Posts tagged Linux
FREE Linux Based Disk Imaging (Ghosting) at its Finest!
Aug 4th
I am in love!
That is right, I am not ashamed of it. I am in love with PING (PartImage is Not Ghost). I have been searching for quite a while on a free alternative to Ghost Cast for my personal home network. Well I found it.
I was using DriveImage XML, but PING can do the same job, better and also support Linux!
Not only that, but it is very versatile in that there are many ways you can use it. You can use their boot CD (Download the ISO here), and create/restore images from a network file share, or directly to a disk. They also give you a tutorial on setting up a PXE boot server (On you home Windows XP machine if you want!) and create/store images to the same file share but without the need for boot disks.You can find the full tutorial on using PING here.
Written By El Di Pablo From [BauerPower]
Question: Do I need to have AntiVirus Software running on my Linux Machine?
Jul 31st
After thinking long and hard about this one I am going to tell you that you SHOULD have some sort of antivirus installed on your Linux distro. It doesn’t matter if it is ClamAv, Avast! or any other with a good track record.
And now I am going to tell you why. There are about 100 know Linux viruses out there and they are not be turning up new ones every day like windows viruses BUT they do exist. And not being protected is just stupid. No offense. Actually you can take offense I don’t realy care. I personally back up every OS incrementally and run some sort of AV software with heuristics. This should give you some protection from Zero day threats.
Ok ok simmer down. Now onto WHY I think it is very necessary to be protected. I have a question for you:
Do you have insurance? You know medical dental or what not?
Of course you do you woud be crazy not to becuase WHAT IF something happens. This should be your same attitude to computer security. Do you have a lock on your home? How about a security alarm?
Are you following me here? As an Admin I always feel it is better safe then sorry. And especially if it is all because you were SURE that no one could hack into YOUR machine. Now who better to have a try at it than a Linux Guru? It won’t be long before the spammers and virus writers get tired of the Windows platform and move on… After all isn’t Mac OSX built on Linux?
Hmmm… Gaining the majority of market share might cause some new internest by hackers…
Here is an excerpt from DesktopLinux.com:
Here is an excerpt from DesktopLinux.com:
Security, and freedom from viruses, has been one of the key selling points for
moving to Linux in the home and for the enterprise. How is Linux at risk from
viruses today? by Keith Peer
Currently there are under 100 native Linux viruses known but in many organizations the fact that a Linux viruses exists is enough reason to install and use Linux antivirus protection on Linux desktops and servers.
Additionaly users of StarOffice and OpenOffice.org have the ability to
open and view Microsoft Office documents that may contain viruses. These viruses
may not infect the Linux computer but the user can easily attach and send these
infected documents unknowingly to someone else and that is a serious problem.As
system administrators move to Linux files servers they have a real problem to
deal with since the Linux file server can store Windows-based viruses.Windows-based viruses can write to a Linux/Samba network share as easily as they can on a Microsoft Windows based network. System administrators must protect the Linux server from storing these viruses. The only way is through active
antivirus defense on the Linux server itself. Our Vexira Antivirus for Linux, as
an example, detects not only Linux-based viruses but also Windows and DOS-based
as well, I think the current number of malicious or potentially malicious
applications (viruses, trojans, worms, etc…) we detect is above 74,000
now.Still not sure continue reading this article for more Fan boy dream killing information… _TheAdmiN_
Microsoft Onenote for Linux?
Jul 23rd
One of the most important applications I had to find a replacement for when switching from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) was Onenote, its so darn handy, even though a lot of people still think that if you don’t have a tablet its no good…WRONG! For note taking its wonderful. I use it in meetings, interviews, lectures, researching, pretty much everything.
I checked out a lot of applications, on Freshmeat, the download.com of the Open Source community, they just didn’t
cut it, after a good Google search I happened upon Basket a clone
of Microsoft Onenote.
Since a picture can paint a thousand words…
As you can see by this screen shot, your page can be a multitude of mixed formats and functionality as this screen shot illustrates, images, web links, app links, embedded files, to-do lists, etc., every element of the page can be moved around, resized according to your preference. Not bad for a free app so far huh?
