Computers Sometimes Crash

Computers Sometimes Crash

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket at a port,

And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,

And the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,

Then the packet pocket socket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,

And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,

And your data are corrupted ‘cos the index doesn’t hash,

Then your situation’s hopeless and your system’s gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,

Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,

But your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,

That’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,

So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;

Then you may as well reboot and let it go out with a bang,

‘cos as sure as Bob’s your uncle, the sucker’s gonna hang.

When the copy on your floppy’s getting sloppy in the disk,

And the macro code instructions cause unnecessary risk,

Then you’ll have to flash the memory and you’ll want to RAM your ROM,

And then quick turn off the P.C. and be sure to tell your mum

To stay clear out of your room, because the bugger’s sure to bomb!

If a packet hits a pocket on a socket at a port,

And the bus is interrupted as a very last resort,

And the access of the memory makes your floppy disk abort,

Then the packet pocket socket has an error to report.

If your cursor finds a menu item followed by a dash,

And the double-clicking icon puts your window in the trash,

And your data are corrupted ‘cos the index doesn’t hash,

Then your situation’s hopeless and your system’s gonna crash!

If the label on the cable on the table at your house,

Says the network is connected to the button on your mouse,

But your packets want to tunnel to another protocol,

That’s repeatedly rejected by the printer down the hall.

And your screen is all distorted by the side effects of gauss,

So your icons in the window are as wavy as a souse;

Then you may as well reboot and let it go out with a bang,

‘cos as sure as Bob’s your uncle, the sucker’s gonna hang.

When the copy on your floppy’s getting sloppy in the disk,

And the macro code instructions cause unnecessary risk,

Then you’ll have to flash the memory and you’ll want to RAM your ROM,

And then quick turn off the P.C. and be sure to tell your mum

To stay clear out of your room, because the bugger’s sure to bomb!

Norton Internet Security For Windows 8

Norton Internet Security For Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Filed under Software

Norton is a popular antivirus and internet security provider for systems. They are providing data and PC protection for homes, small businesses and online stores. After launching of Windows 8 consumer preview companies are started to give software’s compatible with Windows8.  Recently kaspersky launched Kaspersky Internet security  2013 for windows 8.

Norton released their latest version of  Norton internet security 2012 which is compatible with windows 8 consumer preview. This new version of Norton 2012 is coming with a lot of new features. And you can use free trial version for 60 days. Norton is also one of the widely used internet security program. I did used Norton internet security for almost one year.

Benefits and Features of Norton Internet Security 2012

Benefits

• Stop viruses, spyware, and online identity theft

• Browse, shop, bank, and socialize online without worry

• Enjoy your favorite online activities safely, without annoying slowdowns or disruptions

• Protect your kids when they go online with award-winning Norton Online Family 

• Get up and running fast with quick setup and easy-to-use features

 Features

• Norton Protection System:

provides four unique layers of powerful protection to proactively stop online threats before they can infect your computer.

• Insight 

• Download Insight 2.0

• Norton Safe Web 

• Norton Management 

• Parental controls management 

• Network threat protection 

• Browser protection 

• SONAR 4 Behavioral Protection 

• Norton Safe Web for Facebook 

scans your News Feed for dangerous downloads and links to unsafe websites and warns you and your Facebook friends about them.

• FREE 24×7 support 

offers you expert help and answers by phone, live chat or online when you need them.

• Vulnerability protection 

• Norton Identity Safe 

• Antiphishing technology

• Bandwidth management

• Norton Pulse Updates

• Email and instant message monitoring

• Smart two-way firewall 

• Professional-strength spam blocking 

• Network mapping and monitoring 

• Norton Bootable Recovery Tool 

• Silent mode 

• Norton Control Center 

• Smart scheduler

• Monthly report 

• Power saver settings 
  

maximizes your laptop’s battery life by putting off non-critical activities until your computer is plugged in.
Before downloading make sure that your system is working smoothly with  windows 8 OS. Remember Norton internet security is compatible with earlier versions of Windows OS.
Download Norton Internet Security For Windows 8  
Best Antivirus Programs for 2012

MAC address

Tips on how to find a MAC address, Identifying Unknown Devices, DHCP, and more.

When you think about networking, IP addresses are probably the first things that come to mind. But there’s another type of network address called a MAC address that actually forms the foundation upon which IP address communication is built, at least where local area networks are concerned.

What Is a MAC Address?

A MAC (Media Access Control) address, sometimes referred to as a hardware address or physical address, is an ID code that’s assigned to a network adapter or any device with built-in networking capability, such as a printer. While an IP address can potentially be assigned to any device, a MAC address is “burned into” a given device from the factory. A MAC address takes the form of six pairs of hexadecimal digits, usually separated by colons or dashes and will look something like this: 01:1F:33:69:BC:14. Hexadecimal digits can include only the numbers 0-9 and letters A-F.

