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A look at the Solus desktop installation and first impressions
Today we’ll be installing and testing out Solus on the desktop, specifically the ‘Budgie’ flavor of Solus. There are also options to download Solus GNOME or Solus MATE as well. Those can all be downloaded from this page:
Solus is not based on another distro and is written from scratch. It uses a rolling release model, which they moved to after previously using point versions.
When first booting the disk, you are immediately presented with a live desktop.
At the top, there are four icons: Install OS, Firefox, Hex Chat, Gnome MPV and Rythmbox music player. Clicking the ‘Install OS’ button, you are given an installation screen where you choose the installer, your language, location settings, keyboard layout, time and all the usual installation stuff. It also gives you a chance to configure your disk for the install.
Then kick back and have a beer while the OS installs.
After rebooting, you’re first given Solus styled grub listing.
Then you are presented with the Budgie login screen.
The first thing I noticed was the red bell icon that was signifying that there was an unseen notification. Clicking it gives a MacOS-ish notification slide out where you can switch between notifications and ‘Applets’.
The application launcher at the top left corner provides access to the reasonable amount of applications that come preinstalled.
Accessories:
Graphics:
Internet:
Office:
Sound & Video:
“Sundry”:
System Tools:
There’s also a tweak tool available that allows to easily change the theme, which there are a few included.
Adwaita (Default):
Arc:
Arc-Dark:
Arc-Darker:
High Contrast:
There’s also a ‘Global Dark Theme’ in the settings, however when I tested it out it didn’t seems to change anything.
The lock screen also immediately makes me think of Gnome:
Another selling point of Solus is it’s software center, which is very snappy compared to others I’ve tried in the past.
First impressions:
This is my first time using Solus, and am impressed at the ease of installation. I like the budgie desktop. it looks clean, it seems responsive and I may be giving it a try on my Ubuntu install on my daily computer. I also like the idea of rolling releases and the development on it seems solid, so I may be testing this out a little more real soon.
Have you tried Solus or do you run it daily? Have you had any good or bad experiences with it?
Chris July 3rd, 2017
Posted In: Distros
Ubuntu – Changing Window Managers (Gnome/KDE/XFCE/LXDE)
Using one of the many versions of Ubuntu but want to use a different window manager than the one it came with? This can be done quickly and easily by installing the window manager you wish to use and logging out and back in. Sound simple enough? It is.
To install your new window manager you can use the following commands through a terminal.
For LXDE
sudo apt-get install lxde
for XFCE
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
for Gnome
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
For KDE
sudo apt-get install kde-plasma-desktop
Once you install the one you want, log out, choose the one you want by clicking the icon next to your username, and log in.
No sound after rebooting into XFCE or other window manager read No Sound After Installing XFCE/Xubuntu
Johnny October 23rd, 2013
Posted In: How To
Tags: change window manager, Gnome, kde, Linux, sessions manager, Ubuntu, window manager, Window Managers, xfce
Show Plesk Admin Password
If you are using Plesk on Linux, have root access and need to recover the admin password, you can view it in plain text using the following command.
/usr/local/psa/bin/admin --show-password
This will pull the admin password from the database. Simple enough, right?
Chris March 18th, 2013
Posted In: General
Using df to Show Disk Space Usage in Linux
To display the disk space usage for your drives in Linux, you are able to use the df command. By default, it will show the usage of all the mounted drives in 1k blocks. If the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set though, it will show in 512 byte blocks by default. Below shows the command run with no options.
[email protected]:~$ df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 575758492 126365356 420575064 24% /
udev 1538192 12 1538180 1% /dev
tmpfs 619612 1088 618524 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 1549020 144 1548876 1% /run/shm
I personally like to use the -h flag with it, which will show the space in human readable format, in KB and GB.
[email protected]:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 550G 121G 402G 24% /
udev 1.5G 12K 1.5G 1% /dev
tmpfs 606M 1.1M 605M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 1.5G 144K 1.5G 1% /run/shm
The -a flag will show all of the file systems, including dummy file systems.
[email protected]:~$ df -a
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 575758492 126365360 420575060 24% /
proc 0 0 0 - /proc
sysfs 0 0 0 - /sys
none 0 0 0 - /sys/fs/fuse/connections
none 0 0 0 - /sys/kernel/debug
none 0 0 0 - /sys/kernel/security
udev 1538192 12 1538180 1% /dev
devpts 0 0 0 - /dev/pts
tmpfs 619612 1088 618524 1% /run
none 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none 1549020 144 1548876 1% /run/shm
binfmt_misc 0 0 0 - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
rpc_pipefs 0 0 0 - /run/rpc_pipefs
nfsd 0 0 0 - /proc/fs/nfsd
Using df with the –total flag will show the drive spaces as well. The total space of all the drives together.
