After its usual 6-month release cycle, GNOME 44 will be released today. Read on to find out the new features and improvements in this release.Quick Settings menu improvementsBackground apps menuFor this release, the GNOME Shell quick settings menu has received a lot of attention:There’s a new background apps menu which shows applications that run in the background without a visible window, allowing to close them. This only works for Flatpak applications for now. The Bluetooth button now has a menu which displays connected devices, as well as allowing devices to be connected and disconnected.Quick settings buttons now have descriptions. For example, previously the Power Mode button would display only its current mode, e.g., Balanced; with this release, the main button text shows Power Mode with the current power mode as its description, e.g., Balanced (this can be seen in the background apps screenshot above).It’s worth noting I couldn’t find a way to re-activate an app running in the background—if I close the Discord window (and it’s enabled to close to the tray), it shows up in this list, but clicking it doesn’t allow re-opening the Discord window. So either I missed something (let me know in the comments!), or this is not supported.The file chooser now supports a grid view with thumbnailsGTK4 file chooser grid view with thumbnailsOne of the most requested GNOME features has finally landed with the latest GNOME 44: a grid view with thumbnails in the file chooser (the open / save dialog). This continues to use the list view by default, but you can switch to the grid view by clicking a button in the upper right-hand side of the window.It’s important to note that this feature only forks for GTK4 applications. When using GTK3 (and GTK2, if you still use such an app) applications, only the list view is available.Settings enhancementsFor the GNOME 44 release, there has been a lot of worked put into various Settings improvements.Mouse & Touchpad settings (screenshot above) now include animations which show how the traditional and natural scrolling work. Also, this settings panel now includes marks for touchpad/mouse speed scales (and now they can be changed with the keyboard and mouse scroll). There’s also a new mouse acceleration profile option, so the Tweaks app is no longer needed to change this.The Accessibility panel (screenshot above) has been redesigned, and it now uses a more modern navigation model. Instead of having all the categories listed on a single page, each category now has its own section. There are also some new settings: over-amplification (increase the volume above the maximum threshold), turn accessibility features on or off using the keyboard, and an option to disable the overlay scrollbars (make the scrollbars always visible).The Sound settings panel (screenshot above) has been reorganized, with the volume level and alert sounds now being available in new windows. It’s also possible to disable the alert sound now. Also, the sound test window has been redesigned.Other Settings improvements in GNOME 44 include:Device Security (available under Privacy) includes new designs for the dialogs, and shows the device security status as “Checks Failed”, “Checks Passed”, or “Protected”,The Network and Wi-Fi panels now use libnma’s own security widgets for managing connections, and it now allows sharing Wi-Fi passwords through a QR code. What’s more, the Network panel has received support for managing Wireguard VPN connections,Kernel and firmware versions are now displayed in the About panel,Various polishes and smaller improvements to lots of panels, like Users, Wacom, Region and Language, and others.Application updatesFiles (Nautilus) has regained its expandable folders in List View feature (screenshot above), which the application lost since the migration to GTK4. This needs to be enabled from its settings.Files also comes with various new tab options (screenshot above), like move tabs to a new window, restore closed tab and close other tabs. The merge request also had an option to pin tabs, but I’m not seeing this option in Files 44 on Fedora 38, so I’m guessing it was later removed, probably because there are too many tab options now, and pinning is not exactly useful since tabs are not saved when closing Files.Other Files improvements for this release includes improved performance while searching, and the re-addition of the 64px icon size.Another application that has received some important changes for the GNOME 44 release is Software, which includes:Various modernization changes, using modern libadwaita widgets.Option to only shown open source apps.Improve search reliability.Autoremove unused flatpak runtimes.Fixes reloading while installing/uninstalling apps.Image-based operating system updates now have both progress information and descriptions.Console tab overviewOther GNOME apps note-worthy changes:Web (Epiphany) has been ported to GTK4, and it ships with new password and permission prompts as popovers/dialogs instead of infobars.Console (terminal app, not to be confused with GNOME Terminal) now has a tab overview option, to display open tabs in a grid.Weather now has a smooth temperature chart, and a restyled header bar.Various other smaller improvements across most GNOME apps.The GNOME 44 changes presented in this article are only the most prominent in this release, but there are many more smaller improvements and fixes.The GNOME 44 desktop should be made available soon after its release in rolling Linux distributions like Arch Linux. It will also be available with the next Ubuntu and Fedora releases (Ubuntu 23.04 / Fedora 38, currently in beta), and other Linux distributions shipping with the GNOME desktop.
