Linux Cool Tips #4

Use df -h command to show the total and free disk space remaining on the mounted filesystems.


          

Linux Cool Tips #3

To display all running processes in a Linux system, just simply type ps aux in the terminal. Then to show the process tree, you can use ps auxf. 

ATI Launched ATI Radeon™ 5800 series

SUNNYVALE, Calif. --9/23/2009  

AMD (NYSE: AMD) today launched the most powerful processor ever created¹, found in its next-generation graphics cards, the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series graphics cards, and the world’s first and only to fully support Microsoft DirectX® 11², the new gaming and compute standard shipping shortly with Microsoft Windows® 7operating system. Boasting up to 2.72 TeraFLOPS of compute power, the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series effectively doubles the value consumers can expect of their graphics purchases, delivering twice the performance-per-dollar of previous generations of graphics products.³ AMD will initially release two cards: the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and the ATI Radeon HD 5850, each with 1GB GDDR5 memory. With the ATI Radeon™ HD 5800 series of graphics cards, PC users can expand their computing experience with ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, accelerate their computing experience with ATI Stream technology, and dominate the competition with superior gaming performance and full support of Microsoft DirectX® 11, making it a “must-have” consumer purchase just in time for Microsoft Windows® 7 operating system. 


“With the ATI Radeon HD 5800 series of graphics cadrs driven by the most powerful processor on the planet, AMD is changing the game, both in terms of performance and the experience,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Products Group, AMD. “As the first to market with full DirectX 11 support, an unmatched experience made possible with ATI Eyefinity technology, and ATI Stream technology harnessing open standards designed to help make Windows 7 that much better, I can say with confidence that AMD is the undisputed leader in graphics once more.” 

Source: ATI Radeon™ 5800 series Press Release

Linux Cool Tips #2

In terminal, you can toggle between directories using the command  cd - 
e.g.


# cd /tmp/directory1/subdir1/subsubdir1/
# cd /tmp/ directory2/subdir2/subsubdir2/
# cd - 
# pwd
/tmp/directory1/subdir1/subsubdir1/
# cd -
/tmp/ directory2/subdir2/subsubdir2/

AMD unveils VISION

AMD recently announced VISION Technology, a new way on helping consumers on how to select their PC, laptops specfically, that suit their needs. VISION demolishes the traditional way of PC selection that emphasizes more on technical specifications of individual hardware components. Consumers with a little knowledge on PCs are easily tricked by marketing strategies through these kinds of technical terms, ending with frustrations, complaining that what they bought dont get the job right. On the other hand, AMD's VISION Technology focuses more on the system as a whole, CPU + graphics fire power actually, giving the end consumers the real deal on what their systems are capable of and what to expect from them.

"Today's consumer cares about what they can do with their PC, not what's inside," said Nigel Dessau, CMO of AMD. "They want a rich HD and entertainment experience on their PC, delivered by the combined technology of AMD CPUs and GPUs, without having to understand what gigahertz and gigabytes mean. VISION technology from AMD reflects the maturation of marketing in the PC processing industry and communicates the technology in a more meaningful way."

AMD Vision offers three levels for the consumer market, each having it's minimum CPU and graphics requirements.

Vision Basic: Athlon X2 + Mobility Radeon HD4330/3450. Athlon II + Mobility Radeon HD4200.

Vision Premium: Turion II + Mobility Radeon HD 4200. Mobility Radeon HD 4330/3450 + Turion X2 or Athlon II.

Vision Ultimate: Turion II + Mobility Radeon HD 4650/4570.

source: http://en.inpai.com.cn/doc/enshowcont.asp?id=6990

How to know what Linux Distro you are using?

Listed below are some helpful commands in determining the type of Linux distro you are using, and their corresponding output on the terminal using CentOS 5.3.

1. lsb_release -a

LSB Version: :core-3.1-ia32:core-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.1-ia32:graphics-3.1-noarch

Distributor ID: CentOS
Description: CentOS release 5.3 (Final)

Release: 5.3

Codename: Final

2. cat /etc/*release

CentOS release 5.3 (Final)

3. cat /etc/issue

CentOS release 5.3 (Final)

Kernel \r or an \m

Then for determining Linux kernel version,

1. uname -a

Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.18-128.el5 #1 SMP Wed Jan 21 10:44:23 EST 2009

i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

2. dmesg | head -1

Linux version 2.6.18-128.el5 (mockbuild@builder16.centos.org)

(gcc version 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-44)) #1 SMP Wed Jan 21 10:44:23 EST 2009

Setting up Subversion server on Linux (CentOS)

1. Subversion is normally installed in CentOS 5.3 but just to make sure, issue the which command in the terminal.

# which svn

/usr/bin/svn will be displayed if svn is installed

2. We then edit iptables to allow connections at port 3690.

# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Then insert the following line before the line that contains "-j REJECT"

