computoman

Say you want to have several machines to be exactly alike that run Debian or Ubuntu Linux.  You will want to set up the first machine the way you want it. Now we need to get the list of packages that have been installed (software installed via ppa's may still have to be setup manually.) $ dpkg -–get-selections > installed-software.log installed-software.log: [code] ... ... x11-common                    install xauth                        install xfonts-encodings                install xfonts-utils                    install xkb-data                    install xml-core                    install xz-utils                    install zlib1g                        install [/code] You could probably edit this file to add any last minute packages to be added or removed. Now you want to do a minimal install of Debian. You will want to uncheck the graphical environment when tasksel asks you what packages you want installed. That will make the rest of the insta

Completed a few instructables lately that might interest people. Get gmail via the command line: http://www.instructables.com/id/Linux-command-line-email/   Do graphics without a fancy graphics card: http://www.instructables.com/id/Graphics-in-a-text-world/ Using a linux computer to do screencasting: http://www.instructables.com/id/Screencasting-revisited/ A couple of sequels: http://www.instructables.com/id/Dtv-Antennas-I-have-tried-or-will-try-part-II/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Reuses-for-legacy-computers-II/ A few of my favorite homemade dinners and deserts: http://www.instructables.com/id/Batchelor-aglio-e-olio/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Fettucine-Alfredo-abbreviated/ http://www.instructables.com/id/Adult-jello-1/ Linux admin tool: http://www.instructables.com/id/Linux-screen-play/ Texas Geek: http://www.instructables.com/id/Techie-bolo/ See www.instructables.com/member/computhought for all the new instructables.

Most every software now a days is mouse or gui (graphical user interface) driven, but the real power comes when you can use the command line or what some people would call a dos environment. They are nothing alike. Even Microsoft, one of the biggest gui advocates is going back to the command line with MSWindows server 8 if what I am told is right.  Well, the Linux, Bsd, Unix, and other like operating systems never lost that advantage. (Note: you will need to be connect to the internet). One of the more popular variants of Linux uses a command called tasksel which can be invoked with: $ sudo tasksel What does that do for you do you ask? it allows you to install various environments with just a few keystrokes. The above command brings up a menu allowing you to choose what environment or package you want to install. This can be everything from choosing a desktop to installing a variety of servers. Package configuration     ┌───────────────────────┤ Software selection     │ You

Probably going to get lambasted for this article, but it is something to think about when judging a potential employee. Can a potential employee use what they have or do they need thousands of dollars just to do the simplest thing to get going.  Here we will pit a confirmed Microsoft software only advocate versus someone who has at least some familiarity with linux or is willing to try something new and use the systems allotted to them. In each of two separate rooms on the desk is a Pentium II computer with 128 megs of ram, minimal graphics card, network connection, floppy drive and a 4 gig hard drive. This system will have access to the internet. Also on the desk, are two items. A brand new MSWindows 7 dvd install disk and a gpxe based floppy setup to install linux remotely via the network. The two potential techs are sent to each of the separate rooms to get their computer up and running plus send an email to predefined email address left on a piece of paper also on the desk. Aft

Wanted a no fee and a bit more basic introduction to web programming, So I deleted the previous article.   Hopefully this one is free all the way through. If you are using linux, you can certainly use, gedit, nano, or vim to create a file for the video. They default to the ascii format automatically. These videos use the old style html programming, but it is still a good start. The intro video: Second video: Later.

One of the interesting things about market research is what in the past worked well? Should I use that to my advantage.  For instance, I looked at what www.instructables.com tutorials have done best. From that, I deduced that antennas were very hot. Did a few more instructables on antennas. They are also doing well. Then I thought about this blog and wondered what might make it get more peeks. Well to be fair we concentrated on Microsoft last time . It is only fair that we give equal time to Linux or Ubuntu in particular. Let us know what you would like to hear about.

