IT Gang - A place for tips and tricks

Ok! As promissed, here are some of the coolest PC vs Mac vs Linux commercials:



This video is one of my favorites from the series. Is made with SouthPark characters. Check out the last part of the movie credits where they say "created on a Mac AND a PC because one just isn't enough"...



This following video is a series of multiple commercials for Mac (Mac vs PC series). It has about 7:40 so take your time, but every one is fun to watch :)

Since I installed my brand new Fedora 10 distribution a while ago I was unable to use Skype for more than just a chat engine. I had no sound and no recording device, so I was unable to call my friends. And since I am using Pidgin as a Yahoo Messenger replacement on Linux, which I am not really familiar (or fond on the other hand), I was getting a little frustrated of the silence and loneliness surrounding me.

Today I decided to fix this matter so I started searching for what to do to enable Skype sound. I found many threads, but none of which really fixed the issue. In the end, I started the plain old fashioned way of testing the configurations one by one to see which will work. And eventually, I did find the right one. I make a succesfull Skype test call to echo123 and also called one of my friends, Paul (thankx), to confirm that my "out-of-the-barrel" sounding is gone forever!

Please note that because of the many things I tried before getting this to work, I might miss something from this process. If this will not fix the Skype sound for you too, then what you can try is to remove the "Alsa to PulseAudio backend" (alsa-plugins-pulseaudio-1.0.18-2.fc10) rpm (I did it using the System->Administration->Add/Remove Software GUI tool, search for "alsa").

Ok, so I set my audio settings to look like the image below (System->Preferences->Hardware->Sound):



Then, in Skype Options (right click the tray icon, choose "Options", then in the left select "Sound devices") you should have something like below:



Again, this is not a general tutorial, guide or FAQ about how to enable Skype sound/mic, this is what worked for me and might also work for you. If you have problems, leave your comment and maybe we can sort it out for you too.

When I first found out about Linux, it was during one of my High School classes. We were using a text based Internet browser to navigate the world wide web. Oh, those days were beautiful! No worries, no cash, just pure old fashioned teenager fun! :)

Since then, I had always thought of Linux based systems as being a very simple text based window in which you type commands and hope to correctly interpret the text results printed on the screen. Many of my friends still see Linux as a "geek" thing, something that needs to be fed with lots and lots of text commands in order to do just a simple task. Way not user friendly in what all Windows users are used to.

But now that I have installed my own Fedora distribution and started using it on a daily basis, I keep getting amassed how simple things really are and how similar to what I had been trained for so long in my Windows days :)



In the first couple of days after I installed my brand new, soon to become old (since the release of Fedora 11), Fedora 10 distribution, I had convinced myself to learn and use the terminal and learn as many commands as I can so I can, someday, rule the Linux World. As I needed to perform an action, I would search for the proper command to use, learn how to use it, and then write it down on a paper to remember. I filled this way both sides of an A4. But today, a couple of weeks since my Fedora installation, I realized that I am no longer using the commands I laid on that paper, nor am I using the terminal. I do get prompted for the root password on a daily basis, for the administrative tasks, but no more Mr. Terminal for me.

What is the explanation for that? Simple: I discovered the UI tools that do most of what I need (actually even more than I need) so I am now back in the world of mouse moving and clicking, no need for commands anymore. I far far away of being a Linux master, but I am one of those who actually enjoyed MS Dos and the command prompt in Windows. Still, I do not feel the need to use commands on a daily basis, I prefer to use the visual tools that allow a more user friendly interaction. And since I am a Linux novice, user friendliness is exactly what I need!

If I were one of the Discovery's Myth Busters, I would say a BIG "BUSTED" to the "Linux is a text based commands geek tool" myth. This to say at least, because I find the Windows equivalent UI tools to be even better than what I was used to on Windows. Just take a look at the System Monitor tools (monitors CPU, RAM, HDD usage, processes, etc.):



And another screen shot:



One cool feature that I remembered now (because of the two above screen shots) is that on Windows, when you print screen, you need to open Paint and paste, then save the image. On Fedora, you are automatically prompted to save the file. You can also copy it to clipboard if that's your desire:



To conclude this post I would ask you to always try something before you jump with conclusions. I know this is an old advice, but the least you can do is ask around about Linux before you categorize it as a text based tool.

Well, if you've read my previous post you probably know that I am the proud owner of a brand new Linux machine! Yeeeee!