Mod_Expires Configuration In Apache – LinuxAdmin.io
mod_expires is a module which runs on the Apache web server. It allows manipulation of the cache control headers to leverage browser caching. What this means more specifically is that you will be able to set values on how long the image will be stored by the browser when a client makes a request. This will greatly improve page load times on subsequent requests by that same client. If a asset it set to not change very often, then using longer cache times are better, if the asset changes frequently you would want to use a shorter cache time so that returning visitors will see the updated asset. You can read more about the granular configuration on Apache’s site.This guide assumes you already have a working version of Apache web server. If you do not, please see How To Install Apache. Verify mod_expires is loadedFirst you will want to check to see if mod_expires is loaded by performing the following$ httpd -M 2>&1|grep expires
expires_module (static)If it returns nothing, you will need to verify mod_expires is loaded the the config:cat httpd.conf|grep expires
#LoadModule expires_module modules/mod_expires.soIf it is commented out, you will want to uncomment it and restart Apache.Configure mod_expires RulesYou will now want to set rules for your site. The configuration can either be placed in the .htaccess or directly in the Apache vhost stanza. The expiration time you will want to set largely depends on how long you plan on keeping the asset as it is. The below ruleset is fairly conservative, if you do not plan on updating those media types at all, you can set them for even a year before expiration.In this example we will just set the mod_expires values in the .htaccess file in the document rootnano .htaccessAdd the following, adjust any for longer or shorter times depending on your needs:<IfModule mod_expires.c>
# Turn on the module.
ExpiresActive on
# Set the default expiry times.
ExpiresDefault “access plus 2 days”
ExpiresByType image/jpg “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/gif “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/jpeg “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/png “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/css “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/javascript “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/javascript “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/css “now plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/ico “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType image/x-icon “access plus 1 month”
ExpiresByType text/html “access plus 600 seconds”
</IfModule>Once you have set those values, further subsequent requests should now start setting expires headers. If you set the expires values directly in the Apache v-host stanza, you will want to restart Apache.Testing mod_expires to ensure its working correctlyThere are a couple different ways, you can use the developer tools in a browser to verify the expires value is being set correctly. You can also test this functionality with curl. You will want to curl the URL of the file you are checking$ curl -Is https://linuxadmin.io/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/linuxadmin_io_logo.png
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 09 Oct 2017 23:10:29 GMT
Content-Type: image/png
Content-Length: 6983
Connection: keep-alive
Set-Cookie: __cfduid=d7768a9a20888ada8e0cee831245051cc1507590629; expires=Tue, 09-Oct-18 23:10:29 GMT; path=/; domain=.linuxadmin.io; HttpOnly
Last-Modified: Fri, 28 Apr 2017 02:21:20 GMT
ETag: “5902a720-1b47”
Expires: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 21:49:53 GMT
Cache-Control: max-age=31536000
CF-Cache-Status: HIT
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: cloudflare-nginx
CF-RAY: 3ab5037b7ac291dc-EWRThe line you are checking for is what starts with Expires:Expires: Sun, 30 Sep 2018 21:49:53 GMTthis should return a time based on the mod_expires value you set. That is it for setting mod_expires headers in Apache to leverage browser caching. Oct 9, 2017LinuxAdmin.io
How to perform Reverse DNS lookup in Linux?
Reverse DNS lookup is another interesting topic that is not often discussed. As a Linux user, you have several different options to perform it. So, let’s talk a little bit more about it and how you can do it.
Reverse DNS – What is it?
Reverse DNS or rDNS is a very beneficial service that supplies Reverse DNS zones for your domain name. The Reverse DNS zones are required for storing PTR records which are utilized for verification purposes. For instance, to check the IP address and if it points to the proper hostname.
