Month: March 2014

Link: Hybryde Fusion: Get 11 Desktop Environments in One Distro [Linux]

If you have been a long-time Linux user, you probably are using your favorite distro, or a desktop environment that can improve your productivity. But what if you are planning to switch from Windows to Linux and you are not sure of which distro to use? To make thing worse, you do some research and find that there are a ton of desktop environments out there and each distro comes with more desktop environments. So, which one should you choose?

That is really a hard to solve problem, and that is where Hybryde Fusion comes into play. It is basically a distro that comes pre-installed with eleven different desktop environments so you can test out each and every one of them and see which one you like. Hybryde Fusion is great for testing and is not meant for live production use.

Full article here:
Hybryde Fusion: Get 11 Desktop Environments in One Distro [Linux] (Make Tech Easier)

LInk: A Raspberry Pi Fridge/Freezer Temperature Monitor and Alarm Project

I’ve been blogging about my experience in Road Test reviewing the Ultimate Raspberry Pi Bundle. As a part of this Road Test I’m creating a Fridge/Freezer Temperature Alarm system for our local food shelf, Channel 1. You can see where this Road Test started for me here
In this post I’ll bring together all the steps required to build your own Raspberry Pi powered temperature monitor project.

Full article here:
The Complete Channel One Temperature Monitor and Alarm Project – The Ultimate Raspberry Pi Bundle (element14 Community)

Link: Finding Your Raspberry Pi’s System Information

The Raspberry Pi has a lot of system information available like details about the CPU, the current temperature of the processor, the amount of memory and so on. Not all of the information is available in one place; however, if you know where to look, you can discover quite a lot of interesting data about your Pi.

Full article here:
Finding Your Raspberry Pi’s System Information (Make Tech Easier)
Related:
How to Overclock Your Raspberry Pi (Make Tech Easier)

Link: How to spoof the MAC address of a network interface on Linux

A 48-bit MAC address (e.g., 08:4f:b5:05:56:a0) is a globally unique identifier associated with a physical network interface, which is assigned by a manufacturer of the corresponding network interface card. Higher 24 bits in a MAC address (also known as OUI or “Organizationally Unique Identifier”) uniquely identify the organization which has issued the MAC address, so that there is no conflict among all existing MAC addresses.

While a MAC address is a manufacturer-assigned hardware address, it can actually be modified by a user. This practice is often called “MAC address spoofing.” In this tutorial, I am going to show how to spoof the MAC address of a network interface on Linux.

Full article here:
How to spoof the MAC address of a network interface on Linux (Xmodulo)

Link: Tweak Ubuntu Unity: Get a dock-style launcher and Unity Dash

Figure A

One of the biggest complaints I receive about Ubuntu Unity is that the Launcher is locked to the left side — with no way to move it. Up until Ubuntu 11.10, there was a hack through the Compiz Config Manager that allowed you to move the Launcher to the bottom of the screen. It was unstable, caused crashes, and finally was removed as a solution. Eventually, from the developers of Unity it was declared that the option wouldn’t ever find its way into the configuration of the Launcher. Why? The main reason, I believe, is that it causes issues with the Unity Dash (there could be a plethora of other reasons, I’m sure).

This morning, though, I had an epiphany. Why try to break Unity to get the launcher on the bottom, when you can add a couple of apps and have the best of both worlds? You can still get the amazing functionality of the Dash and not have to be relegated to a launcher on the left side of the screen? When that hit me, it only took me a couple of seconds to realize what needed to be done to achieve what you see in Figure A above.

Full article here:
Tweak Ubuntu Unity: Get a dock-style launcher and Unity Dash (TechRepublic)
Related:
Restore Application Window Menus in Ubuntu’s Unity (Linux Tips)

Link: Browse Internet as Nobody knows what you are doing, Simple SOCKS Proxy setup under Linux

As you may know ISPs can see those links you visit from your devices while using their service, this thing bother me and many users who knows about this stuff. Simply we can use SOCKS proxy using SSH. This approach is useful to surf web because things will be encrypted and your local administrator or ISP won’t be able to see what you are doing, they just can see encrypted packets are floating. 🙂

Also this method won’t eat much of your bandwidth but a little difference you may notice while testing your bandwidth using speedtest tools.

Full article here:
Browse Internet as Nobody knows what you are doing, Simple SOCKS Proxy setup under Linux (NoobsLab)

Link: What is a good video editing software on Linux?

A video editor allows you to handle various post-production video editing jobs which typically involve arranging, cutting, pasting, trimming, and otherwise enhancing (e.g., adding effects to) video clips through the timeline interface. In modern video editing software, things like multi-codec import/transcoding, non-linear video editing, or even HD video support are pretty much standard nowadays.

In this post, I am going to show 11 popular video editing software available on Linux. I will not cover subjective merits such as usability or interface design, but instead highlight notable features of each video editor. If you have tried any particular video editor listed here, feel free to share your experience or opinion.

Full article here:
What is a good video editing software on Linux? (Xmodulo)
Related:
How to Resize Videos and Movies Without Losing Quality (Technology Personalized)

Link: Setting up Prosody (XMPP server) on the Raspberry Pi for house/apartment/secret club house-wide chatroom

Figure A

Although I only live with 4 others, wife, son & 2 cats, in a small 5 room apartment most evenings we are in different rooms, or in the summer 3 different floors, wearing headphones chilling to our own choices in music & tv. As I think it’s uncouth to yell out of the window or across the apartment to get someone’s attention I setup a Raspberry Pi Model B as an XMPP server running MUC. As it’s only for 3 people, unless we have visitors, I chose to run Prosody, it’s pretty lightweight, easy to setup, the stable version is in the raspbian repos & i’ve used it before. I’ve also used and run ejabberd, openfire, tigase, jabberd,… but IMHO they are heavier on resources and a bit harder to setup, and are overkill for my needs and anyway I like lua.

Full article here:
Setting up Prosody on the Raspberry Pi for house/apartment/secret club house-wide chatroom (Executing Gummiworms)
NOTE: The author appears to have taken down the above article, but there is a cached version at the Wayback Machine.
Related articles:
Using the prosody xmpp/chat server (Debian Administration)
Installing Prosody XMPP Server on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) (Linode Library)

Link: Some powerful options of Linux Dig command to Query DNS

What is dig

Dig is a short from Domain Information Groper. It perform DNS lookups and displays the answers that are returned from the name server(s) that were queried.This tool is an alternative DNS lookup tool, nslookup. Unless it is told to query a specific name server, dig will try each of the servers listed in /etc/resolv.conf

Full article here:
Some powerful options of Linux Dig command to Query DNS (LinOxide)
Related:
Domain Information Groper (DIG) — DNS Query Tool (Gaurav Kansal)

Link: OpenVPN on DD-WRT: A Secure Connection To Home Networks

Since the demise of the free LogMeIn service, you might have lost access to your home PC. Fortunately, with the right router, and a little bit of time, you can gain free access to your home machines very easily with OpenVPN. This guide I’ve written for the DSLReports.com community will focus primarily on OpenVPN running on DD-WRT, but should apply almost equally to “TomatoVPN” firmware, or newer Asus routers which include it (I would also recommend checking out “Tomato by Shibby” — as this looks to be some great firmware for those with supported hardware).

Full article here:
OpenVPN on DD-WRT: A Secure Connection To Home Networks | DSLReports, ISP Information (DSLReports.com)