In honor of Dennis Ritchie passing, we are watching movies from ascii only terminals. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UenUUP2GM4g

One of the big things now is to be able to record what is on tv. Most of your cable providers will rent you a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) so you can record the shows you like (with limitations). Of course your computer can me made to do that also. In fact we made our own DVR with open source software. It is know as Mythtv ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Setting-up-a-computer-based-DVR-with-Mythtv-for-l /). I actually have built two of them. One for the one analog (now defunct) tv reception methods and one for the new digital tv reception. Love being able to record a lot of PBS educational media either for later viewing, or just be able to look at again and again. Cable viewing is getting rather expensive. so we dumped the tv portion of cable. We now use what is know as OTA-TV or Over-the-air tv. It's free!! Your selection is not as great but, since so many people are dropping cable tv, more and more cable stuff is comping to over the air tv.  In fact, cable tv providers are drop

As a tech, not so long ago when installing MSWindows on users computers at a former job, people were dismayed at the fact of having to use a mouse via a gui (graphical user interface) with wysiwyg (what you see is what you get pronounced wizzywig). They protested they preferred the keyboard only environment. They exclaimed the keyboard environment was more efficient and exacting. In fact, we who were installing the new environment were verbally accosted for the change over. Now if you suggest using a system that does not have a gui, you go through the same negative feedback. Decided to do a new kind of roughing it by building a system that was technically obsolete using a non-gui environment, but the operating system was up to date. Yep, that means everything has to be done through the keyboard.  Makes me think of the "Star Trek" movie where the Scotty character was using an old Apple Macintosh computer and could not get it to work. He was trying to talk to the mouse. He w

Well fortunately, I had a system I was building to replace oesrvr1. Pulled the hard drive from that machine and installed it in oesrvr1. After making a few adjustments, The system was serving the main page and a few other things. Since I needed to replace a lot of software anyway. It was not a big deal all the applications were not installed. The lamp services and phpmyadmin were installed and they was the most important. Began to restore files.  Etc etc etc. Anyway, the real reason I needed to have to old server back up again was to take advantage of what is known as GPXE. Gpxe is the open source version of the pre-execution environment that allows a computer to boot into a working environment without a storage system in use or enabled. This usually entails having special network card in a computer system that contains enough information to boot into the network. PXE has been around a long time. Normally if you turn on your computer, you will hear a hard disk drive whirl up to speed a

In memoriam: oesrvr1 passed away yesterday. Even as it went through it's last clicks and thrashes, it managed to stay alive long enough for major files to be backed up. It's 15 gig drive heart of a drive finally gave out. What a trooper! Everyone who saw it's web pages today mourn for it's loss. I know I am thankful for all oesrvr1 has taught me over the years. The hard drive will leave it's parts such as the permanent magnets to science so that all will still enjoy it's life in another. oesrvr1a will take it's place of honor. Goodbye old friend... Think I originally installed Ubuntu 6.04 on the system and did in place upgrades to ubuntu 10.04.  Never ran any Microsoft windows products on it. For an old Dell GX1 Pentium II, it definitely earned it's keep and the roi (return on investment) can not be measured. Think I bought it used for twenty dollars from a local electronics store. Later, we cloned it with Clonezilla a while back, but always tr

One of the ways to gather knowledge is to go through old software source code and or other technical books with source code. Source code is a set of instructions that can be converted into what a computer understands to do a specific job.  This web page uses the HTML language. You can easily view the source code with your web browser view > page source. Recently, I picked up a couple of books for a few bucks that had some code written in the old "Beginner's All Purpose Instruction Code" commonly known as Basic. Unfortunately, some people who were high and mighty programmer types gave me some grief over the purchase. Actually the Basic language is still supported in one form or another even on the latest computers. Even with that, the real reason I purchased the books was for the algorithms that it used via Basic to do some calculations.  Those same algorithms could easily be converted to a variety of more recent popular languages such as Java, C++, or etc.  Somet

Dennis Ritchie, Father of C and Co-Developer of Unix, dies.  http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2011/10/dennis-ritchie/

Finished my part beginner series on web page scraping with http://www.instructables.com/id/Getting-instructable-counts-continued/.   Sort of baby steps to data mining on the web. Think I talked about using an old Intel Pentium II computer to be a web server among other things.  People must really be thinking about using more legacy computer equipment from the views I get on some of my instructables. For instance I made an adapter cable that would allow some older "AT" motherboards to be used with the newer "ATX" based power supplies. (More info at: http://www.instructables.com/id/Atx-to-At-ps-test-cable/ ). Also see an increase in the views of my two home automation instructables. I did one for linux ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Linux-beginning-home-automation-on-a-server/ ) and one for MSWindows XP ( http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Automation-MSWindows-XP/ ). If I had a newer version of MIcrosoft windows, I would certainly have included it also. In a

My condolences go to the people and their families that work at Mapple (reference from a Simpsons episode), I mean Apple.  The media interviewed the WOZ aka Steve Wozniak and he was very classy about Mr. Steve Jobs passing.