Your recipients’ mail servers that desire to send you messages have to ensure that the IP address that they are viewing actually belongs to your domain name. If not, they could send the messages to a different place. Unfortunately, that makes space for criminals to take advantage of that information.
Another common way to use it is for verifying different services and the specific IP address that really refers to the domain name.
The Reverse DNS works perfectly to point IPv4 addresses or IPv6 addresses to hostnames. In addition, you are able to add both PTR records with IPv4 and IPv6 addresses within the same Reverse DNS zone.
Why is it important?
The Reverse DNS is important because your messages probably will not arrive at their proper destination if you are not implementing it. The receivers’ mail servers are going to examine for your PTR records within other DNS records. In case they don’t discover them, the receivers would probably not trust your domain. In addition, they will reject any emails you are sending to them.
What is a PTR record?
The PTR record, also known as a pointer record, is a DNS record type that you can implement for Reverse DNS. It points IP addresses, both IPv4 addresses, and IPv6 addresses, to the domain name.
Once the receiving mail servers require to examine the origin of the message, they are going to complete a DNS Reverse lookup. In which they are going to search for the PTR records. With them, you are able to ensure that the IP address is for sure belonging to your domain name.
Reverse DNS lookup for Linux
As a Linux user, you have several different options for completing a Reverse DNS lookup. So, just open the Terminal and try out these 3 commands that could be used for that purpose.
Nslookup command
Nslookup is the first command that you can use to complete a Reverse DNS lookup. In this example, type the following:
nslookup 123.45.67.89
*Make sure to change the IP address with the one you would like to check.
Dig command
Dig is another very beneficial tool for Linux users. To perform Reverse DNS lookup, you just have to type the following inside the Terminal:
dig -x 123.45.67.89
*Make sure to change the IP address with the one you would like to check.
Host command
The third command that you can easily use is the host command. To perform Reverse DNS lookup, simply type:
host 123.45.67.89
*Make sure to change the IP address with the one you would like to check.
Massive Outage Highlights Need for Resilient Operating System
A massive outage affected multiple businesses worldwide due to a routine application update, highlighting the critical need for a new generation of resilient operating systems in large-scale deployments.
Today, we woke up to a massive outage affecting multiple businesses worldwide. Airlines, banks, credit card companies, and other industries were impacted. Many wonder how a simple maintenance update in one of hundreds of applications left many systems unable to boot, causing business outages and chaos. The manual and local fixes required for each affected device mean it could take weeks to recover fully. This incident, involving a widespread issue with a CrowdStrike update affecting Windows operating system, highlights the critical need for a more resilient operating system for large-scale deployments.
The Root Cause
The root cause of this disruption seems to be a routine application update that led to systems failing with a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) every time they rebooted. The affected devices included desktops, servers, terminals, and edge devices, amplifying the recovery challenges due to their dispersed locations and manual resolution. Such incidents emphasize the vulnerabilities inherent in traditional operating systems when managing extensive IT infrastructures.
The Scale Problem
Representation of System Stability Over Time
As we scale, we must be concerned about how something as routine as a maintenance update failure can dramatically affect our business continuity and potentially our brand and reputation. What makes it worse is that this will not be the last maintenance error. The only question is when the next one will occur. Application errors, administrator mistakes, and other issues can always happen.
In the past, when everything was in central systems with manual procedures, administrators could access machines directly, and resolution was not too time-consuming. They could go locally to the systems and repair them in hours. However, today, dispersed environments and massive distribution across the edge, cloud, or remote systems mean that unbootable systems are not easily accessible and could take weeks of work and potential travel to recover everything. To understand the scale, in this incident, we have seen images of even airport screen terminals with a blue screen, highlighting the potential cost and logistical challenge of sending technicians to each affected location.
Learnings
This is where we understand why we need a new generation of operating systems designed to be always ready to service. Operating systems that are always ready to boot in a ready-to-service state with automated health checks and rollback capabilities, making recovery time negligible and allowing administrators to perform repairs remotely if needed.
