General Information--Home page:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Main_Page
Join the Linux Foundation:
http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Join
Associate Membership Application:
($49 annually)
https://www.linuxfoundation.org/events/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=2
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
We must protect Linux
Complete article:
http://legalpad.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/12/08/a-no-fly-zone-to-protect-linux-from-patent-trolls/
Until now, OIN’s purpose has been one-dimensional: to acquire a defensive portfolio of strategically crucial patents, which OIN makes available, royalty free, to any company that reciprocally agrees not to assert any of its own patents against the Linux community. (About 50 companies have already entered into such formal agreements with OIN, of which the best known are probably Google (GOOG) and Oracle (ORCL).) The implicit threat is that if any outsider — a Microsoft, (MSFT) say, which declared publicly in May 2007 that open-source software then violated 235 of its patents — were to ever bring a patent suit against a player in the Linux community, that outsider would, in turn, risk countersuit by OIN or its member companies asserting infringement of their own patents by the outsider.
While this IP-acquisition program remains a central one for OIN, Bergelt says, OIN will also now seek to “think more creatively” about other ways to protect and foster Linux’s development by means of “relationship-building” and “information-sharing,” including efforts to explain the importance of open-source and open-platform approaches to the media, patent officials, and competition authorities, among others.
http://legalpad.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/12/08/a-no-fly-zone-to-protect-linux-from-patent-trolls/
Until now, OIN’s purpose has been one-dimensional: to acquire a defensive portfolio of strategically crucial patents, which OIN makes available, royalty free, to any company that reciprocally agrees not to assert any of its own patents against the Linux community. (About 50 companies have already entered into such formal agreements with OIN, of which the best known are probably Google (GOOG) and Oracle (ORCL).) The implicit threat is that if any outsider — a Microsoft, (MSFT) say, which declared publicly in May 2007 that open-source software then violated 235 of its patents — were to ever bring a patent suit against a player in the Linux community, that outsider would, in turn, risk countersuit by OIN or its member companies asserting infringement of their own patents by the outsider.
While this IP-acquisition program remains a central one for OIN, Bergelt says, OIN will also now seek to “think more creatively” about other ways to protect and foster Linux’s development by means of “relationship-building” and “information-sharing,” including efforts to explain the importance of open-source and open-platform approaches to the media, patent officials, and competition authorities, among others.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Week 13 – Blog 11 -- Page 578
Answer the questions to the Assignment on page 578.
1. What series of commands starts a child csh shell, determines the current port, then examines the processes currently running on that port?
A. csh ; tty ; ps –t /dev/pts/1 >> job. (yup, tested!! Works!!)
2. A. What signal quits a process? A. CTRL-\
2. B. What signal interrupts a process? A. CTRL-C
2. C. What are the differences between the two? A. The quit signal stops the process, whereas the interrupt signal puts the process “on hold” until you get back to it.
2. D. When should you use kill -9? A. When no other kill command will work, it is a last resort because it cannot be ignored and you may lose work when the process stops.
Refer to this list for questions 3-5:
[2] stopped sort /etc/passwd
[3] - stopped vi .cshrc
[4] + stopped more .login
[5] running find / -name foo
3. What command would you use to bring the vi editor to the foreground?
A. fg %- OR fg %vi
4. What is the command you would use to kill the more process?
A. kill %4 OR kill -9 %4
5. What is the command you would use to get this listing?
A. jobs
6. Consider this: You log on to your system on tty23. The system starts a csh for you that has a PID of 1056. Then you start a shell script (which is executed by a sh with a PID of 1080) that in turn executes who with a PID of 2020.
Csh PID 1056
Sh PID 1080 PPID 1056
Who PID 2020 PPID 1080
6. A. what is the PPID of the who process? A. PPID 1080
6. B. What is the PPID of the process executing the script? A. PPID 1056
6. C. With information provided, can you determine with what tty the who process is associated? A. The tty is probably still tty 23.