The first three pairs of digits in the MAC address are called the OUI (Organizational Unique Identifier), which identifies the company that manufactured or sold the device. For example, a MAC address that begins with 00:1F:33 denotes a Netgear product. The last three pairs of digits are specific to the device and can be more or less considered a serial number of sorts. Together, the two parts of the MAC address form an ID that’s unique to a particular device.

To understand how MAC addresses are used, first consider that when you type http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com into your Web browser, it can’t get there until a DNS (Domain Name Service) server looks up the corresponding IP address for the Web site allowing a connection to take place. While MAC addresses don’t have any real significance on the Internet, they’re used in a similar way on a LAN (local area network).

Given that IP addresses can’t be permanently assigned to a device — after all, a particular address can belong to one computer today and another one tomorrow — MAC addresses allow communication between devices on a local network by making it possible to reliably distinguish one computer from another. Just as DNS matches a Web site name to an IP address on the Internet, a technology called ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) matches an IP address to the corresponding MAC address of a specific device to which that IP address is currently assigned.

TCP/IP NETWORK

TCP/IP NETWORK

Introduction to TCP/IP Networks:

TCP/IP-based networks play an increasingly important role in computer networks. Perhaps one reason for their appeal is that they are based on an open specification that is not controlled by any vendor.

What Is TCP/IP?

TCP stands for Transmission Control Protocol and IP stands for Internet Protocol. The term TCP/IP is not limited just to these two protocols, however. Frequently, the term TCP/IP is used to refer to a group of protocols related to the TCP and IP protocols such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Terminal Emulation Protocol (TELNET), and so on.

The Origins of TCP/IP

In the late 1960s, DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency), in the United States, noticed that there was a rapid proliferation of computers in military communications. Computers, because they can be easily programmed, provide flexibility in achieving network functions that is not available with other types of communications equipment. The computers then used in military communications were manufactured by different vendors and were designed to interoperate with computers from that vendor only. Vendors used proprietary protocols in their communications equipment. The military had a multi vendor network but no common protocol to support the heterogeneous equipment from different vendors

Net work Cables and Stuff:

In the network you will commonly find three types of cables used these are the, coaxial cable, fiber optic and twisted pair.

Thick Coaxial Cable

This type cable is usually yellow in color and used in what is called thicknets, and has two conductors. This coax can be used in 500-meter lengths. The cable itself is made up of a solid center wire with a braided metal shield and plastic sheathing protecting the rest of the wire.

Thin Coaxial Cable

As with the thick coaxial cable is used in thicknets the thin version is used in thinnets. This type cable is also used called or referred to as RG-58. The cable is really just a cheaper version of the thick cable.

Fiber Optic Cable

As we all know fiber optics are pretty darn cool and not cheap. This cable is smaller and can carry a vast amount of information fast and over long distances.

Twisted Pair Cables

These come in two flavors of unshielded and shielded.

Shielded Twisted Pair (STP)

Is more common in high-speed networks. The biggest difference you will see in the UTP and STP is that the STP use’s metallic shield wrapping to protect the wire from interference.

-Something else to note about these cables is that they are defined in numbers also. The bigger the number the better the protection from interference. Most networks should go with no less than a CAT 3 and CAT 5 is most recommended.

-Now you know about cables we need to know about connectors. This is pretty important and you will most likely need the RJ-45 connector. This is the cousin of the phone jack connector and looks real similar with the exception that the RJ-45 is bigger. Most commonly your connector are in two flavors and this is BNC (Bayonet Naur Connector) used in thicknets and the RJ-45 used in smaller networks using UTP/STP.

Unshielded Twisted Pair (UTP)

This is the most popular form of cables in the network and the cheapest form that you can go with. The UTP has four pairs of wires and all inside plastic sheathing. The biggest reason that we call it Twisted Pair is to protect the wires from interference from themselves. Each wire is only protected with a thin plastic sheath.

Ethernet Cabling

Now to familiarize you with more on the Ethernet and it’s cabling we need to look at the 10’s. 10Base2, is considered the thin Ethernet, thinnet, and thinwire which uses light coaxial cable to create a 10 Mbps network. The cable segments in this network can’t be over 185 meters in length. These cables connect with the BNC connector. Also as a note these unused connection must have a terminator, which will be a 50-ohm terminator.

10Base5, this is considered a thicknet and is used with coaxial cable arrangement such as the BNC connector. The good side to the coaxial cable is the high-speed transfer and cable segments can be up to 500 meters between nodes/workstations. You will typically see the same speed as the 10Base2 but larger cable lengths for more versatility.

10BaseT, the “T” stands for twisted as in UTP (Unshielded Twisted Pair) and uses this for 10Mbps of transfer. The down side to this is you can only have cable lengths of 100 meters

between nodes/workstations. The good side to this network is they are easy to set up and cheap! This is why they are so common an ideal for small offices or homes.