The Need for an Immutable, Transactional, Enterprise-Ready OS Supporting Full Rollback
Although some general-purpose Linux distributions like SUSE Linux Enterprise Server offer excellent resiliency and rollback capabilities backed by its Btrfs filesystem, they can’t cover all the cases in which an error makes the system unusable. To have an always ready-to-service (and boot) OS, we need an immutable, transactional operating system like SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro. Unlike traditional systems, it offers automated health checks and rollback capabilities, ensuring that any maintenance error can be undone, leaving a booted system ready to service and effortlessly corrected centrally without manual intervention. An immutable system always has the last ready-to-boot copy of the OS. In the case of an error, automatic health checks detect the issue and roll back to a previous known good state, ensuring consistent booting, minimizing downtime, maintenance costs, and potential associated brand damage or liability.
Benefits in Large-Scale Environments
In large-scale environments, like cloud deployments, data centers, or large enterprise networks, the complexity of IT management is magnified. Here, the advantages of using an immutable operating system like SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro become evident. Its transactional updates ensure changes are implemented only if they pass all predefined health checks after boot, preventing incomplete or faulty updates or configuration changes from disrupting operations. This significantly reduces the risk of downtime and associated maintenance costs. Additionally, in the event of an error, the OS can seamlessly roll back to a previous stable state, ensuring continuity of service. This robust approach enhances overall system reliability and efficiency, making SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro ideal for managing extensive IT infrastructures, especially in remote environments where minimizing travel and manual interventions is crucial.
Infrastructure Ready for the Edge
We have learned that the edge is a very specific scenario where incidents like these can multiply the impact. Therefore, edge infrastructure must be equipped with solutions designed to handle such situations. SUSE Edge leverages SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro to provide a robust solution. SUSE Edge ensures that dispersed and remote systems are always in a ready-to-service state, offering automated health checks and rollback capabilities. This makes managing and recovering edge devices efficient and reliable, significantly reducing the risk and impact of system failures. Learn more about SUSE Edge and its capabilities here.
An Additional Learning: The Need to Implement Processes for Patching
To further minimize risks, it’s crucial to implement processes to test patches and use staging environments before deploying updates, including not only OS patches but also all applications. Tools like SUSE Manager can facilitate and automate this process by managing patch testing and staging in preproduction environments, ensuring updates are reliable and reducing the likelihood of system failures.
Conclusion
The recent outage is a stark reminder of the risks associated with conventional operating systems in managing extensive and remote IT estates. By adopting an always-ready-to-service OS, organizations can mitigate such risks, ensuring a more resilient and manageable IT environment.
In a previous blog post, I explored the challenges faced by software vendors and integrators in maintaining remote and dispersed systems, particularly when updates lead to critical errors. This recent outage is just another reminder of these challenges. While that blog post focused on immutable operating systems like SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro, the broader point is that resilient operating systems with features like automatic rollbacks can play a significant role in ensuring system uptime in large-scale deployments.
To know more about what is included in SUSE Linux Enterprise Micro, visit this link.
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How to Use Systemctl to List All Services in Linux
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When managing a Linux system, understanding how to control and monitor system services is crucial. Systemd, the system and service manager for most Linux distributions, offers a powerful suite of tools for this purpose. Here, we’ll delve into how you can list all running services under systemd, focusing on a Ubuntu terminal for our examples.
What is systemd?
Systemd is an init system used to bootstrap the user space and manage system processes after booting. It is now used by most major Linux distributions. It replaces the older SysVinit system and has become the standard for service management in Linux.
Checking the status of services
To begin with, the primary command to interact with systemd is systemctl. Let’s see how we can use systemctl to list all currently running services.
List running services using systemctl
You can list all running systemd services with the following command:
systemctl list-units –type=service –state=running
When you run this command in your Ubuntu terminal, it displays a list of all active services. Here’s what the output might look like:
UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION
● atd.service loaded active running Deferred execution scheduler
avahi-daemon.service loaded active running Avahi mDNS/DNS-SD Stack
cron.service loaded active running Regular background program processing daemon
dbus.service loaded active running D-Bus System Message Bus
networking.service loaded active running Raise network interfaces
ssh.service loaded active running OpenBSD Secure Shell server
This output shows several columns:
UNIT: The name of the service unit.
