beginner

Debian package

Easy way to create a Debian package and local package repository

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This article describes a simple way to create a home made debian package and include it into a local package repository. Although we could use an existing Debian/Ubuntu package, we will start from scratch by creating and packaging our own trivial application. Once our package is ready, we will include it into our local package repository. This article illustrates a very simplistic approach, however it may serve as a template in many different scenarios.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to create a trivial debian package
  • How to create a local debian repository
  • How to add the repository to the list of software sources

Debian package

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Check Linux Mint version from command line

Check Linux Mint Version

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There are number of ways on how to check Linux Mint version. Since Linux Mint comes with number of available Desktops the graphical user interface may differ from user to user hence the procedure is also different. From this reason the easiest and perhaps even recommend solution is to simply open up a command line terminal and execute the following command cat /etc/issue.

To check a version of other Linux distributions visit our how to check Linux version guide.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to check Linux Mint version from graphical user interface
  • How to check Linux Mint version from the command line

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How to check Linux version

How to check Linux Version

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The common scenario is that you have been given an access to a Linux system physically or via remote login and you have no idea what Linux version is installed on this particular system. Given that many of the today’s Linux Distributions have implemented systemd as part of their core design, to check for a Linux version is in many cases relatively simple procedure.

The simplest way to check Linux version is by using the hostnamectl command without any arguments. For example the below hostnamectl command will return the Linux distribution name, version and codename in use along with the currently loaded Linux kernel version:

$ hostnamectl 
   Static hostname: x220
         Icon name: computer-laptop
           Chassis: laptop
        Machine ID: 2d4efda5efb0430faeb2087d0a335c6b
           Boot ID: f8c4a3a776a74d42878347efc2c00634
  Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
            Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-9-amd64
      Architecture: x86-64
DID YOU KNOW?

It is a common mistake to refer to the entire GNU/Linux operating system simply as Linux. The important note here is that the so called Linux is actually only the Kernel part of the system whereas GNU is the actual system as in collection of pre-compiled binaries, libraries and system tools. Both GNU and Linux kernel must function in tandem in order for the operating system to actually work.

Hence, one cannot exists without the other, so next time when you talk about your operating system and you wish to be technically correct, refer to it as GNU/Linux or simply as Lignux.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • Basic introduction to Linux package
  • How to check system architecture and Linux kernel version
  • How to check CPU architecture
  • How to check CentOS, Redhat, Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, Fedora Linux system version

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Linux FileSystem Hierarchy Standard

Linux Filesystem Navigation Basics

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This article explains basic commands for navigation within Linux file system. The diagram below represents (part of) a Linux file system know as Filesystem Hierarchy Standard. A line from one node to a node on its right indicates containment. For example, the student directory is contained within the home directory.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to use pwd command
  • How to use cd command
  • How to navigate to user home directory
  • Difference between relative vs absolute
  • What is a parent directory

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GNOME desktop graphical environment on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8

Install gnome on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8

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RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 comes by default, as it has been for many years already with a GNOME desktop environment. From this reason, in a broader sense when we talk about GNOME desktop installation we normally talk about RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 workstation.

In this tutorial we will be installing GNOME desktop as part of the workstation package group.

In this Install gnome on Redhat 8 tutorial you will learn:

  • How to install Gnome Desktop on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8.
  • How to change runlevel to boot to graphical interface in RHEL 8 / CentOS 8.

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add-user-to-group-rhel8

How to add a user to a group on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8

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In the context of a discretionary access control (DAC) mechanism, the access to system resources, files and directories, is based on the identity of the users and on the groups they are member of. This type of access control is called “discretionary” because a user can perform its own policy decisions (limited by its own permissions, of course). In this tutorial we will see how to add a user to a group and what is the difference between a primary and a secondary group on a RHEL 8 / CentOS 8 Linux system.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • What is the difference between a primary and a secondary group
  • How to add a user to a group by using the usermod command
  • How to add a user to a group directly with vigr

add-user-to-group-rhel8

How to add a user to a group on Rhel8

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Install P7Zip on RHEL 8

How to Install P7Zip on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8

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P7Zip is required to extract certain archive files, especially the .7z kind. It isn’t available in the RHEL 8 repositories, so you’re going to need to get it elsewhere. For that, there are two options, the EPEL
and building it from source. Both work well.

In this tutorial you will learn:

  • How to Install P7Zip From the EPEL
  • How to Download the P7Zip Source
  • How to Install the Build Tools
  • How to Build and Install P7Zip
  • Basic examples on how to extract and compress 7z files

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install gnome weather - ubuntu 18.04

How to retrieve weather information on Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver Desktop

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Objective

Using the gnome-weather application, an Ubuntu user can retrieve weather information for any location specified. The gnome-weather application will be also incorporated into the default desktop calendar window.

Operating System and Software Versions

  • Operating System: Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver

Requirements

Privileged access to your Ubuntu System as root or via sudo command is required.

Difficulty

EASY

Conventions

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install ubuntu from usb

Install Ubuntu from USB – 18.04 Bionic Beaver

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install ubuntu from usb

Objective

This article focuses on how to boot Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver from USB. A general step by step guide on how to install Ubuntu 18.04 is provided in the article:
How to install Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver.

Operating System and Software Versions

  • Operating System: – Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver

Requirements

  • 64bit architecture computer with hard drive free of personal non-recoverable data. This could be any spare, old, low profile desktop or laptop.
  • Internet connection
  • USB flash drive of minimum 2GB size

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Command-line programs for everyday use in Linux

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Introduction

I must admit, I’m a command line geek. Whenever I have the chance, regardless of desktop environment or distribution, I open a terminal and start fiddling something. This does not mean everyone must be like me, of course. If you’re the person who is mouse and GUI-oriented, no problems. However, there are situations when all you have at your disposal for a while is the command line. One of those situations might be an upgrade of your kernel/graphics drivers that leave you high and dry until the bug is reported and the developers look at the issue. You have to send a very important e-mail or you have to check the evolution of prices of your favorite laptop. All the essential desktop tasks (with some exceptions, though) that you do on a GUI-enabled machine can be done on a CLI-only machine as well, so if you’re interested…

The tasks

The everyday tasks we will refer to are the ones we usually do in a usual day, be it a work day or a weekend. We need to check our mail, maybe watch something on Youtube (yes, it’s possible), chat with our friends or simply browse away from URL to URL. These are the kinds of things we are talking about in this article. By the way, another huge advantage of the CLI approach is (besides efficiency and low resources) uniformity. You don’t have to worry, if you use many Linux computers, that some of them won’t have your favorite desktop installed: these programs we will tell you about work everywhere, GUI available or not, as long as you have a terminal emulator installed, of course. Note that this article is comprised only of ideas and suggestions, and will not guide you step-by-step on how to use the presented applications.

Web browsing

It’s true, you can’t see images , but they are practical to have, way faster and even more secure, because some of them don’t even support Javascript unless you tweak their compile options. Ladies and gents, I give you links, elinks and lynx. You can install them on almost any distribution with the native package manager, or you can install them from source, and of course compilation will not take a lot, because there are no heavy dependencies. links also offers a command-line flag (-g from graphical) that, if compiled with the right options, will offer you a very simple but fast GUI browser.

On Debian, when I wanted to do ‘links -g’, I got “Graphics not enabled when compiling (use links2 instead for graphics mode)”. After installing it, typing

  $ links2 -g

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