Adventures In Linux

Top 4 Security Concerns of 2016 and How to Prepare Yourself

2016-03-04T08:01:00.001-08:00

Top 4 Security Concerns of 2016 and How to Prepare Yourself

Each year technology is getting smarter, smaller and more ubiquitous. This technology is empowering a more productive workforce, but it is also empowering hackers with more tools to disrupt and plunder businesses and individuals. So what are these threats and what can you do while at work or home to prevent a breach? Keep reading!

1. Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks Increase.
In an ever increasing arms race between information security professionals and the global network of hackers, hacktivists, and script kiddies the good guys have managed to develop a myriad of technologies to stop them in their tracks. But there will always be an Achilles heel to this technology that can never be removed entirely from the loop - the human element. Phishing, phone scams, and other social engineering techniques are proven and reliable ways for criminals to gain a foothold in any company.

What can you do about it?

Slow down - Thinking before you click is always the best option. Do you really need to click on that hyperlink from an unknown sender? Hover over any hyperlink to make sure it is going to a trusted location.

Double Check the “To” line - Have you double checked who you are replying to in an email?

Question callers - Should you go to a web page that some random person on the phone just instructed you navigate to? The answer is no. More often than not, IT staff will reach out to people who have contacted them first.

2. Smartphones Make A Smart Target For Attackers

According to a 2015 Pew Research study nearly two thirds of Americans now own a smartphone. From a smartphone you can bank, buy food, get a ride home, or track your fitness. These devices provide a staggering amount of information about you and the world around you, but they can also provide would be attacks with a treasure trove of information if they gain physical or virtual access to your device. How can you prevent this access?

Harden your phone - The best way to prevent physical access to your phone is with a simple lock screen. Most phones these days offer many quick and easy ways to lock your device. Pins, patterns, pictures, and fingerprint scanners are available on many models of phones.

There is no such thing as a free app - Many free apps include ads to generate revenue. These ads may or may not be policed and could take you to a malicious site if you intentionally or accidentally click on them.

Practice app austerity – Do you really need 40 apps on your phone? Try removing old/unused apps and also be sure to do a bit of research (read negative reviews or google the app) before you install something on your phone. While the vast majority of app developers are not malicious they may still collect a ton of information about you. This information could be exposed if they are hacked.

3. Does My Toaster Have A Virus? The Internet of Things (IoT) Is Almost Here

Did you get a smart TV this Christmas? How about a smart watch or maybe a smart fridge? These types of devices are all part of the Internet of Things (IoT). As with any connected device, the more popular the device, the more likely it is to be the target of attacks. There are very few known vulnerabilities for these kinds of devices, but that doesn’t mean they are invulnerable from attack.
Keep your device up to date - If you own one of these devices make sure to be vigilant and keep your device software up to date. Be sure to keep an eye out for news about possible vulnerabilities that could compromise your device.

4. Small and Medium businesses will become a bigger target for cyber criminals

A recent PricewaterhouseCoopers report revealed that 74% of SMBs experienced a security issue in the last 12 months, and this number will only increase due to SMBs being perceived as easy targets. If one of your business’s clients or partners gets compromised their relationship with your company could be leveraged to social engineer your companies employees.
The most likely avenue of attack would come from phishing emails or fraudulent phone calls coming from compromised email accounts or phone systems. See item number one on how to prepare for this kind of attack.

Which of these threats concerns you the most? Please discuss this, and anything else in this article below!

3D Printed Penguin.

2014-01-15T17:43:00.001-08:00

3D Printed Penguin. That is all. :D

Android Exploration Tools For The Rooted User

2013-10-01T12:37:00.000-07:00

Got Root?

Once you have rooted your android device there are lots of cool applications that open up to you. As a curious IT professional I comb the net looking for good apps for my phone. I think of them as a digital Swiss army knife. Not all of these applications require root, but most require it to unlock the full potential of the application.

Hacker's Keyboard -

Don't let the name fool you. There is nothing malicious about this keyboard. It simply adds more "traditional" keys that are often left out of smartphone keyboards. Things like the directional pad and toggles to press two buttons at once (CTRL + ALT). While not as quick as standard keyboards, the extra keys are invaluable while SSH'd into a box.

SSH Tunnel -

Ever find yourself on a more "restricted" network? Wish your phone could visit the sites you want while still taking advantage of that sweet sweet bandwidth? Wish you could add a layer of encryption to your network traffic? Well now you can! SSH Tunnel connects to a home or remote server running S

ConnectBot

This is a fantastic SSH client (or telnet if that floats your boat) for android.

Network Discovery and Fing

Want to find out what devices are attached to the network AND what services they are running? Look no further than these two fantastic apps. Think of them as NMAP lite. Another neat feature is that once you have found a service (say SSH) on the network it will launch ConnectBot (or similar) to make the connection.

Orbot: TOR For Android

Run Silent, Run Deep...web!? Yup, you guessed it TOR has an official android client! Once installed it has links to their own secure web browser and the duck duck go search engine. Very cool stuff. Tested and it works!

kWs: Android Web Server

Want to host a simple web page from your phone? Look no further than the kWs web server! Who needs a computer to update your personal site when you can just log into the server in your pocket! It allows for 10 connections at once so it isn't going to help you rake in that sweet sweet ad revenue, but just think of all that sweet geek cred you will nab! Check out my guide here!

Shark and Shark Reader for Root

At first I thought these were very cool, but they are actually of much less limited use than their IRL counterparts. The reason for this is the app is add supported SO...when you harvest those sweet, sweet packets they come cluttered up with lots of "noise" from the adds. If you can filter that info out great...but it is just kind of a hassel.

aTorrent & uTorrent - bit torrent clients for Android

Torrent to your phone! Tested and works like a charm (both clients). Just make sure you are aware you will destroy your data plan if you aren't careful.

If you dear reader have any apps that you can't live without share em with me!

As always thanks for reading!!

o7

Why Intel Steams Me! Grrrr!!

2013-08-07T22:06:00.001-07:00

So I am an avid gamer, and a Linux user something which, until recently, really hasn't gone hand in hand. That is quickly changing with the advent of the Steam client for Linux. More and more games are being ported to the client or are being created especially for it. Enter me and my primary Linux laptop powered by an Intel 4500 gma chipset. It plays some simple games just fine (FTL, Dungeons of Dreadmore), but when it comes to graphically intensive games it isn't great, but it should be able to play some older games like Half-Life 2 / other source engine games just fine (like it does in Windows). Unfortunately this isn't the case. I use the latest version of Linux Mint, but the standard drivers are terrible for the Intel 4500...so terrible that all of my Valve games are just plain broken. They either go to black or load upside down. While there are some work around fixes, but they require using some bleeding edge drivers (xorg edgers ppa for example). I tried these, but I ended up installing it wrong and had to roll it back. So I have been finding many other people are running into the same issue. One such user is found here...http://communities.intel.com/thread/33333 he was running into the same issue as me and when they asked Intel communities if they could start a Linux community to address some of these issues they got this pithy response...