LOAD: Indicates whether the unit’s configuration file has been loaded successfully.
ACTIVE: The high-level activation state.
SUB: The low-level activation state.
DESCRIPTION: A brief description of the service.
Personally, I find the default output quite informative, but sometimes it’s a bit too much. If you prefer a simpler view, you can customize the output using the –no-pager option to prevent output from being sent through a pager, and grep to filter through services. For example:
systemctl list-units –type=service –state=running –no-pager | grep ssh
This command will only show services related to ssh, which is handy if you’re specifically interested in the status of SSH-related services.
How to handle non-running services
It’s also important to know how to find services that aren’t running. To see services that have failed, for example, you can use:
systemctl –failed
This will list units that have failed to load or to start. Here’s how the output might appear:
UNIT LOAD ACTIVE SUB DESCRIPTION
● nginx.service loaded failed failed A high performance web server
● mysql.service loaded failed failed MySQL Community Server
This is particularly useful for troubleshooting issues, as it highlights which services need attention.
Additional tips and tricks
Filtering the list
Systemd offers several ways to filter and view specific types of services. For example, you can use the –all flag to list all units regardless of their state, or specify a particular unit by its exact name to get detailed status information:
systemctl status ssh.service
Enjoying the control
As someone who enjoys fine-tuning and having granular control over what’s running on my systems, I appreciate systemd’s capabilities. The tools systemd offers are powerful and flexible, allowing for detailed management of service states that are essential for any system administrator.
FAQ: Listing and managing services under systemd
What is systemd?
Systemd is the init system and service manager that has become the standard for initializing, managing, and tracking system services and sessions in modern Linux environments.
How do I list all services, whether active or not?
You can list all installed services, whether they are active or not, using the following command:
systemctl list-units –type=service –all
This command shows every service unit installed on your system, including those that are not currently running.
How can I start or stop a service?
To start a service, use:
sudo systemctl start [service-name].service
To stop a service, use:
sudo systemctl stop [service-name].service
Replace [service-name] with the name of the service you wish to control.
How do I enable a service to start at boot?
To ensure a service starts automatically at boot, use:
sudo systemctl enable [service-name].service
This command creates a symbolic link from the system’s copy of the service file (usually in /etc/systemd/system/ or /lib/systemd/system/) to the location where systemd looks for autostart files at boot time.
What is the command to check the status of a specific service?
To check the status of a specific service, you can use:
systemctl status [service-name].service
This provides detailed information about the service, including its current state, last logs, and configuration.
How can I reload a service after changing its configuration?
After modifying a service’s configuration, you can reload the service to apply these changes with:
sudo systemctl reload [service-name].service
This command tells the service to reload its configuration files without stopping and restarting the service entirely.
Is there a way to see logs for a specific service?
Yes, to see logs for a specific service, you can use the journalctl command:
journalctl -u [service-name].service
This will display the log entries for the specified service. Adding -f will follow the log, showing new entries as they appear.
Can I list services by their load state or active state?
Absolutely! You can filter services based on their load or active states using:
systemctl list-units –type=service –state=loaded
or
systemctl list-units –type=service –state=active
These commands help you narrow down the list to services that are loaded into the system or currently active.
Conclusion
Mastering how to list and manage services with systemd is a crucial skill for anyone using Linux. We’ve explored how to check the status of services, how to start, stop, and manage them, and how to ensure they operate as expected with commands like systemctl. Whether you’re troubleshooting, fine-tuning your system, or just curious about what’s running under the hood, the tools provided by systemd offer a comprehensive and powerful way to keep your Linux system organized and efficient.
