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Archive for the ‘Tutorials/Tips’ category

4

Linux and BSD desktop distributions with support for disk encryption

Disk encryption is not something most personal computer users think of when they consider ways to boost the security profile of their computer. A firewall? Yes, that in the minds of most is what computer security is all about. However, a firewall is a network security tool, and it is useless if your computer is [...]

Published by on July 26, 2011 5:19 am
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3 graphical clients for managing the Uncomplicated FireWall

ufw, the Uncomplicated FireWall, is Ubuntu’s user-friendly, command line frontend to IPTables, the command line utility for managing Netfilter, the firewall application built into the Linux kernel. It is installed not just on Ubuntu, but also on all Ubuntu-based distributions. As simple to use as ufw is, a graphical interface is even better, especially for [...]

Published by on July 22, 2011 5:02 am
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Lancelot menu

Lancelot is one of three menu styles for KDE, the K Desktop Environment. It is similar in some respects to mintMenu of Linux Mint, but with a lot more features and a lot more configurable options. This article is written to showcase all the features of this menu, which is developed and maintained by Ivan [...]

Published by on July 19, 2011 8:47 pm
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How to install PCLinuxOS 2011.6 on an encrypted LVM file system

The 2011 editions of PCLinuxOS have started rolling off the shelves, with the KDE and LXDE editions being the first set out. (See PCLinuxOS 2011.6 KDE review for a detailed review of the KDE edition.) If you have been using PCLinuxOS, you probably know that the installer, which it inherited from Mandriva, has support for [...]

Published by on July 16, 2011 2:41 pm
26

How to dual-boot Fedora 15 and Windows 7

Previous tutorials published on this website about dual-booting Fedora and Windows 7 have shown how to do it by creating partitions for Fedora manually, either on an existing or a new installation of Windows 7. This tutorial will show how to do it, by modifying the logical volumes automatically configured by Anaconda, the Fedora system [...]

Published by on June 27, 2011 5:53 pm
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Install Mageia 1 on an encrypted LVM file system

Mageia is a new Linux distribution formed by former employees and contributors of Mandriva, a Linux software provider and publisher of a line of Linux distributions of the same name. The first stable release (of Mageia) has since been reviewed for this website (see Mageia 1 review). This article presents the steps necessary to install [...]

Published by on June 27, 2011 4:41 am
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Install Mageia 1 on an encrypted btrfs file system

Mageia is a new Linux distribution forked from Mandriva. The first release was just last month and it has since been reviewed on this website. (See Mageia 1 review.) Btrfs is a relatively new file system in the Linux kernel, It is a copy-on-write file system with built-in support for, amongst other features, subvolumes (the [...]

Published by on June 22, 2011 2:25 pm
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Dual-boot Fedora 15 and Ubuntu 11.04 with either side on an LVM partitioning scheme

How to dual-boot Fedora 15 and Ubuntu 11.04 on a computer with one hard disk is the subject of this tutorial. If you have ever configured dual-booting between Windows and a Linux distribution, the steps involved should be very familiar, but if you have not, this tutorial is detailed enough that you should not have [...]

Published by on June 20, 2011 3:14 pm
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Dual-boot Linux Mint 11 and Windows 7

Dual-booting between a GNU/Linux distribution and Windows on a computer with one or more hard disks is a common practice for those who use both operating systems. It is a somewhat hassle-free approach to keeping a foot in both OS worlds. If you are new to Linux Mint and want to attempt dual-booting between Linux [...]

Published by on June 11, 2011 8:37 am
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How to replace GRUB with BURG on Linux Mint 11

GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader, has been the default boot loader on virtually all Linux distributions since LILO (LInux LOader) lost its shine. LILO is still an option in only a handful of distributions (Mandriva is one), but on most, GRUB is the sole boot loader. GRUB’s menu has a very bland interface, and BURG [...]

Published by on June 4, 2011 1:02 pm
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Guest session and user management on Linux Mint 11

A common system management-type question I usually get from new users pertains to creating and managing user accounts on Linux. On Linux Mint 11, as on all other Linux distributions, it is a very easy task, made possible by a simple graphical application. If you are running Linux Mint 11 now (or a previous release), [...]