100BaseT, is considered Fast Ethernet uses STP (Shielded Twisted Pair) reaching data transfer of 100Mbps. This system is a little more expensive but still remains popular as the 10BaseT and cheaper than most other type networks. This on of course would be the cheap fast version.

10BaseF, this little guy has the advantage of fiber optics and the F stands for just that. This arrangement is a little more complicated and uses special connectors and NIC’s along with hubs to create its network. Pretty darn neat and not to cheap on the wallet.

An important part of designing and installing an Ethernet is selecting the appropriate Ethernet medium. There are four major types of media in use today: Thickwire for 10BASE5 networks, thin coax for 10BASE2 networks, unshielded twisted pair (UTP) for 10BASE-T networks and fiber optic for 10BASE-FL or Fiber-Optic Inter-Repeater Link (FOIRL) networks. This wide variety of media reflects the evolution of Ethernet and also points to the technology’s flexibility. Thickwire was one of the first cabling systems used in Ethernet but was expensive and difficult to use. This evolved to thin coax, which is easier to work with and less expensive.

Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth NFC Speaker Review

Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth NFC Speaker Review

 We got sent in a Nokia Play 360 Bluetooth speaker to check out last month, and after a long and vicious trial here’s what we thought of it!

The Design:

Available in Black, White, and Blue, the Nokia Play 360 (MD-50W) was initially launched to compliment the NFC capabilities of Nokia’s latest Symbian Belle devices and the MeeGo N9. It’s meant to be a simple, no-fuss portable speaker that you can just dump into a backpack and carry around.

At just 514 grams of weight, and measuring 110 x 110 x 124mm, it’s not too heavy at all and can fit into a handbag quite easily. There’s an aluminum design casing all around the speaker, which might fool you into thinking that it’s the source of the 360 degree sound resonating from the Play 360.
In actuality though, the speaker is at the top, covered with a light mesh membrane with ‘NFC’ embossed on it.

At the front, you have the matt-silver volume buttons, and a Bluetooth key at the bottom, which also acts as a battery indicator and pairing indicator.

At the back, you have a 3.5mm audio jack, a microUSB port for charging, and a power button to switch it on or off. The indicator glows blue when paired, and white when not.

The Sound Quality:

The Play 360 features a 2.5 inch peerless full range driver, with a max output of 75 dB. That’s not too bad at all, all things considering.

If you’re using a single speaker, you will ofcourse, have mono sound though (or as Nokia calls it ‘360 degrees omni-directional sound’), but if that’s important to you, you can always just get another Play 360 and pair them together using the built-in NFC for stereo sound.

In terms of Volume Output, the Play 360 can very easily fill a room. This is mostly due to the fact that the sound driver is omnidirectional instead of straight. For those of you that like technical specs, there’s a frequency response of 86 – 21,000 Hz and total harmonic distortion (THD) at nominal power of < 2% at 200 mV input signal. And about 2.1Watts of power.
It’s not something you’d want for a rave or house party, but for a couple friends over, or a picnic or dinner party, it’s just perfect. We only had one unit so we couldnt get the stereo effect unfortch.

Judging from the single speaker, bass levels are a little low, but come on, what were you expecting from a speaker this size? There’s a bass reflex chamber that helps make sure the deep tones are richer than on most other external speaker we’ve listened to. All that being said, Voices came in clear and loud, with no distortions in music even at the loudest setting. Impressive. We tested the Play 360 with a variety of different music genres, and considering the size, it really was quite amazing.

The NFC:

We had a Nokia 701 on hand to check out how easy it was to pair with the speaker using NFC. You dont need to even think about going into the phone’s settings menu, just tap the 701 (or basically any phone/tablet with NFC) to the top of the Play 360 speakers where “NFC” is written, and both the speakers and the device will indicate that they’ve been paired with each other.

You can pair via Bluetooth as well, which isnt hard but is the same basic procedure where you set the Play 360 to pairing mode, then go into your phone’s bluetooth settings, find the Play 360 and pair with it, yada yada. Not as convenient and quick as “Just Tap” pairing using NFC, but it gets the job done. We noticed the Play 360 paired just fine over Bluetooth with almost anything, iPad, Android or Windows Phone, but was a bit picky with the iPhone 4S.

The Battery Life:

The Play 360 offers an impressive ‘up to’ 21 hours of playback time powered by a Nokia BL-5C Battery. In our tests, the speaker kept going and going for just about the same period. The speakers also have a power saving mode when it’s inactive for over an hour.

The Extra thoughts:

It’s also worth mentioning, that if you get a second Play 360 speaker, you can basically use them both simultaneously as a stereo ‘surround’ sound setup. I asked the product manager at Nokia World 2011, if you could hook four of them up for surround sound, but that wasnt possible it seems.

