Understanding Fedora, Redhat and CentOS

Talking about Linux Distribution these three are quite famous for maintaining the server and security perspectives. I don't mean to say there are only these three distributions for servers and network security, I would absolutely be wrong. In that case Slackware, Arch, Black Arch, Kali, Bodhi are some name which shouldn't be missed. I agree there are even more. But being interrelated with each other, people generally get confused about following three Linux Distributions: 

• Fedora
• Redhat
• CentOS

They get confused regarding following points:

•  Do they belong to same company?
• As Redhat is available as a commercial version do other distributions cost money as well?
• Who maintains them?
• How  often their stable versions are released?

I was also little unclear previously, so I did a little study about these three distribution and went through wikipedia. Being convinced myself I draw this diagram listing their features in order top to button.

I wish this will  somehow help.

UBUNTU IS A SPYWARE

Do you think Ubuntu spies on you?

Answer: Yes it does I will show you how it does. I found out this said by Richard Stallman.

Free Software Foundation President Richard Stallman called Ubuntu Linux "spyware" because the operating system sends data to Ubuntu maker Canonical when a user searches the desktop.

"Ubuntu, a widely used and influential GNU/Linux distribution, has installed surveillance code," Stallman wrote in a post titled "Ubuntu Spyware: What to Do?" "When the user searches her own local files for a string using the Ubuntu desktop, Ubuntu sends that string to one of Canonical's servers. … Ubuntu uses the information about searches to show the user ads to buy various things from Amazon. Amazon commits many wrongs (see http://stallman.org/amazon.html); by promoting Amazon, Canonical contributes to them. However, the ads are not the core of the problem. The main issue is the spying. Canonical says it does not tell Amazon who searched for what. However, it is just as bad for Canonical to collect your personal information as it would have been for Amazon to collect it."

SPYWARE

Google defines Spyware as a software that enables a user to obtain information about another's computer activities by transmitting data covertly from their hard drive.

How to do safe search?

In order to do safe browsing on your dashboard you need to filter result. Doing this you can let your interested machine to search for you. Just unclick the sources which you don't want to get you information. 

Debian has provided an easy method to browse your machine offline. In order to do so as shown in the picture below Off the on button and you are totally ofline. None of your searched data will be used by the online sources.

CORELINUX & CODELINUX

Why always to start from the scratch and bang your head on the wall getting stocked on a very tiny simple problem. So I wish some true Linux genius would maintain two specific kind of blog i.e. codelinux and corelinux.

CORELINUX

Where Bloggers would describe every minute details about Linux Based OS, every simple idea and information regarding the development of Linux and its stability in various distributions.A blogger could prepare some kind of course / syllabus which would consider specially beginners and experts as well and clearly identify that beginners can accomplish following things and will need to study following materials in order to reach next level.

CODE LINUX

Learning the theories are only not sufficient to be smart because  learning linux is nothing until you are  not able to perform it( say code / modify / customize it).
And most of the time every action on linux is performed through codes or commands. So  I wish a blog or blogger to describe code and concepts behind how it  works. Experts can easily identify where beginners may have problems in understanding the flow , so they can comment on it and every beginners could easily learn from it.

UBUNTU GUEST SESSION DISABLE

In case your laptop is never used by anobody else, then I see no use of Guest Session. Guest session is only necessary if you let other people to share your laptop. In my case I never let anyone to use my laptop, hence for me my user account is enough. So I removed the gurst session from my device.In order to remove the guest session, do following things in your terminal:

• First open your terminal:  CTRL+ALT+T

• Then type: sudo gedit /usr/share/lightdm/lightdm.conf.d/50-ubuntu.conf

• In your text editor simply add this line of code allow-guest=false

Now save your configuration file, Close it and restart, this is what you will see:

Troubleshoot Network Manager, Apache, Wireless...

Today's Blog is all about networking stuffs and I will be covering following points:

1. Know your Network Controller Device with lspci
2. Display all interfaces which are currently available, even if down with ifconfig
3. Enable the service networking 
4. Enable Apache server
5. Then Enable Network Manager with network-manager
6. Then  Enable your WiFi with nmcli nm

AND REMEMBER ALL THESE THINGS WILL BE DONE WITH OUR TERMINAL THIS IS WHY LINUX IS SO COOL...

