Data recovery could become very costly. Sometimes you’d pay anything to get your data back; whether it’s your family photos or your business’s database of inventory or customer contacts. Well luckily in Linux there are many data recovery tools available completely free! You might be thinking, “Oh yea, another free data recovery app that gets me a few MB of data free then have to pay for the rest”. Nope, you can recover as much data as you have storage for! If you have a drive with 2TB free space, well you can recover up to 2TB of data!

Some of the data recovery tools available to install on Linux that I’ve used is TestDisk, PhotoRec, and ddrescue. I’m sure there are more, but these are the ones I’ve used and have been successful using.

I usually start with dd, creating an image of the device if it was corrupt, bad blocks, failing hardware, etc. This way I can work from the image and not put anymore wear on the device.

Next I’ll use both TestDisk and PhotoRec to recover any data from the device (if healthy) or the image. I normally do use both in case they recover different data or more data. Usually they are the same. There have been a few instances where TestDisk had a few more files, there have also been instances where PhotoRec will have a few more files. Sometimes there have even been times where they both data recovery apps recovered more files than the other; just different ones.

Example: TestDisk recovered 26 files, 24 of them were the same files PhotoRec recovered, having 2 files PhotoRec didn’t have, but PhotoRec also recovered 26 files, 24 being same that TestDisk recovered, while the other 2 were 2 different ones that weren’t recovered by TestDisk.

That is why I run them both, just in case, but again, they are almost always the same exact files recovered.

Installing data recovery software for Linux

Installing these Linux data recovery apps is pretty simple. If you’re using Debian or Ubuntu you can just open a terminal and install using the following commands:

sudo apt update && sudo apt install testdisk gddrescue

If you’re running Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S testdisk ddrescue

If you’re running Fedora Linux:

sudo dnf install testdisk ddrescue

NOTE: Most Linux distributions bundle TestDisk and PhotoRec under the same name: testdisk

How to use Linux Data Recovery Apps

Now that you’ve installed Linux data recover software, you can recover your photos or other files that have become corrupt or you accidentally deleted.

If you have a damaged drive you can use ddrescue to create an image of it. Make sure you have the correct drive as your source, which you can find by looking at dmesg if you just connected it, or mount, or lsblk.

lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL,SERIAL,FSTYPE,MOUNTPOINTS

sudo ddrescue -f -n /dev/sdX /home/username/recovery/drive.img /home/username/recovery/drive.log

/dev/sdX = damaged source drive
drive.img = destination image
drive.log = mapfile that lets you resume
-n = first pass, don’t spend time retrying bad sectors

After the initial pass is done you can use the following to try to reread the bad sectors.

sudo ddrescue -d -r3 /dev/sdX /mnt/recovery/drive.img /mnt/recovery/drive.log

-d = direct disk access
-r3 = retry failed areas 3 times

Now you can use testdisk on the image:

sudo testdisk /home/username/recovery/drive.img

sudo photorec /home/username/recovery/drive.img

The above 2 commands will write the files recovered in the current working directory, make sure you’re not on the drive being recovered.

You can also recover the drive directly if you don’t need to create an image first.

sudo testdisk /dev/sdX

sudo photorec /dev/sdX

I’d use the above 2 commands if I accidentally deleted my files, or re-partitioned, etc. If the drive was actually damaged in some way, I’d create an image first.

I hope this Linux tutorial has helped you recover your important lost files, photos, etc. I’ve had to do this with a few CF cards, SD cards of mine that were accidentally deleted. i’ve also done this for some friends that have done the same, or had a failing hard drive.

NOTE: These data recover programs can not recover data, files, photos, etc. that have already been over written. If you delete files, your operating system didn’t really delete the data on your hard drive, it just tells you it’s no longer there so other data can be written in that same spot later. This is how data can be recovered. With a failing drive, if that physical spot on the hard drive is dead, well, you’re not recovering the whole file. I have had a few friends give me failing SD cards or USB flash drives and when I recover the photos, some would have lines through them, or chunks missing or wrong color due to data missing.

The post Linux File Data Recovery first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

What is tethering? Tethering is where you share your smartphone’s internet service with your desktop or laptop computer. Most of today’s smartphones have this capability out of the box. You can tether via USB, Wi-Fi, or even bluetooth. You can either use the native tether feature on your smartphone or you can download an app that allows you to tether. I use my native Wi-Fi tether until I use up my 7GB that I’m allowed. After this I use an app to USB tether so I can bypass T-Mobile’s throttle. I can still use my native Wi-Fi tether after 7GB has been used, but T-Mobile throttles you to 128KBps upload and 128KBps download, which is pretty much useless to even web browse.

If you are using Wi-Fi tether, either native or an app, all you have to do is open the Wi-Fi tether settings, set an SSID and password. Then connect your Linux computer to your phone like you would connect to any other Wi-Fi network.

If you are wanting to do USB tethering, you need to have your kernel configured properly. I believe most Linux distrobutions should already have the proper kernel modules. Here is what you’ll need:

Device Drivers --->
[*] Network device support --->
USB Network Adapters --->
[M] Multi-purpose USB Networking Framework
CDC Ethernet support
CDC EEM support
[M] Simple USB Network Links (CDC Ethernet subset)
[*] Embedded ARM Linux links

You may also want to have RNDIS option enabled as well. I read some phones need it, others don’t, I always have it on mine just in case. If you already have these modules, next you need to plug your phone into your Linux computer via USB and then enable USB tethering in your phone’s settings. You will now have a new networking device on your Linux computer. Some Linux distrobutions will now automatically connect to the internet. If your Linux computer does not, you will need to look at dmesg or ifconfig -a to see what your new device name is. Once you have the device name you can do dhclient device-name or dhcpcd device-name which will get an IP address from your tethered phone. You will now have internet access.

If you are wanting to use an app to bypass your cellular carrier’s tether limits or tethering speed throttle, there are a few options available. The best option I have found is Easytether. This app is free, although you may want to purchase to be able to get UDP ports as well. I have purchased almost all of the major tethering apps available for android, and have used a ton of free ones as well. Easytether seems to be my favorite one to use. The only downfall of using Easytether is that you need to install the app on your phone as well as install an app on your computer. Easytether does have a Linux version! There are many that do have Linux versions available, but like I said this one is my favorite to use. With Easytether you do pretty much the same as you would with the native tether, but you need a couple extra steps.

First download and install the Linux Easytether software, if you have internet on your computer currently, great, if not, download it to your phone and then transfer to your Linux computer and install it. Next you will need to enable developers options on your smartphone and enable USB debugging. To enable developers options go to settings then about and tap on build version until your Android smartphone says that you are now a developer. Now you can go to settings then developer options and enable USB debugging. Now you can connect your USB cable, open Easytether and tap enable USB tether. Now on your Linux computer you can open a terminal, and run easytether-usb either with su or sudo. You may have a popup on your phone to allow your Linux computer access to your phone. You should now be tethered with Easytether and not have any tethering limits or tethering speed throttle.

Using Easytether I get full access to my phone’s 80+MBps data connection.

The post How to Tether Linux with Android Smartphone first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

How to Enable DHCP in Gnome

In the top right corner of your screen you should see your network icon. Click on your network icon and you will see a list of your devices, wired, wireless, mobile, etc. You want to click on the device you want to set DHCP on. Which should be set by default, but if for some reason your IP address is set manually in Gnome and you want to set it back to DHCP you can follow these instructions.  Click on wired settings, wireless settings, etc. A new window will appear with settings. If Wi-Fi you will see a list of each access point that is available to connect to. Next to each SSID name you should see a setting icon on the right that looks like a gear. Click this gear which will bring up the settings for that device and that access point. On the left now you will see IPv4, click on this, now you will see a setting for “Addresses” and the following options: Automatic (DHCP), manual, and link-local only. Change this to Automatic (DHCP) and click apply.