Intel® currently has no intention of opening a Linux subforum. The Intel linux drivers are developed by the linux community as well.

Basically "We could care less about the new ground swell of Linux based gaming. If you want it to work fix it yourself." As a Linux user this much is obvious as it is what Linux is all about...DIY. But Linux is also about communities, about little pockets of users with similar interests coming together to resolve their specific issues. When Intel's official response to making a forum community to help Intel GMA chipset users get their game on is PISS OFF, well it pisses me off.

TL;DR - Intel should not ignore the up and coming Linux gaming community. Instead they should embrace the community and provide just that, a community space for Linux gamers to congregate.

Netflix on Linux!!!

2013-01-08T07:16:00.001-08:00

Really not sure how I missed this, but you can now get Netflix on Linux!!

Huge shout out to fellow Iowan Nixie Pixel for posting this very workable workaround over at her linux youtube page. Also, if you don't know who Nixie Pixel is be sure to check out her YouTube vids and other sites. Lots of helpful info and news about Linux, Open Source, and gaming to be found!

To install on Ubuntu / Mint (64 or 32 bit)-

Start terminal

$ sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ehoover/compholio

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install netflix-desktop

------

For Fedora (only 32 bit systems)

You need wget first:
su -c 'yum -y install wget'

Installing Netflix:
wget -chttp://sourceforge.net/projects/postinstaller/files/data/Netflixplayer.tar.gz

tar -xvzf Netflixplayer.tar.gz

su -c 'sh Netflixplayer.sh'

Running Netflix from cmd line:
sh /usr/bin/Netflix.sh

I did the install on the latest version of Linux Mint and encountered no problems. The interface seems somewhat wonky at times, but everything works great. It is really, REALLY unfortunate that Netflix has not developed something like this themselves. Oh well, Linux community FTW! Check out Nixie Pixel's video walk through below.

Why Linux?

2012-12-13T17:38:00.002-08:00

That is a question many of my non-Linux using friends often ask me. Why waste your time learning about an OS that takes so much extra effort? I mean if it was that good EVERYONE would use it right???

Linux is specialized tool. It is not a swiss army knife like windows. It is not as easy to use, but limited in scope like the spork that is Mac OSX. It is more like a tool chest full of specialty tools...think torx head screwdrivers and tricorders. With these tools you can do nearly anything you can imagine! Let us look at all of the ways Linux just plain does it better.

Linux Is Everywhere

Do you use any of the following? An Android smartphone, a wifi router, DVR, DVD player, or the internet? Of course you do! Guess what? You use Linux! Linux can be found in each one of these devices in much the same way DNA can be found in nearly all life on Earth. It is pervasive yet hidden. This is the main obstacle to the OS's mainstream desktop use. It can be tailored to many different applications from the Mars rovers to the computer I am typing this on. This wide array of options often overwhelms users new to the OS. Do they use Ubuntu, Arch, Gentoo, Debian, Puppy Linux, Slackware...well you get the picture.

So WHY Linux??

For all the reason listed above; that is why! Got a spare computer, router, tablet, or Martian rover lying around gathering dust? Put some Linux on it! Where do I start?? Below you will find some helpful links to get you started on your Linux journey. I would encourage you to browse my blog, but it is more focused on someone that has already started on their journey. Here are some links to get you started...

Lifehacker's Guide to Linux - This is a great jumping off point and it brings you to one of the most helpful sites on the internet...not just Linux!

Distro Watch - When you are ready to pick a "flavor" of Linux this is the place to start. Great info on all variations.

Linux Questions - You WILL have questions, and this site has nearly ALL the answers. For users of all skill levels by users of all skill types. Bookmark this site like yesterday.

Ubuntu - Quickly becoming the "Face" of Linux, this site has a wealth of information for users that have decided to use the novice (and expert) friendly flavor of Linux.

I hope this post helps you on your journey. If you ever have any questions feel free to comment on this blog or send me a shout out on twitter ( @assi9 ).

Thanks for reading!!

Acer Iconia a200: THE REVIEW!!

2012-12-08T20:39:00.002-08:00

Well it has been a few months and I have really come to enjoy my Acer Iconia a200 tablet. The picture quality is fantastic and the performance is great. Graphics intensive games run quickly and look great. A perfect example of this is the massive new A Bards Tale (which btw way is a great game for all you RPG fans out there). The game textures look about on par with a high end computer circa 2004. So I like to get right to the point with my reviews. So lets get to it. First lets start off with what is wrong with this tablet.

The Bad

The volume controls are shit. The rocker button is small and hard to operate. It feels solid and quality, but just a little too solid. If it was a wee bit bigger it would be much better.

Power save mode is a blessing and a curse. When your tablet is idle the WiFi will shut off. This is a good measure to save battery life and I am all for that, but when downloading very large files it is nice to be able to do so with the screen off. This "feature" can also be annoying when bringing the tablet out of sleep mode as it will often resume the app you were in and then interrupt said app with a flood of new email alerts and whatnot.

The Good

FULL SIZE USB. Yea. That's right I said full size USB. You can plug all sorts of goodies into this. USB hub, keyboard/mouse combo, even an external hard drive! This tablet pushes the boundaries from standard android tablet to decent netbook replacement with the proper case and keyboard mouse combo.

Micro-SD Card Slot. Use this to expand the 16GB of hard drive space to whatever you darn well please.

Easy root*! I used THIS method to root the tablet. Follow the steps to the letter and you will be just fine! Took me about an hour to get this all set. Many thanks to the great folks over at http://www.acertabletforum.com. *FYI - After rooting my tablet the newest version of Hulu stopped working. It seems to be the only application affected by the root process. I was able to find a version of Hulu (read hacked) that worked, but it doesn't seem to be very high quality. But hey it works.

Couple final thoughts. Tablet cases are shit and so are the styluses. Both are very expensive and in the case of the styluses...garbage. I did manage to find a decent case for it. The Case Logic iPad/ 10" Tablet case works great as it can hold the tablet in an upright position. Only one caveat...the little bungee cord in the upper left hand corner will occasionally press the power button and shut off the screen or sometimes even the tablet. I opt to just unhook it.

See below for links to this tablet and case! Thanks for stopping by! :D

Acer Iconia a200 First Impressions

2012-08-05T09:04:00.001-07:00

Hello world! It is I your intrepid linux reporter! Today I am writing you from the exciting world of tablets! Yesterday I aged another year (like a fine single malt) and I treated myself with a tablet computer. After much debating I decided to go with the Acer Iconia a200 tablet. It has a 1280 x 800 screen (higher res than the iPad 1 and 2), a full size usb port (and micro usb slot as well), and a 10.1 screen. And best of all it was on sale!
So 24 hours with this tablet has left a fantastic first impression on me. The display is clear and bright, the Logitech k400 keyboard I am typing this on worked with zero user intervention, and it updated itself to Ice Cream Sandwich the second it connected to wifi. This was fantastic as I didn't have to go through the device setup twice. So this has been all flowers and butterflies so far. Where is the manure you say? Well the sound isn't fantastic, but let's be realistic; I don't see anyone carrying their tablet computers up by their head 80's style. The wierd little Acer circle menu is rather silly, but it doesn't matter too much as you don't really need to use it if you don't want to. Other than those minor gripes this is a great 10.1" tablet for the money. I will revist this little tablet at a later date. I intend to root it and possibly mod it with Ubuntu (or backtrack linux) and I will let you know how all that goes. To summarize...
Pros: Great 1280 xt 800 display, easy setup, and a full size usb with keyboard and mouse support.
Cons: Sound sucks and the Acer radial menu is rather redundant.