Instructions: Enter or paste your written work and/or
click "Attachments" to upload your files.
1. What series of commands starts a child csh shell, determines the current port, then examines the processes currently running on that port?
A. csh ; tty ; ps –t /dev/pts/1 >> job. (yup, tested!! Works!!)
2. A. What signal quits a process? A. CTRL-\
2. B. What signal interrupts a process? A. CTRL-C
2. C. What are the differences between the two? A. The quit signal stops the process, whereas the interrupt signal puts the process “on hold” until you get back to it.
2. D. When should you use kill -9? A. When no other kill command will work, it is a last resort because it cannot be ignored and you may lose work when the process stops.
Refer to this list for questions 3-5:
[2] stopped sort /etc/passwd
[3] - stopped vi .cshrc
[4] + stopped more .login
[5] running find / -name foo
3. What command would you use to bring the vi editor to the foreground?
A. fg %- OR fg %vi
4. What is the command you would use to kill the more process?
A. kill %4 OR kill -9 %4
5. What is the command you would use to get this listing?
A. jobs
6. Consider this: You log on to your system on tty23. The system starts a csh for you that has a PID of 1056. Then you start a shell script (which is executed by a sh with a PID of 1080) that in turn executes who with a PID of 2020.
Csh PID 1056
Sh PID 1080 PPID 1056
Who PID 2020 PPID 1080
6. A. what is the PPID of the who process? A. PPID 1080
6. B. What is the PPID of the process executing the script? A. PPID 1056
6. C. With information provided, can you determine with what tty the who process is associated? A. The tty is probably still tty 23.
Instructions: Enter or paste your written work and/or
click "Attachments" to upload your files.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
OpenGoo
OpenGoo bundles tools to edit text and HTML documents and presentations. A module to handle spreadsheets is currently under development. You can upload files in other formats to OpenGoo for centralized access and version control. Users can also create and manage task lists, send and receive email, and manage personal and group calendars, links, and contacts.
Many of these tasks are handled by other open source apps. Instead of reinventing the wheel, the OpenGoo developers glue together available tools, filling in the odd hole with custom apps wherever required. Some of the tools they use include FCKEditor for text editing, ExtJS for most of the AJAX interface, activeCollab for project management, and Reece calendar. For handling and editing presentations, the developers created something called Slimey.
Get OpenGoo here: http://opengoo.org/
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Week 12 – Blog 10 – Permissions
Besides permissions, what other ways are there to secure a system?
1. You can protect your system by requiring that users log on and use strong passwords. It is a good idea to let the screen lock after a period of inactivity and require the user to log back on.
2. Your anti-virus software can be set to scan for malware and viruses. Use anti-spyware, anti-malware, anti-adware software and keep it updated. Keep abreast of the news and be aware of threats as they arise. You should be aware of keylogger programs that record your keystrokes so an unauthorized user can steal your information. Good article here: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1829 (see note below)
3. You can use either a software or hardware firewall. If you have a network you can combine a proxy firewall with a packet-filtering firewall greater defense.
4. Keep all your software and operating system updated so that any security patches will be installed.
5. Keep file sharing to a minimum.
What type of threats might you be securing yourself from?
1. One type of threat would be an unauthorized user getting passwords or other data off of your computer either by getting into your computer from the Internet or by capturing your information when you are on the Internet.
2. Another type of threat is malicious software installing itself on your computer.
3. If you have a network, you do not want any unauthorized users to have access to your data, your web pages, or any of your user information.
Note on keyloggers from http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1829
To prevent keyloggers on the desktop level two types of anti-keylogging software is available from various vendors:
1. Signature based anti-keylogger. These are applications that typically identify a keylogger based on the files or DLLs that it installs, and the registry entries that it makes. Although it successfully identifies known keyloggers, it fails to identify a keylogger whose signature is not stored in its database. Some anti-spyware applications use this approach, with varying degrees of success.