How to Set IP Address Manually in Gnome

This is under the same section as enabling DHCP in Gnome if you read that above, if not, just continue reading. In the top right corner of your screen you will see a network icon. Click on the network icon and you should see a list of your devices, both  wired and wireless. You want to click on the device you want to manually configure the IP address for. DHCP should be set by default. Click on wired settings, wireless settings, etc. A new window will appear with settings. If Wi-Fi you will see a list of each access point that is available to connect to. Next to each SSID name you should see a setting icon on the right that looks like a gear. Click this gear which will bring up the settings for that device and that access point. On the left now you will see IPv4, click on this, now you will see a setting for “Addresses” and the following options: Automatic (DHCP), manual, and link-local only. Change this to manual, now you will be shown a form to enter: Address, Netmask, and Gateway. Enter your IP address in the address box, enter your netmask, and gateway and click apply. Your device should now have it’s IP address set manually.

How to Enable DHCP in Linux Terminal

1. First you will want to open a Linux terminal
2. Login as root user by typing su and entering your root password, or add sudo in front of each of the following commands, example sudo ifconfig -a
3. Find what the device name is of your network interface
   1. ifconfig -a
   2. Look for a device name similar to eth0 or wlan0, yours may even be different depending on what Linux kernel and modules are loaded
4. Now use dhcpcd or dhclient to change the network device’s IP address
   1. dhcpcd eth0 or dhclient eth0 replace eth0 with the name of your network device
5. Your DHCP client will get an IP address assigned to your network interface, you may now exit your Linux terminal

How to Set IP Address Manually in Linux Terminal

1. Open a Linux terminal
2. Login as root user by typing su and then entering your root password, or you can add sudo in front of each command, example: sudo ifconfig -a
3. Find what the device name is of your network interface you are wanting to change your IP address of.
   1. ifconfig -a
   2. Look for a device name similar to eth0 or wlan0, yours may even be different depending on what Linux kernel and modules are loaded.
4. Now you will use ifconfig to set the IP address of your Linux computer.
   1. ifconfig [device-name] [ip-address]
5. So if I want to change eth0 to 192.168.0.3 I would do: ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.3

The post How to Configure IP Address Linux first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

I put together a few rules to follow when creating your passwords so that your accounts can not be compromised by digital thieves. Follow these rules to create your computer password, online passwords, Wi-Fi passwords, or any other password to make sure your accounts stay as safe as possible.

Follow these password rules listed below to keep your accounts safe and secure:

• Never have a dictionary word in your password, even if you mask it by replacing letters with numbers or symbols. Example: many people will use their firstname (Brandon) and then mask it with other numbers and symbols (Br@nd0n). This is still a dictionary word. Stay away from these.
• Always use all the types of characters that you are able to use on your password. Some websites do not allow you to use symbols in your passwords. If you can use all that you can lowercase letters, capital letters, numbers, and symbols.
•  Use at least 8 characters in your passwords
• Do not repeat characters consecutively

I try to think of a phrase and use only the first few letters of each word and mask it with numbers and symbols, this way it’s not a dictionary word or multiple dictionary words, just parts of each word. For example I’ll take the phrase “I love Linux penguins” take first few characters from each word or just use first letter, last letter, and 1 or 2 middle letters. So now I will have Ilvelinxpengns. Now I will change a few letters to capitol letters and mask a few others with numbers and symbols. ILv31!NXpeNGn$ this password meets all the password rules I mentioned above and I can memorize this password easier than I can memorize a completely random password that follows the password rules above.

Now that you know how to create a strong secure password for your accounts, you may want to read how to change your Linux password and if you want to be more secure you can use a live Linux to be secure while online banking or shopping.

The post How to Create a Good Secure Password first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

Anyway to change your own Linux password you will need to follow these steps o change your Linux password easily:

1. Login as the user you are wanting to change the password for
2. Open a Linux terminal
3. In the Linux terminal type passwd and hit enter
4. You will be asked to enter your current Linux password
5. Enter your current Linux password, and hit enter
6. Next you will be asked to enter your new Linux password
7. Enter the new password you want set for your Linux user, hit enter
8. Now you will be asked to verify your new Linux password
9. Enter your new Linux password again to verify you typed what you think you typed, hit enter
10. Your Linux password is now changed to your new Linux password

If you are logged in as root Linux user and you are wanting to create a new password for a different Linux user, you can follow these steps to change another user’s Linux password:

1. Log in as root or another user
2. Open a Linux terminal, if you are not root you can use su to start using root permissions in your Linux terminal
3. Type passwd $username replace $username with the username of the Linux user you want to change the password for.
4. As root you will not be asked to verify the current Linux password for that username
5. You will be asked for the new Linux password, then to type the password for Linux again to verify you typed the correct Linux password
6. The Linux user’s password is now changed.

I hope this Linux tutorial on how to change your Linux password has helped you change your Linux password or one of your other Linux user’s passwords! You may want to read about choosing a good Linux password, or choosing a good password for any account!

The post How to Change Linux Password with passwd Command first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

How to Run a .sh File

Running a .sh file is a rather simple task in Linux. The first thing we want to do is make sure that the .sh file is executable. To do this we need to change the .sh file’s permissions. If you have read our Linux tutorial on the Linux chmod Command you should already know how to use Linux chmod command. To change the permissions of your .sh file in Linux to add execute permissions, you can follow these steps:

1. Open a terminal in Linux
2. Navigate to the directory containing your .sh file using the Linux cd command
3. Use the Linux chmod command to change file permissions of the .sh file to add execute permissions chmod u+x filename.sh

Now that your .sh file has it’s file permissions changed you can run the .sh file by following these Linux steps:

1. Open a Linux terminal
2. Navigate to the directory containing your .sh file if you are not already there using the Linux cd command
3. Type ./filename.sh or sh filename.sh

NOTE: In the first example command there is a period before the forward slash.

That is all you need to do in Linux to run a .sh file. I hope this Linux tutorial on how to run a .sh file in Linux has helped you run your .sh files in Linux easily. If you have any Linux questions or comments about this Linux how to, please do so below this Linux tutorial! Thanks for visiting Beginner Linux Turorial, remember to come back and learn about Linux!

The post How to Run a .sh File in Linux first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

If you are not wanting to save any data onto your live Linux drive then 2GB or  4GB will be plenty for your live Linux USB flash drive. If you are wanting to have persistent storage on your USB drive, meaning you can store information, files, data, install programs, etc. onto the USB flash drive and it still be there after a reboot, then you will want to get a larger USB stick.

There are many programs and methods that you can install and use to help you create a live Linux USB stick, but I’m going to only cover the few that I have used and like. These methods work very well and are rather simple to do.

First I will cover how to create a live Linux USB drive in Windows, as I’m sure most people reading this information will be running Windows. I know, not everyone will be running Windows as I’m sure some current Linux users that are running Linux on their computers may want to create a live Linux USB stick as well.