I will take "Name that blog" for $1000 Alex!!

2012-02-13T18:49:00.000-08:00

Woot!!! Finally scrapped together $3 for a namecheap.com domain. 30 min after purchase my blog has a real name! I can now say my blog has +2 legit armor. Thanks for stopping by! :D

Going "Green" with CentOS

2012-02-13T10:59:00.000-08:00

Due to my ever shrinking budget I decided to ax my beast xeon debian server. :( I decided to go for a more "green" (read cheaper) solution for a 24/7 server. Since I am trying to teach myself some marketable job skills I decided to go with CentOS. CentOS is basically the free / all open source version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) they just remove the Red Hat branding and whatnot. Bottom line it will give me a robust, stable, and widely used platform on which to run my apps and to get some good old fashioned hands on XP. Below is some of the more "unique" challenges I have run into using this OS.

Now to "sexy" this post up! I give you...the hardware!

Intel D510 all in one board

2 gigs of gskill ram (soon 4 gigs)

A 40gig Intel SSD for the OS and apps

A 1TB drive for LOL Catz and Demotivational posters.

And such an elegant system needs a pimp case and power supply.

Total price for this little gem is $392.95 (or about $450 after shipping/handling). But the best part is the energy draw. According to a Tom's Hardware review the D510 should pull about 33-40 watts at full load. A far cry from the 400+ watts my old server use to draw at load!

Hardware is setup and ready to rock....it is CentOS time!

First we must get ourselves an *.iso image of CentOS to use in either a bootable USB stick (instructions on that here) or a bootable CD/DVD. If windows 7 is your primary os you can burn the iso disk using windows. If you are on XP you will need burner software capable of making an iso disk. I would suggest XP Burner. Here a mirror for you! From that link choose which hardware architecture you are on, in my case the x86_64 bit. Next find the appropriate install. When I installed it I went with the Live DVD you can find that here. So once your iso of choice has been burned / turned into a bootable USB drive it is time to start the install. Now I am not big on going through step by step the install process of many Linux distros because frankly a lot of time and effort has gone into making them dead simple. Like my mom has installed Ubuntu. If she can do that you can do CentOS. So assuming you are installing this on the hardware above you may be staring a blue screen and thinking WTF?!?! If you are on different hardware skip down to the LAMP server setup section.

STOP HAMMER TIME.

Ok at this point, just after the install has finished I hit a wall, I could do nothing....no mouse, no icons just a blue screen taunting me. I think, maybe I just need to reboot. NOPE. Reinstall....NOPE. Chuck Testa....NOPE. Nothing worked. At some point in my obscenity laced tirade I bumped my mouse hard. Well hello little cursor! Where have you been hiding!? With the mere power of right click I was able to open up a terminal window and type "gnome-display-settings" and up pops the desktop settings. Problem found. It was showing not one but two monitors. One disabled and the other something obscene like 3072 x 2048. Well I disabled the other monitor and set the current display to the correct resolution and we were in like Flint. Crisis resolved. The same procedure (flail the mouse about until it appears on screen and set the correct resolution) had to be repeated for each user, but once that was done it was all good. On to setting up the LAMP server!

LAMP - Linux Apache MySQL PHP

I make no claim to this section of the setup process. I used the guide below and it helped me greatly, I got all this stuff from here...

http://library.linode.com/lamp-guides/centos-6 by Sam Kleinman Please show them love and go to the site if this works for you.
--------------------------------------------START RIP OFF-----------------------------------------------

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for installing a full-featured LAMP stack on a CentOS 6 system.

In this guide, you will be instructed on setting up Apache, MySQL, and PHP. If you don't feel that you will need MySQL or PHP, please don't feel obligated to install theM.

Set the Hostname

Before you begin installing and configuring the components described in this guide, please make sure you've followed our instructions for setting your hostname. Issue the following commands to make sure it is set properly:

hostname
hostname -f

The first command should show your short hostname, and the second should show your fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

Install and Configure the Apache Web Server

The Apache Web Server is a very popular choice for serving web pages. While many alternatives have appeared in the last few years, Apache remains a powerful option that we recommend for most uses.

To install the current version of the Apache web server (in the 2.x series) use the following command:

yum update
yum install httpd

The configuration for Apache is contained in the httpd.conf file, which is located at: /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf. We advise you to make a backup of this file into your home directory, like so:

cp /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf ~/httpd.conf.backup

By default all files ending in the .conf extension in /etc/httpd/conf.d/ are treated as Apache configuration files, and we recommend placing your non-standard configuration options in files in these directories. Regardless how you choose to organize your configuration files, making regular backups of known working states is highly recommended.

Now we'll configure virtual hosting so that we can host multiple domains (or subdomains) with the server. These websites can be controlled by different users, or by a single user, as you prefer.

Before we get started, we suggest that you combine all configuration on virtual hosting into a single file called vhost.conf located in the /etc/httpd/conf.d/ directory. Open this file in your favorite text editor, and we'll begin by setting up virtual hosting.

Configure Name-based Virtual Hosts

There are different ways to set up Virtual Hosts, however we recommend the method below. By default, Apache listens on all IP addresses available to it.

Now we will create virtual host entries for each site that we need to host with this server. Here are two examples for sites at "example.com" and "example.org".

File excerpt:/etc/httpd/conf.d/vhost.conf

NameVirtualHost *:80

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin webmaster@example.com
     ServerName example.com
     ServerAlias www.example.com
     DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.com/public_html/
     ErrorLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/error.log
     CustomLog /srv/www/example.com/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:80>
     ServerAdmin webmaster@example.org
     ServerName example.org
     ServerAlias www.example.org
     DocumentRoot /srv/www/example.org/public_html/
     ErrorLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/error.log
     CustomLog /srv/www/example.org/logs/access.log combined
</VirtualHost>

Notes regarding this example configuration:

All of the files for the sites that you host will be located in directories that exist underneath /srv/www You can symbolically link these directories into other locations if you need them to exist in other places.
ErrorLog and CustomLog entries are suggested for more fine-grained logging, but are not required. If they are defined (as shown above), the logs directories must be created before you restart Apache.

Before you can use the above configuration you'll need to create the specified directories. For the above configuration, you can do this with the following commands:

mkdir -p /srv/www/example.com/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.com/logs

mkdir -p /srv/www/example.org/public_html
mkdir /srv/www/example.org/logs

After you've set up your virtual hosts, issue the following command to run Apache for the first time:

/etc/init.d/httpd start

Assuming that you have configured the DNS for your domain to point to your Linode's IP address, Virtual hosting for your domain should now work. Remember that you can create as many virtual hosts with Apache as you need.