Published by on June 4, 2011 10:56 am
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Manual disk partitioning guide for Linux Mint 11

This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to create partitions on Linux Mint 11, the latest stable release of Linux Mint. And because it encompasses most of the steps involved in the installation process, it can be considered a Linux Mint 11 installation guide. The steps involved are pretty simple, but if you a [...]

Published by on June 2, 2011 8:41 pm
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Install Linux Mint 11 on an 8 GB SDHC card

SDHC cards, very small storage cards designed for use in mobile devices, can be used to install your favorite Linux distribution. You can install any distribution on one of these cards in much the same manner that you would to a regular hard disk drive. As far as your computer is concerned, they are just [...]

Published by on June 1, 2011 2:09 am
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How to triple-boot Fedora 15, Ubuntu 11.04 and Windows 7

Triple-booting windows 7 and two Linux distributions is a little bit more involved than dual-booting it with a distribution. You have to decide in what order to install the Linux distributions, and sometimes, the order you choose might not work. Such was the case with this attempt to triple boot it with Fedora 15 and [...]

Published by on May 31, 2011 3:45 pm
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How to install Linux Mint 11 on a btrfs file system

Like Ubuntu 11.04 on which it is based, Linux Mint 11 has support for btrfs, a modern journaling file system with features that are not available on the default file system on Linux. For example, with btrfs, you can: Writable snapshots Subvolumes (separate internal filesystem roots) Object level mirroring and striping Integrated multiple device support, [...]

Published by on May 30, 2011 7:34 pm
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How to install and configure Adobe Flash Player 10.3 on Fedora 15

Fedora 15, code-named Lovelock, does not ship with commercial applications. Which means that you are not able to install essential applications like Adobe Flash Player from the graphical package manager. There are a few open source Flash plugins, but they do not render current Flash content very well, if at all. If you are not [...]

Published by on May 28, 2011 3:06 am
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Guest session and user management on Fedora 15

User management on Fedora 15 is just as easy as on any other distribution or operating system. And the graphical user management tools (there are two) are very intuitive to use. There are two types of user accounts on Fedora 15 – Standard and Administrator. The Administrator has root or super user privileges. During installation, [...]

Published by on May 26, 2011 5:16 am
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How to install Fedora 15 on an encrypted btrfs file system

Fedora 15, the latest stable release of the Red Hat-sponsored Linux distribution, is the first Fedora release to have btrfs, the B-tree File System (also called Butter F S), as a file system option during the installation process. On earlier versions, you would have had to pass the btrfs option to Anaconda at boot time [...]

Published by on May 25, 2011 3:32 pm
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GPT disk partitioning guide for Chakra 2011.4

GPT is an alternate disk partition table scheme that solves two issues associated with the MBR partition table scheme. It allows the configuration of more than four primary partitions, the maximum supported by MBR, and it also supports disk partitions of more than 2 TB. Chakra, an Arch Linux-based distribution, is the only Linux distribution [...]

Published by on May 24, 2011 12:34 pm
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Guest session and user management in kubuntu 11.04

Managing users on Linux is one of the very first tasks that new users want to know how to accomplish. In Kubuntu 11.04, the graphical user management tool has all the features expected on such an application. For those new to Kubuntu, and who might need some hand-holding in creating and managing users, this article [...]

Published by on May 23, 2011 3:02 pm
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Install Ubuntu 11.04 on external hard disk

Installing Ubuntu 11.04 or any other distribution on an external hard drive connected to a computer via USB is about the same as the method used to install it on an internal hard disk. Your choice of external disk to use are many, but the one I used for this tutorial is a 2.5′ hard [...]

Published by on May 23, 2011 1:43 am
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How to dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.04

For those Windows users who have discovered what Linux has to offer, but for one reason or another are not ready to completely abandon Windows, dual-booting between the two operating systems is one method of keeping a foot in both worlds. And to help those users, this article presents a step-by-step guide on how to [...]