So, as a Linux newbie, my next question after installing Linux was: how to protect myself and my computer against computer viruses?

Believe it or not, the most answers you get when asking "what is the best Linux antivirus" is: LINUX! No, don't laugh, it's not a joke! It really seems that you don't need an antivirus when running Linux. Yes, you need one if you are running a server based linux, used as an email server (for example) in order to clean the viruses from emails so that the WINDOWS based end users (the person whom the email is addressed to) reads the email...

Confused already? :) Let me put it this way: Person A sends an email containing a virus to Person B. The email server, Server E, will scan the email from A and remove the virus, so that when B reads the email, his Windows PC will not be infected. If you have a linux server (Server E in this example) you need an antivirus. If not, you don't need one.

Yes, there is malware for Linux, but in order to allow such a program inside your PC you really need to allow it to access it. As you can read in the post "How to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps" ( http://www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/6229 ), it's fairly simple to write a malware. Please be aware of the difference between the term "VIRUS" and "MALWARE". (If I got this right) A malware is an application that a user installs on his/her PC and which causes damage/propagation/bad things to that user's PC. A virus is a malware that installs itself, without the user's "agreement" (intervention) on one's PC.

So writing a Linux malware is very simple, but convincing a Linux user to blindly double-click on an email attachement to install the malware is ... well, usually not that easy :)

In conclusion, it really seems that you don't need an antivirus when running Linux, which is indeed a comforting though. But remember to keep an eye open on the "evil looking" email attachements. They just might ruin your faith in Linux, and if they do, you're the only one to blame!

Lately, I've been thinking a lot on migrating to linux, but I was never forced to do it. I had my "linux testing periods" when I would install one of the (too) many Linux distributions and play with it for a while... Then, I would forget my root password (you can imagine how frequently I accessed my Linux partition in order to forget the root pass...) so I would either just leave it installed but never use it, or I would simply format the hard drive and move on...

I couple of months ago I started working on my own, being my own BOSS, taking the full responsibility for my actions and income (negative income so far, but ask me again in a few months :) ). Being an employee I have never given a dam on the licenses my work computer has, legal or not, expired trials or now (I know, BAD BOY - yes, I am). But from now on, every decision I make would affect me on legal terms as well, so that gave me a little thinking subject...

So I decided to go over to the other side and use free / open source software. Many people would say "Congrats!" other would say "Why not pay for licenses?". I plan on posting a post that shows a comparison between paid/free software doing (almost) the same thing, but bare with me, I still have a lot more to learn in this new (for me) environment.

Anyway, to wrap things up, I installed Fedora 10 on my Dell 6400 (Intel Dual Core, 1.6GHz, 512MB RAM, 40GB HDD, shared on-board video board). The install went fine, pretty smooth, kind'of like the Windows installer. That was great, since I was hoping to find more similarities between Windows and Linux, so I would still feel like home on my PC :)

But after the install, and after my initial "hello linux" good feelings, the frustration strated taking over... I struggled for about 5 hours (hey, I'm a linux newbie, don't expect too much from me, but I do have A LOT OF PATIENCE!). The problem was my wireless card was not detecting any wireless network, although I had properly setup and test my wifi on multiple Windows systems, including my Dell. After hours and hours of despair, I finally found out that it was the "Network Manager" that was broken, not my PC. Some guy (I thank you, although I don't remember the name/link) suggested on a forum post to update the whole linux to the latest version (yum update). I did that, took about 10 min to download ~450MB, then it took about ~2hours to install the updates, but eventually it finished. And VOILA! A brand new Network Manager, that is able to save your settings and has options to input different types of key encryption (WEP/WPA, etc.) AND accepts ASCII keys! Brilliant, simply brilliant!

I was so happy to see it (my new Linux) work that I started learning more and more about it, and getting more excited about my new Fedora Dell! So people, if you want to install a Linux distro, you can start with Fedora 11 :) I hope it saves some of the "fun" I had with my wifi. But if you decide to go with Fedora 10, please, please, PLEASE run "yum update" as the first thing you do, it will save you a lot of hair, nerves and time!

Will come back later with small newbie articles on some of the "Linux must know" commands. I have now just installed my first Wordpress blog inside lampp so I have to go back to what my new job is: web development under Linux!

See ya!

PS: I happily announce that this post has been written on my new Fedora 10 PC, running Firefox. No more Explorer error for me from now on ('till I will have to test one of my pages in IE :P )