If you want to run Apache by default when the system boots, which is a typical setup, execute the following command:

/sbin/chkconfig --levels 235 httpd on

Use the chkconfig command to setup runlevels as needed.

Anytime you change an option in your vhost.conf file, or any other Apache configuration remember to reload the configuration with the following command:

/etc/init.d/httpd reload

Install and Configure MySQL Database Server

MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) and is a popular component in contemporary web development tool-chains. It is used to store data for many popular applications, including Wordpress and Drupal.

Install MySQL

The first step is to install the mysql-server package, which is accomplished by the following command:

yum install mysql-server

In CentOS 6 this provides version 5.1.52 of MySQL. Before you can use MySQL some configuration is required.

If you want to run MySQL by default when the system boots, which is a typical setup, execute the following command:

/sbin/chkconfig --levels 235 mysqld on

Now you can start the mysql daemon (mysqld) with the following command (as root):

/etc/init.d/mysqld start

At this point MySQL should be ready to configure and run. While you shouldn't need to change the configuration file, note that it is located at /etc/my.cnf for future reference.

Configure MySQL and Set Up MySQL databases

After installing MySQL, it's recommended that you run mysql_secure_installation, a program that helps secure MySQL. While running mysql_secure_installation, you will be presented with the opportunity to change the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases. It is recommended that you answer yes to these options. If you are prompted to reload the privilege tables, select yes. Run the following command to execute the program:

mysql_secure_installation

Next, we'll create a database and grant your users permissions to use databases. First, log in to MySQL:

mysql -u root -p

Enter MySQL's root password, and you'll be presented with a prompt where you can issue SQL statements to interact with the database.

To create a database and grant your users permissions on it, issue the following command. Note, the semi-colons (;) at the end of the lines are crucial for ending the commands. Your command should look like this:

create database lollipop;
grant all on lollipop.* to 'foreman' identified by '5t1ck';

In the example above, lollipop is the name of the database, foreman is the username, and 5t1ck password. Note that database user names and passwords are only used by scripts connecting to the database, and that database user account names need not (and perhaps should not) represent actual user accounts on the system.

With that completed you've successfully configured MySQL and you may now pass these database credentials on to your users. To exit the MySQL database administration utility issue the following command:

quit

With Apache and MySQL installed you are now ready to move on to installing PHP to provide scripting support for your web pages.

Installing and Configuring PHP

PHP makes it possible to produce dynamic and interactive pages using your own scripts and popular web development frameworks. Furthermore, many popular web applications like WordPress are written in PHP. If you want to be able to develop your websites using PHP, you must first install it.

CentOS includes packages for installing PHP from the terminal. Issue the following command:

yum install php php-pear

Once PHP5 is installed we'll need to tune the configuration file located in /etc/php.ini to enable more descriptive errors, logging, and better performance. These modifications provide a good starting point if you're unfamiliar with PHP configuration.

Make sure that the following values are set, and relevant lines are uncommented (comments are lines beginning with a semi-colon (;)):

File excerpt:/etc/php.ini

error_reporting = E_COMPILE_ERROR|E_RECOVERABLE_ERROR|E_ERROR|E_CORE_ERROR
display_errors = Off
log_errors = On
error_log = /var/log/php.log
max_execution_time = 300
memory_limit = 64M
register_globals = Off

If you need support for MySQL in PHP, then you must install the php5-mysql package with the following command:

yum install php-mysql

More Information

You may wish to consult the following resources for additional information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

------------------------ END RIP OFF-----------------------------------------------------------

You should how have a good jumping off point for numerous projects! Next article I will discuss how to setup the OTRS open source help desk ticketing software on your new server! :D

Let's Get NAPP'y With A NetBSD "LAMP" Server

2012-02-06T11:17:00.000-08:00

My good chum Andy has a new post he would like to share. How to setup a NetBSD version of the perennial LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP).

NetBSD + Apache + PHP + PostgreSQL

My NetBSD version of "LAMP".

Or, as I call it, "NAPP" (NetBSD, Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL)

This all assumes NetBSD and pkgsrc are set up and configured.

Apache
To install Apache (2.x in this case),

# cd /usr/pkgsrc/www/apache22
# make install clean clean-depends

To start Apache at boot,

# cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/apache /etc/rc.d
# echo 'apache=YES' >> /etc/rc.conf

To start Apache,

# apachectl start

Default httpd.conf location

/usr/pkg/etc/httpd

Default DocumentRoot

/usr/pkg/share/httpd/htdocs

PHP
To install PHP,

# cd /usr/pkgsrc/www/ap-php
# make install clean clean-depends

For Apache 1.x, add the following to httpd.conf

LoadModule php5_module lib/httpd/mod_php5.so
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php

For Apache 2.x, add the following to httpd.conf

LoadModule php5_module lib/httpd/mod_php5.so
AddHandler application/x-httpd-php .php

Restart Apache if it is running.

# apachectl stop
# apachectl start

For some reason, I had to do stop/start instead of graceful.
Default location of php.ini

/usr/pkg/etc

PostgreSQL
To install PostgreSQL (9.1 in this case),

# cd /usr/pkgsrc/databases/postgresql91
# make install clean clean-depends

This may take a while, depending on your system...
To enable PostgreSQL and start at boot,

# cp /usr/pkg/share/examples/rc.d/pgsql /etc/rc.d/pgsql
# echo 'pgsql=YES' >> /etc/rc.conf

You can now start PostgreSQL,

# /etc/rc.d/pgsql start

If you try starting PostgreSQL and get a message that "$pgsql is not set properly", it means you didn't edit /etc/rc.conf correctly.

PostgreSQL PHP module
To install the PostegreSQL module for PHP,

# cd /usr/pkgsrc/databases/php-pgsql
# make install clean clean-depends

To enable the module, add the following line to php.ini,

extension=pgsql.so

Then restart Apache.

And that's it! Enjoy your new NAPP server.

Be sure to check out this post on his site.....

http://level256.net/tech/napp/

If you have no idea of what NetBSD is and you want to learn more click the link below.

http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/en/chap-intro.html

Thanks for reading!

I am not dead! Promise!

2011-08-10T10:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry updating of this blog has fallen WAY behind lately. After the arrival of my first child it has been very hard to find the time needed to devote to this site. BUT my little girl has grown a bit and I might be able to eek out some more time soon. So stay tuned!

Ubuntu 11.04: Unity Review

2011-05-09T12:26:00.000-07:00

Well it took me a few days longer than I though it would to get this review out. But that is ok, because I wanted to do it right and give the Ubuntu / Canonical team their due.

First things first. I am not an Ubuntu hater. I enjoy it for what it is and for what it does for the Linux community. To me Ubuntu is the petting zoo for the full menagerie that is the Zoo of Linux distros. It is easy, accessible, and most of the time... a fun experience. So does the latest release of Ubuntu (11.04) with it's Unity GUI, maintain this tradition of fun and accessibility? I hate to report dear readers...NO. Lets break it down.