With the amount of information you can put into Basket it could easly get chaotic. Basket allows your pages of content to be grouped into “baskets”, which really is their term for a group, so each basket (Group) can also have child baskets attached to it, all hierarchal, which is great for people who manage to get thinks cluttered up real fast.. :)
Each element of content can be assigned tags also, like To-do, or Priority 1!, all customizable. For people like myself its a great way
of making sure I get the important stuff done first and work down
from that point, below is a shot of the tag assignment window.
Pretty neat stuff! You can also backup and restore your whole basket structure, password protect baskets, import CSV files or any other custom form of separation, also integrate with Kontact, the KDE PIM system.
So far I have being using Basket for a few months now with no problems at all, even a seasoned Onenote user who borrowed my laptop didn’t have trouble using it, apparently he said it drew a lot
of parallels with Onenote so it was quite natural for him to use.
This sort of application quality is the direction developers
need to head in if they really want to make Linux a solid viable choice for businesses. Basket is definitely business class.
Thanks to Karl for allowing me to be a guest blogger here at Asktheadmin.
Psymon101 from sigmundvoid.com
Let The Debates Begin!: Windows Goons VS. Linux Fan Boys.
Jul 19th
Here is a post from our new friend Simon @ SigmundVoid.com We will be doing some Microsoft vs. Linux postings (debates) between our sites. As you can tell Simon is a Linux Fanboy and we are as they call it… On the dark side…
Now we know Simon’s time is spent creating or searching for custom drivers for his Linux system and trying to get things to work that really weren’t made to work. You know compiling, testing and compiling some more.
What do you mean it still doesn’t work?
We know that takes a lot of your Admin time Simon so hopefully you will still have some time for witty come backs :).
But on the positive side we are about to give you both sides of the story. All though we try to be fair we do usually tend to side with the big M$ because that is what we do after all. But we are not by far linux haters or penguin killers (It has its place) so we welcome Simon into the AskTheAdmin family and look forward to some heated discussions! GAME ON!
Thu 19 Jul 2007
Head 2 Head series.
Posted by psymon101 under General Information
We have a new guest Blogger, Karl from Asktheadmin.com , Karl lives and breathes Microsoft, blinded by them even? So why let this crazed loon on Sigmund? Because
it helps you, I generally live by the Penguin and Karl by the assimilation team, Microsoft.So what’s the benefits of this new series to you? Well we will be exploring topics
of what what is best for any certain situation, but because he gets a quick buck
from Microsoft to spout out unconditional garbage about MS products he will
be trying to push why MS is the way to go, and I will throwing back why
Linux is the way to go.After each head-2-head session we will have a summary of the pros and cons
for each platform/application so you can decide for yourself, we do the research,
you reap the fruits..Let either Karl or myself know if you have any questions/suggestions, by the
way, make sure your email doesn’t have any form of attachment, even a v-card
since Karls 50 virus killers will block your email..
My Barracuda runs Linux that filters my email. Like I said Linux still has some uses!
Ohhhh and BTW: Wow they have come a long way Linux boxes can read V-cards now??
Hit us up in the comments are you pro MS or pro Linux?
Sam sayz
My turn
Drivers, he does have a point, some drivers need compiling, but one could term that as initial time investment, since an MS server may require time investment over the course of its production life:) alot more time than a few drivers..:) You know, the usual deal of offending software:)
As Karl mentioned, we are not really MS haters, it also has its place, so we welcome his
Gates fanclub also…….. The need someone to look up to dont they :)So lets get the ball rolling.. You have just been hired as an Admin for an ISP who need
your experience to setup the Infrastructure, mail, dns, web.. I think we should mail first
POP3/IMAP/SMTP.Karl, what would you choose?:)
Boo yah! Good question. But it depends on the needs of the organization. If it was a small company with no need for Black Berry support my choice would be IPSwitch’s IMail 2006 running on a Windows 2003 standard box. I won’t go into hardware specs; We will save that for another time.
