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Linux

Quick Guide to Patching Linux Icon Packs

One of the nice advantages of using Linux is the wealth of customization options available. A key area of  that customization are app icons. For those unfamiliar, it is similar to how icons change across Android versions, even though the apps themselves are often the same.

Now I could go over how to install icons packs, however there are countless sites who already explain the process very well, such as Tips on Ubuntu. As for obtaining icon packs, a great site is OpenDesktop.org, which among other things hosts a wide variety of free to use icon packs.

So, now onto something less commonly covered, patching icon sets (no coding or art skills required). First a little background, if you use one of the more popular icon packs, you’ll likely have no issues. However many of the smaller icon packs either only support certain distros or lack icons for lesser known programs.

Take for example my all time favorite icon pack, Oranchelo, it is geared mainly towards Ubuntu. Lately I’ve been using Fedora 28 and while some icons work liked they’re supposed to, others, which work in Ubuntu, do not. So why is that?

Each program has an icon name, and while many programs keep a consistent icon name across distros, this is not always the case, such as with some of the default Gnome apps in Fedora vs Ubuntu. To fix this we need to either change the app’s icon name or create symbolic links to the current icon name, the latter generally being the better option.

First we need to find the current icon name, for all common (and probably for the uncommon ones as well) Linux desktop environments the way to do this is:

cd /usr/share/applications/

Here you will see (using the ls command) a bunch of .desktop files, these are config files that set how a program will be shown on the desktop, such as what will it be called under English or under Polish, as well as what the icon should be.

I’ve already patched Oranchelo for most of my applications but I’ve yet to do it for the IceCat browser (located towards the bottom on the screenshot), so I’ll use it as an example. Since we already have our terminal located in the right folder, lets just search for the right .desktop file:

ls | grep -i icecat

From that command we now know that full name of the file is “icecat.desktop”. Now that we see the file, we just need to find what it’s icon name is:

cat icecat.desktop | grep -i icon

Now that we know what the icon is called (“icecat”, icon names aren’t always this simple), we needed to open up our installed icon pack, if you’re not sure where that is, look back on the install instructions you used for your pack and just find where you placed said pack.

I generally prefer to look at the icons in a graphical file manager, so that I can make sure I pick the right one.

So now that we’re in the file, we want to go into apps, then scalable. Here we have all our icons, once we found one that we like, we need to create a symbolic link.

Since Oranchelo doesn’t currently have an Icecat logo, I will use the firefox nightly icon.

Now we need to open a terminal at this location and do the following command (depending on where you installed your icons, you may or may not need to use sudo)

ln -s icon.svg desiredApp.svg

Or in my case:

ln -s firefox-nightly-icon.svg icecat.svg

Now all we need to do is toggle the icons, simply switch to the system default icon set and then switch back and the correct icons will show.

As you can see, the desired icon is now set for Icecat

However this is not the only way to patch icon sets, some icon sets are designed to only replace a small amount of icons, such as folders. These often use inheritance to fill the void, however you may not always like the set from which they inherit the remainder, or you may simply prefer if it inherited from a different set.

One of my favorite Gnome themes, Canta, comes with its own icon pack that replaces folders but inherits the rest from Numix icon pack, but since I haven’t installed Numix, it defaults to the system default. However, I have the Flat Remix pack installed, I’ll make it instead inherit from that.

As before, we need to go into the icon pack folder. Once we’re in the canta icon pack, we need to open up the index.theme file with a text editor (as before, depending on where it is installed, you may or may not need sudo).

A few lines from the bottom you will see a “Inherits=”. For Canta it is:

"Inherits=Numix-Circle,Adwaita,gnome,hicolor"

So if we want it to inherit from flat remix (provided flat remix is installed correctly), all we need to do is add it in, changing the line to:

"Inherits=Flat-Remix,Numix-Circle,Adwaita,gnome,hicolor"

Once you save the file, all the missing icons should be automatically inherited from Flat Remix.

Best of luck with all your Linux customization.

Categories
Linux Security Software

Hiding in Plain Sight with Steganography

Steganography is the process of hiding one file inside another, most popularly, hiding a file within a picture. If you’re a fan of Mr. Robot you are likely already somewhat familiar with this.

Although hiding files inside pictures may seem hard, it is actually rather easy. All files at their core are just text, so to hide one file into another it is just a case of inserting the text value of one file into another.

Even though this possible on all platforms, it is easiest to accomplish on Linux (although the following commands will probably work on Mac OS as well).