What are the Advantages of Using a Live Linux USB Stick

There are many reasons people prefer to use a live Linux USB stick instead of installing Linux internally on their computer’s hard drive. Some people may even have Linux installed on their internal hard drive, but maybe they go some places that have a computer that runs Windows that is not their computer, but yet they still want to run Linux on it. Say you’re at work and your work station runs Windows and you want to run Linux, you can pop in your live Linux USB stick and boot up Linux on your work computer and not effect the internal hard drive of the computer. Some people use live Linux USB drive for security. Have no persistent storage setup on your live Linux USB stick so that you can browse the internet, without any trace on your computer, because with no persistant storage nothing gets saved, you turn off your computer, everything you done is gone. Although your internet provider will still have record.

How to Setup a Live Linux USB Stick with Windows

There are a few things you will need to create a live Linux USB stick using Windows. You will need a USB thumb drive, some GUI software, and a Linux distribution of your choice. Now there are some Linux distributions that are not able to run easily on a USB drive, but I won’t go over that right now as most Linux distributions can and may just need some slight tweaking to work. Most major Linux distributions even have a live distribution iso file already to use on a Live USB stick.

Download the needed software for Windows to create a live Linux USB stick. I recommend using Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) or UNetbootin. These both are very easy to use and can download from a list of Linux distributions from a pull down menu that will work out of the box. You also have the choice of downloading the Linux iso yourself and telling the program where you downloaded it at. Linux Live USB Creator is available only for Windows I believe, but UNetbootin can be downloaded for Linux, Windows, and Mac.

After you’ve downloaded Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) or UNetbootin you will first need to have your USB flash drive formatted to FAT32 or FAT file system. If your USB stick drive is not formatted to FAT32 or FAT file system the program will warn you.

Insert your USB thumb drive into your computer.

1. Open Linux Live USB Creator or UNetbootin.
2. Select the drive you want to install your live Linux distribution on. Be sure to select the correct drive as you can accidentally select your internal drive and erase it’s contents.
3. Select which live Linux distribution you want to install on your USB flash drive whether the live Linux distribution is on the list or whether you chose to download the live Linux distribution yourself
4. Select how much persistence memory you want to have on your live USB stick
5. Finally you can click to create your live Linux distribution.
6. Now all the files needed for your live Linux distribution will be copied onto your USB thumb drive after this is complete you may remove your USB drive or leave it in and reboot.

 How to Create a Live Linux USB Drive Using Linux

Creating a live Linux USB thumb drive in Linux is very similar to the above steps on creating a live Linux USB stick using Windows. There are a few methods you can use to create a live Linux USB stick using Linux but I’m going to only cover using the UNetbootin GUI program. There are a few methods you can do in a command line in Linux to manually create a live Linux USB stick, but using this UNetbootin GUI is much easier.

1. Insert your USB flash drive into your Linux computer
2. Make sure your USB thumb drive is formatted to FAT32 or FAT file system. If not UNetbootin will tell you to format it before you continue. If you need to format your USB flash drive you can use a GUI program such as gparted or you can use a CLI program like mkfs.vfat
3. Open UNetbootin
4. Select what live Linux distribution you want to install or select a live Linux iso file you’ve already downloaded
5. Select your USB flash drive, this step is very important as you’re running UNetbootin as root user and it can destroy data on whatever drive you have selected, so be sure to select the correct USB flash drive.
6. Select if you want to have a persistent live Linux, if you do also select how much storage space you would like to have on your live Linux USB flash drive.
7. Click to continue, wait while your live Linux distribution is downloaded (if you selected one from the list), and copied onto your USB thumb drive.
8. After the boot loader and all necessary files are transferred to your USB drive, you may either reboot your computer to test the USB drive or remove it from your Linux computer.

How to Create a Live Linux USB Stick Using Mac

I personally have not used a Mac computer to create a live Linux USB stick, but since Mac uses UNetbootin, I’m going to assume it would be the exact same steps as creating a live Linux USB stick using Linux.

1. Insert your USB flash drive into your Mac computer
2. Make sure your USB flash drive is formatted to FAT32 or FAT file system. If not UNetbootin will tell you to format it before you continue. I haven’t used Mac computers much at all so I’m sorry I can not guide you on how to format your USB flash drive to FAT32 or FAT file systems using your Mac. I would assume you would go into your applications and open disk utility. After your USB thumb drive is formatted FAT32 or FAT file system continue.
3. Open UNetbootin
4. Select what live Linux distribution you want to install or select a live Linux iso file you’ve already downloaded
5. Select your USB flash stick, this step is very important because whatever drive you select will have it’s data erased, so select the correct USB disk drive you want to use for your live Linux USB stick.
6. Select if you want to have a persistent live Linux, if you do also select how much storage space you would like to have on your live Linux USB flash drive.
7. Click to continue, wait while your live Linux distribution is downloaded (if you selected one from the list), and copied onto your USB thumb drive.
8. After the boot loader and all necessary files are transferred to your USB drive, you may either reboot your computer to test the USB drive or remove it from your Mac computer.

Where to Download Live Linux Distributions

There are many live Linux distributions out there for you download for free. You can search on distowatch.com to look for live Linux distributions or you can use one of the ones on my list below. Remember you don’t have to download a live Linux distribution manually as the live Linux USB Creator program and UNetbootin program will both download the live Linux distribution of your choice that is on it’s drop down menu. If the live Linux distribution you want to install on your USB stick is not on this list, you can download that distributions live iso on their website. Here are some of the more popular live Linux distributions that Linux users are using.

• Fedora Live Linux
• Ubuntu Live Linux
• MacPup Live Linux
• Damn Small Linux Live
• Damn Small Linux Not
• Slax Live Linux
• Pentoo Live Linux

The post How to Create a Live Linux USB Stick first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

How to Prevent Becoming a Victim of Computer Fraud

You can easily run Linux! There are no viruses that are going to get installed on your Linux computer without you knowing. You would have to physically install the virus yourself and give the virus your root (administrator) password. Linux is also a lot more secure than Windows. So you won’t have to worry about someone cracking your passwords and getting into your computer’s information.

If you are not wanting to install Linux on your computer for free. You can always run a live Linux distribution from a USB stick or a cdrom. When you use a live Linux distribution anything that is stored in cache, temporary files, etc. anything that may contain information someone can steal and use to steal your money or identity is erased as soon as your turn off your computer. So if someone steals your USB stick or cdrom and boots it up on their computer, there will be no information of you logging into your bank accounts or purchasing products online. Best of all you can download Linux for free. You will just have to buy a cd-r, dvd-r, or a USB stick. Which I’m sure most of you will probably have laying around your home somewhere.

Where Can I Download Linux

This depends on if you want to install Linux onto your hard drive or if you want to run a live Linux distribution from a USB stick, CD-R, or DVD-R.

Install Linux to Hard Drive

If you are wanting to install Linux to your hard drive you will need to partition your hard drive so you don’t erase Windows, unless you don’t care. When installing Linux on your hard drive you can install almost any Linux distribution. Here are the Linux distributions I recommend using.

• Fedora Linux
• Debian Linux
• Ubuntu Linux
• Slackware Linux
• Gentoo Linux

The first 4 are pretty easy to install and use. Gentoo Linux can be a little complicated to install if you’ve never done any kind of hard drive partitioning or have worked in a CLI. The rest have a guided wizard type install that walk you through the steps. Gentoo Linux does have an install guide on their website you can read and follow if you do want to go that route. There are also tons more Linux distributions you can use as well. You can see a whole list of Linux distributions on distrowatch.

Use a Live Linux Distribution

If you are wanting to run a live Linux distribution you have fewer choices as not every Linux distribution comes as a live Linux distribution. With some Linux knowledge and tweaking you can install any Linux distribution to a USB stick, but this really wouldn’t be a live Linux distribution anymore. It would be like installing to your hard drive, but instead installing to a USB stick, but that’s going to be another Linux topic. Here are the live Linux distributions I recommend to make your banking and online purchases secure.