2. Hook based anti-keyloggers. A hook process in Windows uses the function SetWindowsHookEx(), the same function that hook based keyloggers use. This is used to monitor the system for certain types of events, for instance a keypress/mouse-click -- however, hook based anti-keyloggers block this passing of control from one hook procedure to another. This results in the keylogging software generating no logs at all of the keystroke capture. Although hook based anti-keyloggers are better than signature based anti-keyloggers, note that they still are incapable of stopping kernel-based keyloggers.
P.S. I know you are aware that there are classes on computer security, I can't even begin to cover it all here.
But I gave it a shot :-)
P.P.S. See Snort in the entry below.
1. You can protect your system by requiring that users log on and use strong passwords. It is a good idea to let the screen lock after a period of inactivity and require the user to log back on.
2. Your anti-virus software can be set to scan for malware and viruses. Use anti-spyware, anti-malware, anti-adware software and keep it updated. Keep abreast of the news and be aware of threats as they arise. You should be aware of keylogger programs that record your keystrokes so an unauthorized user can steal your information. Good article here: http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1829 (see note below)
3. You can use either a software or hardware firewall. If you have a network you can combine a proxy firewall with a packet-filtering firewall greater defense.
4. Keep all your software and operating system updated so that any security patches will be installed.
5. Keep file sharing to a minimum.
What type of threats might you be securing yourself from?
1. One type of threat would be an unauthorized user getting passwords or other data off of your computer either by getting into your computer from the Internet or by capturing your information when you are on the Internet.
2. Another type of threat is malicious software installing itself on your computer.
3. If you have a network, you do not want any unauthorized users to have access to your data, your web pages, or any of your user information.
Note on keyloggers from http://www.securityfocus.com/infocus/1829
To prevent keyloggers on the desktop level two types of anti-keylogging software is available from various vendors:
1. Signature based anti-keylogger. These are applications that typically identify a keylogger based on the files or DLLs that it installs, and the registry entries that it makes. Although it successfully identifies known keyloggers, it fails to identify a keylogger whose signature is not stored in its database. Some anti-spyware applications use this approach, with varying degrees of success.
2. Hook based anti-keyloggers. A hook process in Windows uses the function SetWindowsHookEx(), the same function that hook based keyloggers use. This is used to monitor the system for certain types of events, for instance a keypress/mouse-click -- however, hook based anti-keyloggers block this passing of control from one hook procedure to another. This results in the keylogging software generating no logs at all of the keystroke capture. Although hook based anti-keyloggers are better than signature based anti-keyloggers, note that they still are incapable of stopping kernel-based keyloggers.
P.S. I know you are aware that there are classes on computer security, I can't even begin to cover it all here.
But I gave it a shot :-)
P.P.S. See Snort in the entry below.
Snort !!
What is Snort?
Snort is an open source network intrusion prevention system, capable of performing real-time traffic analysis and packet logging on IP networks. It can perform protocol analysis, content searching/matching and can be used to detect a variety of attacks and probes, such as buffer overflows, stealth port scans, CGI attacks, SMB probes, OS fingerprinting attempts, and much more.
Snort uses a flexible rules language to describe traffic that it should collect or pass, as well as a detection engine that utilizes a modular plugin architecture. Snort has a real-time alerting capability as well, incorporating alerting mechanisms for syslog, a user specified file, a UNIX socket, or WinPopup messages to Windows clients using Samba's smbclient.
Snort has three primary uses. It can be used as a straight packet sniffer like tcpdump(1), a packet logger (useful for network traffic debugging, etc), or as a full blown network intrusion prevention system.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Android, the Open Handset Alliance
Android is the first free, open source,
and fully customizable mobile platform.
Android offers a full stack: an operating system,
middleware, and key mobile applications.
It also contains a rich set of APIs that allows
third-party developers to develop great applications.
See for yourself here: http://source.android.com/
And here: http://www.android.com/timeline.html
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Fedora Women
Fedora seeks developers with two X chromosomes
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Women
Fedora Women aims to provide a central forum and point of support for the often under-represented side of Fedora's Community.