Then we are all set to run the internet.And now we are some basic troubleshooter about networking, though networking is a huge this would be the first step. Not actually first first step in networking is always theory The Basics of Networking, but we are not dealing with it today. So lets begin

1. In order to know  the hardware devices assembled in your laptop open your TERMINAL CTRL+ALT+T and then type lspci .

This displays all the hardware devices  like PCI BRIDGE, SATA controller, SMBus, USB Controller, Audio Device assembled in your laptop / computer. 

My Network controller is:

02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter (rev 01)

2. So now we need to know the interfaces that are available in our UBUNTU.  To see this type ifconfig in the terminal and you will see the output like this :

3. To access the internet first your hardware device should be activated, In order to do so type 

sudo service networking  and press tab twice which displays  arguments like:

 force-reload       reload        restart       start         stop

Perform any you need.

4.  To enable apache server in terminal type:

      sudo service apache2 start

5.  Now enable the network manager. In order to do so in terminal type:

    

     sudo service network-manager start 

6. Now First view the available connecting points Wireless point or Ethernet. To view the available wifi points in terminal type

    

     sudo nmcli con list

This displays the available devices With its UID and SSID.

Now to enable the wifi in terminal type:

      Sudo nmcli con up SSID or the UID

You can manipulate these basic networking commands and  triubleshoot on your own.

UBUNTU DESKTOP WALLPAPER TWEAKS

Can you Set a picture of yours as default Ubuntu Desktop Wallpaper?

Well, setting a picture of yours as a wallpaper is totally different then setting default images as wallpaper.That picture of yours after it is deleted or moved in another location, your wallpaper either gets blank or some default images are set as wallpaper.

So in order to set your image as default image you should  work on following steps:
I have tried this tweak  on both 12.04 LTS and 14.04LTS and it works absolutely fine.

1. First copy your image to /usr/share/backgrounds/ Do this from terminal using root prompt or do it from Nautilus  typing nautilus in terminal, so that you will not face permission denial.
2. Edit  the XML file /usr/share/backgrounds/contents/trusty.xml and paste this code:

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language that defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format which is both human-readable and machine-readable. It is defined by the W3C's XML 1.0 Specification^[2] and by several other related specifications,^[3] all of which are free open standards.^{[4]  (Definition referenced from Wkipedia)}

<static>

    <duration>1795.0</duration>

    <file>/usr/share/backgrounds/Aurora_500PX.jpg</file>

  </static>

  <transition>

    <duration>5.0</duration>

    <from>/usr/share/backgrounds/Aurora_500PX.jpg</from>

    <to>/usr/share/backgrounds/Reflections_by_Trenton_Fox.jpg</to>

  </transition>

Instead of Aurora_500PX.jpg keep your filename.

     3. Edit file /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/trusty-wallpapers.xml

<wallpaper>

    <name>AURORA 500PX</name>

    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/Aurora_500PX.jpg</filename>

    <options>zoom</options>

    <pcolor>#000000</pcolor>

    <scolor>#000000</scolor>

    <shade_type>solid</shade_type>

  </wallpaper>

Edit your filename instead of Aurora_500PX.jpg

Default Ubuntu Wallpapers

Look there are fourteen default wallpapers in Ubuntu. Our purpose is to set our image in that list so that next time we won't have any problem even we lose the picture or move it to another location. 

You can see the image selected with red rectangle and its thumbnail inside the monitor on your left which is the AURORA Borealis  downloaded from 500PX.com
And you can even see I have messed up with images duplication.

HOW TO SPEED UP UBUNTU?

My 'UBUNTU 14.04' takes too much time after first boot. Well genius people will have many tricks and tweaks to speed up their systems but as a beginner  I am researching in the internet about following things which can possibly boost up performance of Ubuntu:

1. Packages / Software installed in my #Ubuntu.
2. Distinguishing useful / obsolete software.
3. Removing unnecessary software, Releasing space, which can increase the speed.

This could be one way of solving the problem of slow performance of speed.

Today I will show  some ways to see the packages  and software installed in Ubuntu.

1. Synaptic Package Manager

To open the Synaptic Package Manager in terminal type:

algosig@surfer:~$ sudo synaptic

This will open the GUI of Synaptic Manager. From there you can explore the installed packages.