Its not Microsoft are you shocked? But looking back at the question it is suppose to be an ISP so…
Lets step into a real environment with 100+ domains linked up across international sites connected by VPN’s and supporting hundreds of thousands of users. For this I would choose Microsoft Exchange 2003 running SQL 2005 as the backed. Windows 2003 Server Data Center in a clustered environment. I would separate the front and back ends across multiple servers and set up redundant and fail over machines. I would set up my backup mx record to point to an external data-center with a much lower priority to facilitate any fail overs necessary. Got to achieve those 5 9′s right Steve?
Exchange will provide us with OWA or Outlook Web Access, SMTP, POP3 and IMAP. I will go one step further to recommend Mcafee Enterprise 8.5.1 for content/virus scanning. A Barracuda hardware appliance for spam filtering and secondary virus/content scanning.
Did I miss anything Stan?
Boot your windows partition from inside linux.
Jul 15th
Mike got tired of having to reboot to get to his xp installation. Poor Mike lets improve your productivity and let you boot your windows partition within your Linux setup.
This solution comes to us from life hacker:
Calling All Dual-booters: You can turn your physical Windows partition into a virtual machine that can be run from Linux. Tech site oopsilon runs through the process which requires Windows XP, Linux partitions and VMware Player. The process is not beginner-friendly, as it requires a decent amount of terminal work. Although the tutorial is written for Gentoo, it should be applicable to any Linux distro. Be sure to backup both operating systems before trying this tutorial as it requires modifying your master boot record (MBR) which can be a bear to restore if anything goes wrong. Looking for a similar (and simpler) tutorial for Windows and Mac?
$300 Linux Open Phone Arrives. How will it fair against the iPhone market?
Jul 10th
Finally the OpenMoko phone is here. The first version of the NEO 1973 mobile phone, which carries the Linux kernel inside and is not locked to a specific network, is available for purchase from OpenMoko.com. It’s not as jaw-droppingly pretty as the iPhone, but it shares a design philosophy — no buttons, just a screen — and it’s ready to be loaded with any number of open-source software applications. (Though, according to Gadget Lab, so is the iPhone).
The base version of the NEO sells for $300. It has a 2.8″ VGA touch screen, a micro SD card slot, a USB port (Yup thats 1.1) and 2.5G GSM quad band capability. (2.5 Why No 3G??) And from the lack of specs I shall assume no storage on board – so how could this be a iPhone killer – or even compete in that market?
Keep in mind that this unit (the GTA01) was pushed out early so developers could begin writing device drivers, custom GUIs and some cool apps for the phone. The next revision (GTA02), which will be available starting at $450 in October, will be ready for the mass market.
So the one dropping in October will have wi-fi, 3-D motion sensors and improved graphics accelerators. So this phone isn’t exactly an iPhone killer — the next one might be a contender. AptUsTech has a nice comparison of the NEO 1973 and the iPhone. Posted Below.
When it comes to devices, more choice is almost always “a good thing.” (We are talking to you iPhone (No MMS No A2DP?? WTF?)
But will consumers respond to the NEO? We all know developers are going to dig this phone. But what’s more important to consumers — a super-sexy status item that’s locked to one carrier and one set of functions, or a less sexy look-alike with a fully free and open software system?
I hate to think its the first one!
Iphone Vs. NEO
Even if you live in a cave, you heard about the iPhone–a masterpiece of technology and
also a marketing blitzkrieg made by Mr. Jobs.At the same time a very
interresting phone has been launched on the market : the Neo 1973From an user point of view, the two phones share the same design — no more buttons only a tactile screen. While the iPhone has a wonderful user interface that is very polished (as usual from Apple), the Neo 1973 is more conservative with a more traditional interface comparable with an existing PDA. The main feature of the Neo 1973 is openness.
All the hardware is documented, and the software is open source. This contrasts
greatly with the iPhone which is as closed as a bank vault. The only way to
develop software on iPhone is to build web services designed to fit well on the
screen or to use javascript with limited access to the iPhone resources.
Trillian just did this and developed a chat application for
the iPhone. But without access to the bare metal, the applications will be
limited, and the control remains in the hands of Apple.
