2010 in review

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

Madison Square Garden can seat 20,000 people for a concert. This blog was viewed about 68,000 times in 2010. If it were a concert at Madison Square Garden, it would have performed about 3 times.

 

In 2010, there were 17 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 63 posts. There were 23 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 7mb. That’s about 2 pictures per month.

The busiest day of the year was February 27th with 951 views. The most popular post that day was [testing] ArchBang 2.00-RC1.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were bbs.archlinux.org, tuxmachines.org, wiki.archlinux.org, linuxquestions.org, and ubuntuforums.org.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for archbang, grub2 howto, xbmc ubuntu 10.04, gentoo, and slackware 13.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

[testing] ArchBang 2.00-RC1 February 2010
29 comments

2

GRUB 2 [howto] August 2009

3

XBMC in Ubuntu [howto] August 2009
2 comments

4

[howto] Add extra repositories in Ubuntu/Debian August 2009
3 comments

5

[Tutorial] Easy Arch linux Setup Guide [USB included] September 2009
15 comments

[ubuntu] Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS

Tried out Lucid Lynx 10.04 and I’m impressed. A Huge improvement since the last couple of releases. My favorite Ubuntu release so far was Hardy Heron 8.04 LTS, however after checking out 10.04 it’s easily at No.1. This time around everything worked magically and it worked well even with my new Dell Inspiron 1564 laptop. Bluetooth, Webcam, ATI, grub2, etc.

Ubuntu 10.04

Download Ubuntu from: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

If you want to have a nice grub2 theme then install gimp. Open the image you want to have as your grub background and set the image canvas size according to your monitor’s resolution [e.g. for me it’s 1366×768]. Then save the image as .tga file in /boot/grub. Edit /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme and set the Wallpaper line to /boot/grub/image.tga and you may also want to change the highlight/background colors, then run:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Enjoy! 😀

[notice] ArchBang moves to a new /home

Ok guys if anyone is interested in maintaining the git tree let me know.
http://gitorious.org/archbang/archbang

Due to requests, I decided maybe it’s time to have a roof of our own? Give the Arch Mods some rest. So went ahead created a forum: http://archbang.x.am

Post all your future ArchBang Related queries/bugs/feedbacks/suggestions/whatever there.

So far a few members have volunteered to sail the ArchBang ship forward! Thanks to them! Here’s hoping to a great future for ArchBang!;)

Regards

sHy

[testing] ArchBang 2.00-RC1

Care to test the latest and the finest and the smoothest release yet? 😉

ArchBang now has an installer! That’s right! Besides copy2ram, we are introducing an installer with which you can install it on your hard disks! Did we n00bify it? Are we trying to re-invent the wheel? Are we making Arch “easier for the masses” like most graphical distributions? Heck no! We are keeping Arch as it is! K.I.S.S all the way! That old and familiar ncurses based installer,we can’t live without it! ❤

We need your help in testing this release! Do test it and give us your feedback. Please understand that we are short on staff, just two developers, so any voluntary testing and feedback will help us progress further.  🙂

Download: 32 Bit md5sum: d00be4c07ae844adbe26b8701a856d7e

Mirrors: 32Bit 32Bit 32Bit Torrent: 32Bit

Download: 64 Bit md5sum: be1e261b94a3e3b28e0a285708b7a423

Mirrors: 64Bit 64Bit Torrent: 64Bit

Boot

Desktop

AB-Install

Welcome

Menu

Partition

Installation

Configuration

Create User

Arch config

Mkinitcpio in action

Grub

Fixes:

NVIDIA Users:

After install, if you can’t login to X,then re-install nvidia in following way:

pacman -Syy && pacman -Sd nvidia nvidia-utils --noconfirm

If you would just like to get to the desktop and you are ok with using the “nv” driver then:

X -configure && mv xorg.conf.new /etc/X11/xorg.conf && sed -i -e "s/nvidia/nv/" /etc/X11/xorg.conf

[release] ArchBang-1.03



ArchBang LIVE CD  = Arch Linux w/ OpenBox (inspired from #!) so ArchBang!!!

Project started by: Willxtreme

Project Thread:  http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=89627&p=1

My contribution: Building the x86_64 version.

Currently we are planning on 1.04 release where we want to present an installer. So, for now it’s just a Live CD which you can use in USB Key as well. Please read the thread to know how to do that!

Download 32bit and/or 64bit .

[script] Easy Backup Solution using rsync

I will be writing this guide as a part of my upcoming “Arch System Maintenance Guide”. When you are using Linux, you should always take regular backups. It is secure, it is stable and all that, but backup is very important to aid you in case you make a mess of your system. I will be writing the script to backup the entire system, excluding a few folders/files,etc. So here is the script.

mkdir ~/.rsync && cd ~/.rsync
wget http://s2.sigmirror.com/files/53582_x8b8x/rsync.sh
wget http://www.sigmirror.com/files/50262_e92yu/exclude
wget http://www.sigmirror.com/files/50261_xjpd3/warn

Now, make sure you have rsync and zenity installed. If you are using Gnome, zenity should already be installed but just in-case, if you are using a Debian-based distro like ubuntu, or even Debian do:

sudo apt-get install zenity rsync

Rsync is already present there for Slackers, check out zenity at Slackbuilds. Note: This will require a few Gnome dependencies, so  you can use xdialog or a Qt equivalent tool.