[email protected]:~$ df -h --total
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 550G 121G 402G 24% /
udev 1.5G 12K 1.5G 1% /dev
tmpfs 606M 1.1M 605M 1% /run
none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock
none 1.5G 144K 1.5G 1% /run/shm
total 553G 121G 405G 23%
Using the -i flag will show the number of inodes on the drives. Inodes are the number of files and directories the disk contains.
[email protected]:~$ df -i
Filesystem Inodes IUsed IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 36028416 525729 35502687 2% /
udev 210007 628 209379 1% /dev
tmpfs 215421 607 214814 1% /run
none 215421 5 215416 1% /run/lock
none 215421 4 215417 1% /run/shm
The -T flag can also be added to show the filesystem type, such as ext3 or NTFS.
[email protected]:~$ df -T
Filesystem Type 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdc1 ext4 575758492 126365408 420575012 24% /
udev devtmpfs 1538192 12 1538180 1% /dev
tmpfs tmpfs 619612 1088 618524 1% /run
none tmpfs 5120 0 5120 0% /run/lock
none tmpfs 1549020 144 1548876 1% /run/shm
The df command also has a couple other options, but I won’t be covering those today since the aren’t usually needed regularly. The help info for the df command is below for reference.
Usage: df [OPTION]... [FILE]...20 0 5120 0% /run/lockShow information about the file system on which each FILE resides,
or all file systems by default.
Mandatory arguments to long options are mandatory for short options too.
-a, --all include dummy file systems
-B, --block-size=SIZE scale sizes by SIZE before printing them. E.g.,
`-BM' prints sizes in units of 1,048,576 bytes.
See SIZE format below.
--total produce a grand total
-h, --human-readable print sizes in human readable format (e.g., 1K 234M
-H, --si likewise, but use powers of 1000 not 1024
-i, --inodes list inode information instead of block usage
-k like --block-size=1K
-l, --local limit listing to local file systems
--no-sync do not invoke sync before getting usage info (defau
-P, --portability use the POSIX output format
--sync invoke sync before getting usage info
-t, --type=TYPE limit listing to file systems of type TYPE
-T, --print-type print file system type
-x, --exclude-type=TYPE limit listing to file systems not of type TYPE
-v (ignored)
--help display this help and exit
--version output version information and exit
Display values are in units of the first available SIZE from --block-size,
and the DF_BLOCK_SIZE, BLOCK_SIZE and BLOCKSIZE environment variables.
Otherwise, units default to 1024 bytes (or 512 if POSIXLY_CORRECT is set).
SIZE may be (or may be an integer optionally followed by) one of following:
KB 1000, K 1024, MB 1000*1000, M 1024*1024, and so on for G, T, P, E, Z, Y.
Report df bugs to [email protected]
GNU coreutils home page:
General help using GNU software:
For complete documentation, run: info coreutils 'df invocation'
Know some other things you can do with the df command? Tell us about it in the comments!
Chris March 18th, 2013
Posted In: General
Tags: df, disk space, drive, drive space, file system, file systems, inodes, Linux, space
How to install a .deb file from the command line
So you have downloaded a .deb file with a program that you would like to install. Most distros that are using a graphical interface will have a package manager that you can use to install these. But if you’re like me, you prefer to do it from the command line. To install it from there, you will need to use the dpkg command, using the -i flag, which does the install. In this example, I have dowloaded Google chrome for Linux from their website and am installing it on Ubuntu.
[email protected]:/home/user/Downloads# dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb Selecting previously unselected package google-chrome-stable. (Reading database ... 296976 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking google-chrome-stable (from google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb) ... Setting up google-chrome-stable (21.0.1180.79-r151411) ... update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/google-chrome to provide /usr/bin/x-www-browser (x-www-browser) in auto mode. update-alternatives: using /usr/bin/google-chrome to provide /usr/bin/gnome-www-browser (gnome-www-browser) in auto mode. Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ... Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf.index... Processing triggers for gnome-menus ... Processing triggers for menu ...
If that finishes with no errors, then the package should be installed. In this case, I can now open Google Chrome though the Window manager’s menu or through the terminal.
Chris August 17th, 2012
Posted In: How To
Tags: command line, deb, dpkg, Google chrome, install, Linux, package
Download the RandomLinux.com Android app!
Download v1 of the RandomLinux.com Android app! Stay up to date on everything that’s Linux right from your phone or tablet!
Download below!
[wpdm_file id=5]
Chris June 10th, 2012
Posted In: How To
Tags: Android, Linux, RandomLinux.com
How to install Samba on Ubuntu – Automated installation script available
Samba is an open source software suite which provides file and print services. This can be installed using a few commands, or using our installation script at the bottom of this post.