Published by on May 22, 2011 11:57 pm
0

Yum in Redhat Enterprise Linux 6.1

Editor: This post is by James Antill. It looks at yum, the command line tool for managing applications on certain RPM-based Linux distributions like Redhat Enterprise Linux and Fedora. Time to look at a few features of yum in RHEL-6.1 now that it’s released: Search is more user-friendly – As we maintain yum we are [...]

Published by on May 19, 2011 6:41 pm
0

Systemd for Developers

Systemd not only brings improvements for administrators and users, it also brings a (small) number of new APIs with it. In this blog story (which might become the first of a series) I hope to shed some light on one of the most important new APIs in systemd: Socket Activation – In the original blog [...]

Published by on May 19, 2011 8:49 am
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Manual disk partitioning guide for Kubuntu 11.04

Like the Ubuntu 11.04 installer, the Kubuntu 11.04 installation program configures just two partitions by default. These are for /, the root directory, and Swap, disk space for use as virtual memory. To make upgrades less tasking, it is recommended that a separate partition be created for /home, the directory where your home folder will [...]

Published by on May 12, 2011 12:53 pm
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How to install Ubuntu 11.04 on an encrypted LVM file system

Ubuntu is one of many Linux distributions with support for LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager. LVM is a disk partitioning scheme that brings a level of flexibility to disk management that is not possible with the traditional method. With LVM, you can, if necessary, increase the size of a partition online, that is, while [...]

Published by on May 10, 2011 4:05 pm
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Home directory and full disk encryption in Ubuntu 11.04

Disk encryption is one of several security features built into the Linux kernel that you may use to enhance the physical security rating and posture of a Linux installation. Disk encryption used to be widely recommended for notebook computers, and the reason is such mobile computers are more likely to be stolen than a desktop [...]

Published by on May 9, 2011 5:07 pm
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How to install Ubuntu 11.04 on a btrfs file system

The default journaling file system on non-boot partitions on Ubuntu 11.04 is ext4. Other journaling file systems supported are ext3, xfs, jfs, reiserfs, and btrfs. The journaling file system of interest in this article is btrfs, the B-Tree File System. Btrfs is an ongoing attempt to create a ZFS-like file system for Linux. It is [...]

Published by on May 5, 2011 1:46 am
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Manual disk partitioning guide for Ubuntu 11.04

Advanced or manual disk partitioning is available for those that want to create a custom set of partitions for installing Ubuntu 11.04. For whatever reason or reasons you choose to use the advanced disk partitioning tool, this article gives a step by step guide, with detailed explanations, on how to do it. This tutorial assumes [...]

Published by on May 4, 2011 6:12 pm
42

How to dual-boot Linux Mint Debian Edition and Windows 7

This is the latest article in the series on dual-booting Linux and BSD desktop distributions with Windows 7. And this one provides step-by-step directions on how to dual-boot Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) with Windows 7 on a computer with a single hard drive. LMDE is the branch of Linux Mint that is based on [...]

Published by on April 23, 2011 3:28 am
0

How to disabling Geo-Tagging on your phone

The storage of location based data, in the form of Latitude and Longitude inside of images is called Geotagging; essentially tagging your photograph with the geographic location. This data is stored inside if the metadata if JPEG images and is useful for tying the photograph to a location. Want to remember exactly where you took [...]

Published by on April 22, 2011 8:39 am
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How to dual-boot Pardus 2011 and Windows 7

This article is the next in a series of guides on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux and BSD distributions. It covers dual-booting Pardus 2011 and Windows 7. If you want to dual-boot Windows and another operating system, like a Linux or BSD distribution, you will likely want to do so on a computer [...]

Published by on April 14, 2011 4:49 pm
11

GNOME 3: From an end-user’s perspective

Released just a few days ago, GNOME 3 is the latest major version of the GNOME desktop environment. If you are currently running a GNOME-based Linux or BSD distribution, you are probably using version 2.30 or 2.32, but that should change in the upcoming release cycle when many of the distributions will be shipping with [...]

