Stop Gnome from automagically starting.

Recently I found a way to stop gnome from starting when your pc starts. (thankyou Glider!!)

Remove Gnome Auto Start:
1) Crtl+Alt+F1 (drops you to a prompt - F7 to return to the wm)
2) sudo /etc/init.d/gdm stop
3) update-rc.d -f gdm remove

To manually start Gnome:
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

Thats that.. I used this trick to help save on resources for my server since it is headless.

Project Talon - Part 2

A few days later still whining to myself about how much of a noob I am I started googling looking for a way to get this done.
And then I found the gospel and it was beautiful!

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/06/05/build_your_own_server/1
http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2007/07/24/build_your_own_better_server/1
The articles pretty much fit where I needed it to fit, I followed it and low and behold things went smoother I had the gui so I could config the server and not spaz like a 5 year old denied candy..

Talon is up and running torrentflux and updating its ip with no-ip as I type this....Yaay

My Lack of updates. Part 1

I've been pretty busy as of late and haven't had time to do alot with this blog but Hopefully I will be able to update on some of the things I've been doing.

I am specifically talking about Project Talon, The goals of this project is:

1) To be able to control a headless server from any internet connected pc (regardless of OS)
2) To allow me to download torrents from work or any other place that I can connect from
3) Allow me to access my samba shares via ftp
4) to be quiet reliable and secure
5) give me the ability to host an image gallery and my own site if I felt like it.

being able to do all this would make me happy because I am at work 12 hours a day and even tho I have an internet connection I cant use it like my own box sooo this would give me a lil bit of freedom.

Talon - Named after the gunship leviathon in the sci fi show Farscape , why you ask cuz that fucker was cool as hell... plus I like the sound of it.

Talon's Specs:
IBM Netvista s40 FlexATX Case w/90watt psu
Intel PIII Pentium 800mhz (FC) w/ Low profile HSF
Asus CUWE-FX FlexATX Board (i810 Chipset) * Audio, Networking & Video onboard
Micron 512MB PC133 (Board only sees 256mbs for some reason)
Western Digital 80GB Pata Hard Drive
52x Cdrom

I picked Xubuntu because it uses less resources than the other 3 distros do because of the different window manager (XFCE).
I found out later that xfce is based on gtk so it can use some of the customization themes for Gnome but since this is a headless server it won't be needing any of that.

You may ask why didn't I use the server edition of ubuntu or Freebsd for that matter.. I did try both of those FreeBSD didn't like video chipset at all so I couldn't get any kind of GUI running so I got frustrated and tried ubuntu server....Oh boy was that NOT fun..

The install went off without a hitch and was very fast doing what it had to do, install finished and them I tried to customize the install to what I needed.. Bottom line is I didn't feel comfortable with ONLY using a CLI enviroment to set this thing up... SO I tried to install the xubuntu desktop and that didn't work worth shit so frustrated and swearng I turned off the machine.

Read part 2

Rar & Unrar

Ok so I transferred the latest prison break episode out of my download folder and am all excited to watch it and I see that its in Rar format, eh no bigge in windows I was able to use winRAR to get them decompressed so I could watch them so I right click and try to get them unrared with the existing app, Nope doesn't work WTF!!! I get pissed and read that the default program that comes with ubuntu doesn't support rar.....Shit..

After a bit of googling I find that theres a command line program that will do it yaaay!
1) sudo apt-get install unrar
2) apt-get install ark (GUI!)

Command line extracting :
unrar e filename or unrar x filename

Samba - OMG it works.

Back in my FreeBSD days I tried hard to get samba working so my windows boxes could see and share files with the nix ones... ya I never got it working.... Today I have a better understanding of how samba works and I am able to setup shares without having to flip out, sweat like crazy and storm off in a fit to go smoke a cig.

On Ubuntu samba is installed as part of the default installation, All you have to do is point it to its shares (where you want to put and have windows see files) and setup a user account so you can access your shares.

1) System>Administration>Shared Folders
2) Click Add> Select the path > Share Name & Comment>Uncheck Read only (if you want to be able to write/delete from your windows pcs> Click Ok.
3) Under General Properties > Enter Correct domain/workgroup and click ok.

After you have selected your shares, in the terminal type:
sudo smbpasswd -a "username" (without the "s) to add a user account.

If you some how happen to forget you can remove and readd the user by doing this
sudo smbpasswd -x "username" then readd the user with the command above.

After you add the shares and user account you will need to start the samba daemon do it by entering this command:
sudo /etc/init.d/samba restart (at which point it will tell you that the daemon is restarting)
you should now be able to see and access your shares from windows or another samba capable linux or BSD machine.