• Fedora Live Linux
• Ubuntu Live Linux
• MacPup Live Linux
• Damn Small Linux Live
• Damn Small Linux Not
• Slax Live Linux
• Pentoo Live Linux

Some of the live Linux distributions may not support your wireless card out of the box. Like Damn Small Linux since it is such a small distribution you are limited to the more popular wireless drivers. So if you are wanting to run this live Linux on a laptop, you may want to choose a different live distribution unless you want to try it and see if your wireless card is supported. There are also tons more live Linux distributions out there. These are just the ones I recommend using.

What to do After Downloading Linux

Linux on CD-R or DVD-R

After you have downloaded the Linux you want to run, you need to burn it to a CD-R, DVD-R, or set it up on a USB flash drive. So open your favorite burning software like Nero, Roxio, etc. and select burn an image, insert your CD-R or DVD-R, click burn, and you’re done! Now reboot your computer leaving the CD or DVD in your computer and your computer should boot from the CD or DVD drive. If not you may have to go into your BIOS setup by hitting F1, DEL, ESC, F10, etc. depending on how you computer is setup, then go to boot options and make sure your CD or DVD drive is 1st on the boot list.

Linux on USB Flash Drive

If you are wanting to put your live Linux distribution on a USB flash drive, you can either follow the directions on the live Linux distribution’s website, or you can download Linux Live USB (LiLi). This is a software that runs in Windows, you open it, select the live Linux distribution file you downloaded and continue to follow on screen instructions, which will copy all the files to your USB flash drive and make it bootable.

Now after you have downloaded and installed your Linux distribution or live Linux distribution you can boot up your computer to your new Linux operating system and be secure from viruses, trojans, key loggers, and security holes so you can make online purchases and online banking with confidence.

The great thing about using a live Linux distribution for secure banking is you can use it on anyone’s computer. If you are using someone else’s computer, you have no idea what is on their computer, they may have all kinds of viruses on their computer as well, so don’t log in to your bank from a friend’s computer. Plug your USB flash drive into their computer, reboot into your live Linux distribution and feel confident no one will steal your information! Tell your friend’s about Linux as well. Help them setup a USB flash drive so they can use while doing their online banking or online purchases to keep them secure!

The post Secure Banking with Linux first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

What is atime Attribute

In Linux your file system will record the time and date a file was created, modified, and last accessed for every file on your Linux computer. Every time you access a file it writes to your disk letting the Linux file system know when it was last accessed. If you edit the file it will keep track of the last time you modified the file. Back to the last access time, just imaging how many files are opened on your computer just at boot time. There are files being accessed that you may not be directly opening, such as libs, configuration files, services, etc. Now your Linux computer will write to the disk for each of those files when they were last accessed. So you could imagine how much processor and disk resources are being used to write all this information.

Do I Need atime Attribute

You do not need atime attribute to run Linux. Nothing is going to fail, crash, or die if you disable the atime attribute. There are no programs that depend on the atime attribute. You may want to use atime attribute yourself if you want to be able to look up a file that you just looked at and don’t remember what it was or maybe even some other reason. For probably 98% of Linux users out there, you can disable atime attribute without any problems.

What File Systems Does this Speed Tweak Work on

I’m not 100% sure on this, but I think that this speed tweak only works on ext2, ext3, and ext4 file systems.  If I am wrong, someone please correct me. I rarely use any other file system besides ext type file systems on my Linux computers.

How to Increase Linux System Performance

You can disable the atime attribute. To disable the atime attribute you need to be root or super user (su|sudo). You need to edit /etc/fstab with your favorite text editor. You can use gedit, vi, nano or which ever text editor you prefer to use. In your /etc/fstab file you want to change the options for your mounts. So in your /etc/fstab file you should see a few lines like this:


/dev/sda1 /boot ext3 noauto,noatime 1 2
/dev/sda2 / ext4 noatime 0 1
/dev/sda3 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/md0 /home ext4 noatime 1 2
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid,noexec 0 0


As you can see in my /etc/fstab I replaced the defaults option with noatime for my /, /boot, and /home partitions. With this option in your /etc/fstab after the partition is mounted again with the noatime attribute you should notice a difference in your Linux computer’s performance. Mainly in disk usage but some processor resources as well.

This Linux speed tweak is very easy to do as you can see. Just remember to apply this Linux speed tweak to all of your Linux laptops and Linux desktops! Continue reading about more Linux speed tweaks to get the most out of your Linux computer.

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Some lightweight Linux distributions are not full blown Linux distributions and only have a set number of Linux programs that can be installed easily without having to install the software manually. There are also some Linux distributions that are full blown Linux distributions yet still are lightweight as they run lightweight Linux software, you can still install any of the non-lightweight Linux programs as well. I will have some of each listed below and you can make the choice as which one you would like to try out on your PC.

If you do not want to install these lightweight Linux distributions to your hard drive right away you can always install them onto a USB flash drive and run them from the USB thumb drive to try the lightweight Linux distribution out before you install it to your hard drive. Remember that running them from a USB thumb drive will be slightly slower than installing the lightweight Linux distro to your hard drive. If you use a USB hard drive or a eSATA hard drive instead of a USB stick you will get a better feel of the speed when installed onto your internal hard drive.

The boot times below were tested on a T7500 2.2GHz with 4GB of RAM from USB flash drive created with unetbootin. I know this isn’t the best machine to give you boot times from since the laptop has a decent CPU and RAM, but all my other slower machines do not boot from USB and they don’t have a CD-ROM drive. They are running Linux, but had to take hard drive out, toss it in another machine, install, then put the drive back in the laptop. So I can’t test boot times with them.

Damn Small Linux is a very small lightweight Linux distribution that can run from a USB flash drive, business card cd, regular cd, hard drive, and SD card if your PC supports booting from SD! It is only 50MB! So you can store it on just about any media. Damn Small Linux is light enough that it can be powered by a 486DX with only 16MB of RAM! You can also run DSL fully in RAM with only 128MB of RAM! DSL comes with easy to use lightweight setup programs to setup internet, printers, etc.

Boot Time: Window Manager: JWM, FluxBox Web Browser: Nettrik, Dillo, FireFox File Manager: emelFM Email: Sylpheed

Slitaz is another very small lightweight Linux distribution! This lightweight Linux distro can be a fully functional desktop or server with only a tiny size of just 30MB! Slitaz is not based on any other distro as it was built from the ground up. If installed to a hard drive it will utilize 80MB.	Boot Time: Window Manager: LXDE, OpenBox, JWM Web Browser: Midori File Manager: PCman Email: Claws-Mail

Xubuntu is a lightweight Linux distribution that is based off of Ubuntu of course. This lightweight distro has access to the full access to the Canonical’s repositories. Can run on 256MB of RAM although 512MB is recommended. ISO image is 664MB and requires 4.4GB to install on hard drive.	Boot Time: Window Manager: XFCE Web Browser: Firefox File Manager: Thunar Email: Thunderbird

Macpup is a lightweight Linux distribution with a 164MB ISO image. Macpup is based on Puppy Linux. I find the menu a bit busy, unorganized, and a little hard to use. Not sure if it’s the colors of the menu, but I find it hard to find what I’m looking for. Some think the name Macpup is a Puppy Linux designed to run on Mac computers, not true, this is for PC.	Boot Time: Window Manager: Enlightenment Web Browser: Firefox File Manager: Rox-Filer Email: Sylpheed

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Linux chmod Command Usage Syntax

You can change permissions of files and folders by using the Linux chmod command. The usage of the Linux chmod command is easy after you get the hang of it and know the chmod command’s usage syntax. The usage syntax for the Linux chmod command is chmod [OPTION] MODE[,MODE] FILE and each MODE is in the form [ugoa]*([-+=]([rwxXst]*|[ugo]))+.

