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Linux    11/11/2020

Linux is a free open source operating system. Companies using this OS in return supply information about those products. Tivo, Sandisk Sansa series of MP3 players, and Android phones and tablets are some items that third party developers have made addins or modifications to.

A major problem of Linux are the various distributions. Each distribution has a different look and feel, different ways to install programs, along with certain peculiarities. Ubuntu is based on Debian. Linux Mint, also based on Debian, emulates Windows 7.

A newly acquired Raspberry Pi 4 B with 8GB RAM and 256GB storage runs Debian 10 32 bit 5.4 kernel (update from 4.19 in mid July 2020) with Pi modified LXDE as the desktop environment. XFCE4 has problems with the panel tray icons not updating nor displaying correctly. This can drive up to 2 monitors at 3840x2160@60Hz, though I had the LG 43” and the Dell 27” working. The desktop environment has been updated to Ubuntu MATE.

The BRIX is running Ubuntu 18.04 (5.4 kernel) with XFCE4 also. It consumes less than 60w and hosts a copy of jacktechie.com website. I make changes and test the pages prior to uploading to the hostgator servers. The mini DisplayPort output goes to a Dell 27” (2560x1440) IPS monitor and can also drive the LG 43” at 3840x2160@60Hz. Storage is a WD 1TB WN750 NVMe M.2 SSD and 500GB Samsung 860evo SATA SSD. There is  an 8GHz 2400MHz DDR4 SODIMM with the other slot empty. Plex Media Server is installed, so the 2 Tivo Bolts can connect and stream content (not currently used). MATE replaced XFCE4. This is my everyday machine along with the VIVO.

Both D-Link DNS325 and Xyzel NAS326 Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices run Linux and have a modified operating system for Secure Shell access, backup and sync options. A Hitachi 3TB 7200rpm 4K7000 24x7 enterprise NAS/video/surveillance drive is in the D-Link.

A Dell 10v netbook runs Debian 10 x86.

hardware
Realtek bluetooth
/etc/bluetooth/* , /etc/default/bluetooth, apt-get install bluez-tools

some commands:
hciconfig --all
hcitool scan
hcitool dev
journalctl -xu bluetooth

 Linux stuff (Debian)
samba smb.conf parameter definitions
sample smb.conf configuration - edit /etc/samba/smb.conf
smbpasswd -a USER
service smbd restart   restart samba (18.04)
/etc/init.d/samba         restart samba (16.04)
smbmount //host/share /mt/disk -o username=USER  to mount share directory from host

CUPS administration
http://localhost:631/admin

Boot with grub2
# update-grub after changes (grub-mkconfig)
/etc/grub.d (scripts snippets)
/etc/default/grub (config file)

Boot disk
fdformat /dev/fd0
mkbootdisk 2.2.16-22 where 2.2.16-22 is the kernel version. If you have bootable SCSI devices, the object file driver must be in /lib/modules/2.2.16-22 to create a floppy that will locate the hard drive partition to boot from. This is required even if SCSI support is compiled into a monolithic kernel.  

Networking
arp -a to find IP and MAC addresses of all hosts in your network
ifconfig -a to find IP and MAC addresses of this host

chkconfig --list # to see what services are running

Using chkconfig you can change these with --level
chkconfig --level 234 portmap on
would change the above portmap listing to  portmap 0:off 1:off 2:on 3:on 4:on 5:off 6:off

Other
To prepare a man page for printing -
unzip with cp /usr/share/man8/manpage.8.bz2 manpage.bz2; bzip2 -d manpage
Process into a Postscript (ASCII) file with groff -t -e -mandoc -Tps manpage > manpage.ps
You can then print this on a Postscript printer, or process it with Ghostview or the retail version of Adobe Acrobat.

To get an ASCII text output - groff -t -e -mandoc -Tascii manpage | col -bx > manpage.txt

My Linux machines were
... a AT&T Globalyst 630 with a Pentium 100MHz CPU and 256kB internal cache.
64MB EDO RAM, integrated S3 Trio 64 graphics with 1MB video RAM
540MB Quantum SCSI hard drive, Nakamichi 4 by 8x changer picky on CDR and won't read CDRWs
SCSI controller is a Diamond Fireport 40 (Symbios 875 driver)
WAN NIC is a Hawking RTL8139 and LAN NIC is a Netgear FA310TX (generic Tulip driver)
Everything is tied into a Sohoware 8 port 10/100 hub.
Printer is an HP6MP Postscript with 19MB memory.

It had Mandrake 8.1 (2.4.8 kernel) but was too difficult to update individual applications so I switched to Debian. The necessary files to run a firewall, NAT, print server, DNS server, Internet proxy takes about 285MB or 68% of the disk. I can compile the kernel on another machine or put in a 212MB drive.

Ubuntu 7.10 was loaded onto an Acer Aspire 5601 laptop, which recognized all of the hardware without a problem. My main machine runs Windows XP Pro, Vista which is used only to help others, and Ubuntu 8.04.1 Desktop 64 bit.

It has since been upgraded to Windows 7 Pro and Ubuntu 18.04 runs on the BRIX.