    2. dpkg --get-selections

To get a list of packages installed locally do this in your terminal:

algosig@surfer:~$ sudo dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall

To save that list to a text file called packages on your desktop do this in your terminal:

algosig@surfer:~$ dpkg --get-selections | grep -v deinstall > ~/Desktop/packages

     3.  aptitute

To get just the packages which were expressly installed (not just installed as dependencies), you can run

algosig@surfer:~$ aptitude search '~i!~M'

This will also include a brief description, which you may want. If not, use the option -F '%p'

     4. Create Backup

Create a backup of what packages are currently installed:

algosig@surfer:~$ dpkg --get-selections > list.txt

Then (on another system) restore installations from that list:

algosig@surfer:~$ dpkg --clear-selections

algosig@surfer:~$ sudo dpkg --set-selections < list.txt

To get rid of stale packages

algosig@surfer:~$ sudo apt-get autoremove

To get installed like at backup time (i.e. to install packages set by dpkg --set-selections)

algosig@surfer:~$ sudo apt-get dselect-upgrade

There are many documentations available in the internet and I searched only few intelligent peoples'  brain. There are many users out there with creative ideas to manipulate terminals and  bash scripts. it can by you as well.

So now I know to list out all the packages and save them in txt file. Next time I will show some methods to remove the old and obsolete packages. In a few blogs we will be able to maintain the speed of our OS i.e. UBUNTU

See you guys soon.

Open Source Software Alternative for PROJECT MANAGEMENT

As for the system analysis and design project documentation plays a vital role. So use of different available tools makes our task easy and helps us in error detection as well. My teacher suggested me yo use MS Project which is a project management software for Windows Operating System, but being an open source promoter I Google some  project management software alternatives for Linux based operating systems and came with some use full results: 

FOSS lovers out there choose any one you find easy to learn .

GanttProject Open Source by Dmitry Barashev, Alexandre Thomas
| Mac, Windows, Linux

GanttProject is a cross-platform desktop tool for project scheduling and management. It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOSX, it is free and its code is opensource.

http://www.ganttproject.biz/

ProjectLibre Open Source 
| Mac, Windows, Linux

ProjectLibre is a Java-based project management solution that gives Microsoft Project a run for its money. Offering a UI similar enough to ease the transition from Microsoft's market leader.

http://www.projectlibre.org/

GNOME Planner Open Source by Richard Hult and Mikael Hallendal,
| Windows, Linux

Planner is the GNOME project management tool. Its goal is to be an easy-to-use no-nonsense cross-platform project management application.

http://live.gnome.org/Planner/

Calligra Plan Open Source by Calligra Suite 
| Linux

Calligra Plan (formerly KPlato) is a project management application. It is intended for managing moderately large projects with multiple resources.

http://www.calligra.org/plan/

2-Plan Free
| Mac, Windows, Linux

2-plan Project Management Systems offers three PM tools: a free desktop system, an open-source software for multiple projects and teams, and a scrum board.

http://2-plan.com/
 
Reference:

1. http://alternativeto.net/
2. http://askubuntu.com/
3. https://www.google.com

Software Freedom Day Eve Celebration by KUOSC

Software Freedom Day is everywhere!SFD is a yearly celebration for Software Freedom! Every year there are thousands teams organizing Software Freedom Day in different countries and cities.Software Freedom Day is a worldwide celebration of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS). Our goal in this celebration is to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of using high quality FOSS in education, in government, at home, and in business -- in short, everywhere!

Kathmandu University Open Source Community is a part of Kathmandu University Computer Club which is fully dedicated in promoting Opens Source Software as well as hardware and spreading knowledge about it in the community. SFD EVE was celebrated within the premise of Kathmandu University (in front of Kathmandu University Central Library) .
Following were the attractions of SFD EVE:

1. POSTER PRESENTATION
2. FOSS KA KURA( FOSS DISCUSSION )
3. LIGHTING OF CANDLE

 For me the attraction part was these  poster presentation:

These Pictures speaks one common language i.e. open source and in above picture it is mentioned that we do not hate Windows.But in Nepal, we come to hear that one of the MSP(Microsoft Student Partner) was out from his post for giving a presentation on Open Source on Software Freedom Day.

Trash in Linux

When deleting a file a .Trash-1000 folder is created which contains two subfolders files and info.

My deleted file as well as folder is saved all inside the subfolder files.