The mode form for chmod is broke down by who you are setting the permissions for.

u – is for setting permissions on the user owning the file or folder.
g – is for setting permissions on the group owning the file or folder.
o – is for setting permissions for everyone else that does not own the file or folder.
a – is for setting all three of the above.

Then you can specify if you are taking away permissions or adding permissions by using – to remove permissions or + to add permissions.

Next in the Linux chmod syntax is what permissions you want to add or remove.

r – add or remove the read permissions, this allows a user or group to view a file.
w – is to add or remove write permissions to a file or folder, this allows a user or group to make changes to a file or folder.
x – is to add or remove execution permissions to a file or folder.

Linux chmod Command Examples

Now for some chmod command examples. If you have a folder called private-photos that you don’t want any other user on your Linux system to access you can remove the permissions of all other users and groups and then add permissions just for the user owning the directory. You can do this using these commands:

Remove all permissions:
chmod -R a-rwx private-photos
In the above command we are using -R for recursive since we are using the chmod command on a directory. Then using a to specify all users, groups, and others. We then use - to specify we are removing permissions. Then we use rwx to specify read, write, and execute permissions to be removed. Finally private-photos which is the directory we are changing permissions for.

Now we need to give the user that owns the directory permissions again since we just removed all permissions. We can do this with the chmod command by using the following syntax:

chmod -R u+rwx private-photos
Now the above command is giving the owner permissions again. -R is telling the chmod command we are going recursive since this is a directory. u is the syntax for user. + is the syntax for adding permissions. rwx is the chmod syntax for specifying read, write, and execute permissions. Finally private-photos is the directory we are changing permissions of.

Now what if you have a directory called family-photos and you wanted all the users that are part of the group family to be able to have permissions to the directory you would first make sure that family-photos is owned by the family group, by using the chown command. Then add permissions using the chmod command.

chown -R Your-Username:family family-photos

Now that family owns the family-photos directory we need to change the permissions on family-photos

chmod -R a-rwx family-photos
That will remove all permissions. Now we need to add permissions for the user and group.

chmod -R ug+rwx family-photos
Now you’re done, but if you wanted your username to be the only one that can edit photos, add or remove photos, etc. but everyone else in the family group can only view them, you could have done these commands instead:

chmod -R u+rwx family-photos
chmod -R g+rx family-photos

I hope this Linux tutorial on the Linux chmod command has helped you understand how Linux permissions work and how to change Linux permissions.

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I have a few slower Linux computers myself. Here are some of the slower computers I have in use:

• Transmeta Crusoe 867MHz/384MB
• Dual Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz/256MB
• Dual DEC Alpha 533MHz/512MB
• Intel P4 3.2GHz/4GB
• Intel Atom Z520 1.3GHz/1GB

So you can see I have some slow Linux computers laying around. So I always try to tweak my Linux systems the best I can to make them faster. Whether I customize configurations, compile with custom flags, disable bells and whistles, or just finding fast lightweight applications! Which is what this article is about, I’ve found all kinds of Linux programs that work very well, that don’t hog down your resources like a lot of the main full feature eye candy programs. Some of these lightweight Linux applications are very basic and stripped down, but they still get the job done. You may choose to install the non-lightweight applications as well, for those just in case times, unless you don’t have the hard drive space. You may also want to look at lightweight Linux distributions.

There are also lightweight Linux distributions out there as well that come packaged with all the lightweight apps. I’ll discuss those lightweight Linux distributions in a different article though. Anyways below is a list of types of applications with the lightweight Linux program next to it. I hope this list of lightweight Linux apps helps you speed up your Linux computers.

I will continue adding to the list of lightweight Linux programs as I find more or you tell me about more fast lightweight apps! So if you know of a lightweight Linux application, let me know!

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Everytime you login to your Linux system, open a terminal, execute a script, etc. you are opening up another Linux shell. Most of you Linux users are thinking it’s just a Linux shell, it doesn’t take up much resources, that’s true, but just think if you had 10 shells running. The system memory usage would increase a bit. Plus for those of you that don’t have faster computer hardware with tons of resources, we want to conserve as much RAM as possible.

So what can we do about all these Linux shells running eating up our system resources? We can install a lightweight shell and set it to be your default Linux shell. Let’s install dash which is a replacement of ash (Almquist Shell) which was a BSD-licensed replacement for the Bourne Shell that was used in low resource systems.

Depending on what Linux distro you are running, you may need to install dash slightly differently. First lets install dash.

• Gentoo: emerge --sync && emerge dash
• Debain: apt-get update && apt-get install dash
• Fedora: yum install dash

Now that you have dash installed, we want to make dash your default Linux shell. To do this first we want to open a terminal. Type chsh and hit enter, now you should be asked what shell you want to use. Type /bin/dash and hit enter. Any username you want to use the dash shell, repeat the chsh command and change your shell to /bin/dash.

Now we want to change the symlink of /bin/sh to point to /bin/dash instead of /bin/bash. To do this we must first delete the current symlink /bin/sh. In your terminal, type rm -f /bin/sh now we need to create a new symlink to /bin/dash. To do this in your terminal type ln -s /bin/dash /bin/sh and now you are done. Logout and log back in and all of your terminals and shells will be using dash.

NOTE: dash is a very lightweight Linux shell and does not have many features that bash and some other Linux shells have. dash does not support tab complete, so you can’t type cd /us(TAB)sr(TAB)lin(TAB) and be taken to /usr/src/linux. dash does not support history either, so if you were just doing a bunch of long commands in a shell and didn’t want to retype them, just hit up a couple times and then hit enter, well you can’t with dash, but you will notice your scripts running faster, terminals opening faster, less ram being used, etc.

I hope this Linux speed tweak has helped you tweak your Linux computer to make it even more faster! For more Linux tutorials and speed tweaks continue reading through Beginner Linux Tutorial!

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Some of you may get a lot of permission denied errors while trying to open files or folders, this may be caused by improper ownership or owner permissions. If it is a ownership problem, chown will fix your problem. If it is a permission problem, then you will want to look into chmod.

The usage of chown is chown [OPTIONS] [OWNER]:[GROUP] [FILE]. There are many options for chown, but I only use 2 of them on a regular basis. I use chown -R | --recursive and also chown --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP. Basically chown -R is used on directories and all files in that directory. chown --from=CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP is used if you want to only change files that are currently owned by CURRENT_OWNER:CURRENT_GROUP.

For some examples of the Linux chown command. Say I have a desktop computer with Linux on it, and my username on the desktop computer is BrandonStimmel, and I buy a new laptop and install Linux on it, and this time I made my username Brandon. I also want to get rid of my desktop because it is slow and uses a lot of electricity. So I want to copy all of my files and folders from the desktop’s /home/BrandonStimmel to the laptop’s /home/Brandon. I simply use rsync, cp, or scp to copy the files and folders from the desktop computer to the laptop computer. Trouble is, I can only read files, I can’t write to them. I keep getting permission denied errors, and you don’t have permission to write to the file $FILE. So I login to the laptop as my user, then su to root, since root has permissions to read and write to the files/folders. Then I run chown -R --from=BrandonStimmel:users Brandon:users /home/Brandon/* Some may ask why I used chown --from= in this example. Well I have a ton of files in my home folder from my desktop and I may have some files that were meant to be owned by root, or some other user as backups. I didn’t want to change all of them to my new username unless I owned them before.