There are many different ways to hide different types of files, however the easiest and most versatile method is to use zip archives.

Once you create your own zip archive we can then append it to the end of an image file, such as a png.

cat deathstarplans.zip >> r2d2.png

If you’re wondering what just happened, let me explain. Cat prints out a file as text (deathstarplans.zip in this instance). Instead of printing to the terminal, >> tells your terminal to appends the text to the end of the specified file -> r2d2.png.

We could have also just done > however that would replace the text of the specified file, specifically the metadata of r2d2.png in this instance. This does work and it would still allow you to view the image… BUT r2d2.png would be easily recognized as containing a zip file and defeat the entire purpose.

Getting the file(s) out is also easy, simply run unzip r2d2.png. Unzip will throw a warning that “x extra bytes” are before the zip file, which you can ignore, basically just restates that we hid the zip in the png file. And so they files pop out.

So why zip? Tar tends to be more popular on Linux… however tar has a problem with this method. Tar does not parse through the file and get to the actual start of the archive whereas zip does so automatically. That isn’t to say its impossible to get tar to work, it simply would require some extra work (aka scripting). However there is another, more adavanced way, steghide.

Unlike zip, steghide does not come preinstalled on most Linux Distos, but is in most default repositories, including for Arch and Ubuntu/Linux Mint.

sudo pacman -S steghide – Arch

sudo apt install steghide – Ubuntu/Linux Mint

Steghide does have its ups and downs. One upside is that it is a lot better at hiding and can easily hide any file type. It does so by using an advanced algorithm to hide it within the image (or audio) file without changing the look (or sound) of the file. This also means that without using steghide (or at least the same mathematical approach as steghide) it is very difficult to extract the hidden files from the image.

However there is big draw back: steghide only supports a limited amount of ‘cover’ files – JPEG, BMP, WAV, and AU. But since JPEG files are a common image type, it isn’t a large draw back and will not look out of place.

To hide the file the command would be steghide embed -cf clones.jpg -ef order66.pdf

At which point steghide will prompt you to enter a password. Keep in mind that if you lose the password you will likely never recover the embedded file.

To extract the file we can run steghide extract -sf clones.jpg, assuming we use the correct password, the hidden file is revealed.

All that being said, both methods leave the ‘secret’ file untouched and only hide a copy. Assuming the goal is to hide the file, the files in the open need to be securely removed. shred is a good command which overwrites the file multiple times to make it as difficult to recover as possible.

shred -z order66.pdf

or to delete it automatically

shred -zu order66.pdf

Categories
Linux Operating System Web

Arch Linux and Eduroam on a Raspberry Pi, No Ethernet Cable Required


Raspbian may be the most common OS on Raspberry Pi devices, but it is definitely not alone in the market. Arch Linux is one such competitor, offering a minimalist disk image that can be customized and specialized for any task, from the ground up – with the help of Arch Linux’s superb package manager, Pacman.

The office website for Arch Linux Arm contains all the necessary files and detailed instructions for the initial setup. After a reasonably straightforward process, plugging in the Raspberry Pi will great you with a command line interface, CLI, akin to old Microsoft DOS.

Luckily for those who enjoy a graphical interface, Arch Linux supports a wide variety in its official repository, but for that, we need the internet.  Plenty of tutorials detail how to connect to a typical home wifi, but Eduroam is a bit more challenging. To save everyone several hours of crawling through wikis and forums, the following shall focus on Eduroam.

To begin, we will need root privilege; by default this can be done with the following command:

su

After entering the password, we need to make the file:

nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/eduroam

Quick note: The file doesn’t need to be named eduroam.

Now that we’re in the nano text editor we need to write the configuration for eduroam. Everything except the indentity and password field needs to be copied exactly. For the propose of this Tutorial I’ll be John Smith, jsmith@umass.edu, with password Smith12345.

network={
			ssid=”eduroam”
			key_mgmt=WPA-EAP
			eap=TTLS
			phase2=”auth=PAP”
			identity=”jsmith@umass.edu”
			password=”Smith12345”
	}

Quick note: the quotation marks are required, this will not work without them.

Now that that’s set, we need to set the file permissions to root only, as its never good to have passwords in plain text, unsecured.

chmod og-r /etc/wpa_supplicant/eduroam

Now just to make sure that everything was set properly, we will run

ls -l /etc/wpa_supplicant | cut -d ' ' -f 1,3-4,9

The correct output should be the following

-rw------- root root eduroam

If you named the config file something other than eduroam, it will show up on the output as that name.