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 3690 -j ACCEPT

Then save the iptables

# service iptables save

3. Lets now create a repository

# svnadmin create PATH_TO_REPO/myrepo

4. Then edit the configuration file, svnserve.conf located within myrepo/conf directory.

# vi PATH_TO_REPO/myrepo/conf/svnserve.conf

[general]

anon-access=none

aut-access=write

password-db=passwd

realm=myproject

5. Add user logins by editing the passwd file at the same directory.

# vi PATH_TO_REPO/myrepo/conf/passwd

[users]

iamuser=iamuser1234

6. If svnserve is already running, stop it first then start it again to apply the changes we made.

# killall svnserve

# svnserve -d

If you're using TortoiseSVN in Windows, myrepo can now be accessed through

svn://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/PATH_TO_REPO/myrepo

If in case you want to access the server using the realm name e.g. svn://192.xxx.xxx.xxx/myproject, just start svnserve by

svnserve -d -r /PATH_TO_REPO/myrepo

Linux Cool Tips #1

To execute a series of commands during linux start up, you can modify /etc/rc.local file for Debian-based distros or /etc/rc.d/boot.local/ for Red Hat-based and add your desired commands. Hope it helps!

Sample /etc/rc.local script in CentOS, running svnserve (daemon mode) at bootup

#!/bin/sh

#

# This script will be executed *after* all the other init scripts.

# You can put your own initialization stuff in here if you don't

# want to do the full Sys V style init stuff.

touch /var/lock/subsys/local

/usr/bin/svnserve -d

Setting up Samba server on Linux

Here is a simple step-by-step guide on how to set-up a basic samba server within Red Hat, Fedora or CentOS Linux distribution. So let's begin!

1. Check first if smb (samba) is installed in the system, so in the Terminal type

# chkconfig --list | grep smb


A line containing [smb 0:off 1:off ........] should confirm the existence of smb in the system. If it fails, install first smb through yum or by downloading an rpm, before continuing to step 2.

2. Edit the smb configuration file through smb.conf

# vi /etc/samba/smb.conf

Then add these lines

[global]

workgroup = myWorkgroup

security = user

path = /home

netbios name = mySMB

[public]

writeable = no

path = /home/public

available = yes

public = true

guest account = ok

[private]

writeable = yes

path = /home/private

available = yes

Save smb.conf (press Esc and type :wq then Enter) and restart smb

# /etc/init.d/smb restart

3. By this time, the public folder should now be accessible to any PC on the myWorkgroup network through smb. However, accessibility to the private folder is restricted only to registered users in the smb server. So on terminal, type

# adduser iamuser *create a unix account

# passwd iamuser *set password

# smbpasswd -a iamuser *add iamuser to smb users

Then restart smb

# /etc/init.d/smb restart

*Note that it is not necessary that passwords for unix and smb accounts are different. It is just easier to recall if they are the same :).

SMB access to the private folder should now be available by entering the proper logins we've created. If you want to make the public folder writeable by anyone, just change writeable = yes into writeable = no.

4. If in case neither public nor private folder is accessible after the previous steps, smb access may be restricted by the firewall. To allow smb connections, we should edit the iptables.

# vi /etc/sysconfig/iptables

Then add these 4 lines before the line with the words "-j REJECT"

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 137 -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p udp -m udp --dport 138 -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 139 -j ACCEPT

-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -m state --state NEW -m tcp -p tcp --dport 445 -j ACCEPT

Save and then restart iptables service

# service iptables restart

And thats it! The smb server should now be up and running :). Remember that what we did in the smb.conf file are just basic configurations. There are a lot more options available for modifying the server like restricting accesses to specific users and IP addresses, and printeroptions to name a few. Go and just figure it out for yourselves :D.

5. To access our smb server in Windows, open Windows Explorer and on the address bar, input \\192.xxx.xxx.xxx\ and then public and private folders should appear (192.xxx.xxx.xxx is the server's ip address). Then for other Linux machines, you can type smb://192.xxx.xxx.xxx in Konqueror or Firefox to open the server.

That's the end of the guide and thanks for viewing :).

Overclocking Tools

I'm still a noob when it comes to overclocking and I have only tried 2 cheap processors: old Athlon X2 4600+ and my current e5200. Thanks to many handy tools found on the net and my computer definitely transformed into a much powerful being :D. Here they are ....

CPU-Z

A very powerful program used to display current processor speed, fsb, multipliers, voltage, ram timings and speed, and shows even mobo and graphics card models.

site: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Real Temp

A temperature monitoring program that displays real time temperatures, even lowest and highest temperature points achieve by your processor. It also show cpu utilization and works very well with CPU stressing programs like OCCT, Prime95, IBT etc.

site: http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

OCCT

A program design to check the stability of the overclocked system by putting it at 100% load stress test. CPU, GPU and even power supply can be put under test through OCCT. The duration of every test can be set from a few minutes to a number of hours while real time processor speed, voltage and temperature readings are displayed.

site: http://downloads.guru3d.com/OCCT-(OverClock-Checking-Tool)-3.0.0-download-1880.html

Prime95

Like OCCT, it is also a program for stability checking. It contains tests for both processor and RAM.

site: http://www.playtool.com/pages/prime95/prime95.html

Thats it for now and stay touch for more tools and future updates :)