The first thing that you need to do is install the Samba and samba-common packages.
sudo apt-get install samba samba-common
You will then want to make sure that python-glade2 is installed.
sudo apt-get install python-glade2
After that, you will want to install the Samba configuration tool.
sudo apt-get install system-config-samba
You then need to add a user account for the Samba user. You can use any name you would like.
sudo useradd sambauser
You will also want to create a user for you to log into your Samba server when you connect.
sudo smbpasswd -a sambauser
You will also want to run the Samba Configuration tool to set up the folders that you want to share. You can find that in your system’s app tray or you can start it by using the following command.
sudo system-config-samba
You are also able to download the installation script we created to help you automate installing that. This was tested on Ubuntu 12.04, so I cannot guarantee that it will work on anything but that. If you need it to work on your OS, let us know what you’re using and we’ll get a script set up for it.
Download the installation script here:
[wpdm_file id=4]
You need to make the permissions for this executable (something like chmod 755 installsamba.sh), then run:
sh installsamba.sh
Let us know how it works for you! If you like it and it helps you, feel free to share!
If you would like to see the source code for that, you can see it here:
Enjoy!
Chris June 5th, 2012
Posted In: How To
Tags: automatically, install, installation script, Linux, samba, Samba configuration, script
Install and run ClamAV
ClamAV is a popular malware scanner that can help to find malware on your accounts. You are able to find more information about that at the following link:
http://clamav.net
This software has many built in definitions that will find *most* of the malicious files under your accounts. It can find many shells, phishing sites and other malware. We won’t be able to cover all of the different options available in ClamAV in this article, but we will cover the parts that you will need to initially locate the malware so that it an be removed.
To install that, all you will need to do is run the following command.
If you are on a RedHat based OS, such as CentOS, you can install it with
yum install clamav
If you are using debian, you can use
apt-get install clamav
Once that is installed, you will want to run the freshclam command so that the definitions are updated to the most recent.
[email protected] [/home/user]# freshclam
ClamAV update process started at Thu Jan 12 04:41:48 2012
main.cvd is up to date (version: 54, sigs: 1044387, f-level: 60, builder: sven)
daily.cld is up to date (version: 14300, sigs: 70715, f-level: 63, builder: guitar)
bytecode.cvd is up to date (version: 160, sigs: 38, f-level: 63, builder: edwin)
Then, you can use the clamscan command to run the scan. You will also want to use a couple of flags to only show the infected files, to search recursively, and to log your findings to a log file. The i limits the output to only infected files, the r flag means to recurse through the directoies and the l flag with a file name will log the scan to that file.
[email protected] [/home/user/public_html]# clamscan -ir -l log.txt
———– SCAN SUMMARY ———–
Known viruses: 1113857
Engine version: 0.97.3
Scanned directories: 139
Scanned files: 1602
Infected files: 0
Data scanned: 29.30 MB
Data read: 15.53 MB (ratio 1.89:1)
Time: 6.608 sec (0 m 6 s)
If a malicious file is found, it will show the path to the file and why it was flagged.
[email protected] [/home/user/public_html]# clamscan -ir -l log.txt
/home/user/public_html/thing.php: PHP.Shell-38 FOUND
———– SCAN SUMMARY ———–
Known viruses: 1113857
Engine version: 0.97.3
Scanned directories: 2412
Scanned files: 20511
Infected files: 1
Data scanned: 354.85 MB
Data read: 832.57 MB (ratio 0.43:1)
Time: 102.922 sec (1 m 42 s)
The output of the scan will also be logged to a file called log.txt if you run the command as it is in the example. You can then get the timestamps from that file and find the source, remove the file and patch the problem.
Chris January 13th, 2012
Posted In: General
Zip a file or folder in Linux
To zip particular files, you can use the following:
zip yourarchive.zip file1 file2 file3
To zip full directories recursively, you will add the -r flag.
zip -r nameofyourarchive.zip folder
That will zip everything everything that is in the folder that you choose, including any other folders that are inside of it.
Know of other ways to zip up files? Let us know in the comments!
Chris October 23rd, 2011
Posted In: How To
Tags: directories, file1 file2 file3, Linux
Find out how much memory is used and available on your Linux computer
To see the amount of memory that is free on your computer, you can use the free command. This will show you the amount of memory that you have total, as well as how much is being used. Using the free command with no flags will show you the amount in bytes.
[~]# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2097152 473032 1624120 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 473032 1624120
Swap: 0 0 0
Using the -m flag will show you the amount in MB.
[~]# free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2048 463 1584 0 0 0
-/+ buffers/cache: 463 1584
Swap: 0 0 0
Know of more ways to find your memory usage or other ways to use free? Let us know in the comments!
Chris September 20th, 2011
Posted In: How To
Tags: available, free, free command, free shared buffers, Linux, Linux computer, memory, ram