A large portion of the Fedora userbase is made up of women. They are often under-represented within the community, with many people not even realizing how big a share of the community they are. The Fedora Women program aims to improve that representation and to provide a forum for the women of the Fedora Community.
More information here:http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Women
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Blog 8 -- Page 400 Self Test 3
Blog 8 – Chapter 7 – Page 400 Self Test 3
1) What command would you enter to move the file “eakins” which is in your current directory, so that it’s listed in your home directory?
A. mv eakins /home/mpoulton.
2) What is the difference between the commands rmdir and rm –r?
A. rmdir only removes an empty directory where as rm –r removes a directory and everything in the directory.
3) Assume you are the Projects directory, which has the subdirectories Old-projects and New-projects. What is the command to move the Book-project directory from New-projects to Old-projects?
A. Use mv New-projects/Book-project/ Old-projects. The Book-project directory moves from the New-projects to the Old-projects, files and all.
4) You are in your home directory, where there is a file named users_on. What command will list the file in both your home directory and in the subdirectory Projects?
A. Use ln users_on Projects. This will place a link in the Projects directory that is just like the file in the home directory.
1) What command would you enter to move the file “eakins” which is in your current directory, so that it’s listed in your home directory?
A. mv eakins /home/mpoulton.
2) What is the difference between the commands rmdir and rm –r?
A. rmdir only removes an empty directory where as rm –r removes a directory and everything in the directory.
3) Assume you are the Projects directory, which has the subdirectories Old-projects and New-projects. What is the command to move the Book-project directory from New-projects to Old-projects?
A. Use mv New-projects/Book-project/ Old-projects. The Book-project directory moves from the New-projects to the Old-projects, files and all.
4) You are in your home directory, where there is a file named users_on. What command will list the file in both your home directory and in the subdirectory Projects?
A. Use ln users_on Projects. This will place a link in the Projects directory that is just like the file in the home directory.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Blog 7 -- Certifications & Jobs
Week 8 -- Blog 7 -- Answer two questions.
1) What types of Linux or UNIX certifications are out there?
Novel offers training and certification.
http://www.novell.com/training/certinfo/clp/
There are vendor-neutral certifications called LPIC (Linux Professional Institute Certification). Found here: http://www.lpi.org/
There are three levels of certifications; the Junior Level Administration (LPIC1), the Intermediate Level Administration (LPIC2), and the Senior Level Administration (LPIC3).
Another site with vendor neutral certifications is CompTIA. Their certifications for hands-on technicians include Linux+, A+, and Network+.
CompTIA Found here: http://certification.comptia.org/linux/
Red Hat offers Linux certification: http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/
Dell offers training and certification here:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/tnc/tnc_series?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&redirect=2&ST=linux%20certifications&dgc=ST&cid=18663&lid=425070
Very interesting Linux certification site here:
http://gocertify.com/faq/linuxfaq.shtml
UNIX certifications:
http://gocertify.com/certification/GCUX.shtml
http://gocertify.com/certification/UNIXSystems.shtml
http://www.unixcert.net/solaris/solaris.htm
http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/the_brand.html
http://certification.about.com/od/unix/Unix_Certification_Resources.htm
http://www.opengroup.org/platform/unix_certification/
2) What type of jobs can you get with Linux/UNIX certifications?
Since Linux and UNIX are the main operating systems of the Internet, you can get a job managing workstations, thin clients, and Internet servers. Advanced users should be able to set up networks, or be a system administrator. Another job would be a database administrator.
Job listings websites:
http://www.justtechjobs.com/Jobseekers.asp
http://unix.ittoolbox.com/findjobs/
http://unix.computerwork.com/
http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=477
http://unix.ittoolbox.com/topics/t.asp?t=453&p=453&h1=453
1) What types of Linux or UNIX certifications are out there?
