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Showing posts from October, 2008

What's a kernel?

I tried to describe a kernel in jargon-free english today. It was pretty tough. Welcome to your new Linux Distro. Linux is the word we use to define a collection of software ( programmes ) that you copy on to your hard disk ( that metal thing inside your computer that uses magnetic magic to store a series of ones and zeros otherwise known as binary ) so that when you turn on your computer something useful will happen. The most important part of linux is the kernel. This is the programme and other resources that tell the different parts of your computer to do something. For example when you open your text editor programme, something has to tell the hard disk to start spinning around and then it needs to tell it how to retrieve the specific ones and zeros that define the text editor programme. Then the text editor programme is loaded into memory ( RAM ) which will then take control. The text editor programme will now tell the kernel to display something on the screen. The kernel
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Hi All, During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'm growing a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against men's depression and prostate cancer. To donate to my Mo you can either: Click this link https://www.movember.com/nz/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1550521&country=nz and donate online using your credit card Write a cheque payable to ‘Movember Donations Account', referencing my Registration Number 1550521 and mailing it to: Movember PO Box 12 708 Wellington 6144 Remember, all donations over $10 are tax deductible. The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to the Cancer Society of New Zealand and the Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand. These two char

Printing from Linux to Vista

We bought a new printer yesterday. HP2280 All in one colour printer, scanner, copier. It was a cheap deal from QMB at just shy of $50 (NZD). As this is our second printer, bought to replace the one we have that hasn't yet died, we decided to install it on my wife's Windows Vista PC. The install and functions all went perfectly as one would expect with a "Made for Vista" product. The tricky bit turned out how to connect it to Linux for remote printing. I thought I could use the extra printer at times so went to install it... First step was drivers. I ended up installing a mammoth driver pack and utility tool-set I downloaded from Sourceforge . ( link provided by HP website. ) Next I needed to enable TCP Printing services on the vista host. Did this in control panel / Add remove windows components. Next I used the standard linux printer dialogue to attach the printer using Cups with the Samba backend. That worked just fine too. I could even send a test print

Setup Linux For Wndows Terminal Services

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Windows Server 2003+ only supports ( last I checked ) two remote desktop connections at the same time. At least that's the default behaviour. I believe one can increase this through the purchase of a Terminal Server license. Essentially in order to allow more than two users to use Remote Desktop to log in to a machine on your LAN at the same time, you need to start paying extra. The only reason - and its a good one - for needing to do this is because your vpn assigned ip address is not on the same subnet ( for security reasons ) as the servers you need to access. Specifically: your dynamically assigned VPN IP address is not listed as an object on your firewalls. So when you try to RDP from your laptop at home, to that server in your data centre you get nowhere because your IP address is blocked by the firewall. JUMP BOX TO THE RESCUE. I call that box you set up and leave running at work a jump box because you will use it for receiving your remote desktop connection and then es

Howto Install Microsoft Core Fonts on Linux

Linux does not ship with Microsoft's core fonts. This means that fonts like Arial are simply not available with a default distro. Here is how one gets them installed using Fedora 9 x86_64. I have posted them in an RPM on http://forum.thelinuxcdstore.com under the General section. ALL THANKS to http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/ for a great guide and for their hard work. 1. Set up a build environment in your home directory: Create a file in your home directory called .rpmmacros Add the following line to the file. %topdir %(echo $HOME)/rpmbuild 2. Create the following directories: ~/rpmbuild/BUILD ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch 3. Log in as root and install some prerequisites. # yum install rpmbuild ttmkfdir cabextract 4. You will need chkfontpath. I found my copy here: http://dl.atrpms.net/all/chkfontpath-1.10.1-2.fc9.x86_64.rpm . I downloaded it and installed it with: yum --nogpgcheck localinstall chkfontpath-1.10.1-2.fc9.x86_64.rpm 5. Make a temporary directory for your spec file. m

Using SMBCLIENT to transfer files.

This information is gathered from a few different sources. I have it here for reference: Step 1: Create a file that contains authentication details. In my test case I had no domain to bother with so just added the username and password fields. I also made a point of ensuring that the file permissions for this file were set to the owner having access only. Ie: rw- --- --- or ( 600 ) Thanks to: http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/chmodcal.shtml for the very useful chmod calculator. smbclient_authentication.txt username = backupuser password = Pa$$w0rd Step 2: In your script or whatever the way to put a file onto the windows share is like this: ~> smbclient -A smbclient_authentication.txt ////192.168.0.96//data -c "put myBackupFile.tar.gz" That's about it. Piece of cake. When I test this on an SELINUX environment, I am sure this tutorial will be extended somewhat!