Another thing that’s worth pointing out, is that if you have a device that does not have Bluetooth or NFC, for example the classic iPod, you can still use the Play 360 with the line-in wire.

Also, it was a bit of a bummer that the Play 360 doesnt have a microphone built-in. If you receive an incoming call while you’re playing music, the speaker will automatically mute the music while you answer you call on your phone. Once you finish, the music fades in. It would have been nice to use it as an external speakerphone of sorts, but it’s not that big a deal to me.

The Conclusion:

There’s not much to dislike about the Nokia Play 360. It does what it’s supposed to do, and it does it well. The pairing procedure is easy and everything just works. What’s not to like?

I’d say it’s definitely recommendable if you’re looking for a wireless speaker for your mobile devices. Currently costs about $130-$150 on various online/offline retailers. If you’re looking for a cheaper, wired alternative, there’s the Nokia MD-11, but ofcourse the sound quality isnt anywhere as good as the 360. Or if you have extra dough, you could go for the Bose Soundlink speakers, which cost a lot more but have better sound quality to boot.

At the end of the day though, the Nokia Play 360 turned out to be one of my favorite pieces of tech so far this year. There’s no messy wires, it can be paired with practically anything, the sound quality is pretty great for it’s size, and the battery life is really impressive. What’s not to like?

Words With Friends

‘Draw Something’ tops ‘Words With Friends,’ to become the most popular Facebook Connect mobile game

According to the latest stats from AppData, the ub3r popular ‘Draw Something‘ has become even more popular than ‘Words with Friends‘ in terms of games using Facebook Connect.

The Pictionary-style game is now the most-played game with Facebook Connect, which according to AppData’s measure of daily active users puts them at around 12.2 million users a day. Which is quite a load more than the 8 million daily users that Words with Friends managed. The addictive game was developed by OMGPOP and launched last month, but even though the formula to the way it works is so simple, it shows no signs of slowing down in terms of users. I see more and more of my Facebook friends popping up on it every day.
And yup, I’m addicted to it. Available for iOS and Android. No windows phone version unfortch.

Apple had “Record Weekend” launch of the new iPad

Apple had “Record Weekend” launch of the new iPad

 During their conference call with today’s announcement, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook stated that the company had a “record weekend” with the launch of the new iPad.

Ofcourse the CEO didnt elaborate any further on that, or any sales figures, but Apple loves to send out post-launch press releases with numbers, so we might hear that soon enough. Cook did highlight the growth of the iPhone though, which counts for 9 percent of their handset market, and believes that soon one day all phones will be smartphones. He also thinks that the iPad’s growing sales will soon surpass the PC market completely. Incase you dont remember, the last quarterly results included 37.04 million iPhones sold (128% growth), 15.43 million iPads sold (111% increase) and 7.7 million iPod touch’s sold.

Google Reader+ And Identity vs. Personas

Google Reader+ And Identity vs. Personas

Google has announced that Google Reader will finally get a much-needed revamp. It will now be integrated with Google Plus, and its native isolated social network will be abandoned. See Techmeme for responses from the tech blogger community. The response from Google enthusiasts has been largely positive, as you can see in this Google Plus thread. For non-Google enthusiast responses, see this Hacker News thread.

As a heavy user of Google Reader, I have mixed responses to this announcement.

Positives

• Google Reader will finally get a much-needed UI revamp. I suspect removing the native social follower-model within Google Reader will make it much faster.
• Sharing from Google Reader to Google Plus will be much easier. I can quickly share an item from my Google Reader to my “Tech Enthusiasts” circle on Google Plus.
• No way to get an RSS feed of your Google Reader shares. Many people use this RSS feed for auto-posting shares on their WordPress/Blogger/Tumblr blogs, in addition to Twitter. Of these, Twitter is where the most noise is generated by this auto-posting. I have written about this in great detail before.

Negatives

• No way to follow a highly-curated tech-focused feed of other Google Reader enthusiasts. As a passionate Reader enthusiast who stays on top of tech news all day, my feelings about missing this feed is well expressed by Sarah on TechCrunch.

Understanding the Root Problem

My Google Reader shared feed is a tech-focused feed and nothing else. My Google Plus feed, however, is a mix of personal photos, personal blog posts, shares as a father about my daughter, etc. Where will my Google Reader followers get my tech-focused feed now? No, Google Circles doesn’t solve the problem.
The reason I have this tech-focused blog, and keep a separate personal blog (where I’m currently writing about Western Classical Music appreciation) is that readers of this blog expect to read tech-focused posts, while friends who know me personally enjoy reading my personal blog too. I do not pollute my own Google Reader shared items with my own personal blog posts.
The reason I have two separate Twitter accounts is for the same reason. @ScepticGeek is well-known as a tech expert, while people who either know me in real life or are interested in my other non-tech interests follow @Palsule. Different people even call me in real-life either as “Mahendra” or “ScepticGeek”.