Now that that’s all set, we can finally connect to the internet.

wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/eduroam &

Provided everything is set correctly, you will see “wlan0: link becomes ready” halfway through the last line of the page, hit enter and just one more command.

dhcpcd

Now, just to check we’re connected, we’ll ping google

ping google.com -c 5

If everything is set, you should see 5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received.
Now that we’re connected, its best to do a full update

pacman -Syyu

At this point, you are free to do what you’d like with Arch. For the sake of brevity I will leave off here, for extra help I highly recommend the official Arch Linux Wiki. For a graphical UI, I highly recommend setting up XFCE4, as well as a network (wifi) manager.

 

Example of a customized XFCE4 desktop by Erik Dubois

 

 

Disclaimer: UMass IT does not currently offer technical support for Raspberry Pi.

Categories
Hardware Linux Mac OSX Operating System Windows

What is S.M.A.R.T?

Have you ever thought your computer might be dying but you don’t know what? Symptoms that people might be familiar with may include slowing down, increased startup time, programs freezing, constant disk usage, and audible clicking. While these symptoms may happen to a lot of people, they don’t necessarily mean the hard drive is circling the drain. With a practically unlimited number of other things that could make the computer slow down and become unusable, how are you supposed to find out exactly what the problem is? Fortunately, the most common part to fail in a computer, the hard drive (or data drive), has a built-in testing technology that even users can use to diagnose their machines without handing over big bucks to a computer repair store or having to buy an entire new computer if their computer is out of warranty.

Enter SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology). SMART is a monitoring suite that checks computer drives for a list of parameters that would indicate drive failure. SMART collects and stores data about the drive including errors, failures, times to spin up, reallocated sectors, and read/write abilities. While many of these attributes may be confusing in definition and even more confusing in their recorded numerical values, SMART software can predict a drive failure and even notify the user of the computer that the software has detected a failing drive. The user can then look at the results to verify, or in unsure, bring to a computer repair store for a verification and drive replacement.

So how does one get access to SMART? Many computers include built in diagnostic suites that can be accessed via a boot option when the computer first turns on. Others manufacturers require that you download an application without your operating system that can run a diagnostic test. These diagnostic suites will usually check the SMART status, and if the drive is in fact failing, the diagnostic suite will report a drive is failing or has failed. However, most of these manufacturer diagnostics will simply only say passed or failed, if you want access to the specific SMART data you will have to use a Windows program such as CrystalDiskInfo, a Linux program such as GSmartControl, or SMART Utility for Mac OS.

These SMART monitoring programs are intelligent enough to detect when a drive is failing, to give you ample time to back up your data. Remember, computer parts can always be replaced, lost data is lost forever. However, it should be noted that SMART doesn’t always detect when a drive fails. If a drive suffers a catastrophic failure like a physical drop or water damage while on SMART cannot predict these and the manufacturer is not at fault. Therefore, while SMART is best to be used as a tool to assess whether a drive is healthy or not, it is used most strongly in tandem with a good reliable backup system and not as a standalone protection against data failure.

Categories
Linux

Why Making the Jump to Linux May be for you

Image result for linux

Do you feel that Windows no longer respects your privacy? Or do you feel that Macs are too expensive? Linux might be just right for you then! Linux is an open source operating system. Although it has been around for some time now, it is slowly gaining more popularity. While Linux is often seen as the geeky computer nerd operating system, it can be perfect for average users too. Linux is all about allowing user customization and giving fine system control to the user.

Linux is Completely Free!

One of the greatest things about Linux is that it is completely free. Unlike Windows or macOS, you don’t need to pay anything in order to use it. As the latest version of Windows or macOS slowly becomes old, you will eventually need to upgrade them. Sometimes this means purchasing new licensing, which can be a unneeded financial hit. If you have the hardware, you can simply find a distribution you like, and install it. Whether this is for one machine, or 1000 machines, Linux will never bother you for a license key.

A Tweaker’s Dream

Image result for linux tweaks

Linux is the dream operating system for someone that enjoys playing around with settings to fine tune their machine. Linux offers multiple desktop environments which completely change how desktop behavior is handled. Each of these have hundreds, or possibly thousands of settings so that a user can make their experience exactly how they envision it. This is contrary to Windows and macOS, which consists one one desktop with fairly limited customization options. Almost everything in Linux has a right click menu which allows for further customization. For the extremely motivated tweakers, there are also configuration files which allow you to modify almost anything on your system. A personal favorite tweak is a use of universal keyboard shortcuts. As an avid user of terminal, I’m able to launch terminal from anywhere with a single touch of a button.

