phoxis GNU+Linux+FOSS, Reviews

CDlinux

CDlinux logo

In the world of minimalist GNU/Linux distributions, we introduce you to CDlinux, which originated in the People’s Republic of China, in 1999. Four years later, in 2003, the first public release, version 0.4.2, came out. The latest version 0.9.5, which was released on December 02, 2009, is a mere 62 MB.

CDlinux, or Compact Distro Linux, was primarily intended for systems administrators as a systems rescue tool. But it can also be used as a bare minimum portable desktop OS and as a customisable OS base. The default desktop environment is Xfce (currently 4.6.1) with the Thunar file manager, thus ensuring CDlinux cuts out the fat. The whole distro loads on the RAM, so the access is rapid. The official edition’s RAM requirement is only 64 MB. CDlinux is capable of booting from CD/DVD and HDD. It also supports USB and IEEE1394 interfaces for booting. Continue reading to know more about CDlinux
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phoxis Computer Science, Linux / Unix Shell

CD Tray Open/Close infinite loop

Just feel the annoyance and irritation when the CD tray of your computer opens and closes, opens and closes, again and again, again and again, and does not stop until you shut down the computer. We will be writing a tiny shell script with which we would do the above stuff. Although this is very cruel if you apply this to some one, then please be sure to fix it before he/she shoots you with a 50 caliber rifle. So keep on reading to know how to make the simple script to make an infinite CD-ROM tray open close loop in GNU+Linux

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phoxis Computer Science, GNU+Linux+FOSS, Overview, Tutorials

Beginners Guide to GCC

GCC is the default compiler in the GNU+Linux systems, and is used to compile small applications, big softwares, and the kernel. Often beginners are overwhelmed with the amount of information provided in the gcc manual. This tutorial highlights the most useful commands and describes how to use them, how to read warnings and errors from the compiler output and compile the C Language sourcecodes with gcc. This tutorial does not cover advanced options and topics, in depth details are avoided. This tutorial will give the basic idea, and after reading this i hope that the manual pages would be easier to read.

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phoxis Computer Science, GNU+Linux+FOSS, Linux / Unix Shell, Tutorials

Split and Join Files

A lot of time we need to carry large sized files and we do not have enough space in a single media. At that time we need to split the large file into several small ones and then carry them in separate media. Also small files are very useful in uploading a large file for sharing or backup in online storage services. Here is a very simple way how you can split a large file in several equally sized small ones in Linux/Unix and again join them in Linux/Unix or in Microsoft Windows.

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phoxis GNU+Linux+FOSS, Tutorials

Restoring GRUB Bootloader

A lot of times we loose GRUB from the MBR of the hard-disk, for a lot different causes, like file-system damage, Microsoft Windows eating it up and etc. Many people try to reinstall the full GNU+Linux distro as a solution to this. Here is the normal method how you can restore your grub boot-loader into your MBR or in your Partition. Read on.

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phoxis GNU+Linux+FOSS, Tutorials

Making a Multi Booting CD DVD USB

Introduction

Everybody likes to use, test and hack with the mini distros, but no one likes to burn a CD for each one because they only takes a small fraction of the CD space resulting in low resource utilization and increases junk. What if we could keep all the distros in one single CD or even keep all the distros in one USB drive and boot the distros directly from there through an interactive menu system ? Yes that’s what we are going to do! We are going to pack 7 mini distros into one CD/DVD or USB ready-to-boot, and can carry them around in our pocket, booting any distro, anywhere, anytime, any place.

In this guide we will show you how to pack 7 distros into one CD, DVD or USB and make it bootable. This guide is written primarily for a CD or DVD, but we have also shown how this can be done with a USB flash drive. We will pack all the below GNU+Linux distros into a CD and USB drive, and make a multi booting multi OS CD/DVD/USB:

  1. PuppyLinux read review >>
  2. GeexBox read review >>
  3. Slitaz
  4. Goblinx (mini)
  5. Austrumi
  6. CDlinux (standard) read review >>
  7. Damn Small Linux (DSL)

So don’t wait, get the job done. Keep on reading.
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phoxis Computer Science, Linux / Unix Shell

Linux / Unix Shell Commands: Problems and Solutions (1st issue)

This is the first issue of the “Linux / Unix Shell Commands: Problems and Solutions” series. This issue features the questions taken from different year question papers of Computer Science Honours, Part II Practical examination of Calcutta University, India, Kolkata. This section carries 5 marks. When going through the papers I noticed that the questions were repeated in different years. Also there were common questions in different groups in the same year. I have tried by best to solve the questions and kept it as simple as possible. Each solution comes with a description of what the sequence of commands do. I have also provided more than one solution where applicable.

A note for the students: Please do not try to remember each and every command without understanding how they work. If you do not know the commands it is recommended that first learn the basics and know what the commands do. Refer any standard text book, the command manual pages, or the GNU website. If anything cannot be understood in this solution refer the man pages, if any mistake is found please leave a comment or contact me. The main intention of this solution is to act as a ready reference to save time.

Update Information: Updated at 17.03.2012

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phoxis GNU+Linux+FOSS, Tutorials

Triple Boot Your iPod

iPod Linux is an operating system for Apple iPod. Like any other Linux operating systems, it is free, and open source. A lot of modules, are available,a lot of user interfaces, i.e the podzilla are available for selection. Currently it supports most of the iPod generations, except the newest ones. Rockbox is another OS, free and open source. iPodlinux is in the development phase, so a lot of things lacks, like the music has problems. Rockbox has good stable releases, with has very good feedbacks, and no problems to use. Both of them keeps developing, and a good future of iPod’s optional OSes can be seen, which make good utilizations of the hardware, and can cross the limitations which the Apple OS enforces. In this guide we will manually install iPodLinux and Rockbox along with the inbuilt Apple OS in an iPod Nano 1G using the latest iPodLinux Kernel and all. So get going and continue reading the whole article and triple boot your ipod.
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