Identity and Personas

Both Google and Facebook are now forcing me to be myself with all my varied interests in all my sharing and engagement on those networks. Twitter allows me to be two different persona. This is a crucial difference, recently described best by Chris Poole, nicely summarized by Tim Carmody here. The money quote:

Both Google+ (with Circles) and Facebook (with Smart Lists) misunderstand the core problem of online identity: It’s not only about who you’re sharing with, but how you represent yourself. “It’s not who you share with, but who you share as.”

On Google Reader I am @ScepticGeek, on Facebook I am @Palsule, on Twitter I can be both, and now I wonder what I am supposed to be on Google Plus.

The Future: Focus on Interest Graph

Does this mean Google Plus necessarily becomes a place of incongruous, irrelevant shares? No. What we need is better filters for relevance. I have written before about how Quora complements the Social Graph with an Interest Graph for greater relevance as well as serendipity. As a general-purpose social network, Google Plus needs to do more.
We need to be quickly able to filter the Google Plus feed by source – Google Reader, Photos, YouTube, etc. Google needs to invent a way to auto-tag/auto-classify Google Plus posts such that I can view a feed of tech news, personal photos, humor, photography, etc. using a simple UI filter.
This problem is understood by Bill Gross, who started Chime.in as a way to “Follow a Part of a Person”, the idea being that you can follow both @ScepticGeek and @Palsule on the same network, and depending on your interests, you will auto-magically see only the shares you are interested in. But with the likes of Google and Facebook in the race for dominance of the social web, it is unclear whether new startups focusing exclusively on this problem stand a chance.
Do you know who is already capitalizing on this problem and is hugely successful? Tumblr. Most people use Tumblr by sticking to a specific area of interest, and the social network makes it easy to follow others sharing your interests. With 850 million Facebook users, 50 million Google Plus users, why are there almost 30 million Tumble blogs out there with over 10 billion posts? I suspect it is because neither Facebook, nor Google Plus are an interest-based social network like Tumblr. The future war of the social web hinges on who better creates the most relevant experience for users.

On Smart Phones and Anti-Social Networking

On Smart Phones and Anti-Social Networking

The phone was invented as a way for geographically distanced people to communicate. Social networking exploded in its popularity over the last several years as a way to connect with people you knew, as well as many others you didn’t. What is happening now, however, is not so simple and straightforward.

‘Social’ Networks

Spend time on any general purpose social network today, and you’re bound to discover not a simple apathy, but a healthy disdain & contempt for other ‘social’ networks. There are communities & groups on each, who share & rejoice in the ridiculing of other networks. It would not be a problem if the ridicule & the disdain were targeted only at the individual companies behind these networks, the issue is that it is being targeted towards users.
People are now forming opinions about each other depending on whether they’re primarily using Facebook or Google Plus or Twitter for their social networking and whether they’re on a network or not. Are you checking-in on Foursquare? Are you sharing pictures of our meeting on Instagram? The scenario of a date or prospective couples meeting only to discover one of them isn’t on Twitter and hence having a negative influence isn’t an imaginary future, it’s a reality today.
Is this what it means to be social? When we judge people, and this is becoming more & more common & widespread, we are being the exact opposite.

‘Smart’ Phones

Instead of the phone simply being used to communicate, phone ecosystems have become organized religion. There are evangelists (fanatics) who not only vigorously defend their platform of choice, but wage war on those who choose another. When the vitriol reaches the level of death threats, one wonders who is being ‘smart’ in this whole affair. Using a smartphone doesn’t make one smart, it makes the company’s marketing smart.
Look at how stats are being published on whether iPhone or Android users are more likely to have sex on the first date. If you think these are just blogs eyeing page views, think again. There are companies behind these stats, out there because there exists a market for them. It is real.
When one meets a person in real life today, one of the Frequently Asked First Questions is about which smartphone you use. Several judgements & conclusions follow, though they may not be expressed explicitly. If you reside on different continents of the ecosystem, a real distance is created.
The continents of these different ecosystems belong to different companies and are drifting further and further apart. These tectonic shifts are getting worse. Remember what a phone was invented for? Now, these ‘smart’ phones are creating islands of communities hostile to each other. Instead of communicating, they’re distancing many people.

You

Facebook is a 800 million strong social network. Yet, as a public company, it has opted for the “controlled company exemption”‘, retaining 57% voting control to a single individual. Google has compromised on its flagship successful product, to promote its own rival social network. Twitter has decided to accede to governments, opting for a country-specific censorship policy, with Google following in its toes, with Blogger. The ‘Universal’ in URL is lost forever.
The question is, are you being really social? Are you really smart? If you were you would agree that both the Internet and humanism in general are suffering, thanks to a few companies.

