This is where I am keeping my Linux (and OSS and Mac OS X) info.

installing Linux
a brief comparison of Open Office and Microsoft Office
a basic tutorial on multibooting Windows95/98, Windows NT/2000, and Linux
some basic Samba info

A bit of info about tar.

Not quite Linux, but handy: basic HTML (under construction)

W3Schools is a great site. It has lots of good tutorials (HTML, ASP, XML, SQL) that provide an excellent introduction to various topics, and it's also very handy as a quick reference for stuff you know but forget when you're on-site.

Looking for a Linux User Group (LUG) in Orlando, FL? Look no further!

Just one random thing I'm tacking up here because I hate having to Google for it all the time: you can download a special version of OpenSSH that lets you run SSH and SCP from within a Windows command line (cmd.exe). Putty and Cygwin are both great but I'm used to Linux and OS X where I can just say 'ssh' or 'scp' in The Shell I'm In, rather than launching another program. Now I can. Hooray! This also comes with an SSH server which I haven't played with yet but will someday.

More random stuff: to calculate the sizes of all the folders in a directory (for example, all the directories in /home/) use this in bash:
for file in *; do du -sk $file 2>/dev/null; done
(Translation: for all files here; calculate size and don't show STDERR.)

Works great in Linux and Mac OS X. Note that the default shell in OS X 10.0-10.2 is tcsh. To get into bash, just type bash.
Or, even better: du -sh ./*

More randomness: `ln -s` usage: ln -s <real resource> <name of new link>
as in, ln -s web /Library/WebServer/Documents/

How to add ~/bin to your path

More notes.

I just want to help this guy's Google score because when you google for web developer extension firefox you get to a Mozilla page which is sometimes out of date.

Aha! Linux related content! Sadly, not mine, but probaly something I should learn more about: easy, automated snapshot-style backups with rsync.

Yet another random note: I spent some time googling for phrases like

disassemble porsche lacie external firewire enclosure

to find out how to get into a nearly seamless LaCie external FireWire DVD+RW enclosure. (I inherited a dead drive from a friend and wanted to reuse it by installing an IDE hard drive. (Reduce, reuse, recycle! :-) ) The enclosure is, according to the embossing on the side, "Designed by F.A.Porsche." There are no visible screws on the outside, no stickers or rubber feet covering screwholes (a common feature on other drives), and only a thin seam on the bottom near the edge.
I have discovered the secret: TAPE!
To get inside, use butter knives, pencils, pens, or what-have-you to separate the case at the seam. Attacking the enclosure from the bottom, push the sides out a bit to release the very small plastic tabs, then apply pressure evenly on all sides to start raising the top of the enclosure straight up. (Where "up" = up if the drive is sitting normally.) Once you've got a good gap (around 1cm or a half-inch) start raising one edge (the left or right is better than front or back) more than the other. You'll soon hear a soft ripping sound. Inside the drive is a piece of thick foamy tape that connects the top of the drive itself to the plastic housing. Keep applying gentle pressure until the whole thing rips free.



Related news: I popped in an old HD to test the setup. What happened next was very interesting. In the past, Mac OS would see the new drive as belonging to the enclosure, so to speak. I had put Mac-formatted drives into FW enclosures before but they need to be reformatted and the Mac would show the "enclosure" as the drive. This one also shows up that way in OS X 10.3's Disk Utility--it shows as a 6.0 GB LaCie. The interesting part is that I could read the drive without reformatting--and it was an NTFS drive from a Windows 2000 machine! I couldn't write to it, but I could read it, which is interesting because a) I didn't even know Macs could read NTFS drives and b) the enclosure didn't "take over" the drive as it had in the past. I don't know if all of this is because of OS X 10.3, the FW/IDE controller in this particular enclosure, or what. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Brian Ashe's home page] [brianashe.com/linux]