Published by on April 9, 2011 8:15 pm
5

Dual-booting PC-BSD 8.2 and Windows 7

In continuation of a series of articles on dual-booting Linux and BSD desktop distributions with Windows 7, this article presents a step by step guide on how to dual-boot the latest stable release of PC-BSD, PC-BSD 8.2, on a computer with an existing installation of Windows 7. This is a 3-stage process. In stage one, [...]

Published by on February 28, 2011 12:25 pm
5

Dual-booting Linux Mint 10 KDE and Windows 7

This is the latest article in the series on dual-booting Windows 7 and Linux distributions. It is intended for those new to Linux, and who might need some assistance installing Linux Mint 10 KDE side by side with Windows 7 on a computer with a single hard disk. Dual-booting is easy, but you must do [...]

Published by on February 24, 2011 3:08 am
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How to dual-boot Debian 6 and Windows 7

How to dual-boot Windows 7 and Debian 6 is the latest in the series of articles on dual-booting Windows 7 and Linux and BSD distributions. None has been written for a BSD distribution, but with PC-BSD 8.2 scheduled to be released early next week, expect one to be written for it. When attempting to dual-boot [...]

Published by on February 17, 2011 2:57 pm
2

Manual LVM configuration guide for Debian 6

Debian is one of a handful of Linux distributions with support for setting up LVM, the Linux Logical Volume Manager. LVM brings a level of flexibility to disk management on Linux that is not possible with the traditional disk partitioning scheme. If your favorite Linux distribution supports LVM, I’ll always recommend that you use it [...]

Published by on February 16, 2011 6:03 pm
0

Debian 6 installation and disk partitioning guide

Debian 6.0, aka Squeeze, is the latest release of Debian, a multi-purpose, GNU/Linux distribution. Like previous releases, Debian 6 (Debian 6 review) offers several installation methods and multiple disk partitioning schemes. Which installation method and disk partitioning scheme should you choose? It all depends on how you want to install your system. This article will [...]

Published by on February 15, 2011 10:28 pm
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How to secure your Wi-Fi devices and personal data

Here are a few key things that Wi-Fi users can do to secure their Wi-Fi devices and personal data: Set home Wi-Fi networks for WPA2™ security – Wi-Fi Protected Access® 2 (WPA2) is the latest in network security technology. It controls who connects to the network and encrypts data for privacy. It is important to [...]

Published by on February 2, 2011 11:52 am
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Dual-booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10

This is the second article on dual-booting Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.10 on a computer with one hard disk. The first, how to dual-boot Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7, showed how to accomplish the task with GRUB 2, the boot loader used by Ubuntu, installed on the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the hard disk. [...]

Published by on January 28, 2011 3:31 pm
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How to install Linux Mint Debian Edition on an encrypted LVM file system

Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) is the edition of Linux Mint that is based on Debian Testing. Like the edition of Linux Mint based on Ubuntu, the installer of LMDE lacks support for LVM, and disk encryption. This tutorial presents a detailed guide on how to install LMDE on an encrypted LVM file system. But [...]

Published by on January 1, 2011 10:51 pm
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Manual disk partitioning guide for Linux Mint Debian Edition

Linux Mint Debian Edition, or LMDE, is the edition of Linux Mint based on Debian Testing. The latest release was made available for download on December 24, 2010. The installation program on this edition is similar to the Ubiquity installation program, which is used on the main edition, the one based on Ubuntu. But while [...]

Published by on December 28, 2010 2:29 pm
0

Android Touch-Event Hijacking

With the recent release of Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), developers can now protect themselves from a new twist on an old bug: TapJacking. Like ClickJacking on the web, TapJacking occurs when a malicious application displays a fake user interface that seems like it can be interacted with, but actually passes interaction events such as finger taps [...]

Published by on December 10, 2010 4:00 am
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How to dual-boot Linux Mint 10 and Windows 7

This is the latest in a series of tutorials that has been published on this site on how to dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux distributions. Previous articles published on this subject are how to dual-boot Fedora 14 and Windows 7 and how to dual-boot Ubuntu 10.10 and Windows 7. This article presents a step by [...]

Published by on December 8, 2010 11:59 am
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