Unity is a people pleaser. It tries to bring "Unity" to all hardware platforms. Desktops, laptops, netbooks, and tablets. With this in mind let us look at what this means from a design standpoint. First, there is no "Program" menu. No start bar. A 7-10" tablet would not need such things so they are not there. Instead there is a launcher bar on the left side of the screen. From here there, you will find commonly used programs like Libre Office, Firefox, etc. There is also a file broswer, and the program launcher thing that could best be called the unholy love child of the windows vista / 7 search feature and the android apps page. Lets discuss this feature a little bit.

The launcher button allows you to search for programs that you have installed or find new ones on the internet. The icons are a good size, but by default there is no quick and easy way to bring up the standard directory listing of programs. The interface is clunky and not very intuitive. If I had to work on this desktop all day I think I would soon fill my screen with shortcuts or quickly go insane. Suggestion to fix the design would be to create a unique icon that would be used on the Unity bar to launch a "start button" style branching menu system and use the current app browser (another smartphone/tablet influence) to search for new programs and/or as a control panel style collection of system related programs/apps/widgets.

Another odd design in the Unity desktop is the addition of external scroll bars. Instead of the scroll bar being inside the border of the window and always visible, the bar auto-hides on the outside of the window. You can still move the page content with the up and down arrow The idea is very cool for use with a touch screen, but with a mouse it is rather pointless. Overall kinda meh on the idea. Might take some getting used to but all in all it is more of design idea with touch screens in mind. Last I checked Ubuntu wasn't trying to take over the handheld market currently occupied by Android, but maybe this is a sign of things to come.

Overall I found the Unity experience to be less than ideal. The tablet chic aesthetic mixed with the clunky and non-intuitive layout really turned me off from wanting to dig any deeper into this distro. If they limited this distro to only touchscreen enabled devices I might have given it more of a chance. But it tires too hard to bottle that Android magic and put it on your desktop. It just doesn't work without heavy customization. Now being a Linux user I don't shy away from this idea but I would only expend the extra energy if I needed to. Like on a tablet. That doesn't support Android.

TL;DR - Ubuntu 11.04 w/Unity gui... Needs tighter focus and the design needs to be refocused for better usability. Stick with your old pre-Unity Ubuntu until they fix this clunky excuse for a GUI.

Install A Web Server On Your Android Phone!

2011-04-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

The EVO and other cutting edge Android phones are quickly blurring the line between phone and computer. Case in point it is now possible to host a website on your Android powered device! Ok, pick your jaw off the floor, I am going to teach you how!

Step 1: Download the FREE web server app off the Android market. Search for kWs on the Android market and your first hit should be the web server. Download it and lets get started.

Step 2: Put the file containing your website on your phones SD card. The easiest way to do this is to connect your phone via USB, then dump the file on the card. I named mine index.html and it worked straight away.

Step 3: Register with dyndns.com or no-ip.com. In order to view your site from anywhere you are going to need Dynamic DNS. Luckily this service is free (for a non-custom domain name) or you can pay a cheap monthly fee. But seeing as how this is a web server for your phone, the free service should do just fine. I have used both dyndns.com and no-ip.com and they are pretty equal as far as I am concerned. Both allow you to choose from some pre-selected domain names. None of the domain names are really great, but between the two sites you should find one that fits your site. I am not going to go too in depth on the account creation process (both sites offer great info on setup)...basically you create an account, choose your site domain name, then you are done. The web server will take care of the rest.

Step 4: Configuring your web server.
When you first start your kWs app you will see a button at the bottom of the page that says "Start Server" (see left pic). Don't start it just yet. First hit the menu button and select the settings button. Here you will see a list of options (see the right pic). Select where your file is (if you dumped it on the SD card it is ready to go by default). Next select your port (by default it is 8080...and yes this means you need to put :8080 at the end of your site name ie http://my.site.org:8080) we can leave that default right now. There are some more advanced features next, but we are going to skip those and go to the DYDNS setup section. Here you select your provider, for this I am going with no-ip because they provide free web port redirect (so no adding :8080) and the ability to mask your URL when it redirects. So next put in your user name, password, and your website's URL.

Step 5: Start the server. That's it, your done! Now keep in mind there might be a few min lag time between when you make changes on your DYNDNS site and when changes are made to your site. Just a few quick things to mention...max connections to your site is 10...so this isn't meant for much beyond personal use. Hope this works for you as well as it worked for me!

PS: They also have a paid version of this app, but I have not had a chance to try it out yet.

Learn Python - Free Interactive Python Tutorial

2011-04-24T07:27:00.000-07:00

Learn Python - Free Interactive Python Tutorial

This is great! A dead simple interface, lots of great information at your finger tips and it even shows the output right away. I have never been good at coding. I mainly just stuck to HTML and stealing / editing other peoples code. I think with more sites like this I will have no reason not to actually try to code some stuff in python. Hope you find this site as cool as I do!

Hax

Oracle Open Office is Out Of Order

2011-04-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Regurgitated from Arstechnia

Goodbye Oracle Open Office....we hardly knew ya...

In a statement issued on Friday, Oracle announced that it intends to discontinue commercial development of the OpenOffice.org (OOo) office suite. The move comes several months after key members of the OOo community and a number of major corporate contributors forked OOo to create a vendor-neutral alternative.

OOo is one of many open source software projects that Oracle obtained in its acquisition of Sun. OOo has long been plagued by governance issues and friction between its corporate stakeholders. Sun's copyright assignment policies and bureaucratic code review process significantly hindered community participation in the project. Oracle declined to address these issues after its acquisition of Sun and exacerbated the friction by failing to engage with the OOo community in a transparent and open way.

A group of prominent OOo contributors eventually decided to fork the project, creating an alternative called LibreOffice. They founded a nonprofit organization called The Document Foundation (TDF) in order to create a truly vendor-neutral governance body for the software. LibreOffice is based on the OOo source code, but it alsoincorporates a large number of other improvements driven by its own developer community.

Most of the major companies that have historically been involved in OOo development have moved to stand behind TDF and LibreOffice, including Red Hat, Novell, Google, and Canonical. LibreOffice has also succeeded in attracting a significant portion of OOo's independent contributors. The ecosystem-wide shift in favor of LibreOffice has left Oracle as the only major party still developing OOo, forcing the company to compete against the broader community.

The power of the fork

When TDF was founded, the group's leadership invited Oracle to participate in the hope that the database giant would be willing to hand over the OOo trademark and allow the vendor-neutral governance body to take over stewardship of the project. Oracle rejected the idea and then went a step further by pressuring TDF supporters to step down from their leadership roles in the OOo project.

The community defections eventually made OOo financially untenable for Oracle, which is why the company has finally thrown in the towel. Oracle says that it is ready to hand over control of the project to the community, but doing so at this point would be little more than a symbolic gesture; the community has already moved on of its own accord.