Best Free and Open-Source Linux Operating Systems for Home Users
Usually, the operating system in your computer doesn’t allow you to change its functions and other aspects. But, you can find some that allow you full control over all aspects. Not only that, but they also allow you to distribute your version freely. These are known as free and open-source software. So, they were made mainly to provide more control to home users over their software. Now, there are many such viable options available for you out there. Linux is undoubtedly the most prominent one among them. After all, it has reached a leading position among all non-proprietary operating systems. Now, there are various distributions from Linux that you can choose from. The information given below can help you know all that you need to know about them. Why should you use free and open-source software?Whether you want to use FOSS is completely up to you. But, they do have some benefits to offer you if you use them. Now, some people might think that free software means they’re free to use. But, that’s not true at all since ‘free’ refers to freedom here. That’s because you’re free to study, modify and redistribute them. Also, even though you may have to pay for them, they have quite a low cost. Moreover, some of them are really free to use. So, they’re free in both senses of the word in certain cases. Apart from that, they also don’t require you to trust a software vendor. Instead, you can place that trust on a pretty large community of users.But, they often have shortcomings as well, such as compatibility issues, bugs, etc. Moreover, they may also not have some features available in proprietary software. How do you Benefit from Linux?Linux has all the benefits that free and open-source software can offer you and more. First, all of its distributions are completely free of cost. In addition to that, it supports pretty much all file formats. Moreover, you can use it on older hardware components, which is difficult to proceed, in the case of proprietary software. It also provides more security than many other systems that you use on your device. Apart from that, Linux takes up very little space on your hard drive. And, you can install it within a very short time. Also, it usually provides much more safety to your data. But, you must contact a Linux data recovery service immediately if you lose your important files. Moreover, you can boot this software on your device directly from a USB without installing it. So, you must try out Linux if you want free and open-source software for your device. Top 6 Linux distributions that are worth tryingLooking for a suitable Linux for distribution for your device. There are many options out there that may suit your requirements. But, here are the best ones among them that you must consider: 1. UbuntuAmong all Linux distributions, Linux is undoubtedly the most popular one. It’s one of the most accessible software to use that you can find. However, its interface differs from that of proprietary software, like Windows and Mac. So, it’ll probably take some time for you to get familiar with it. Moreover, there are also some Ubuntu versions, called flavours, similar to Windows. And, you can use them instead if you find the base version too inconvenient. Now, as we have seen, specific free software might not feature the essential tools. But that’s not the case with Ubuntu at all. It comes with all the basic features that you need. Where do you download it from? In case you’re wondering, you can get it from the official Ubuntu website. 2. Elementary OSAre you a Mac user who wants to switch to Linux? Most distributions of the latter differ from that of the macOS. So, you might have some trouble getting familiar with them. But, the Elementary OS can provide you with a viable alternative in such cases. It comes with a user interface that resembles macOS to quite an extent. So, you should find it familiar from the moment you start using it. As a result, you can enjoy Linux without spending much time getting familiar with it. This software doesn’t feature much pre-installed software but includes everything you may need initially. You can find all the other tools you need in the App Centre. 3. Linux MintIf you’re a Windows user, this distribution might be the most suitable for you. Its user interface resembles that of Windows, so you might find it easy-to-use. Also, it’s a perfect choice for people who are new to Linux. So, you might want to try out this distribution first if you’re a beginner. Then, you can move on to other distributions of your choice if you want. Linux Mint also worked for certain shortcomings present in Ubuntu. So, it’s a better choice for performing certain tasks. Some of the pre-installed apps you get in it are better than those in Ubuntu. Also, it works much better on devices with old hardware as compared to many other distributions. And, it’s a perfect choice for your old PC. 4. Linux LiteAs the name suggests, this is the lighter version of Linux software. So, it takes up much less space on your hard drive than the full version. That also means it comes with a lesser number of pre-installed software. Like all Linux distributions, this one is easy to use as well. Also, its interface resembles that of Windows, like that of Linux Mint.Does it have anything new to offer you? In case you’re wondering, yes, it does. Linux Lite provides you with an enhanced user experience as compared to the other distributions. So that’s one of the reasons you might want to choose it. Also, it allows you to use many Windows programs that you’re familiar with. Linux Lite has low requirements, and you can run it on a PC with old hardware. 