If you use the same example but don’t care who previously owned the files/folders, you can run chown -R Brandon:users /home/Brandon/* and you will change all files/folders in /home/Brandon to be owned by the username Brandon and the group users.

I hope this Linux tutorial on the Linux chown command has helped you fix your permission issues. If you have any questions please feel free to contact Beginner Linux Tutorial by leaving a comment or sending an email. Have a great day and remember to read more Linux tutorials! Knowledge is power, especially with Linux!

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I would suggest using less more often than more as the Linux less command can load files to the screen faster. If you do more somefile.txt the entire file must be read before it will start displaying on your screen. If you use less somefile.txt the contents of somefile.txt will be displayed as they are read from the file, so you don’t have to wait until the entire contents are read before you can see it!

Another reason I would suggest using the Linux command less more than the Linux command more is because with less command you can scroll up in the file as well as down, where with the Linux command more you can only scroll down the file. If you pass something with more you have to quit, run the more command again, and hope you don’t pass what you were looking for again.

The syntax for more is like most Linux commands: more [OPTIONS] [filename]. The sytax for less is the same: less [OPTIONS] [FILENAME].

The only options I use normally with less is less -N [FILENAME] which will print line numbers before each line. The only options I use on more is more +[number] [FILENAME] which will start you on line [number].

Now for some examples of more.

If I wanted to view file phone-numbers.txt to write them down on paper, or enter into my cellphone, I could run more phone-numbers.txt and hit enter to scroll down after I have already entered the information on my cellphone or wrote them down on paper.

If I was working on a php/mysql website and I click on Login which takes me to login.php and I get something like: PHP parse error : syntax error, unexpected T-STRING on line 130 in file /home/user/www/login.php I can then run more +130 /home/user/www/login.php which will start me on line 130 where the error is so I can look for what is wrong and then fix it.

Now for some examples of less.

If I was working on a php/mysql website and I was writing a foreach() loop on my php script and needed a little help from someone that has a copy of my script, I could do less -N some-script.php and tell him or her what lines I was having problems with.

Well that’s it for the Linux more and less commands. As always I hope this Linux tutorial on the Linux less and more commands has helped you understand more and less a bit more! Thank you for reading my Linux tutorials on Beginner Linux Tutorial, I hope you have a great day! Any questions of problems with more or less can be asked below in the comment section.

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The Linux operating system is more stable! This means that the computer that is serving your website to people every day, will not crash as often as Windows. If you are making money from your website selling products or services, you don’t want your website down at all. If your web site goes down, you can’t make any sales!

Linux operating system is free! So the web hosting company that owns all these web servers don’t have to pay another $300 to put Windows on each server. Which in turn will pass a slight savings onto you!

Linux is also built for networking and multitasking. So it can handle more people using the server at the same time without any problems. So if I had a server running Linux I could have 1,000 different customers using this same server. If I take this same exact server and I put Windows on it, I may only be able to have about 500 different customers using the same server. So again it’s cheaper for the Linux web hosting service so they don’t have to buy as many servers. Remember more servers is more money they have to spend on the servers themselves and also the electric to run that server. So again, you get a little bit of these saving passed onto you!

Linux servers are also more secure! There are many ways Linux is more secure, but the main reasons here, is account security! Your account is safer from hackers if your web hosting service is using Linux. Your customers credit cards and such are safer from attacks. Also your website is safer, so attackers don’t break your website, change your website, or even steal your files!

Linux can not get computer viruses, well easily anyway! So your account will be safer from computer viruses ruining your data, stealing customer username, passwords, credit card numbers, etc.

So if you are wanting to check out some Linux web hosting services, below are some Linux web hosts that Beginner Linux Tutorial recommends:
NOTE: If you want full details of each Linux web host please check out our Linux Web Hosting section!

• JustHost
  
  
• HostGator
  
• BlueHost
  
• HostMonster
  

The post Linux Web Hosting Vs Windows Hosting Plan first appeared on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

There are many different grep options you can use in the grep syntax. I myself only use a few options with grep on a regular basis. The basic grep syntax is grep [options] [pattern] [file|files].

grep quick reference guide:

You can use grep -R, grep -r, grep --recursive, which will allow you to have grep parse files recursivley into other directories.

If you are working with code, or just want the output lines to be numbered you can use grep -n or grep --line-number.

Another option I use on a daily basis with grep is grep -i or grep --ignore-case, which will ignore case on both the input file, and the pattern. by default grep is case sensitive, so you have to use this option if you do not want it case sensitive.

If you are wanting to extract multiple patterns from your file, you can use grep -e which can be used multiple times to extract multiple patterns from your file. So if you are wanting to grep two different strings from one file in Linux, you could do grep -e firstpattern -e secondpattern /home/$USER/file.txt.

Here are some grep examples of using the Linux grep command:

If I had a plain text file called phone-book.txt, that had phone numbers listed in this order: First Name Last Name - Street Address - Phone Number
Now I want to get Brandon Stimmel’s phone number. I could run grep Brandon\ Stimmel phone-book.txt and grep would print Brandon Stimmel - 100101 Digital Ave. Tech, Ohio 44333 (330) 222-7222. Notice I used Brandon\ Stimmel, I did this because you can not use a space on the command line, or it will be parsed as the next section of the command, which grep Brandon Stimmel phone-book.txt without the \ would try to extract Brandon from the file Stimmel, which doesn’t exist. So remember to escape your spaces with a \ if you are using them in your pattern/search string.

For another example, if I want to bring up who owns the phone number (330) 222-7222 as it showed up on my caller ID, but I forgot who’s phone number it was, I can do grep \(330\)\ 222-7222 phone-book.txt which would again display: Brandon Stimmel - 100101 Digital Ave. Tech, Ohio 44333 (330) 222-7222.

You can also grep for just the last name, say if you are having a family reunion and you want to bring up all of the people with the last name of Stimmel. grep Stimmel phone-book.txt this will bring up every person in phone-book.txt that has the last name of Stimmel.

You can also pipe data to grep or pipe data from grep to use it in a bash script. Say if you are wanting to do the above example that you found a phone number and forgot who’s it was, but you don’t want to show the entire line with name, address, and number, you just want the name and only the name. grep \(330\)\ 222-7222 phone-book.txt|awk '{print $1" "$2}' which will output Brandon Stimmel. The grep part of this code will output the full string, then we pass that data onto awk which we used it to print only the first and second fields.

Well that’s it for the grep tutorial, for now anyways. As always, thank you for reading our Linux Tutorials and I hope you find these Linux Tutorials very helpful! Remember to bookmark Beginner Linux Tutorial so you can always come back and find more helpful Linux Tutorials!

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The usage of the Linux cat command is cat [options] [file].

There are quite a few options you can use with the Linux cat command, but I rarely use any of them on a regular basis. The only option I use with the cat command on a regular basis is cat -n or cat --number.

For an example of using the cat command, we’ll say I have a file named Linux-Friends.txt and in this text file I have some friend’s names, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses that run Linux. So now I want to get someone’s phone number from this list. I can run cat Linux-Friends.txt in a Linux terminal and I will get the contents of this file listed on my screen.