Novel offers training and certification.
http://www.novell.com/training/certinfo/clp/
There are vendor-neutral certifications called LPIC (Linux Professional Institute Certification). Found here: http://www.lpi.org/
There are three levels of certifications; the Junior Level Administration (LPIC1), the Intermediate Level Administration (LPIC2), and the Senior Level Administration (LPIC3).
Another site with vendor neutral certifications is CompTIA. Their certifications for hands-on technicians include Linux+, A+, and Network+.
CompTIA Found here: http://certification.comptia.org/linux/
Red Hat offers Linux certification: http://www.redhat.com/certification/rhce/
Dell offers training and certification here:
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/services/tnc/tnc_series?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&redirect=2&ST=linux%20certifications&dgc=ST&cid=18663&lid=425070
Very interesting Linux certification site here:
http://gocertify.com/faq/linuxfaq.shtml
UNIX certifications:
http://gocertify.com/certification/GCUX.shtml
http://gocertify.com/certification/UNIXSystems.shtml
http://www.unixcert.net/solaris/solaris.htm
http://www.unix.org/what_is_unix/the_brand.html
http://certification.about.com/od/unix/Unix_Certification_Resources.htm
http://www.opengroup.org/platform/unix_certification/
2) What type of jobs can you get with Linux/UNIX certifications?
Since Linux and UNIX are the main operating systems of the Internet, you can get a job managing workstations, thin clients, and Internet servers. Advanced users should be able to set up networks, or be a system administrator. Another job would be a database administrator.
Job listings websites:
http://www.justtechjobs.com/Jobseekers.asp
http://unix.ittoolbox.com/findjobs/
http://unix.computerwork.com/
http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=477
http://unix.ittoolbox.com/topics/t.asp?t=453&p=453&h1=453
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Discussion 2 for CIT 173 – Just FYI
• What is open source?
I think it is fitting to mention that the "Internet", as we know it today, began in the 1960's. At this time, there were only about 10,000 computers on the Defense Department project called ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. The computers did not come with operating systems so the computer technicians had to write their own software. In the late 1960's and early 1970's university technicians and students continued to experiment with and write programs. UNIX grew out of Bell Laboratories, a division of AT&T. Later the University of Berkley created its own version of UNIX called Berkley Software Distribution, or BSD. By the late 1980's several versions of UNIX and other free software abounded. Richard Stallman, a Physics student at Harvard wanted to write his own programs and he wanted them to be free and compatible with UNIX. Stallman came up with the idea of "Copyleft" using copyright law to guarantee material can be freely used, examined, copied, and distributed. These "copyleft's" can be found in the General Public License (GNU). Stallman created the GCC compiler and the Emacs text editor among several other utilities. A mere 17 years ago, in 1991, Linus Torvalds from the University of Helsinki wrote a Unix-like kernel based on Minix and Linux was born. Open Source Software is not "free" software; it is software with numerous licenses attached to it that is free to look at, free to change, and free to distribute. I believe that the browser wars introduced many people to Open Source Software in the form of Mozilla Firefox.
• What do you believe the future of open source is?
I believe that Open Source Software (OSS) has a bright future. There are so many people writing open source code, and so many students studying open source applications, it is reasonable to believe that OSS may eventually take the place of commercial software from companies like Microsoft or Symantec. If OSS does not replace commercial software, it will at least take its place beside it on the shelf at Office Depot. Oracle is already onboard with open source software. At the last Oracle convention I went to, Novell had a distribution of Suse optimized to run Oracle utilities. I think it is just a matter of time before enough people know how to customize OSS. When that happens, OSS will be a part of everyone's life.
• Name one large company who uses open source.
Hewlett Packard (HP) sells and supports Linux. Many of HP's printers have drivers for Linux platforms. HP claims that Linux can "save valuable time and money and reduce deployment stress, because Linux solutions can offer great performance, reliability, and flexibility at lower cost". I think HP is forward thinking and they will have a larger customer base by offering Linux solutions.