Gaining a Better Knowledge of Computers

Image result for linux terminalLinux features a terminal similar to macOS. Mastering the terminal allows you to tell a computer what you really want it to do. With terminal, you no longer have to rely on menus and clicking. Linux is an excellent choice to learn terminal commands because you will easily learn how to use it whether you need to fix something, or just due to the ease of access.

By using Linux, every user becomes aware of file permissions, and how they work. Users also become adept at using commands like top and ps aux to understand how processes work. Linux users also often learn to use commands like rsync to create backups. Finally, many users that delve a little deeper into Linux also learn about computer architecture, such as how operating systems work, and how storage devices are mounted.

Linux Has Some Amazing Software

Image result for linux beautiful software

While Linux has a reputation for being incompatible with certain software, it also offers an enormous repository of software for its users. Many major programs such as web browsers like Google Chrome or Firefox are also available for Linux. Additionally, many programs have Linux alternatives that work just as well, or even better. Better yet, software on Linux is completely free too. You can get incredibly good productive software like LibreOffice for creating documents, and Okular for viewing pdf files.

Linux is Efficient

Linux fits on small systems and large systems. It works on slow computers and fast ones too. Linux is engineered by efficiency-obsessed engineers that want to get every ounce of computing power out of their machines. Most flavors of Linux are designed to be lighter weight than their Windows or macOS counterparts. Linux also offers excellent utilization of computer hardware, as the operating system is built to efficiently handle resource management.

The storage architecture of Linux is built in a way where any dependency for a program never needs to be installed twice. All programs have access to any dependency that is already installed. However, in Windows, every program that you install needs to have all of its dependencies packaged with it. This often leads to programs having the same exact software packaged together and thus taking up more space on the harddrive.

Hardware Just Works

Perhaps you have an older laptop, or maybe new cutting edge PC. A common problem for these types of hardware is a lack of drivers. Older computers often have hardware that is no longer supported by new operating systems, and new hardware occasionally plagued by buggy driver support. On popular distributions such as Ubuntu or Linux Mint, driver support for almost all hardware is provided. This is because the Linux kernel (or core) is designed to have these drivers, whereas Windows often requires them as a separate install. Additionally, Linux drivers are much more generic than Windows, which allows Linux to reach a broader spectrum of hardware, even if the driver was not designed for older or newer hardware in mind. Finally, Linux’s amazing hardware support is a product of its users. If you ever decided to dig around in the Linux kernel, you would find an enormous amount of very specific hardware drivers simply due to various Linux users over time. Unlike Linux, Windows does not have a way for an average user to create a driver for their hardware. Linux’s software and distribution model empowers users to create their own drivers if hardware is not supported.

 

Overall, Linux is a finely tuned operating system that deserves a look. With its many features, it is able to offer an experience tailor made to any user. You can reclaim control of your computer, and make it exactly the way you want!

 

Categories
Hardware Linux Operating System

Hardware Troubleshooting in the Linux Shell

When you’re stuck troubleshooting a problem in Linux, whether it’s a full installation or a recovery USB, it can be useful to know some commands to give you more information about the machine. We’ll start with commands that you might use for troubleshooting from a recovery USB.

GNOME Terminal

Categories
Linux

Understanding the Rsync Utility

We’ve all had a file scare sometime in our computing careers. In many cases, the computer won’t show any signs of corruption until everything starts to fail at once. When things do go wrong, your first thought is always about the safety of your files – will you be able to recover them?

If you had backed up your files regularly with a backup utility, you wouldn’t have to worry about whether you would be able to recover all of your data. However, many people do not see the value in doing regular backups, because they think that it is a waste of time. Their rationale is that the probability that a computer will need to access the backup is small enough that waiting for the computer to copy over all of their files every time they do a backup is pointless.

Rsync is an intelligent backup utility. Instead of duplicating the entirety of the data which is being copied over (looking at you cp), rsync will calculate the differences between what is being copied and what already resides in the directory, and will only copy over the differences. If the creation time and size of a file have not changed, rsync will move on without making any copies. This saves lots of time, which would have been spent on doing costly I/O operations. Rsync will take about as long as cp to complete the first time a backup is made, but subsequent backups could be done in a matter of minutes instead of hours, depending on the frequency with which you back up your system.

