Since all the major Linux distributions adopted Systemd as their init system, they progressively became more and more similar to each other. Void Linux is an exception: it was written from scratch entirely by volunteers, uses Runit as its init system and service manager, and, as its name may suggest, it was designed with simplicity in mind.
Egidio Docile
How to check and tune power consumption with Powertop on Linux
Powertop is a free and open source utility developed by Intel to monitor power consumption on Linux. The tool is able to display and export reports about the estimated discharge rate, and statics about processors and devices behavior. It also lets us easily tune some kernel parameters on the fly in order maximize battery life.
How to create and manage snippets in Vim with Ultisnips
Snippets are small fragments of reusable code which, in all the major text editors, can be defined, organized and associated to key shortcuts. Although in Vim it is possible to create snippets without using any plugin, Ultisnips provide us extra features and write snippets using a clean and well documented syntax.
How to manipulate partition tables with fdisk, cfdisk and sfdisk on Linux
Fdisk, cfdisk and sfdisk are command line partitioning utilities included by default in all Linux distributions. They provide different interfaces to the same set of functions: while they all can be used interactively, only sfdisk is script-oriented. They support DOS, GPT, SGI and SUN partition tables.
Introduction to Jupiter Notebook
Jupyter Notebook is a web application used to produce computational documents, commonly called “notebooks” which can contain human-readable text, executable code, charts, and more. When used together with Python and libraries like pandas and Matplotlib, Jupyter notebooks are an excellent tool we can use for presentations and data analysis.
Introduction to Tlpui, a GTK frontend for Tlp
Tlp is a command line utility we can use to optimize power consumption on Linux. It provides reasonable defaults, and, at the same time, an easy to understand text-based configuration file we can use to create our own setup. An external project provides a user-friendly GTK frontend to Tlp written in Python: Tlpui.
How to get statistics about a command execution with GNU time
GNU time is a really handy utility available in the repositories of every Linux distribution: we can use it to retrieve information about the “real”, “user”, and “system” execution times of a command, and, more generally, to check the amount of system resources used by it.
How to install Python applications in isolated environments with pipx
If you are familiar with Python, you surely used pip: the Python package installer. With pip, we can install packages “globally” or in virtual environments. Virtual environments are mainly used to install dependencies of specific projects, so to develop them in isolation. We usually install packages, “globally”, instead, when want to access the utilities they provide from anywhere. By using pipx we can get the best of both approaches: we can install each application in its own virtual environment, and, at the same time, access it globally.
How to remotely access your ebooks library with Calibre server
Calibre is, without a doubt, the most featured ebook manager available on Linux and other operating systems. The application is completely free and open source: it lets us easily organize, convert and sync our ebooks with a variety of devices and ebook readers. Calibre has an included media server, which can be used to remotely access a library.
How to use xargs to build command lines from standard input
Even the most basic installation of any Linux distribution comes with a set of really useful utilities: “xargs” is undoubtedly one of those. By using xargs we can build and execute command lines using items from standard input as arguments of a command. This is especially useful when dealing with programs which don’t read standard input directly.
How to embed documentation in Bash scripts
Documenting how an application works, its purpose, and its intended usage is really important, even if it is just a simple shell script we are talking about. To ease code maintenance in the most basic cases, documentation can be embed directly inside scripts. In this tutorial we learn how to include Pearl’s Plain Old Documentation syntax (POD) in bash scripts, and how to convert it to various formats using pod2 utilities such as pod2man and pod2html.
Introduction to Ansible console
In previous Ansible tutorials we saw how easy it is to understand the basic concepts of this fantastic automation tool, how to write our first playbooks, how to organize tasks into roles, and how to use Ansible Vault to protect sensitive data. This time, we focus on an interactive tool which let us execute tasks on the fly, targeting single hosts or host groups: the Ansible console.