Other useful samba commands are:

Start Daemon: sudo /etc/init.d/samba start
Stop Daemon: sudo /etc/init.d/samba stop

* Note that if you need to edit the smb.conf manually you can do it by entering this command:
sudo gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf

Trapping Crtl+Alt+Del

In some versions of ubuntu Crtl+Alt+Del doesn't work by default so to enable it you will need to do the following:

1) alt+F2 (run cmd) > gconf-editor
2) once the editor is open go to Apps>Metacity>Global Keybinds>Command_1 , right click and select edit value then type in Delete
3)Keybinding Commands > Command_1 in "value" type gnome-system-monitor.
4) Test & smile yaaay :-)

Setting the Root password

I came from BSD beginings as I stated in one of my earlier posts so I am used to type SU to gain privalidges to make changes that I can't do as a normal user, so the whole "sudo" thing was a lil weird for me and when I typed "su" it asked me for a pass but I hadn't set one so heres how you set a root password.

$ sudo passwd root

Then enter your desired password (different from a normal user account) , the whole point of sudo is to keep people from being logged in as root all the time but need to sudo all the time which is slightly annoying BUT it is deactivated by default for security reasons.

While I am configuring the system is the only time I will use the SU command, NEVER stayed logged in (type exit to quit being a superuser) as you can cause a tremendous amount of damage if you enter the wrong command or you walk away and someone starts playing around where the shouldn't be.

You can also gain "root" by typing: $ sudo -i whichever you choose to use remember to exit and return to a normal user after you have completed your tasks.

IF you forget your password , restart in safemode and in terminal type "passwd" and set a new one.

Conky

I kept on seeing screenshots of what appeared to be a read out of whats going on with the sytem so I looked it up, seems the program is called conky which turned out to be a system monitor similar to gKrellm but in my opinion better.

I installed it ( sudo apt-get install conky) and searched on Ubuntuforums to see what other people have done.

I made my own .conkyrc file based on the ones in the thread.

* Note: If you are running 7.04 or below you will need to manually add the no flicker fix to keep conky from disappearing when it updates.

Sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
> Under section "module" Add > Load "dbe"

To finish up this install if you would like conky to start when Gnome starts you will have to add it to the start up list.
Goto System >Preferrences>Sessions then add the custom command "conky" then you are done. to restart X Crtl+Alt+Backspace.

Installation / Errors

A typical Ubuntu install normally goes off without a hitch however while I was installing on the system that most of the work for this blog will be done on I recieved a nasty lil message from the installer telling me that there was a problem.

It told me that either my cd was bad and to reburn it at a slower rate which I did or that there was a hardware problem that was hindering the file transfer between the dvdrw (sony opticarc) I tried with a brand new 10x burn but still got the same message.

I then opted to try the "Alternate Install CD" the alt install is text based and is meant for systems that have low memory , raid or for OEM preconfigured systems.

The install now went off without a hitch and a few minutes later I was looking at a brand new Gnome desktop, the system was up and running with no driver issues.

You can download Ubuntu 7.10 here.

System Specs:
Coolermaster 541 mATX Case - 400Watt PSU
Intel Celeron 2.5Ghz w/ Articool Freezer 7 (socket 478)
Asus P4SP-mx motherboard - Onboard video, Lan & Sound
Cosair Value Select 512mb DDR400
Seagate Barracude 250GB Pata 7200RPM HDD
Sony Optiarc 18x Dvd-RW

All things said the system is running quite nicely and has been up for 4 days.

Popped my cherry (again)

When I was 15/16 I experimented with FreeBSD, Suse & Redhat but ultimatly I stopped because I lost interest. I was very impressed by FreeBSD and how the OS was layed out but not by the packaging system or lack of.

I have been wanting to try to get back into Linux & BSD for a while now, recently I made the decision to use the spare parts I had laying around to build 2 dedicated systems, one as a server & one as a desktop system which I will be using to learn on.

Currently I have 4 systems running ubuntu:

• Compaq V2570NR - Running Ubuntu 7.04
  Custom built Pentium 805D - Dual booting xp & Ubuntu 7.10
  Custom built PIII 800mhz for use as a low end server. (Xubuntu)
  Custom built P4 Celeron 2.5Ghz for use as the main linux desktop system. (Ubuntu 7.10)

I chose this OS because of its "ease of use" and its massive army of users (support) & so far I haven't been disappointed at all.

I am surprised as to how far linux has come in terms of hardware support, I am also liking the amount of eyecandy thats around these days (beryl & Compiz), so that said lets give this a shot hopefully I will learn a few things that I can share with people I know or just people who happen upon this blog. Enjoy.