Now if I wanted to see how many friends I have listed in this file, I can have cat number the lines for me by using the cat -n option. So if I run cat -n Linux-Friends.txt the cat command will then output each of the Linux friend’s that I have listed and place a number in front of each one so I can see how many friends I have. Using cat -n [file] is also useful when doing some programming or coding, so you can see what line number you need to edit.

You can also pipe off of the Linux cat command to use it with other Linux commands. So for this example of the Linux cat command I want to only grab a certain person’s name from the list to display their contact information. So I can run cat Linux-Friends.txt|grep Brandon and now I will only get Brandon’s contact information.

Another example of using the Linux cat command with other Linux commands via pipe is if I only want Brandon’s email address to display and not his phone number. The Linux-Friends.txt file is in this format: last name, first name – phone number – email address so I can use the Linux cat command with grep and also awk to display only what I want. So I can run cat Linux-Friends.txt|grep Brandon|awk '{print $4" "$5}' and now I have Brandon’s phone number.

For an explaination of the command above I will show each output as each command is ran.
cat Linux-Friends.txt
–friend 1,2,3–
Stimmel, Brandon – (330) 222-7222 – news@beginnerlinuxtutorial.com
–friend 5,6,7–
Now we add |grep Brandon
Stimmel, Brandon – (330) 222-7222 – news@beginnerlinuxtutorial.com
and you see the other friends are now gone. Now we can add |awk '{print $4" "$5}' which will display the 4th and 5th column, and the – in that file counts as a column as well. The 4th column is (330) and the 5th column is 222-7222. So my output now would be: (330) 222-7222

I hope this has helped you learn how to use the Linux cat command in a Linux terminal and also using the cat command with other commands via pipeline. Remember to come back and visit Beginner Linux Tutorial for all of your Linux questions and tutorials. If there is a Linux tutorial you’d like to see on Beginner Linux Tutorial please let us know.

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The usage of the Linux rm command is rm [options] [file|dir]. The 2 options I use most is rm -r [dir] and rm -f [file]. Now to explain these options for the Linux delete command and also give you some examples on how to remove a file with Linux.

The rm -f [file] option is if you are wanting to force a file to be removed. This will not ask you “are you sure you want to remove [file]”. It will just delete the file regardless. So use this option for the Linux rm command only if you know you want all of the file(s) deleted.

Now the rm -r [dir] option is if you are wanting to delete a directory in Linux. The rm -r option is to specify to remove recursively, meaning a directory and it’s contents.

You can use these 2 options for the Linux delete command together as well. You could use the command rm -rf [dir] to delete a directory forcefully and recursively. DO NOT be fooled into running rm -rf /, rm -rf /* as this will remove all of your files and folders. Some people may come off as they are trying to help you with Linux and be a dick and tell you to run rm -rf /* which you can then say bye bye to your files and folders.

You can also use rm in a script type command after a pipe | so you can delete filenames of the output. You can also use rm to remove files that are produced from another command or script. Here is an example of how to remove a file found after grep in Linux. Say if you have a folder /home/max/images/family and in this directory you have 20 images that have the word copy in the title because you accidentally highlighted these 20 files, went to drag them into another folder in a GUI, and let go too early and created copies. So now you want to remove these copies, you would first cd to that directory cd /home/max/images/family now you can run rm -f `ls | grep copy` which will remove all the files that ls | grep copy matches. This same process could be done easier by running rm -f *copy* instead, but these are just examples.

I hope reading this Linux tutorial on the Linux rm command has taught you more than you already know and that you can continue reading through this Beginner Linux Tutorial website and learn even more about the Linux operating system! Have a great day and remember DO NOT run rm -rf /* or any variation of it. I will write a section on Beginner Linux Tutorial explaining more of the commands that can harm your system to watch out for when people are trying to help you with Linux so that you will not be a victim of this. If you are unsure if a command will harm your system, you can always do a quick reference check by searching the net for that command, or even looking at the man pages for that command to see what it is that command/options will do. You can read your manpages by typing man [command] like man rm will bring up the manual for the Linux rm command.

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The usage of the Linux mv command to move files around on your file system is much like the Linux cp command, but the source will no longer exist. To use the mv command in Linux shell, just run mv [source] [destination].

So for example I am making a new account on another Linux computer. I want to move my home directory to the new Linux computer. So first I setup nfs and mount my new Linux computer’s /home directory on my old Linux computer. Now I will run mv /home/max /mnt/home/ so all of my files move to my new Linux computer. This is just an example as I would most likely use rsync Linux command to do this. Which I will go over in another Linux tutorial.

I have also seen a few Linux beginners having trouble moving files in Linux that have special characters in them. So to move files with special characters in Linux you will simple escape the characters that hold special meanings, like a space, (, or ). So for example I have a file named DSC06540 (New LCD TV).JPG this is an ugly filename but to move this file from my compact flash drive on my camera to my /home/max/images/electronics directory, I would simple escape all the special characters with a \ like this mv /media/CF/DSC06540\ \(New\ LCD\ TV\).JPG /home/max/images/electronics/

Another command I use quite often with the mv shell command is find. I can have find search for files on my computer and move the files to a new location. To do this there are 2 methods you can use, one method of using Linux find to move files is a small script, for example if I want to move all my php files to /home/max/htdocs/ I would run this: for i in `find *php`; do mv $i /home/max/htdocs; done.

Method 2 that uses Linux find command to move files in Linux is using the -exec option of find to execute mv. This command was brought to my attention a few days ago by another Linux user, and it is much faster than my method. Using the same example to move my php files, but using this method, you will run: find *php -exec mv {} /home/max/htdocs \; which is a lot less to type!

You can also change your find options any way you prefer to search your hard drive for the files you are looking for. Which I will go over in another Linux tutorial.

As you can see it isn’t hard at all to move files and folders in Linux shell prompt at all. As always I hope this Linux tutorial for beginners has helped you learn more about the Linux mv command. I hope you come back and find more help on Beginner Linux Tutorial.

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The 2 options for the Linux cp command that I will cover is how to copy file recursively and also how to copy files in Linux only if the source file is newer than the destination file.

First the syntax for using the Linux cp command is cp [options] [source] [destination], where [source] or [destination] may be a file or a directory.

The main option for the Linux cp command that I use is coping a directory recursively. To do this you would use cp -R [source] [destination], cp -r [source] [destination], or cp --recursive [source] [destination]. I usually am lazy and just use the shortest easiest keystroke, cp -r [source] [destination].

Coping a directory recursively means copying the entire folder, including it’s contents. For example if I was wanting to copy the directory /home/max/images/family/ and all of the directories and files inside of it to /media/backup_drive/, I would run cp -r /home/max/images/family /media/backup_drive/

Now if I was not wanting to copy the entire directory and just wanted only the *.jpg files, I would not need the -r option. I would simply run cp /home/max/images/family/*.jpg /media/backup_drive/family/jpeg_files/ which * is a wildcard, so anything.jpg will be copied. Yes, that is a bad example as that is a very ugly directory structure, but again it is about 4:30am and I should really be sleeping!

There are much better ways to backup your data in Linux than using the cp command, that is the only example I could come up with at the moment. In another Linux tutorial I will cover how to backup your files in Linux using a lot more efficient methods.

The next option that I use from time to time on the Unix cp command is cp -u [source] [destination] or cp --update [source] [destination] which will only copy files if the source files are newer than the destination files, or if the destination files do not exist.