Getting started with Linux for nOObs!

Getting started with Linux for nOObs!

I. What is Linux?
II. Trying it out
III. Installing
IV. What to do now
V. The Console
Intro:
This tutorial is written with the total Linux n00b in mind.
I’ve seen too many n00bs get totally left in the dark by asking what
the best distro is. They seem to only get flooded with too many
answers in so short a time. I’m a little bit of a n00b too, so I know
how it feels. I will cover a grand total of two basic distros. You may
learn to strongly prefer other ones (I do!) but this is just to get
you started. I touch on a number of topics that would be impossible to
go into in depth in one tutorial, so I encourage you to actively seek
out more about the concepts I make reference to.

I. What is Linux?

Linux is basically an operating system (OS for short). The Windows
machine you’re (probably) using now uses the Mcft Windows
operating system.

Ok, so what’s so different about Linux?

Linux is part of a revolutionary movement called the open-source
movement. The history and intricacies of that movement are well beyond
the scope of this tutorial, but I’ll try and explain it simply. Open
source means that the developers release the source code for all their
customers to view and alter to fit what they need the software to do,
what they want the software to do, and what they feel software should
do. Linux is a programmer?s dream come true, it has the best compilers,
libraries, and tools in addition to its being open-source. A
programmer’s only limit then, is his knowledge, skill, time, and
resolve.

What is a distro?

A distro is short for a distribution. It’s someone’s personal
modification or recreation of Linux.

What do you mean by distros? I just want Linux!

Since Linux is open source, every developer can write his own version.
Most of those developers release their modifications, or entire
creations as free and open source. A few don’t and try to profit from
their product, which is a topic of moral debate in the Linux world.
The actual Linux is just a kernel that serves as a node of
communication between various points of the system (such as the CPU,
the mouse, the hard drive etc.). In order to use this kernel, we must
find a way to communicate with it. The way we communicate is with a
shell. Shells will let us enter commands in ways that make sense to
us, and send those commands to the kernel in ways that makes sense to
it. The shell most Linux’s use it the BASH shell (Bourne Again SHell).
The kernel by itself will not do, and just a shell on top of the kernel
won?t either for most users; we are then forced to use a distribution.

What distro is best?

This is not the question you want to ask a large number of people at
one time. This is very much like asking what kind of shoe is best,
you’ll get answers anywhere from running shoes, hiking boots, cleats,
to wingtips. You need to be specific about what you plan on using
Linux for, what system you want to use it on, and many other things. I
will cover two that are quick and easy to get running. They may not be
the best, or the quickest, or the easiest, or the most powerful, but
this is a guide for getting started, and everyone has to start
somewhere.

How much does it cost?

computer + electricity + internet + CD burner and CDs = Linux
I’ll let you do your own math.
Note however that a few do charge for their distros, but they aren’t
all that common, and can be worked around. Also, if you lack internet
access or a CD burner or CDs or you just want to, you can normally
order CDs of the distro for a few dollars apiece.

II. Trying it out.

Wouldn’t it stink if you decide to wipe out your hard drive and install
Linux as the sole operating system only to learn that you don’t know
how to do anything and hate it? Wouldn?t it be better to take a test
drive? 95 out of a 100 of you know where I’m heading with this section
and can therefore skip it. For those of you who don’t know, read on.

There are many distros, and most distros try to have something that
makes them stand out. Knoppix was the first live-CD distro. Although
most of the other main distros have formed their own live-CDs, Knoppix
is still the most famous and I will be covering how to acquire it.

A live-CD distro is a distribution of Linux in which the entire OS can
be run off of the CD-ROM and your RAM. This means that no installation
is required and the distro will not touch your hard disk or current OS
(unless you tell it to). On bootup, the CD will automatically detect
your hardware and launch you into Linux. To get back to Windows, just
reboot and take the CD out.

Go to the Knoppix website (www.knoppix.com). Look around some to get
more of an idea on what Knoppix is. When you’re ready, click Download.
You’ll be presented with a large amount of mirrors, some of which have
ftp and some of which have http also.

note: the speed of the mirrors vary greatly, and you may want to
change mirrors should your download be significantly slow.

Choose a mirror. Read the agreement and choose accept. You’ll probably
want to download the newest version and in your native language (I’ll
assume English in this tutorial). So choose the newest file ending in
-EN.iso

note: you might want to also verify the md5 checksums after the
download, if you don’t understand this, don’t worry too much. You just
might have to download it again should the file get corrupted (you’ll
have to anyway with the md5). Also, a lot of times a burn can be
botched for who-knows what reason. If the disk doesn?t work at all,
try a reburn.