5. MX LinuxThis Linux distribution is arguably the most stable one that you can find right now. Moreover, it’s meant for users who are not acquainted with this software. It has an interface that’s very simple to understand and use. So, you can make yourself familiar with it pretty quickly. Needless to say, it provides you with a great performance. That made this distribution a very popular choice among users. Moreover, it allows you to run pretty much all programs and tools. So, you can install any software that you need to accomplish your work. That makes MX Linux one of the best distributions for home users. 6. Pop!_OSAre you looking for a suitable distribution for gaming? Apart from Ubuntu, you must also give Pop!_OS a try. After all, it provides enhanced performance in comparison to the former. It can provide the optimal support that your GPU needs to run the latest games. Apart from that, you can download pretty much all the essential software and files on it. But, you can’t use this distribution on PCs with old hardware components. On the other hand, it can provide a very desirable performance with the latest hardware. Also, it’s a perfect choice for beginners and easy to install and use. Finally…..We have tried to include suitable options for all types of requirements. Hopefully, you’ll find a suitable Linux distribution among the ones mentioned above. They’re the best you can find, but you have other options as well. So, you can consider them if you don’t find what you’re looking for here.This is a guest post by Fixer
5 Creative Ways To Use The Linux ECHO Command In Bash Scripts
What on earth is going on here? Lets’ break it down.So, the random output generator is like a magical spell that conjures up a completely random string of characters. It’s like a mini lottery machine, but instead of numbers, it spits out letters and numbers in a completely unpredictable way.First, we start with the cat /dev/urandom command, which is a virtual device in Linux used to generate random data. From there, we move on to the tr -dc ‘a-zA-Z0-9’ command, which is the truncate command that will remove all non-alphanumeric characters from the stream of bytes we just conjured up. The truncate command can be customized for what characters to use in your brand new password generated from the void.Next, we use the fold -w 32 command to fold or wrap the output into lines of 32 characters. This is like a magical incantation that transforms the chaotic stream of bytes into a more structured, readable format.Finally, we use the head -n 1 command to select only the first line of output. This is like a wise old sage who looks deep into the swirling mists of the future to select the one true fate that will be revealed to us.And voila! The final touch is to use command substitution to embed the output of these commands into an echo statement, which displays the random string on the terminal. It’s like a beautiful fireworks display, bursting forth in a shower of letters and numbers, to delight and amaze us with its utter randomness.
Install Lightweight Ubuntu and Apache Web Server on Windows10 – The Wandering Irishman
So some of you may have heard that WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) was released last year, so in this post we will install it and run an Apache server that’s really lightweight on your Windows10 operating system. Hi guys, thanks for visiting. This is zxer here, back again for ls /blog. I hope you… So some of you may have heard that WSL2 (Windows Subsystem for Linux) was released last year, so in this post we will install it and run an Apache server that’s really lightweight on your Windows10 operating system.
Hi guys, thanks for visiting. This is zxer here, back again for ls /blog. I hope you find this post both informative and enlightening.
WSL 2 is a new version of the architecture in WSL that changes how Linux distributions interact with Windows.
WSL 2 has the primary goals of increasing file system performance and adding full system call compatibility.
Each Linux distribution can run as WSL 1 or as WSL 2, and can be switched between at any time. WSL 2 is a major overhaul of the underlying architecture and uses virtualization technology and a Linux kernel to enable its new features.
WSL 2 is only available in Windows 10, Version 2004, Build 19041 or higher. You may need to update your Windows version.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s begin. Tap the Windows key in the bottom left of your screen and type Windows Features.
You should see then option to turn Windows features on or off. Let’s click on that. In Windows features we can select what Windows programs we want our computer to run.
The two we want to add is Windows Subsystem for Linux and Virtual Machine Platform and click okay.
After you do this you will need to restart your machine. so bookmark this blog post if you are following along and return after you have rebooted.
Once you have your Windows10 machine up and running again we will open up Windows Store. So tap the Windows icon and type Store.
Once you’ve opened Store we will want to search for Ubuntu.
There’s a decent range of installations you can choose from. For this tutorial, we’re going to install Ubuntu 20.04, so click on that and hit Install.
The download and installation should take a few moments. When everything is ready to go you will be prompted to Launch.
Once you launch the app it will take a few minutes for your first Ubuntu Command line shell on Windows10. So be patient, or just make a coffee.