Rsync also includes a lot of flags which can help with the backup process.

–exclude is useful for ignoring large directories. If a full linux backup is being made, directories like /var and /proc will be excluded due to their huge size and session-specific information.

–delete will remove anything which is present in the backup directory which is not present in the source directory. This is mostly useful for creating snapshot copies of a system. If you would rather keep every file backed up, even if you delete it on your own system, this flag is not necessary.

–archive, also known as -a, is another useful flag. It is equivalent to the flags -rlptgoD. It performs a snapshot archival of the specified system. I’ll go into the individual flags in more detail below.

  • The -r flag stands for recursion. It tells the program that you want it to copy the contents of a directory as well as its shell. If this flag is not set, you will have an unhappy TA on your hands, looking at a series of empty directories.
  • The -lptgo flags preserve the information on a certain file. If these are not set, new creation information is created for each newly generated file, indicating the permissions, owner, etc. of the directory where the copied information is going to be stored. To keep the creation information on the original file intact, -l preserves links between files, -p preserves the permission of the file, -t preserves the creation time of the file, -g preserves the group the file is associated with, and -o preserves the owner of the file.
  • The -D flag is the most optional of all of the backup information. It preserves information on the devices and any special files which are mounted at the time of the backup.

Finally, rsync has flags which let the user know what is going on during the backup process. The -v flag stands for verbose. It outputs the current step on the screen, so the usre will know how far into the backup they currently are. Since this is an I/O operation, it will slow down the overall program, but many people believe that this kind of knowledge is worth the tradeoff. In order to further modify the -v flag, you are also able to set the -h (human-readable) flag, which makes any sizes that the computer outputs be rendered as MB and GB, as opposed to full byte numbers.

This is an example of an rsync script command, which will take a snapshot of whatever is in folder 1 and store it in folder 2, deleting anything in folder 2 which is not in folder 1 and telling you everything that it is working on in between:

rsync -av –delete /home/folder1/ /home/folder2/

 

Categories
Android Apps iOS Linux Mac OSX Web Windows

Stream services for TV and Movies

From cable-cutters to college students, nearly everybody is interested in video streaming services. You may be tempted to use torrenting software to get your TV shows and movies, but this software is notorious for landing people with copyright violation notices and occasionally some hefty fines. There are many legal alternatives to torrenting software, and I will discuss them here.

Categories
Linux Mac OSX

Getting Started with ZSH

If you’ve ever used a system shell before (the Terminal application on Mac’s and most Linux OS’s), you know how powerful they can be. If you haven’t, the system shell (also called the command line), is basically another method of controlling a computer. Just as you normally open programs, edit documents and manage files, the same can be done in a shell. However, all will be done using only text called commands. The simplicity and elegance of the shell is why it’s loved by many.

Bash

Categories
Library Linux Mac OSX Operating System Software Web Windows

Zotero Citation Software

Have you had trouble finding a good site to help you create a bibliography? Tired of hunting down pieces of information about your source? Or maybe you’re not sure if you have enough information in your citations. Now there is an answer to all of your questions and that answer is Zotero. Zotero creates citations for you at the click of a button! It allows you to store your citations in folders or libraries for organization and upon registering with an email and password(for free) you can access your citations across multiple devices!

Categories
Linux Mac OSX Web Windows

Add-Drop Walkthrough

So as the new semester rolls around, as does add-drop period. If you don’t know what this is, it is the time during the first couple of weeks in which you are free to add or drop a class without having to go through the Registrar’s office: it can all be done through Spire!

Categories
Linux Web

How To: Mount UDrive in Ubuntu


You may have noticed that the Help Center provides instructions for making your UDrive easily accessible on your desktop PC and Mac on our website, but, what if you’re running a Linux distrubution? Not to worry! By taking the following steps, you’ll soon be able to back up and shuffle around your important files with ease. Below are instructions for setting up your UDrive with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. While following the steps, click on images to enlarge for details. It takes a few Terminal commands, but you’re already using Linux, right? You’re not afraid of those!

Categories
Adobe Google Linux Operating System Software Web Windows

Save Time with Ninite!

Today, the Help Center student consultants would like to suggest a time-saving tip for the next time you install, re-install, or begin using your Linux or Windows operating system: Ninite by installing and updating all your applications at once.