Once the .iso file is done downloading, fire up your favorite
CD-burning software. Find the option to burn a CD image (for Nero, this
is under copy and backup) and burn it to a disk. Make sure you don’t
just copy the .iso, you have to burn the image, which will unpack all
the files onto the CD.

Once the disk is done, put it in the CD-ROM drive and reboot the
computer. While your computer is booting, enter CMOS (how to get to
CMOS varies for each computer, some get to it by F1 or F2 or F3, etc.)
Go to the bootup configuration and place CD-ROM above hard disk. Save
changes and exit. Now, Knoppix will automatically start. You will be
presented with a boot prompt. Here you can input specific boot
parameters (called cheatcodes), or just wait and let it boot up using
the default.

note: Sometimes USB keyboards do not work until the OS has somewhat
booted up. Once you?re actually in Knoppix, your USB keyboard should
work, but you may not be able to use cheatcodes. If you need to,
attach a PS/2 keyboard temporarily. Also, if a particular aspect of
hardware detection does not work, look for a cheatcode to disable it.
Cheatcodes can be found on the Knoppix website in text format (or in
HTML at http://www.knoppix.net/docs/index.php/CheatCodes).

Upon entering the KDE desktop environment, spend some time exploring
around. Surf the web, get on IM, play some games, explore the
filesystem, and whatever else seems interesting. When your done, open
up the console (also called terminal, xterm, konsole, or even shell)
and get ready for the real Linux. See section V for what to do from
here.

note: to function as root (or the superuser) type su.

It’s not entirely necessary that you are a console wizard at this point
(although you will need to be sooner or later), but a little messing
around wont hurt.

Just as there are many Linux distros, so there are also many types of
Knoppix. I won?t go into using any of them, but they should all be
somewhat similar. Some of them include: Gnoppix, Knoppix STD, Morphix,
and PHLAK. Other distros also have live-CDs.

III. Installing

I will guide you through the installation of Fedora Core 2. The reason
I chose Fedora is because it contains the Anaconda installer, which is
a very easy installer.

Download the discs from here:
http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedo…ore/2/i386/iso/
If the link doesn?t work, then go to http://www.redhat.com and navigate your
way to downloading Fedora (odds are your architecture is i386).
You will want to download the FC2-i386-disc1.iso and burn it using the
method for Knoppix. Do the same for all the discs.

Note: do NOT download the FC2-i386-SRPMS-disc1.iso files.

Now, once you?re ready, insert disc 1 into the drive and reboot.

The installer should come up automatically (if not, then see the
Knoppix section on CMOS).

Note: installer may vary depending on version. Follow directions best
you can using your best judgement.

1. Language: choose English and hit enter
2. Keyboard: choose us (probably) and hit enter
3. Installation media: choose local CDROM (probably) and hit enter
4. CD test: you can choose to test or skip
5. Intro: click next
6. Monitor: choose your monitor to the best of your ability, if you?re unsure, choose on of the generic ones
7. Installation type: choose which ever you want (default should be fine)
8. Partition: choose to automatically partition (unless you know what you?re doing)
9. Partition: the default partitions should suffice
10. Boot loader: choose your boot loader (grub for default)
11. Network settings: choose the correct settings for your network (generally, don?t mess with anything unless you know what you?re doing)
12. Firewall: you can choose a firewall if you want to
13. Language support: choose any additional language support you want
14. Time zone: pick your time zone
15. Root password: set your root password (root is the admin, or superuser; you want it to be very secure)
16. Packages: choose which packages you want to install. For hard drives over 10 gigs, you can go ahead and choose all
packages (depending on how much disk space you plan on taking up later, note that most everything you?ll need is a package: the exception
being large media files). You will generally want to install all the packages you think you?ll ever need. Two desktop environments aren?t necessary.
Make sure you have at least one and the X window system! (if you want a GUI that is). I suggest you get all the servers too.

Note: Knoppix uses the KDE Desktop environment

17. Make sure everything is all right, and install
18. You can create a boot disk if you want

Note: Desktop environments might have a set-up once you enter them

IV What to do now

Now that you have a Linux set-up and running, there are many paths you
can head down. First, you should explore your GUI and menus. Browse
the web with Mozilla, get on IM with GAIM, play games, add/delete
users, check out OpenOffice, and anything else that might be part of
your daily use. Also, set up a few servers on your computer to play
around with, specifically SMTP (*wink*wink*), FTP (vsftp is a good
one), and either telnet or SSH (OpenSSH is a good one). The setup and
use of these are beyond the scope of this tutorial, but researching
them could prove to be very educational.

The filesystem
The Linux (and Unix) filesystem is different from the normal Windows
that you?re used to. In Windows, your hard drive is denoted ?C:\? (or
whatever). In Linux, it is called the root directory and is denoted
?/?. In the / directory, there are several default folders, including
dev (device drivers) mnt (mount) bin (binaries) usr (Unix System
Resources) home, etc, and others. I encourage you to explore around
the whole file system (see section V) and research more.