References:
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/321097-0-0-0-121.html (HP)
http://www.opensource.org
www.linux.org
www.novell.com
www.computerhistory.org
www.linuxforu.com
www.linuxbase.org
www.linux-watch.com
www.openknowledge.org
Short list of interesting open source software:
Moodle (http://moodle.org/), a popular course management system like Blackboard.
Tux Paint (www.newbreedsoftware.com/ tuxpaint/) is an easy-to-use draw program.
Blender (www.blender3d.comlcrns/Home.2.0.html), for modeling and animation.
Qcad (www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html), for computer aided 2-D drafting
GIMP (www.gimp.org/), for image manipulation.
ImageMagick (www.imagemagick .org/script/index.php), for creating images from scratch.
FreeMind (http://freemind.sourceforge.net/ wiki/index.php/Main_Page) a mind mapping tool.
1HMC Cmap Tools (http://cmap.ihmc.us/) a concept map tool.
Audacity (http://audacity .sourceforge.net/) a best audio-editing
Dynebolic (www.dynebolic.org/) and Jahshaka (www.jahshaka.org/) tools for sound and video recording, editing, encoding, and streaming.
And of course OpenOffice Suite (www.openoffice.org/)
StarOffice (www.sun.com/software/staroffice/) from Sun comes at a very reasonable price.
Nyu ("new view"; www.nyu.com/) for webpage building.
Firefox (www.mozilla.com/firefox/) web browser.
Apache web server software (www.apache .org/).
Friday, October 3, 2008
PDF's for Linux
Foxit Reader for desktop Linux:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/desklinux/
Adobe Reader for Linux and Solaris:
http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=10&platform=unix
A document viewer, called Evince, for multiple document formats.
It currently supports pdf, postscript, djvu, tiff and dvi.
http://www.gnome.org/projects/evince/
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/
Adobe Reader for Linux and Solaris:
http://www.adobe.com/support/
A document viewer, called Evince, for multiple document formats.
It currently supports pdf, postscript, djvu, tiff and dvi.
http://www.gnome.org/projects/
Blog 6 -- Chapter 5a -- Utilities
Blog 6 -- Week 6
Assignment: Chapter 5 Self Test 1
1) If you are using 'more' to examine a file and decide you want to look back at the previous page, what do you enter?
A. 'b' or ctrl - B.
2) From 'more', how can you quickly start editing the current file with vi?
A. 'v' then <enter>. This starts the utility /usr/bin/vi.
3) What command tells 'cut' to output the first five characters of every line from the file 'practice'?
A. cut –c1-5 practice | more. The –c if for the character.
4) What command tells 'grep' to look for all lines consisting of only the letter 'Z' followed by any four characters in a file filename?
A. grep Z –a3 *.
5) What command instructs 'grep' to look through all files in the current directory for lines containing the string 'Pat Lloyd' and output just the names of the files that contain a match?
A. "grep –l 'Pat Lloyd' * | more". The '-l' tells grep to list the filenames not the individual lines.
6) How do you get the answer to the following with four figures to the right of the decimal point? Add 424 to 79, divide that sum by 161, then raise that result to the 15th power.
A. Start with 'bc', 424 + 79 (displays 503). 'scale=2' 503 / 161 (displays 3.12). 3.12 ^ 15th power (displays 25841570.87).
7) What command tells a utility to search through every file in the current directory for the name 'Catherine Thamzin'?
A. "grep 'Catherine Thamzin' *".
8) What command results in a listing of the number of words and the number of lines in the files 'practice' and 'users_on'?
A. wc –l -w practice users_on
9) What command creates a new file 'chapter' consisting of the contents of the files 'section1', 'section2', 'section3', and 'section4' with all the lines numbered?
A. cat 'section1', 'section2', 'section3', and 'section4' > chapter. Vi chapter (when in vi; type ':set number' and the numbers appear in front of each line.