For an example of the Linux cp -u command I am wanting to copy files from my website and back them up, but I only want to copy the files that are newer, to save CPU usage and drive writes, no use in overwriting files that are the same or older right? So I will run cp -u /home/max/htdocs/* /media/backup_drive/htdocs/

If you are wanting to copy hidden files and folders in Linux using the cp command, the first thing people will think of is cp -r .* /media/backup_drive/max/hidden_config_files/ but this will actually match ./ and ../ as well, which will copy all files in the current working directory, and also copy all the files from the parent directory. So to copy only hidden files in Linux, you would want to run cp -r .[a-z,A-Z,0-9]* /media/backup_drive/max/hidden_config_files/ this way it will only match files that start with a . and the next character is a-z, A-Z, or 0-9 and everything after that being a wildcard.

I hope this Linux tutorial on the Linux cp command for beginners has helped you understand how to use the Unix cp command while in the Linux Command Line Interface.

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When using the Linux cd command to change directory, the syntax of the Unix cd command is cd [directory]. Pretty easy to remember right? So if you are wanting to change your current working directory to your home directory, you can run cd /home/max as max is my username. With the cd command if you do not specify any directory it will automatically change directory to your home, so just running cd in the Linux shell will take you to your home directory as well. Another way to get to your home directory in Linux is using the home variable $HOME. So if you type cd $HOME you will be taken to your user’s home directory as well.

You can also use the $HOME variable as part of a path. Say if you wanted to change directory to /home/max/images/family you could run cd $HOME/images/family which will take you to /home/max/images/family but of course your $HOME not mine!

Some other common uses of the Linux cd command is to change directory to the parent directory. To do this you could use cd ../ which will change directory to the parent directory of the active directory you are already in. You can also use ../ as part of your path, so say my current working directory is /home/max/images/family and I want to change directory to /home/max/images/friends you have 2 options. You can run the cd command with the full path: cd /home/max/images/friends or your other option is to use the ../ parent directory as part of your path like this: cd ../friends/ since I was already in /home/max/images/family the parent directory is /home/max/images/

One more common thing I see some people asking is how to change to a directory with a space in the shell. When you are in the command line interface a space is a special character so you will have to escape it using a backslash \ I usually try not to make any filenames or directory names with any special characters in them, but if you do have a directory named say Linux Stuff you would use cd Linux\ Stuff to change directories.

You can also use the cd shell command to change directory as part of a script. For example if I was wanting to make a script that would change directory to /usr/local/games/quake3 and then run ./quake3 since the quake3 game needs your shell to be in /usr/local/games/quake3 as the working directory for the game to run properly, you could run cd /usr/local/games/quake3 && ./quake3 which you can save to a file in /usr/bin/quake3 so when you run quake3 the shell script will cd /usr/local/games/quake3 and if that runs with no errors the shell script will then also run ./quake3

At the moment I am pretty tired, so the quake3 game was the only thing I could think of off the top of my head that you would want to script the Linux cd command.

I hope this cd Linux tutorial for beginners has helped you learn more about the Linux shell command cd so you can change directories easily using the Linux shell. Remember to come back and visit Beginner Linux Tutorial for more Linux tutorials for beginners as this site will always be adding more Linux tutorials.

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The usage for mkdir is very simple mkdir [options] [directory].

Just remember when running mkdir that you are creating directories from the current working directory, unless you specify another path. So if I am in /home/max/ and I want to make a directory called images I would run mkdir images which will create the directory images in /home/max/ so now my complete path for images is /home/max/images/. Now if I was in /home/max/files/ and still wanted to create /home/max/images/ I could run mkdir ../images which ../ is your parent directory. I could also type in the full path on the command line by running mkdir /home/max/images to get the same results.

The option I use on a regular basis for the mkdir command is mkdir -p which will allow you to create parent directories if they don’t already exist. For example if /home/max/images/ didn’t already exist and I wanted to make a directory /home/max/images/family I could either make each directory individually by running mkdir /home/max/images then run mkdir /home/max/images/family. I could also script this slightly all in one command line, yet 2 separate commands by running mkdir /home/max/images && /home/max/images/family. So either way still having to type out many commands. Now instead of typing all the extras, i could simply run 1 mkdir command to create the parent directories as well using the mkdir -p option. Which I would then run mkdir -p /home/max/images/family and this will create /home/max/images and also /home/max/images/family as well!

I’ve also seen a lot of people asking how to make directories a through z with Linux? Well my first thought was to try mkdir [a-z], but unfortunately this will just create a directory named [a-z]. So in Linux to make directories a through z you have to make a small script type command. Here is the command you can run to create directories a through z, if you are wanting to organize mp3s for example: perl -e 'for (a..z) {system("mkdir $_")};'

SHELL NOTE: For anyone wondering in the example command line where I used mkdir /home/max/images && /home/max/images/family what the && does, the && on a command line separates shell commands and only runs the next shell command if the first Linux shell command ran successfully without any errors. So if for some reason mkdir /home/max/images failed, the shell would not run the next shell command mkdir /home/max/images/family.

As always thank you for reading this information on the Linux mkdir command for creating new folders and directories in Linux via the command line interface. If you have any friends you would like to teach how to run Linux, send them here to the beginner linux tutorial, where we will hopefully turn them into advanced Linux users or at least Linux users so they can get rid of that evil Microsoft product they call an operating system!

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The main options of the file command that I use is file -f [filename], where [filename] would be a standard text file with a list of files you want to have checked. If using this option you will want [filename] to have 1 filename per line.

The other option I use often isn’t really an option on the file command, but is a short script. You can run file `ls` and it will output the file types of all of the files that the ls command outputs normally, which will be all of the files listed in your current working directory.

I hope this Linux tutorial for beginners has helped you learn more about the Linux file type information command. As always if you have any questions or comments on this Linux tutorial you can leave them below, or you can use our Linux forum.

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The usage for the Linux ls command is: ls [options] [file|directory]

You can use the ls command without any options or as many options as you like.

If you just run ls with no options it will output the list of files in the current working directory in alphabetical order. So if you are in $HOME (which is the system variable for your home directory ( /home/username ). This will also not output any .* files or directories ( files or directories that start with . as they are hidden files|directories ).

Now if you want to list all files and folders in a directory you can use ls -a or --all option. This option will output all files and folders including the files and folders that match .* ( your hidden files and folders ). You can also use ls -A or ls --almost-all which will output all files|directories except for ./ and ../ ( which ./ is current working directory, ../ is your parent directory ).

Another common option for ls is using ls -b or ls --escape which will escape any special characters like spaces. This is more useful if you can not figure out which characters need escaped or if you are writing a script that needs the characters escaped.

ls -l will output the files and directories in long list format. Which means ls -l will output your file and directory permissions, hardlinks or entries, user, group, size (in bytes), month, date, time, filename|directory name.

ls -h will display the output sizes in human readable form, the highest available measurement. ( 1K 1M 1G.. etc ). This option has to be used with an option that outputs size as well. So either ls -s or ls -l but you would combine the options, ls -lh or ls -sh will work.

You can combine a number of options for ls to get the results you want, ls -lha will display the output of all files and directories in long list format with the sizes being human readable aka the highest measurement available.

You can also pass the output onto other commands using a pipe | so that you can alter the results more to specific needs. For example if you want to just see the sizes of files, and not filename or directory names: ls -sh | awk '{print $1}' will do this for you. If you wanted to display just the permissions of the files and directories, you could use ls -l | awk '{print $1}' which will give you those results. If you want more information on scripting like this I will be covering this in another section.

I hope this beginner Linux tutorial on the Linux ls command has helped you accomplish what you need and also give you a better understanding on how the ls command works. Continue reading through the beginner Linux tutorial website for more Linux tutorials!

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