Categories
Linux Mac OSX Software Windows

Configuring Exchange Email and Calendar in Thunderbird

Configuring Email clients can be a frustrating task due to the sheer number of different server settings that need to be properly entered in order for it to work properly and the variety of choices in desktop mail clients. Fortunately, this guide is written specifically for configuring UMass Amherst Exchange mail and calendaring for Thunderbird, an open source desktop mail client that is compatible with most Windows, OS X, and Linux distributions. For your convenience, the instructions and screenshots in this guide should exactly match what you see on your screen.

Categories
Linux Operating System

Ubuntu: Linux for Human Beings

Tux

Nothing has more impact on how you use your computer than your operating system. Most users are familiar with Windows, which is by far the most popular (with over 90% of the population using it, according to Net Applications in 2014), and Macintosh OSX, which occupies about 7.5% of the remaining market share. The remaining share goes to an operating system called Linux, which is different from the other two in a few key ways.

Categories
Linux Mac OSX Operating System Software Windows

Virtual Machines: Running Another Operating System On Your Computer the Easy Way

Virtual machines are programs that allow you to run programs (or an entire operating system) on your computer that weren’t originally designed for it. Most commonly this is done by Mac users who want to run Windows programs which don’t have versions for Mac OSX, but can be done with almost any operating system (like Linux). If you want to run Mac OSX you have to be on a Mac computer (unless you have some tech skill), but otherwise you’re free to experiment. All you have to do is download the operating system .iso or .dmg file or buy an installation DVD and you can use that to start up your virtual copy of that Operating System (OS).

Categories
Linux Operating System

Understanding SteamOS

steamcroppedOn September 20th, users of the popular videogame distribution platform Steam were greeted with the news that Valve Corporation would be releasing a new operating system; SteamOS. This had been foreshadowed by Valve’s Gabe Newell at LinuxCon the week before, but the news still came as a pleasant surprise for both PC and console gamers alike.

Categories
Linux Operating System Software

Turkeybytes: Vim Text Editor

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for Vim. Vim, which stands for “Vi Improved,” is a text editor that is based on Vi, an older editor that was used with the original Unix operating system. Vim is free, open source software that comes with most modern Linux distributions. It is mostly for writing programs and scripts, but can be used to edit any sort of basic text file. It is designed so that the user never has to take their hands off of the keyboard or touch a mouse. If you use Vim properly, your palms can stay in the same position while only your fingers move. For this reason, Vim users are occasionally referred to as keyboard cowboys.

Categories
Linux Mac OSX Operating System Software Windows

Turkeybytes: UNetbootin

With the release of Windows 8.1 I finally decided that it was worth replacing the trusted Windows 7 with Microsoft’s latest and greatest. Windows 8 is awesome; it provides many behind the scenes system improvements that will make your PC run more fluidly, and with Windows 8.1 Microsoft has fixed many of the user interface flaws that users and critics have been complaining about. I highly recommend upgrading to Windows 8.1 if you are a UMass student, faculty or staff because it is FREE through Microsoft Dreamspark!

Categories
Linux Operating System

Turkeybytes: Elementary OS

This week I’m thankful for Elementary OS!

Elementary OS is an open source Linux distribution that’s sure to hit home with anyone who loves minimalism and simplicity. With all the functionality of Ubuntu 13.04 and some design ideas similar to OSX, Elementary OS is lightweight and compatible with most Apple computers and PCs.

Elementary OS

The newest release, called Luna, is easy to use and free to download. Just like any other Linux distribution, Luna is highly customizable. Want to swap out your dock for something more OS 10.9-esque? No problem. You also already have all the functionality you need – there’s a software store, system settings, and some preloaded programs. If you’re comfortable with Ubuntu, you’ll have no problems navigating this interface.

Check out this site for more information, and to download Elementary OS for free. If you want a physical DVD sent to you instead, you can buy one at the store for $10.00.

Categories
Linux Mac OSX Operating System

Terminal Basics

In OS X or Linux, you can do a lot with Terminal. This is where you can enter in commands, and your computer will execute them. You can do anything from basic file management, to running programs, to even playing games. But in order to do all that, you have to start with the basics. Here are a few commands you’ll need to get a grip on first.

Categories
Linux Software

Who knew Linux had games?

If you’ve recently switched to Linux or are just looking for some new native Linux games to play, you may find yourself at a loss. Luckily, there are some excellent sources for native Linux game reviews. Websites such as linuxgamecast.com or thelinuxgamer’s Tumblr are excellent sources of great reviews for Linux games which you might not know exist and some that you do, but didn’t know you could play on Linux.