10) A file called 'empnames' contains many employee names, with exactly one name on each line. What command outputs the names in the file in multiple columns, with columns filled before rows?
A. column 'empnames' | more. (just column fills columns first, column –x fills rows THEN columns). I am worried, I think the man says just the opposite. But I tried it and it worked this way.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
O'Reilly Media Bookstore
Very interesting pocket guides
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003524/
A complete list of books and pocket guides that O'Reilly publishes.
http://oreilly.com/store/complete.html
http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596003524/
A complete list of books and pocket guides that O'Reilly publishes.
http://oreilly.com/store/complete.html
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Blog 5 --Chapter 4 -- Visual Editors
Blog 5 -- Week 5 Assignment:
Research the Internet to find other text editors for Unix and Linux.
Write a little about the pro's and con's of each. Are they GUI or command line?
There are several options for visual text editors for Linux and UNIX. The oldest one is VI which is about 30 years old. The updated version is called VIM. Pico and Emacs are also very popular. From my reading on the Internet, VI is the most popular. Emacs seems to be a little more difficult to use, however it has more features than VI. Some other text editors are Joe, Nano, Cool Edit, and Nvu. The rest of the text editors appeared to be WYSIWYG editors, some are for use with X windows, some are for UNIX, and some are java based. Some of the GUI text editors are Mined2000, Netscape Composer, Kompozer, and Mnaya. They all seem to be very similar. The main difference I can see is how many key strokes it takes to do something. I believe that it makes sense to learn the VI commands since that program is on virtually every UNIX and Linux machine in existence. There are a couple of text editors that are different, one is called Xeena that IBM uses, and a text editor called Omega that actually translates from one programing language to another. This sounds very handy! There are so many different text editors it is hard to decide which one to use. Jennifer Kyrnin said that she had tested over 40 HTML editors and posted her favorites at this website. Tested over 40 editors, WHEW!! http://webdesign.about.com/od/linuxunixhtmleditors/tp/best_linux_html_editors.htm
Here is a very cool website I found with a chart of VI commands:
http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial.html
This is the Emacs website:
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/tour/
Cream extends VIM to make it easier to use for the average person. If you are used to using VI or VIM but are tired of having to remember all the commands, then Cream is a great alternative
http://cream.sourceforge.net/download.html
Java based web editor:
http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/
Java based text editor:
http://www.jedit.org/index.php?page=download
CUTE User-friendly Text Editor (supposedly easy to use)
Environment for Preparing HTML Documents ASHE (A Simple XHTML Editor)
http://www.cs.rpi.edu/~puninj/TALK/head.html
Sea Monkey is more than a text editor, it is an "all-in-one internet application suite" that has a Internet browser, a Mail and Newsgroups client, an HTML editor, and add-ons that enhance its usability.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
This program is a little different, it is for people who can't live without VI, a Vi/vim emulation for Visual Studio, Word, Outlook and SQL Server. I had no idea people could have VI withdrawals.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Blog 4 – CIT 173 – Linux
Blog 4 -- Week 4 Assignment:
Textbook page 119, answer the questions to Self Test 3.
1) When you enter the following command, what happened and why?
Cat > dog – nothing happens on the screen, the curser sits at the next line waiting for input. The Default input is the keyboard, whatever you type cat will output to the screen or a file. However, the file "dog" was created.
2) What results from the following commands?
who | grep $USER – This looks for the $USER value, passes it to grep, and grep looks for that value in the output of who. The result is that any line that has my user name in it will be output to the screen.
grep \$HOME file1 – Nothing happens because the backslash is preventing grep from interpreting the "$HOME" command.
echo u* >> file1 – This command finds the lines that begin with "u" and adds the line to "file1".
echo 'u*' >> file1 – This command finds the lines that end with a "u" and adds the line to "file1".
ps – This command lists the processes that are running on the machine. There are two or three pages of switches to modify the information ps looks for.