Oracle now has little choice but to abandon its commercial ambitions for OOo because the growing momentum of the more inclusive LibreOffice fork is making OOo irrelevant. In addition to selling a commercial version of OOo like Sun, Oracle was also building a proprietary cloud-based office suite designed to work in Web browsers and on various mobile devices.

There are still unanswered questions about how Oracle's decision to drop OOo will impact its Cloud Office product, which had its own independent code base. Oracle has already started removing material pertaining to Oracle Cloud Office from its website, suggesting that the product may have been terminated.

The LibreOffice escape from Oracle is a powerful demonstration of how open source forking can be used to protect community autonomy and lock out exploitative stakeholders. Several other Oracle open source projects are also declaring independence from the database giant.

Oracle's current approach to dealing with the communities that participate in its own open source software projects is clearly not sustainable, and is arguably becoming detrimental to some aspects of the company's long-term business agenda.

Gnome 3 Video Review

2011-04-19T20:57:00.001-07:00

The video is currently being re-worked and being conducted on a non-bugged copy of Gnome 3. Until then it is marked as Private. Thanks for visiting, hope you come back soon! :D

So Gnome 3 has arrived.

My first impression: not a fan.

Let me explain...

With every major release of GNOME, the UI changes. GNOME 3 not only has a different UI than previous version of GNOME, it's UI is completely different from anything I've used. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Things in life change, and desktop UIs are certainly one of those things.

You can read about the details of the new interface here: http://live.gnome.org/GnomeShell/Design/

I used it. Then I read the design docs.

So why don't I like it?

Let's look at the "Goals and Advantages" listed in the above link.

Makes it easy for users to focus on their current task and reduces distraction and interruption.

So hiding the window list makes me more productive and focused? This seems to be walking the fine line between treating your users like idiots, and not.

Provides the GNOME desktop with a consistent and recognisable visual identity.

Um, GNOME's UI has changed significantly in each of it's major releases. How does that help give a "consistent and recognizable visual identity"?

Is beautiful: it has been crafted in order to be visually elegant and aesthetically pleasing.

I don't want to take away from GNOME 3's visuals, because I DO think it looks nice. But, this point is an opinion. I'm not sure how this can be listed as a factual advantage.

Overcomes several usability and user experience limitations found in the GNOME 2 desktop.

I used GNOME 2 quite a bit. And most of my "usability and user experience limitations" were due to stability issues, not anything visual.

Incorporates additional features which are relevant to contemporary computer usage, such as integrated messaging and search.

I have no issues with this point...

Effectively works on contemporary hardware: the Shell will provide an excellent experience on touch-based devices and will scale down to small screen sizes. It has also been designed with wide-screen in mind.

Ok, but... touchscreen device != desktop display (usually). I think GNOME 3 would work quite nicely on a touchscreen device. But those features that make it nice for touchscreen don't necessarily translate to mouse and keyboard usage. This leads me into my next point...

Window minimizing and maximizing...

There are no longer buttons on a window's title bar for minimize and maximize.

To maximize a window, you can either a) grab the title bar and pull it to the top of the screen, or b) right-click on the title bar and select "maximize". Option (a) would work fine on a touch screen device. But in a desktop/laptop environment, that's either a) more mouse mileage or b) 2 mouse clicks. I don't see how that makes things easier.

You can minimize a window by right-clicking on the title bar and selecting "minimize", or by using one of a couple different alt-key combinations.

This post on the GNOME mailing list talks about why people don't minimize windows, or something.

Finally, 2 usability hypotheses that were tested were:

If desktop workspaces are not persistently visible, users who are not familiar with using them will be less likely to accidentally enter them and lose windows in them.

and

Users are much less likely to lose or forget windows placed on workspaces that are not in view on the desktop when they are visually represented in the applications overview.

Again with the "users are idiots" assumption.

After reading more about GNOME 3, I think I see what is trying to be accomplished. I just don't like the execution.

But YMMV. If you like it, more power to you.

How To Troubleshoot by The Oatmeal

2011-04-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

Re-blogging this from The Oatmeal. Go there after reading this.

Ok, now click here. DO IT!!

BackTrack Linux: WEP Cracking Tutorial - Command Line

2011-04-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

So last post I told you about some of the main stream distros of Linux. This week I am going to give you some information on a very special version of Linux. I present to you one of the finest distros for the purpose of penetration testing, BackTrack Linux. No you perverts it isn't a distro for making porno...it is a distro made to hack networks. In the right hands it can be used to test a network for legit purposes...in the wrong hands (the foolish hands) it could be used to fuck yourself. Like feds knock on your door fucked. Don't hack kiddies. Just sayin. Without further adieu.... How to crack a wep from the command line. :D

**********************************************************************
*                                                                    *
*     How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack     *
*                                                                    *
**********************************************************************

To crack WEP, you'll need to launch Konsole, BackTrack's built-in command 
line.  It's right there on the taskbar in the lower left corner, second 
button to the right. Now, the commands.

First run the following to get a list of your network interfaces:

    airmon-ng

The only one I've got there is labeled ra0. Yours may be different; take 
note of the label and write it down. From here on in, substitute it in 
everywhere a command includes (interface).

Now, run the following four commands. See the output that I got for them 
in the screenshot below.

    airmon-ng stop (interface)
    ifconfig (interface) down
    macchanger --mac 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)
    airmon-ng start (interface)

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack If you don't 
get the same results from these commands as pictured here, most likely 
your network adapter won't work with this particular crack. If you do, 
you've successfully "faked" a new MAC address on your network interface, 
00:11:22:33:44:55.

Now it's time to pick your network. Run:

    airodump-ng (interface)

To see a list of wireless networks around you. When you see the one you 
want, hit Ctrl+C to stop the list. Highlight the row pertaining to the 
network of interest, and take note of two things: its BSSID and its 
channel (in the column labeled CH), as pictured below. Obviously the 
network you want to crack should have WEP encryption (in the ENC) column, 
not WPA or anything else.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack Like I said, 
hit Ctrl+C to stop this listing. (I had to do this once or twice to find 
the network I was looking for.) Once you've got it, highlight the BSSID 
and copy it to your clipboard for reuse in the upcoming commands.

Now we're going to watch what's going on with that network you chose and 
capture that information to a file. Run:

    airodump-ng -c (channel) -w (file name) --bssid (bssid) (interface)

Where (channel) is your network's channel, and (bssid) is the BSSID you 
just copied to clipboard. You can use the Shift+Insert key combination 
to paste it into the command. Enter anything descriptive for (file name). 
I chose "yoyo," which is the network's name I'm cracking.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack

You'll get output like what's in the window in the background pictured 
below. Leave that one be. Open a new Konsole window in the foreground, 
and enter this command:

    aireplay-ng -1 0 -a (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 -e (essid) (interface)

Here the ESSID is the access point's SSID name, which in my case is yoyo. 
What you want to get after this command is the reassuring "Association 
successful" message with that smiley face.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack

You're almost there. Now it's time for:

    aireplay-ng -3 -b (bssid) -h 00:11:22:33:44:55 (interface)

Here we're creating router traffic to capture more throughput faster to 
speed up our crack. After a few minutes, that front window will start 
going crazy with read/write packets. (Also, I was unable to surf the web 
with the yoyo network on a separate computer while this was going on.) 
Here's the part where you might have to grab yourself a cup of coffee or 
take a walk. Basically you want to wait until enough data has been 
collected to run your crack. Watch the number in the "#Data" column--you 
want it to go above 10,000. (Pictured below it's only at 854.)

