Category: Linux

Link: Tutorial – How to give your Raspberry Pi a Static IP Address

To log in to your Raspberry Pi remotely, you’ll need the IP of the Raspberry Pi – this is basically like your house address and tells the host computer where to look for it on the network. By default, the Raspberry Pi will be given an IP automatically by the router (called Dynamic IP and denoted by DHCP) when you connect to a network. However, this can change whenever you remove the Pi from the network e.g. turn it off.

Having a static IP isn’t essential, however it will make repeated access to the Raspberry Pi via SSH much simpler, as you’ll always know that the Raspberry Pi has the same address. Imagine how much trouble your postman would have if your house constantly changed location 🙂

Full article here:
Tutorial – How to give your Raspberry Pi a Static IP Address (ModMyPi)

Ubuntu Doesn’t TRIM SSDs By Default: Why Not and How To Enable It Yourself

Ubuntu wants to enable TRIM for SSDs by default in Ubuntu 14.04. In other words, Ubuntu isn’t already using TRIM, so your SSD is slowing down over time. But why isn’t Ubuntu already using TRIM?

This news will likely come as a surprise to many people, who assumed that Ubuntu and other Linux distributions were already using TRIM. TRIM prevents SSDs from slowing down over time and is a necessary part of SSD maintenance.

Full article here:
Ubuntu Doesn’t TRIM SSDs By Default: Why Not and How To Enable It Yourself (How-To Geek)

Links: Raspberry Pi / Linux security series

While this series is intended specifically for Raspberry Pi users, anyone new to Linux that would like to know how to secure their system would likely benefit from reading these articles from “The Unwritten Words”:
Raspberry Pi: Initial Setup (Security – Part I)
Raspberry Pi: iptables (Security – Part II)
Raspberry Pi: fail2ban (Security – Part III)

Link: Linux Routing Subnets Tips and Tricks

Does anyone do any serious disconnected computing? I daresay not. We install and update our Linuxes over the Internet, and install new software, and look up information online. Networking is essential to a Linux system, and has always been integral even as our favorite glossy proprietary operating systems couldn’t network their ways out of paper bags. I like to think of IPC– inter-process communication– as a form of internal networking between processes, though wiser network gurus may disagree.

Networking in Linux is easier than it used to be in the olden days. Why, I haven’t customized a kernel in dog’s years, which was something we had to do a fair bit back in the days of walking uphill both ways in the snow. But it’s not quite pure magic yet and we still need to know a few things. Let’s start with routing between subnets. Dividing even a small network into subnets is a useful management tool for security, and for allocating resources such as file and printer shares and Internet access. You can isolate your subnets from each other, or allow them to talk to each other.

Full article here:
Linux Routing Subnets Tips and Tricks (Linux.com)

Link: How to Bake an Onion Pi (Tor proxy on Raspberry Pi)

Feel like someone is snooping on you? Browse the web anonymously anywhere you go with the Onion Pi Tor proxy. This is a cool weekend project that uses a Raspberry Pi mini computer, USB wi-fi adapter, and Ethernet cable to create a small, low-power, and portable privacy Pi.

Full article here:
How to Bake an Onion Pi (Make)

Link: Alternative way to flash your Raspberry Pi OS

Did you ever want to flash your root partition straight to USB stick/HDD/SDD instead of first dd-ing it onto SD Card and then coping it again onto another media?

I got bored of the double work that is provided by RPi geeks. Yeah, it’s fine if you’re a total beginner (though one might get lost pretty easily) and want to use only the SD Card. But what if you know how to deal with Raspberry Pi already and perform the card setup mechanically, coping the root partition to a USB stick before you run the system? There is an easy way to do it, less time consuming and faster. It involves using loop-mounting partitions from a disk image.

Full article here:
Alternative way to flash your Raspberry Pi OS (The Unwritten Words)

Link: Understanding Pipes and Redirection For the Linux Command Line

Two powerful features of the Linux command line shell are redirection and pipes which allow the output (or even input) of a program to be sent to a file or another program. You may have already used this features without being aware of it. Whenever you have used the “>” sign in a command or “|” then you have used redirection or a pipe, respectively.

Full article here:
Understanding Pipes and Redirection For the Linux Command Line (Make Tech Easier)

The ASUS VivoPC: Could this be a good Home Theater PC?

We don’t know (though we’d happily accept a device for review if anyone at Asus happens to read this), but it is quite possibly the most easily upgradeable PC we have ever come across, as this video shows:

 

YouTube link: ASUS VivoPC Overview

This is the only full review we could find.  The audio track is in Italian, but you can turn on English subtitles from the CC button in the player (that should appear once you start the video):

 

YouTube link: Recensione ASUS VivoPC – Review

From what we’re seeing here, it looks like this is a unit to keep an eye on, since it seems to play video pretty smoothly under both Windows and Linux. Just keep in mind that you may want to add or upgrade the memory if you plan to use this for serious computing, but I don’t think you’ll see too many systems that make that an easier process.

Note that this is the lowest-end unit of the VivoPC series, but there are two higher-end models that come in black cases and have upgraded hardware, naturally at a higher price.

Here’s a link to the article that tipped us off to this device:
Asus VivoPC mini-desktop now available for $320 and up

Link: Repeat a Command Every Few Seconds with watch

Running watch < command > will by default keep repeating that command every two seconds. This is good for seeing the progress of a running process, viewing memory or disk usage, or checking various things from /proc. Here are some quick examples:

Full article here:
Repeat a Command Every Few Seconds with watch (scottlinux.com)