Linux

Various Unix-like operating system implementations like Linux and pretty much anything that has the GNU suite includes the bc basic calculator language. Its syntax is very similar to the C programming language. You can use it as a hex calculator right from the command line, so you won’t ever need …

Learning the differences of how to use the terminology Unix vs Linux is a great way to start a flame war. Some people consider these issues to be extremely important from a political standpoint. New users will certainly want some primer to go by, so it’s safe to say that …

Generally, when you use the mkdir Linux make directory command you create a single subdirectory that lives in whatever directory your prompt is currently sitting in. If you were in ~/Documents and you typed mkdir Memoranda, then you’d create a single directory called Memoranda that lived in ~/Documents. You don’t …

The Unix epoch started at 00:00:00 UTC on Thursday, January 1, 1970. Ever since then Unix systems have kept track of time by counting the number of seconds since that date occurred. Unix, and the various implementations like Linux and FreeBSD, keep track of time as a literal number of …

If you need to find MAC address numbers for any network interface attached to your computer, then Linux makes this quite easy. Each computer network interface receives a unique Media Access Control (MAC) address, which explains what device it belongs to. No two MAC addresses are alike. Users with multiple …

If you use FreeBSD, then you might see the following error when you’re trying to compile C code – configure: error: GNU make is required! Assuming that you’re already working on a command line interface as this error would generally only appear in such, you’d probably try to change into …

There are many reasons you might want to create a file on a quick and easy basis in Linux with as little playing around as possible. You might want to make a placeholder for something you plan to put in later on. Many programs require a single blank file present …

If you’re used to using Microsoft Windows or some other different Linux distribution, then you might be confused when you attempt to take a screenshot on Lubuntu 16.04 or any of the versions that come out after it. Since 16.04 and 16.04.2 are long-term releases, you shouldn’t see any drastic …

When you work with Linux, FreeBSD or other Unix implementations, you’ll often see files that end in .tar and may even have other extensions after it. Even some experienced users don’t know the simple way to extract these from a command line. Some users who are used to working purely …

You’ll often need to find the exact version of Linux you’re running if you need to update or reinstall anything. There’s a single Linux version command that will tell you most of what you need to know, and it will take an absolute minimum of time to run it. Finding …

If you’re working at the Linux command line and you need to remove an empty directory that you don’t use any longer, then all you have to do is type rmdir followed by the name of the directory. For instance, typing rmdir Test will remove the Test directory if it’s …

A symbolic link, also called a soft link or even sometimes a symlink, is essentially a file that contains a reference to some other file and allows you to access it without entering the full path of the original file. You can link to regular files or directories, and many …

One of the most basic tricks when authoring bash scripts involves making a loop so that you can have a certain task executed automatically several times over. Eventually, the loop will reach a predetermined test condition and suddenly cease to execute. Loops like these will work perfectly in bash on …

The XML Paper Specification is a comparatively open page description language that resembles Postscript to some degree. It’s used somewhat often on various types of Microsoft devices, but you won’t see it very much on Unix systems. Some Linux users turn to Google Drive and Google Docs to edit XPS …

Generally you can expect a USB device to work as soon as you plug it into a machine running any modern distribution of GNU/Linux. Everything from Debian to openSUSE can usually identify any USB device you plug into it and activate it as long as it can find a suitable …

TeamViewer is a popular application for those who want to remotely connect to different workstations in order to exchange data, messages, and conversations with other users. It’s one of the leading programs in the Microsoft Windows segment for this purpose. Some users have found that they can use it successfully …

Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) files are giant files that emulate the use of physical media on VirtualBox and some other virtual x86/x86_64 emulators. This lets you run Windows, OS X, MS-DOS, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, OS/2 or even other versions of Linux inside your Linux distribution. These files don’t let you directly …

You might want to watch an MP4 or AVI video in the GNOME Media Player. Perhaps you prefer listening to music in Audacious, VLC Media Player, Parole or something more exotic. Fortunately, you can change which media player Linux defaults to for each file type individually or as a whole. …

The PATH environment variable specifies a set of directories where your commands go, and if you type a command with nothing else in front of it the Linux shell looks for it in one of these directories. You can always type echo $PATH at the command line to see a …

When the Sony PS3 was released, it was shipped with support for Linux installation on the console. This was later removed in updates, and the idea was scrapped entirely with the PS4. However, there exists a method to get Linux running on the PS4, and you can even play PC …

Linux users who are used to working with music files from the command line might already be using ffmpeg, but it’s difficult to extract just the length of a file using this otherwise powerful tool. There are a few ways to use it, but there are also a few other …

Linux file browsers behave much like File Explorer under Windows or the Finder under OS X in that sorting directories by size doesn’t work quite the way that many users would expect it to. You can sort directories by the number of subdirectories that they contain or the number of …

Most users of Linux on any device that has a keyboard knows the Alt+Tab shortcut. It’s a common one on many types of operating systems today, but it generally only moves applications in a single direction. Some programmers have to sort through their windows in the exact order they appear …

Users who’ve installed fonts but can’t see them in any of their applications may need to update the font cache so they render properly. There might also be a problem with the installation or even the file that contains the font itself. More commonly a program might be attempting to …

You can easily generate a random number at the bash prompt, which you can then use to set said number as a variable. This is useful for everything from writing certain types of scripts to running tabletop roleplaying adventures. Whether you might be writing a D&D campaign or authoring a …