. fileA – A period at the front of a command with a file name after it, indicates to the shell that all the commands in the file should be read and executed one after the other.
set noclobber – This command changes a setting to on in the shell that will not allow a utility to overwrite what is already in a file if the file already exists. This command is for the csh and tcsh shells.
set -o – This command produces a list that allows you to see if the shell variables are set to on or off. This command works in ksh and bash shells.
chmod + x file2 – This command changes the permissions on "file2" and allows the file to be executed.
3) How can we change the prompt to be "Next?" in both families of shells?
C shell – set prompt = 'Next'
Korn shell – PS1 = 'Next'
4) What data is in each field in the passwd file?
Login (the name of the account), password (your encrypted password), UserID (a number that is assigned to your account), GroupID (users must belong to a group, used to assign permissions), misc (information about the user), home directory (your current directory when you logon), Startup program (the program that is loaded when you log on, usually a shell).
5) What command instructs the shell not to accept CTRL-D as a signal to log off?
In the c-shells use set ignoreeof and in the k-shells use set –o ignoreeof.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Blog 3 – CIT 173 – Linux
Blog 3 -- Week 3 assignment:
List three of your favorite commands and tell why they are your favorite and how you might use them in the real world.
My absolute favorite command is the pipe "|". This makes thing so easy by applying the output of one program to the input of another program. I would use this for counting lists. I could count programs running, directories, files, and lines in files. I like to count things.
My next favorite is the append command ">>". I think this is really useful for adding a few things to a file. I would use this for adding dates to files or for adding instructions to a file after I thought I was done with that file. I could also use it to add something to one of many lists I like to make.
My third favorite command is "touch". I really like how this changes the date of a file without opening the file. I also like how it knows to make a blank file if the name you type does not exist. The main thing I would use it for is backing up files that have been modified recently. Besides the "touch" command allows you to pick files to backup that you haven't actually modified recently. I think it is a very useful command.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Blog 2 – CIT 173 – Linux
Blog 2 -- Week 2 Assignment
Question: What functions do Linux and/or Unix provide in today's business world?
According to our textbook, Introduction to UNIX and Linux by John Muster, "If tomorrow morning all UNIX/Linux computer systems ceased to function, we would be living in a very different world". Many of the things we use run on UNIX/Linux machines, such as the Internet, our universities, banks, and the government. Muster even asserts that UNIX/Linux systems are responsible for all the business that goes on in our world today. UNIX/Linux systems are responsible for much of the data processing that goes on everywhere in today's business world.
I did find out that open source software has made its way into Hewlett-Packard. See the website below for information about HP, open source, and Linux.
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/321152-0-0-0-121.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
It appears that most servers run on UNIX/Linux. I know Microsoft makes Server software, but perhaps it is not used as extensively as UNIX/Linux. I was not able to find out any statistics on UNIX, Linux, and Windows servers.
Just for fun, here is a great website that lists over 600 distributions of Linux. The website also has some history on its Linux Distribution Guide page.
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/
Question: What functions do Linux and/or Unix provide in today's business world?
According to our textbook, Introduction to UNIX and Linux by John Muster, "If tomorrow morning all UNIX/Linux computer systems ceased to function, we would be living in a very different world". Many of the things we use run on UNIX/Linux machines, such as the Internet, our universities, banks, and the government. Muster even asserts that UNIX/Linux systems are responsible for all the business that goes on in our world today. UNIX/Linux systems are responsible for much of the data processing that goes on everywhere in today's business world.
I did find out that open source software has made its way into Hewlett-Packard. See the website below for information about HP, open source, and Linux.
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/321152-0-0-0-121.html?jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN
It appears that most servers run on UNIX/Linux. I know Microsoft makes Server software, but perhaps it is not used as extensively as UNIX/Linux. I was not able to find out any statistics on UNIX, Linux, and Windows servers.
Just for fun, here is a great website that lists over 600 distributions of Linux. The website also has some history on its Linux Distribution Guide page.
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/
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