Category: software

Link: arkOS: Building the anti-cloud (on a Raspberry Pi)

arkOS is an open source project designed to let its users take control of their personal data and make running a home server as easy as using a PC

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arkOS is not a solution to the surveillance state, but it does offer an alternative to those who would rather exercise some measure of control over their data and, at the very least, not lock away their information in online services where its retrieval and use is at the whim of a corporation, not the user.

Full article here:
arkOS: Building the anti-cloud (on a Raspberry Pi) (TechWorld)
Related article:
arkOS aims to let anyone host their own cloud with a $35 Raspberry Pi (Liliputing)

Link: How to access ssh terminal in web browser on Linux

Running “everything” in a web browser used to be a bold statement. However, due to the increasingly powerful HTML5/JavaScript stack, a web browser has now become a dominant application delivery platform. Even the Linux kernel sandboxed in a web browser no longer sounds so crazy these days.

In this tutorial, I describe how to access an SSH terminal in a web browser on Linux. Web-based SSH is useful when the firewall you are behind is so restrictive that only HTTP(s) traffic can get through.

Full article here:
How to access ssh terminal in web browser on Linux (Xmodulo)

Link: Raspberry Pi: the Perfect Home Server

Ever since the announcement of the Raspberry Pi, sites all across the Internet have offered lots of interesting and challenging uses for this exciting device. Although all of those ideas are great, the most obvious and perhaps least glamorous use for the Raspberry Pi (RPi) is creating your perfect home server.

If you’ve got several different computers in need of a consistent and automated backup strategy, the RPi can do that. If you have music and video you’d like to be able to access from almost any screen in the house, the RPi can make that happen too. Maybe you have a printer or two you’d like to share with everyone easily? The Raspberry Pi can fill all those needs with a minimal investment in hardware and time.

Full article here:
Raspberry Pi: the Perfect Home Server (Linux Journal)

Link: Solar Pi (powering a Raspberry Pi from the sun)

About 10 years ago when Maplin opened a local store, I picked up some solar PV panels, a 40Ah sealed lead-acid (SLA) battery and a charge regulator on special. For the past 10 years these panels have been sitting in a window in my guest room doing nothing but keeping my battery nicely charged.

Finally, I’ve put this setup to some better use. I’m experimenting with the idea of keeping a Raspberry Pi powered 24/7 using nothing but PV panels and a battery. I’m based in Galway, Ireland (53N, 9W) and here we don’t get too much direct sun (clouds keep getting in the way :)… so this goal isn’t completely trivial.

Full article here:
Solar Pi (Joe Desbonnet’s web log)

Link: MythWeb ssh tunnel howto [for MythTV users]

I am going to briefly describe how to connect to mythweb that is behind a firewall in a router. I will assume you have mythweb running. If you need help with that please see the mythweb documentation: http://www.mythtv.org/docs/ I will also assume that you know how to forward ports on your router. …..

Full article here:
MythWeb ssh tunnel howto (MythTV wiki)

Link: Check and Repair Your Filesystem With fsck [Linux/OS X]

No matter how well you take care of your computer, sometimes, it will just crash and you often have to pull off the plug to restart the computer. When such crashes happen, there is a chance that your filesystem will get corrupted or damage. It is advisable to do a filesystem check regularly to make sure that it is running properly and free of error.

In Linux (and Mac), there is this powerful command “fsck” that you can use to check and repair your filesystem. “Fsck” stands for “File System Consistency checK”.

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An important thing to note is that fsck cannot be used on a mounted partition. If you do so, there is a high chance that it will damage the filesystem.

(emphasis added)

Full article here:
Check and Repair Your Filesystem With fsck [Linux] (Make Tech Easier)

One thing the article doesn’t mention is that you can avoid the problem of not being able to use fsck on a mounted partition by causing the system to reboot and then immediately run fsck. To do that, issue this command from the command prompt:

shutdown -rF now

The “-r” option means “Reboot after shutdown”, and the “-F” option means “Force fsck on reboot.” The two options can be combined into “-rF” as shown above. Unfortunately, that only works in Linux, not OS X, but if you’re already booted into OS X you can use Disk Utility to check your filesystem, and then you don’t even need to reboot.

Link: 11 Cron Scheduling Task Examples in Linux

In this article we are going to review and see how we can schedule and run tasks in the background automatically at regular intervals using Crontab command. Dealing a frequent job manually is a daunting task for system administrator. Such process can be schedule and run automatically in the background without human intervene using cron daemon in Linux or Unix-like operating system.

For instance, you can automate process like backup, schedule updates and synchronization of files and many more. Cron is a daemon to run schedule tasks. Cron wakes up every minute and checks schedule tasks in crontable. Crontab (CRON TABle) is a table where we can schedule such kind of repeated tasks.

Full article here:
11 Cron Scheduling Task Examples in Linux (Tecmint)

Link: How to identify video formats from command line on Linux

If you want to know what video/audio codec are used for the video file you downloaded from somewhere, you can play the video itself. Most media player software such as VLC or MPlayer can display properties of a video file being played. However, there are command-line utilities that allow you to determine video properties quickly.

In this tutorial, I will describe how to check video formats from the command line on Linux.

Full article here:
How to identify video formats from command line on Linux (Xmodulo)

Link: Repair Scanned Documents With gscan2pdf

I had the pleasure last week of tracking down an article locked behind a digital paywall. It arrived through inter-library loan in the form of a book, all issues of the journal that year bound together. I felt a little disappointed as it meant I’d be left with lower quality scans. (You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever placed a book on a copy machine.) I turned to the internet for a solution and discovered the tool gscan2pdf.

Full article here:
Repair Scanned Documents With gscan2pdf (AMS Math Grad Student Blog)