If I Select Trash and Right click + Properties I cannot see the location of trash, just the details of files it contains.

If all my deleted files are saved in a hidden folder in same directory, what is Trash? Is it just a virtual folder which seems to exist but really doesn't?

With my observation I can say that Trash is collection of such deleted files and they remain always inside the same directory   it was deleted. In order to remove them you should permanently delete the i.e. Shift + Del + Enter . This will only permanently delete the file. Temporarily deleting a file means hiding it with .filename. 

Flareget Video Downloading solution for Chromium Browser

There are many extensions for in Firefox to download videos, but I was stuck so long in Chromuim Web Browser while I needed to download videos. So with my some internet surfing Flareget is my best alternative for video downloading. Let's say it is the alternative software of IDM in Ubuntu in the sense of speed. Flareget provides high speed for video downloading.

Follow the following steps: 

1)  Go to the link and select the download dile for debian package 

http://flareget.com/download 

or

In Terminal type   sudo wget -c"www.flareget.com/files/flareget/debs/amd64/flareget_2.4-27_amd64(stable)_deb.tar.gz

 This downloads  .deb file for installing Flareget. 

2) Double click the downloaded file and you will get forwarded to the Software centre and you will need to install from there. It won't take time to install because it is already downloaded .

How to Troubleshoot ap-hotspot

Fig: ap-hotspot error

Figure describes the error faced while accessing the ap-hotspot. the red color marked "Another process is already running"  is the error.

Solution: 

sudo rm /tmp/hotspot.pid

This deletes the process id that is causing the error display.
In order to see which process is running 

 ps -ef | grep ap-hotspot 

It is necessary to keep in mind that whenever you update your system or install the new operating system this updates the version  ap-hotspot  package as well so you should mark hold the hotspot package  i.e.

                    sudo apt-mark hold hostapd

FACEBOOK Photo Album Download

I don't use Facebook anymore. Its not about the privacy issue but I won't be using it any more. But there are my 50 photo albums that are very precious to me. In order to download it one image after another it takes months. After a few research I found this Firefox Add-on facepaste which fulfills my objective.

If you want to download all the photos of your facebook photo album at a single click then,   you have this Firefox addon "facepaste" developed by  Delan Azabani. This add on is free to download. Once you install this addon you can easily download all your album in a single click. You can also download multiple album at once.

After the installation:

#1 Right Click + Download Facebook Album(s)

Then you can see the screen similar as below

facepaste User Interface

Enjoy facepaste.

But things like Add-on and extention don't necessarily exist in the browser in case facepaste doesnot exist any more please Search " Facebook Album Download " in firefox add-on search bar.

Also there exists an Application of Chrome Browser titled " Facebook Photo & Album Manager" This is more user friendly than facepaste. Choose whichever you like.
Thank You!!!

Linux Terminal Commands.pdf

This is a documentation of Terminal Commands that I have used in my terminal for making my task easy. All the Commands are useful and performs basic operations. Since it is a collection of my case study and research I did  in internet to solve my problems,you are all linux enthusiast are free to contribute in this documentation.
Download LINUX TERMINAL COMMANDS here

ENABLE HOTSPOT IN UBUNTU

I tried a lot to enable hotspot through the GUI of Network Manager but it never happened. It created a hotspot but always the created hotspot didn't even appear in my android phone. Sometimes it is a problem in Ubuntu14.04. Same user interface worked for enabling hotspot in 13.10.Here are the steps that will guide you to enable hotspot and connect with other devices.You need to add a repository online, so make sure that you are using internet 

tech@jhola:~$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 Update the whole list of repositories 

tech@jhola:~$sudo apt-get update                                        Adding the repository  adds ap-hotspot to the list, Now install ap-hotspot

tech@jhola:~$sudo apt-get install ap-hotspot                         ap-hotspot is now installed. Better open,configure  and start the hotspot service

tech@jhola:~$sudo ap-hotspot
tech@jhola:~$sudo ap-hotspot configure
tech@jhola:~$ sudo ap-hotspot start

After HOTSPOT is created

In case you want to see the devices that are connected to your hotspot use this command

tech@jhola:~$ arp -a

I tried it in 14.04, give it a try in other distributions, hope it works. Enjoy the Linux Tips.Keep sharing with us , at the end idea of Linux is all about sharing and learning.