015.03, a new update in the project's "Euler" series which follows the KDE 4.14 line:

The Chakra team is happy to announce the third release of the Chakra Euler series. This is a maintenance release to fix some installation issues and provide all the updated packages that landed in the stable repositories since the previous release. The main new feature is that our ISO now supports booting and installing on UEFI systems! We are aware that everybody is looking ahead into Plasma 5 and we are working on the transition, but we believe it is too early for this to be shipped by default and decided to wait for a little bit longer until Plasma 5 has matured and more KDE Applications have switched to Frameworks 5. This ISO ships with the following notable packages and updates: KDE Applications 14.12.2, except for the applications that have been ported to frameworks 5, which will remain on their 4.14.3 versions; kde-workspace 4.11.16 and kdelibs 4.14.5; Frameworks 5.7; Calligra 2.9.0....

Tips: Bash' Alias Command

An alias is nothing but a shortcut to a command. The alias command allows a user to launch any command by entering a single word. Typing alias will display a list of all defined aliases. You can add your own aliases by editing the ~/.bashrc file.

News: Steam on Linux

Good news for fans of linux gaming. The number of games available on the Steam gaming platform for Linux has surpassed 1000 titles. It's less than a year since it passed the 500 mark, so let's hope that this trend continues.

How To: Compare Two Files

Use the diff command to display line-by-line differences between two files. The general syntax of the diff command is:

diff FILE1 FILE2

News: MakuluLinux 8.0 Cinnamon Released

The MakuluLinux project has announced the release of Makulu Linux version 8.0 "Cinnamon" edition. According to the release announcement, the new release is the first from the project to be built for 64-bit x86 computers. Apart from the new architecture, this release has a strong focus on multimedia and streaming support.

Netflix and Popcorm Time are both now fully supported in this edition. Users can easily install Popcorn Time straight from the software manager or Synaptic manager with one click of a button, no other configuration is needed. It has never been so easy to run Popcorn Time on Debian before. Netflix is now fully integrated and functional on Google Chrome. So truely streaming is something Makulu users can now enjoy with ease. Safety and Security: MakuluLinux Cinnamon x64 Edition now also sports a built in firewall to keep your system secure at all times as well as a built in anti-virus to keep your system safe at all times.

News: Tiny Core Linux 6.1 Released.

Tiny Core Linux 6.1 has been released. This is the latest stable build of the minimalist (15 MB to download) desktop Linux distribution built from scratch. From the Release Announcement:

Team Tiny Core is proud to announce the release of Core 6.1. Changelog: tce-load - remove extraneous ls check, apply awk patch, remove unused depi variable; tc-functions - getbasefile speedup; tce-audit, tce-load - ignore spaces in dep files; BusyBox 1.23.1 patched for modinfo, modprobe, wget and dc; BusyBox updated to 1.23.1; settime.sh - fix systems with default year not 1970; search.sh - awk patch and move common part to a function; tce-audit - awk patch. Also in conjunction with the above in Xprogs: apps - quote the search argument, reload the list on an empty search, set a minimum size to the window, nicer resize behaviour. Several elements of X.Org 7.7 were also updated between 6.0 and 6.1 so users should use the apps GUI to check for updates and check for changed deps after upgrading.

How To: Resume Held or Stalled Printer Jobs.

It's a fairly frequent occurrence: you've printed a document (to a network printer) only to find the printer was turned off. In this case, the print job would be set to a 'Hold' status. Using lpstat -l you can view the print job and you can resume it by using the lp command. So why not do all in single, simple script?

Tips: Finding Files

find is a really useful tool for locating files, but it can be a bit slow. There is a command by the name locate that is much faster the super-useful find command, the reason being that locate command indexes files before-hand. The disadvantage is that files keep on getting added or removed making locate unreliable if the indexing is not done regularly.

First, index the files on your computer:

sudo updatedb

Then, search for a file:

locate -i <file>

I'd recommend putting updatedb in a cron to run regularly.

Tips: Execute Last Command as Root

I've lost count of the number of times I've run a command only to be told 'Permission denied'. Sometimes these commands have been quite long so it's a royal pain to re-type. However, a quick and easy way is to use !! to rerun the last command.

sudo !!

This runs the last command but pre-pended with sudo.

Tips: Linux Terminal Tab Completion

Beginners to using the Linux terminal may find this of use - it's an essential trick and great time saver.

Let's say you have a file with a long file name in the current directory and you want to delete it. Typing the entire file name is one way, but you'd have to make sure all the spaces were escaped properly (i.e. adding \ character before each space) and you  might easily make a mistake. However, if you type rm and the first character of the file name, and press the Tab key, Bash will automagically fill in the file's name for you.

Of course, you might have multiple files that begin with this letter and Bash won't know which one you want to delete. If you hit Tab again, Bash will show you a list of all matching file names. Continue typing your desired file name and press Tab again, and Bash will fill your desired file name.

Usefully, this also works for commands. Not sure which command you need, but you know it begins with "gnome"? No problem. Type "gnome" and press Tab to see a list!

How To: Download Audio or Video from Youtube

It might go against the point of youtube videos a little bit, but if you want to download videos from youtube for offline viewing, there's a handy package that can do this for you. Using your favourite package manager (apt, yum, zypper) install the youtube-dl package. It may need to install a few dependencies which will vary according your system.

How To: View and Manage Processes

Viewing and managing linux processes is usually done by using the ps command. A few years ago, I started using the top command. But nowadays I almost exclusively use htop.

News: New Release of KaOS Linux

Anke Boersma has announced the release of KaOS 2015.02, a brand-new version of the project's rolling-release Linux distribution featuring the Plasma 5 desktop.

KaOS is very proud to announce the availability of the February release of a new stable ISO image. This release brings the end of KDE 4 as the default Desktop Environment for KaOS. Almost ten months ago work started to fully migrate to Frameworks 5, Plasma 5-based distribution and with the release of Plasma 5.2.1 this migration is now deemed ready to bring a better user experience then KDE 4. From the unset of this migration there was never a plan to mix the two environments. What you will see on this ISO is a pure Plasma 5-based environment. As many might have noted KDE Applications 14.12 did not contain more then a handful of Plasma 5 applications. Just about all applications that users have become used to seeing in a KDE 4 version are available as a Plasma 5 port. A few are not ready yet, and those will be missing from the KaOS repositories until their ports are ready for daily use.

How To: Continuously Monitor LogFiles

Sometimes in the life of a SysAdmin it is necessary to monitor logfiles. Sometimes these logfiles can fill up really, really quickly. tail -f will show the logfile updating in realtime. But if you are looking for some specific event, using the following can be really handy:

tail -f <logfile> | grep <pattern>

Good,eh?!?

How to: Prevent Packages from being Updated

It's a common occurrence in the Linux world that you need to prevent a package from being updated by the package manager. So here we go. For this example we're going to prevent the kernel from being upgraded. Note - you'll need sudo access for this, so make sure you either sudo -i, or append sudo to the beginning of each command.

Hello World

As a user of various flavours of linux for over 15 years, I've decided to start a little blog to share all the tips and tricks I've come across over the years. I'll try to make it as distro-independent as possible, and whenever I can, I'll provide solutions for both debian- and redhat- based distributions.

Feel free to post corrections and questions.