If you are using Xdialog instead, open the warn file and replace the zenity line with:

 Xdialog --msgbox Plugin\ Your\ Backup\ Drive 10 50

Save it and exit. If for some reason cron fails to launch the Warning message box, put “DISPLAY=:0” in front of zenity or Xdialog line.

Now, in my script I have started backup from root, excluding a few directories like /proc, /dev , and a few of my personal files. So you need to edit that file. Open the exclude file with a text editor [nano], and remove my folders [I kept them intentionally to make you do some work, lol 😉 ] and add whatever files or folders you would like to exclude from Backing up. We also exclude all .bak and .~ files from backups.

Edit the rsync.sh file to specify what drive path to use for backup. I use /media/backup in my External HDD.  So replace that accordingly.

Now it’s time to edit your cron.

sudo nano /var/spool/cron/your-user-name-here

10 8 * * * ~/.rsync/warn 1> /dev/null
sudo nano /var/spool/cron/root
15 8 * * * /home/username/.rsync/rsync.sh 1> /home/username/cronlog

Set the backup time according to your preference. The first field is minutes and the next one is hours. So cron warns me with a popup message box warning me to Plugin my External HDD for Backup and 5 minutes later my Backup starts. If you want to keep a weekly or monthly [not recommended!] backup instead, create your cron line easily using this.

After this save it and exit, check if the entry was created:

sudo crontab -l $USER

You may need to restart cron daemon:

sudo /etc/rc.d/crond restart

Or init.d, whatever your system uses. You can even reboot if you want to.

Also make sure all the scripts have execute permissions on them:

sudo chmod +x ~/.rsync/* 

Enjoy! 🙂

[conv] Why Slackers are labeled as geeks and ubuntuers as n00bs?

A conversation in LinuxQuestions forum I thought was worth sharing:

Hi Forum,
Being rather ecletic relating to “the best distro” to do a job… used several already, from RHEL/Fedoras to Suses, Ubuntus/Debians, and now Slackware… I never understood something…
Why ppl get tagged because of using Distro X, and not Distro Y…. ?
For instance, among ppl that knows I use Slackware, I am “deemed” as an arrogant person, by those that do not know me that well… some colleagues of mine that use Ubuntu, are deemed as n00bs, ppl that use FreeBSD are deemed Ultimate Geeks… etc…

Why is that so….?

Arrogant… ? how come…? conservative, maybe, reliability-fundamendalist, sure… but… “arrogant” …?

Don-t understand… don’t know enough of Distro History…. can someone please explain…?

BRGDS

Alex

Arch Linux Handbook now in Print!

Arch linux Handbook

Good news to fellow Archers and those who wanted to install Arch Linux for so long, but shunned the idea by seeing the gigantic Beginner’s Guide. It is quite tedious, to keep a console browser running in another terminal, and having to scroll down every time you would want to start an installation step. Reading the entire guide at once and then installing is also unachievable. Your only option is to print the entire guide, pages after pages. There is an easy and affordable alternative solution to all these. Thanks to Dusty Philips‘s effort to compile and edit the entire Arch Linux Beginner’s Guide, which includes step by step installation procedures along-with detailed descriptions.  Even if you are an existing Arch Linux user, buying this will be a good contribution towards Arch, so please consider buying it. This book will alleviate the so called “mighty setup process” of Arch Linux and make it easier for even new Linux users to boast of an Arch Linux installation.

Order book from here.

Publication Date: Oct 06 2009

ISBN/EAN13: 1448699606 / 9781448699605

Page Count: 166

Binding Type: US Trade Paper

Trim Size: 5.5″ x 8.5″

Language: English

Color: Black and White

[howto] Enable/Disable GRUB Password

NOTE: This is not a rock solid secured way of disabling access to your pc. But atleast for those “Windoze users” who have no clue wtf is a grub, it’s going to be pretty effective! I’m going to teach you how to enable as well as disable grub password.

Enable GRUB password:

1. Open terminal and type as root:

# cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.backup

2. Now that your GRUB is backed up. Type:

# grub

grub> md5crypt

Password: ******** [Type in the password that you want to encrypt!]

Now copy the encrypted message it gives you!

grub> quit

3. Open /boot/grub/menu.lst.backup and paste the message after initrd line. If you have a number of Grub entries , you must paste it [or use a different encrypted password using the above method] for every entry that you want to password protect! Use it like this:

title           Debian GNU/Linux, squeeze/sid
root            (hd0,1)
kernel          /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.30-1-amd64 root=/dev/hda2 ro splash quiet vga=791
initrd          /boot/initrd.img-2.6.30-1-amd64

password – -md5 gasgd6876b2dsd2d/

paste the code after “password – -md5”

Note: Since wordpress has the weird habit of showing double hyphen as a single large one, I put a space in between the two, you just need to put two hyphens without any space in between!

Disable/Hack GRUB password:

1. You need a Linux live CD for this.

2. Insert the CD and boot from it.

3. In command line [or if you’re using ubuntu cd 😛 open a terminal and type]:

$ su

# fdisk -l [to check the name of the root directory]

# mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/sda2 /mnt

[change ext3 to ext4 and /dev/sda2 according o the fdisk -l output]

# chroot /mnt /bin/bash

# nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

Now just remove the password line from the grub menu. 😛 Simple eh? Now save , unmount the partition and reboot!