Depending on the power of your network (mine is inexplicably low at -32 
in that screenshot, even though the yoyo AP was in the same room as my 
adapter), this process could take some time. Wait until that #Data goes 
over 10k, though--because the crack won't work if it doesn't. In fact, 
you may need more than 10k, though that seems to be a working threshold 
for many.

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack

Once you've collected enough data, it's the moment of truth. Launch a third 
Konsole window and run the following to crack that data you've collected:

    aircrack-ng -b (bssid) (file name-01.cap)

Here the filename should be whatever you entered above for (file name). 
You can browse to your Home directory to see it; it's the one with .cap 
as the extension.

If you didn't get enough data, aircrack will fail and tell you to try again 
with more. If it succeeds, it will look like this:

How to Crack a Wi-Fi Network's WEP Password with BackTrack The WEP key 
appears next to "KEY FOUND." Drop the colons and enter it to log onto the

network.

Shout out to Andy for this one.

I Love XKCD

2011-04-14T08:32:00.000-07:00

From XKCD

Linux Can Do Windows Too!

2011-04-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

One of the biggest reasons most people tend to avoid Linux is that the command line really lies at the heart of any *NIX environment ( UNIX, Linux and its legion of cousins). The command line is scary...only one line of input, no visual cues or big flashing buttons that scream "click me" and heck no mouse either! Luckily some hardworking code monkeys have developed many "windows managers" or graphical user interfaces (GUI's from here on in) to provide end users (and administrators) with a more visually stimulating interface to their machines.

One of the greatest strengths of Linux has always been its open nature and the flexibility it conveys. This means that if a programmer is working within the confines of a GUI that they feel is restrictive they can dig into the code and alter it to suit their needs. Now you might say "oh great every keyboard jockey will have made their own personal GUI and there will be too many to choose from!" while there are numerous GUI's to choose from a few have gathered numerous followers and as such attracted more developers that help support them. So without further adieu I present to you some of the most popular GUI's for Linux. Starting with the most popular to the niche. This post is in no way meant to be a history lesson on the GUI's...just my take on them.

Gnome

Gnome is the first GUI I used starting out in Linux..oh so long ago. It is one of the two "big" GUI's (along with KDE). I say big because it is heavily developed and fully modern. Ubuntu uses it as their default GUI (although that might be changing now that they have developed their own Unity GUI) so it has had quite a bit of mainstream exposure. It is also the default GUI choice for many live CD distros (Fedora, Debian, and others). It is very Mac OS like (as seen below) and it is well laid out. The "start" button is at the top left and the "sys tray" is in the upper right hand corner. Over all it has a very intuitive layout for Linux newbies.

KDE

KDE runs very close "second" in the world of Linux GUI's. Even though it isn't as widely used as Gnome it is my current desktop environment of choice for a couple reasons. First, it is very "windows" like. The "Start" button is where you would expect it to be, you can modify this to look almost identical to windows (if that is your thing) and the dolphin file explorer has a windows like flavor to it. The main reason I like it though is the polish. It is beautiful. Lots of work was done to give KDE that WOW factor. From transparency effects to cool desktop effects there is lots to see in KDE. Think of Gnome as the kiddie pool, great for everyone but net enough depth...KDE is like a water park, fun for all ages ;) . See below for a screenshot of KDE.

LXDE

From their site "The "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" is an extremely fast-performing and energy-saving desktop environment. Maintained by an international community of developers, it comes with a beautiful interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and less RAM than other environments. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low hardware specifications, such as, netbooks, mobile devices (e.g. MIDs) or older computers. LXDE can be installed with many Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora. It is the standard for Knoppix and lubuntu. LXDE also runs with OpenSolaris and BSD. LXDE provides a fast desktop experience; connecting easily with applications in the cloud. LXDE supports a wealth of programs that can be installed locally with Linux systems. The source code of LXDE is licensed partly under the terms of the the General Public License and partly under the LGPL."

I have not used the GUI before so I don't have an educated opinion on it, but I think it looks pretty sweet for how efficient it is (or claim it to be). It has a pretty large user base so I would say it more than likely lives up to its claims. See a screenie below.

xWindows Managers

If you feel more comfortable on the command line, but just need to surf the web in 32bit color for a bit, check out the wide variety of xWindows Managers. At their core they typically don't have anything too fancy, typically just a desktop and a task bar somewhere. Their menu is usually brought up by right clicking on the desktop. From there you can launch most applications. One nice thing about these windows managers is that they are easy to customize in a variety of functional and cosmetic ways. A couple popular flavors are Fluxbox, ICEWM, and Enlightenment (or just E). The best thing about these managers is that they are typically very lightweight and are perfect for computers that either aren't very fast or where disk space is at a premium (like a live cd or bootable flash drive. I typically install a xWindow manager on my old celerons and other similar systems. Check out http://xwinman.org/ for more detailed breakdown of the GUI's. Below are a couple screen shots of Fluxbox and Enlightenment.

Fluxbox

Enlightenment

Thanks for reading! :D

Distro Disco!

2011-03-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

For those of you not familiar with the wide and wonderful world of Linux distributions; a trip over to DistroWatch.com can be a tad overwhelming. The typical Linux distribution (or distro from here on in) usually has a rather asinine name. Distros like Yellow Dog, Mint, Debian, Slackware, etc often have very odd origin stories behind those names that don't often give the slightest hint at what they have to offer to the user.

OK...Stop reading for a sec and hit up DistroWatch and read about the top 10 Linux distros here.

Ok now that you have read their reviews I am going to give you my unique perspective on a few. :D

Ubuntu / Mint

Or as I call it... "My Other Computer is a Mac" distros. Ubuntu and Mint Linux are hands down two of the best disros for new users. Their live cd's just plain work with no real need to configure anything beyond plugging in your wifi password (which is simple and intuitive). Also both distros have made adding new software to the system very easy via the GUI. I haven't played with Mint as much as Ubuntu, but it seems to share many of the same strengths. The only real "negative" aspect of Ubuntu is that it kind of locks the user into the GUI and the command line is given a backseat. Now you will need to trust me on this when I say at first this is great if you are new to Linux or have no interest in messing with the command line, but more experienced users will soon chafe under the lack of a proper root account.

Red Hat / Fedora / CentOS

These are the big names in enterprise level Linux. Big companies use these distros to get big things done. They are robust, they are tested extensively and they are deployed damn near everywhere. Lets look at Red Hat first. It has been around for a long time and since it started it has tried to make Linux more...profitable. Free open source software is great for the end user, but it requires a sound business strategy to make a profit from it. Red Hat does so by relying less on the open source community, and more on in house developers. They still publish a huge amount of code to the open source community in the form of Fedora their "free" (as in beer and lunch) OS. It is feature rich and is a great OS to learn as many of the programs included with it are also found in Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS is a very popular distro that takes Red Hat Enterprise Linux and removes all of the non-open source software. The result is a very stable, very free, and very robust distro.

