Debian Linux Tips

1. Writing file name with spaces:

In linux spaces are not recognized, so if you type it with spaces. The work around is to put double quotation in the file name:

Code:
ben@debian$ cd "new folder"

2. Mounting iso file in linux:

To mount iso file in linux in the command line issue the following command

ben@debian# mount -o loop  abc.iso  /mnt/iso

3. Adding fortune and cowsay in Bash

To add fortune and cowsay in bash edit the .bashrc file in  your home folder, it is a hidden file unhide the file and open the file and add the following lines to the .bashrc file

 if [ -x /usr/share/games/cows -a -x /usr/share/games/fortunes ]; then
        fortune | cowsay
    fi

there are more than one way of doing things another way to add fortune and cowsay in bash is  

fortune | cowsay -f `ls -1 /usr/share/games/cows/ | sort -R | head -1` -n

this will give a random fortune and random cow. 

My short review on Debian 8.1 [Jessie]

Debian released it's much awaited release of Jessie featuring SystemD as the new default init system. SysV init still available as a choiche though. I tried  both GNOME and  XFCE.

         I was once a fan of gnome as it was fast and very responsive compared to KDE at the time of  Debian 5 and  when gnome3 was released after trying it, i hated it because it moved away from traditional desktop and it was hard to use as a desktop and so I switched to XFCE  but in jessie both  Gnome and Debian developers  brought a way to bring the traditional desktop using the Gnome shell extension and  I must say it was good to have the traditional desktop back. Compared to the previous debian release the implementation of Gnome in this version is good.

           XFCE is traditionally geared towards older hardware. Let's just say XFCE can be just as awesome as GNOME or KDE while keeping the memory low and can have both Qt and GTK apps working well seamlessly. well I'm not going delve into what software version is in and what not but i'll  tell you what my experience is. Software for daily needs are in GNOME and for XFCE some of the software  may have to be installed from the debian repo.

                       One thing that irritated me the most was IBus implementation in XFCE  because XFCE doesn't have native support to ibus compared to gnome and kde  only after an couple of hours of google searching and after many attempts could i implement the ibus in XFCE. Another thing is the mounting of NTFS partions it requires a password for mounting it for every session I think it's nothing but a hassle on desktop users who are the only users on the system.

                           Finally it's about SystemD, I read the discussions in the mailing list both for and against it.I personally feel that those who against it, have two specific  valid points such as binary logging and mission creep. I don't have the requisite knowledge about how operating system works, etc ,etc i hope you get the picture.The SystemD developers say binary logging can be turned off  which is true by the way but the second point "Mission creep" is certainly valid. Because SystemD surpasses what an init system should do. There are lot of website that deals with SystemD on how to avoid it and there are also proponents of  SystemD. In the debian implementation it certainly did offered an faster boot and faster shutdown.But never during the time of using Debian did I ever have an system freeze like windows or had to reboot after an update like in Jessie, certainly this is irksome. 

                        All in all Debian Jessie gives back what it promises a stable desktop for a production machine. I thank the Debian developers and maintainers for giving the community an another  rock solid distro.

P.S: 1. Debian developers may look into UselessD a stripped down version of SystemD for default init which may be acceptable for the Debian community.

2. You may think i harbor a grudge against KDE but it's not the case also i've also not mentioned both MATE and Cinnamon because i've not tried it. 

3. Debian implementation on KDE definitely needs some improvement based on my previous experience of it. If you compare  slackware KDE  or openSuse KDE with Debian KDE then any sane person would agree that there is still room for improvement in Debian KDE.

ABAQUSLM: The desired vendor daemon is down(-97,121)

If after installing Abaqus 6.10 you get an error saying ABAQUSLM:the desired vendor demon is down; don't panic like the house is on fire,just become root and remove loackabaquslm file in /var/temp and then use the csh shell and give the lmreread command
% ./lmutil lmreread
lmutil - Copyright (c) 1989-2008 Acresso Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.
lmreread successful and then issue lmstat command to check
% ./lmutil lmstat -a
lmutil - Copyright (c) 1989-2008 Acresso Software Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Flexible License Manager status on Sun 9/2/2012 21:19
License server status: 27011@debian
    License file(s) on debian: /home/jim/abacus/abq6101.dat:
 debian: license server UP (MASTER) v10.8

Vendor daemon status (on debian):

  ABAQUSLM: UP v10.8

.ICEauthority update problem

one day you power on your computer and before you login to your system there is an error saying could not update .ICEauthority file and each time you login this error  keeps coming up that drives you insane so what to do you might ask,simple open your file manager  goto view-->show hidden files, right click the file and goto properties and then to permissions and set access as read and write and reboot there will be no more of that nagging error and one more thing all of these things must be done as root.

Installing canon canoscan lide 110 in debian squeeze

The canon canoscan lide 110  the cheapest scanner that has support in linux  as it was mentioned in sane project website but when i installed in my Debian squeeze machine it didn't even start to scan or give any sound at all; worst of all this scanner doesn't have any power on indicator LED's to let you know if it is on or off  so much for being economical :/ well anyway after searching a variety of  linux forums I  had couple of things to check whether it was working or not. The first is the scanimage command,open the terminal and type  scanimage -L 
it showed the usb id and said my device is detected and may be powered off, it was ironical considering the fact that the scanner doesn't have any indicator and asking you to check for it.The second method is to update sane drivers as the sane drivers come with squeeze is a little bit old,just download the latest sane drivers from
http://ppa.launchpad.net/stef-dev/sane-backend-genesys/ubuntu/pool/main/s/sane-backends/
just install libsane and sane-utils package  and that's it  folks you can now scan images from xsane

Installing Draftsight -part 2

This is part 2 of the series installing Draftsight  I mentioned earlier that the draftsight application will be in your graphics menu, If for some reason that the application doesn't come in the menu after installation check whether it has been installed correctly  by going to synaptic package manager and type draftsight in the filter box it will show dassault-systemes-draftsight; right click and go to properties and it will show were the files are installed then it means the application is successfully installed.Now let's create a desktop file, open  your favorite text editor and add the following  entry
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=DraftSight
Comment=Editing CAD images
Exec="/opt/dassault-systemes/draftsight/bin/draftsight"
Icon=dassault-systemes.draftsight
Terminal=false
StartupNotify=false
and save it as draftsight.desktop when first launching the application it will ask whether to trust or not,just click  trust always and you will be having a working draftsight application in your desktop.
If you are using Xfce desktop environment right click on the desktop and goto create launcher and type application name it will show the application select it and click OK and that's it you will be having your desktop entry in seconds. 

Personal Firewall in Debian

One of  greatest and best  firewall in Linux is the IPtables firewall but it is command line and for beginners  who are conscious about online security, Iptables configuration is a very big headache atleast for me though....
after some searching I found the Firestarter firewall it is simple yet has an advanced GUI for IPtables firewall. Install from the Firestarter firewall from the repository. After installing it will be in Administration ----> Firestarter
Run firestarter and run the wizard select the dial-out device  and select
IP address is assigned via DHCP(If it is so ) and go forward disable the internet connection sharing option and go forward and in the next dialog box select
start the firewall now and you are done.It wil run in the background after you install it;Goto Edit-----> preferences to suit it to your needs.To check  whether it is running or not  go to terminal become root and run
/etc/init.d/firestarter status
it will give the following output
Firestarter is running... ... (warning).
and that's it your own personal firewall is  now operational.