Git is, by far, the most used version control system. Being it “distributed”, means that each user can clone its own full copy of a repository on which he can work even if offline, pushing changes to a remote only when ready. Git repositories are not designed to host sensitive information, but in certain situations, the ability of transparently encrypt the content of a repository can come in handy. The git remote-gcrypt helper is designed with this goal in mind.
Guides
How to customize Firefox using policies
In a world where Google Chrome is, by a large margin, the most used web browser, Firefox represents the only relevant open source alternative. The Mozilla browser is installed by default (or at least available in the official repositories) of all the most used Linux distributions. In order to configure its behavior we can change settings interactively, or, more conveniently, we can create and deploy “policies”.
How to mount a remote filesystem over SSH with sshfs
SSH (Secure Shell) is a protocol used to establish an encrypted connection with a remote machine using a client-server model: the ssh server runs on the machine we want to access remotely, while a client is used on the machines from which we want to connect. Thanks to sshfs, we can use an existing SSH connection to mount a remote directory in a secure way, without using additional services like NFS or Samba.
How to manage power profiles over D-Bus with power-profiles-daemon on Linux
Power-profiles-daemons is a free and open source project designed to handle system power profiles over D-Bus. The two major Linux desktop environment, GNOME and KDE Plasma, are nicely integrated with it, allowing the user to easily manage power profiles from their dedicated power manager interfaces, but it is also possible to switch profiles and retrieve information about them from the command line, using a dedicated utility.
How to install Signal on Linux
Signal is a free and open source messaging application developed by the Signal Foundation: it is available on all the major operating systems such as Linux, Windows, Android and iOS, and supports all the major features one can expect, such as encryption, the ability to send files and make group calls. All the infrastructure behind Signal is open source, including the messaging protocol and the server software: the source code is available on github.
How to extend the Thunar file manager with custom actions
Thunar is the file manager included in Xfce, a free and open source Desktop Environment which implements the traditional desktop metaphor, and has become the favorite of many users which switched to it when the GNOME project introduced the GNOME shell. Thunar is light on resources but doesn’t lack functionalities which can be extended further by creating custom actions.
How to retrieve hardware information with dmidecode on Linux
Dmidecode is a free and open source utility we can use to retrieve hardware information on Linux. The tool is available in the repositories of all the major Linux distributions, and is able to inspect and dump the content of the SMBIOS table.
OpenLiteSpeed vs Nginx
One of the first – and most crucial – decisions that a website owner will need to make is what type of web server to use. The decision to host your website on a Linux system is a no brainer, but when it comes to web servers, there are a few choices and they all come with their own pros and cons. Among the most popular on Linux is NGINX and OpenLiteSpeed, both well known for their speed and ability to host concurrent connections.
FreeBSD vs GNU/Linux: What’s the difference
Every person in the tech industry or those that have spent some time tinkering with computers has heard of GNU/Linux. When it comes to FreeBSD, far less people are aware of its existence and not a lot of users (or even system administrators) understand the difference between the two operating systems. The most likely scenario of how you wound up here is that you have used Linux for a while, and are now wondering if FreeBSD is better or if it is a good idea to switch.
How to perform unattended Linux installations with Kickstart
Kickstart is an automatic installation method natively available on those distributions which uses the Anaconda installer: Red Hat Enterprise Linux (and its clones) and Fedora. It can also be used to install Ubuntu, actually, but in that context it acts as a layer of compatibility to the debian-native preseeding method. With Kickstart we can perform unattended, customizable and reproducible installations.
How to install OnlyOffice Desktop Editors on Linux
OnlyOffice is an open source office suite compatible with both open and proprietary documents formats. The suite includes applications to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. The “community” version of OnlyOffice is cost-free and can be installed both as a service, or in the form of classic desktop editors.
How to keep configuration files under version control with Etckeeper
On Linux-based operating system the /etc directory is used to hold global configuration files for applications and services. A good set of configurations is really important for a good working system, so being able to keep track of changes and quickly revert them, in case something go wrong, is crucial. Etckeeper helps us achieve this goal keeping configuration files under version control.