Once it’s all set up you will be prompted for a new UNIX username and password.
If you’ve followed on this far, thank you. We have installed Ubuntu on our Windows machine, it’s really lightweight and we want to dive in, so what do we type first?
ls of course, but we got nothing because it’s a new box. So let’s try ifconfig.
Let’s do that to get some normalcy to this box 🙂
This will now give us the option to install other tools to the Ubuntu box. So let’s install Apache Server and run a web server on this cat.
For convenience I’m going to run as root so I don’t have to enter the password each time I want to install something.
sudo su
apt install apache2
It’s just beautiful to look at!
Once everything is installed, start up the server.
service apache2 start
and visit /var/www/html
cd /var/www/html
That should be it. Let’s visit it in our web browser. Type the IP of the Ubuntu server into your Firefox or Chrome browser address bar. In our case it’s 192.168.1.6.
As it says on the page above, edit the index.html file to make your own Home page.
I do appreciate you reading to the end, please consider following this blog for more posts like this.
Also, if you can spare 5 bucks, please do so below, thanks! It greatly helps with our costs.
zxer 2020-06-29
Exploring the Latest AWS Console-to-Code Feature
Published: February 1, 2024 | Modified: February 1, 2024
On November 2023 AWS announced the Preview going live for the new feature AWS Console-to-Code. Two months later, in this blog, we will explore this feature, learn about how to use it, what are the limitations, etc.
AWS Console-to-Code
What is the AWS Console-to-Code feature?
It’s the latest feature from AWS made available in the EC2 console that leverages Generative AI to convert the actions performed on the AWS EC2 console into the IaC (infrastructure as Code) code! It’s a stepping stone towards IaC creation methods in the world of AWS cloud.
The actions carried out on the AWS console during the current session are monitored by the feature in the background. These recorded actions are then made available to the user to select up to 5 of these actions, along with their preferred language. AWS then utilizes its Generative AI capabilities to automatically generate code that replicates the objectives achieved through manual actions on the console.
It also generates the AWS CLI command alongside the IaC code.
The usefulness of the AWS Console-to-Code feature
With the current list of limitations and the preview stage, this feature might not be a game changer but it does have potential in the future. The AWS Console-to-Code feature will surely help developers and administrators to get the IaC skeleton quickly to start from and speed up the IaC coding with less effort.
This feature simplifies the process of generating AWS CLI commands, eliminating the need to constantly consult documentation and manually construct commands with the correct arguments. As a result, it accelerates automation deliveries with reduced effort.
By the way, there is no additional cost to use Console-to-Code so it doesn’t hurt to employ it for initial IaC drafting!
Limitation of AWS Console-to-Code feature
Currently, it’s in the ‘Preview’ phase.
Only available in North Virginia (us-east-1) region as of today.
It can generate IaC code in the listed types and languages only –
CDK: Java
CDK: Python
CDK: TypeScript
CloudFoprmation: JSON
CloudFoprmation: YAML
It does not retain data across sessions. The actions that are performed in the current session are made available for Code Generation. Meaning if you refresh the browser page, it resets the action list and starts recording afresh.
Up to 5 actions can be selected to generate code.
Actions from the EC2 console only are recorded. However, I observed even a few actions like Security Group creation or Volume listing, etc. are not being recorded.
How to use the AWS Console-to-Code feature
Login to the EC2 console and select region N. Virginia (us-east-1)
On the left-hand side menu, ensure you have a Console-to-Code link.
Perform some actions in the EC2 console like launching an instance, etc.
Navigate to Console-to-Code by clicking on the link in the left-hand side menu.
It will present you with a list of recorded actions. Select one or a maximum of 5 actions for which you want to generate code. You can even filter the recorded actions as per their Type:
Show read-only: Read-only events like Describe*
Show mutating: Events that modified/created/deleted or altered the AWS resources.
Click on the drop-down menu and select the type and language for the code.
AWS console-to-code recorded actions
It should start generating code.
After code generation, you have an option to copy or download it. You can also copy the AWS CLI command on the same page.
Python code generated by AWS Console-to-Code
It also provides the generated code’s explanation at the bottom of the code.