Once you are well situated, it?s time to get into the heart and power
of Linux: the console. The next session will guide you through it and
set you on the path to finding out how to do stuff for yourself. You
will (probably) want to start learning to rely less and less on the
GUI and figure out how to do everything through the console (try
launching all your programs from the console, for example).

V. The Console

The Console might look familiar to DOS if you?ve ever used it. The
prompt should look something like the following:

AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$

With the blinking _ following it. This can vary greatly as it is fully
customizable. Let?s get started with the commands.

First, let?s explore the file system. The command ls will “list” the
files in the current directory. Here?s an example:

AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$ ls

It should then display the contents of the current directory if there
are any. Almost all commands have options attached to them. For
example, using the -l option, which is short for “long” will display
more information about the files listed.

AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$ ls -l
We will get into how to find out the options for commands and what
they do later.

The second command to learn will be the cd command, or “change
directory”. To use it, you type cd followed by a space and the
directory name you wish to go into. In Linux, the top directory is /
(as opposed to C:\ in Windows). Let?s get there by using this command:

AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$ cd /
AvatharTri@localhost /$

Now, we are in the top directory. Use the ls command you learned
earlier to see everything that?s here. You should see several items,
which are directories. Now, let?s go into the home directory:

AvatharTri@localhost /$ cd home
AvatharTri@localhost home$

And you can now ls and see what?s around. In Linux there are some
special symbol shortcuts for specific folders. You can use these
symbols with cd, ls, or several other commands. The symbol ~ stands
for your home folder. One period . represents the directory your
currently in. Two periods .. represent the directory immediately above
your own. Here?s an example of the commands:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ cd ~
AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$

This moved us to our user?s personal directory.

AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$ cd .
AvatharTri@localhost avathartri$ cd ..
AvatharTri@localhost home$

The cd .. moved us up to the home directory.
As you?ve probably noticed by now, the section behind the prompt
changes as you change folders, although it might not always be the
case as it?s up to the personal configuration.

You can use these symbols with the ls command also to view what is in
different folders:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ ls ~
AvatharTri@localhost home$ ls ..

And you can view what is in a folder by specifying its path:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ ls /
AvatharTri@localhost home$ ls /home

The last command we will cover as far as finding your way around the
filesystem is the cat command. The cat command will show the contents
of a file. Find a file by using the cd and ls commands and then view
its contents with the cat command.

AvatharTri@localhost home$ cd [directory]
AvatharTri@localhost [directory]$ ls
AvatharTri@localhost [directory]$ cat [filename]

Where [directory] is the directory you want to view and [filename] is
the name of the file you want to view. Omit the brackets. Now, if the
file you viewed was a text file, you should see text, but if it wasn?t,
you might just see jumbled garbage, but this is ok. If the file goes
by too fast and goes off the screen, don?t worry, we will get to how
to scroll through it later.

One of the most useful commands is the man command, which displays the
“manual” for the command you want to know more about. To learn more
about the ls command:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ man ls

And you will see the manual page for ls. It displays the syntax, a
description, options, and other useful tidbits of information. Use the
up and down arrows to scroll and press q to exit. You can view the
manual pages for any command that has one (most commands do). Try this
out with all the commands that you know so far:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ man cd
AvatharTri@localhost home$ man cat
AvatharTri@localhost home$ man man

One very crucial option to the man command is the -k option. This will
search the descriptions of manual pages for the word you specify. You
can use this to find out what command to do what you need to do. For
example, let?s say we want to use a text editor:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ man -k editor

And you should see a list of apps with a short description and the
word “editor” in the description.

With a blank prompt, you can hit tab twice for Linux to display all
the possible commands. For Linux to display all the commands beginning
with a certain letter or series of letters, type those letters and hit
tab twice.

Note: This is actually a function of BASH and not Linux, but BASH is
the default Linux shell.

Now that you know a little about moving around the filesystem and
viewing manual pages, there is one more trick that we will cover to
help you out. Remember how the man pages were scrollable as in you
could use the arrow keys to scroll up and down? That is because the
man pages use something called the less pager. We?re not going to go
into what this does exactly and how it works, but that?s definitely
something that you will want to look up. Here?s how to use the less
pager with a file:

AvatharTri@localhost home$ cat [filename] | less

That uses something called a pipe. The line is the vertical line above
enter on your keyboard. Briefly, what this does is take the output
from the cat command, and stick it in the less pager. By doing this,
you can view files that would normally run off the screen and scroll
up and down.

Some final commands to check out:

mkdir – make directories
cp – copy file
mv – move file
rm – remove file
rmdir – remove directory
grep – search a file for a keyword
pwd – display current working directory
top – display system resources usage (kill the program with control + c)