SuSE Linux

Please forgive my bias...SuSE and I go way back. Each time we have met... unfortunate things have happened lol. The first time I installed it was way back in 2000 and the YaST installer sucked...but to its credit, almost every distro of Linux was a bitch to install. But in my case, I totally nuked my new computer to boldly try Linux...and I was sorely mistaken in doing so. But even still...I gave it a second chance. Things haven't progressed all that well. They have their "build-your-own-os" site called SuSe Studio. In theory it is great, in practice it blows goats. Getting your personal distro to work is tedious and frustrating. Maybe I will take another stab at later...but not likely. SuSE is widely used in Europe as it was created in Germany. Also in many European nations they have to use open source if it is a viable option so it is widely used there. I can't recommend it. But again take that with a grain of salt.

Debian

One of the oldest and most respected distros around. The main thing that sets Debian apart though is its development cycle. IT IS LOOOOOOONG. Like years between releases. The reason for this is that Debian is like the universal OS. It can be slapped on anything from a clock radio to a server farm. The developers are kinda like the Marines...leave no architecture behind. They code it for all then release the update. Does this mean it is not secure or that it is a dinosaur before it is released? Hell no. They release security patches as they become necessary. Now, if you can't tell by the banner on my page I am a bit of a Debian fanboi. I don't view it as a real stand alone distro though...think of it more of a framework. When I install Debian I install it with just the bare essentials. Then I add on things bit by bit. Hell most times I don't even load a GUI (or a minimal x windows manager like fluxbox). For me this works and setup goes smooth every time. It should be noted that Ubuntu is based off of Debain...and Mint Linux is based off of Ubuntu. The main benefit of Debian is that can be used on a wide variety of hardware and it is a very stable build.

Don't Fear the Penguin

2011-03-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I think when most people think of Linux they think of scary black and white command lines and GUI interfaces that require a PHD in computer science to configure right. While this might have been true back when it first started, it is no longer the case.

Linux is everywhere and I am positive you interact with it on a daily basis, but you don't even realize it. Small embedded versions of Linux are everywhere from routers to Roku boxes. Full versions of Linux power everything from your company network to billions of webpages. While user friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Mint Linux have greatly expanded the number of average joe users using Linux as their primary desktop environment, it still lags far behind Windows and Mac OS X. But the times they are a changin...

Enter the Android. Yup that is right, the rising star in the world of cell phone OS'es is based on the Linux kernel (think of the kernel as a kind of computer brain stem - it controls all the base functions of the phone). This allows it to work on a very wide variety of hardware platforms. Now I know you are saying, umm dude Android is for phones and shit, not computers! O RLY? Exhibit A - the Motorola Atrix. The Atrix is an Android powered smartphone with a twist; it can utilize a special "laptop dock". The dock is just a screen and keyboard that looks like a laptop, but it totally powered by the Atrix...OS and all. Yup you heard that right...a phone that doubles as a friggin laptop. The way I see it, this is the future. Take your phone with you where ever you go, sit down at your work, a coffee shop, or at home and surf, shop and post to your fav social network or blog. When you are done, your personal data and your computer come with you. And if Android continues to gain market share I am sure it will be done with Linux.

So until that days comes, cozy up to Linux. Install Ubuntu or Mint and explore everything it has to offer. Heck, if a full install scares you, you can get a live cd or usb flash drive and boot to a "live cd". It doesn't install anything, just runs from the cd or flash drive and gives you a nearly full Linux experience. When you are done take the disk out and go back to your normal OS, no harm done!

For more information on the different flavors of Linux out there check out Distrowatch or to jump into a live cd go to Ubuntu.

PS - Below are some Amazon.com adds that I will be adding to a few posts here and there. The items I will post are top rated and reviewed hardware that can make your Linux machine fly. I will only recommend Linux friendly hardware. Peace!

Oooo Shiny!

2011-03-22T21:21:00.000-07:00

So after struggling to watch a small 480i video on YouTube I decided to upgrade from the stock Xorg drivers to the closed source NVIDIA drivers. I give much respek to the Open Source community, but I am not a techno-vegan. Sometimes I gotta get me some of that closed source meat. :D So I hit up NVIDIA's site and find their glorious linux drivers. Side note...ahem..ATI/AMD I love you, but really would it fucking kill you to lock some code monkeys in a room for a week and have them bang out a functional open/closed source driver or three? Anyhoo, I download the biglongNVIDIAdriver.run and couldn't get the fucker to run. So after asking my *NIX guru buddy Andy just what the hell a .RUN extn was I was able to run the install (btw... .RUN is a shell script and you run it from a terminal with the syntax (if not root) sudo sh sillyfile.RUN). So I run it and it says I don't have my kernel straight...so no install for me. Well fuck you then...TO THE GOOGLE! Oh! Did I mention that after running the NVIDIA driver script I decided to bypass the "suggested" settings and I kinda jacked up my display drivers so I had to find this article via the LINKS browser (a command line only browser with frames support). Below are the exact steps I followed... from http://nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=72490

"Debian GNU/Linux or [K]Ubuntu with Xorg 7.x

If you wish to install the NVIDIA Linux graphics driver on a Debian GNU/Linux or Ubuntu system that ships with Xorg 7.x, please ensure that your system meets the following requirements:

* development tools like make and gcc are installed
* the linux-headers package matching the installed Linux kernel is installed **for the linux-headers bit you will need to know your kernel version you can find this out by typing uname -r at the command prompt.
* the pkg-config and xserver-xorg-dev packages are installed"

I then re-ran the NVIDIA script and voila! It worked! Rebooted my computer and I was greeted with a fully armed and operational PCI Express Slot! \o/

Lazy Monday Firewall Hack

2011-03-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was a slow day, this allowed me plenty of idle time...and as they say about idle hands...I decided to systematically test our firewall. :D A bit of background first. I work for a large Fortune 500 company, you know the type...they have millions of dollars invested in IT staff and hardware. We also have a stifling firewall. It blocks any site about gaming (console/PC/gambling/etc), all video (we can't even view CNN.com videos), and almost all social networks (only allowed are twitter and LinkedIn). In the past I have tried damn near everything in my geek tool box to circumvent said firewall. Proxies, SSH tunneling, Google cache, you name it. Every attempt has been met with the dreaded

"Continued attempts to access prohibited sites may result in a review of your internet usage and expose you to appropriate disciplinary action"

So imagine my surprise when adding a simple s to a web address let me bypass nearly ALL blocked sites! Changing HTTP to HTTPS was the solution I had been searching for. Why does this work I wondered...well apparently the firewall admins only filter traffic on port 80 not 443. So if you are a network admin and you really want to lock down your system...be sure to plug the HTTPS hole.

Until next time! o7