A handful of cool tricks you can do with the Linux Terminal. If you have a Linux Terminal. If you don't, you should consider getting one.
- Everything you always wanted to know about your hardware and for the most part did not even know you could know.
- The command dmidecode is " is a tool for dumping a computer's DMI (some say SMBIOS) table contents in a human-readable format. This table contains a description of the system's hardware components, as well as other useful pieces of information such as serial numbers and BIOS revision." (from the "man").
You need to be the Super User to run this command, for security reasons. And, so much crap comes out all at once that you need to pipe it through the "more" command to read it. In other words, type this into the command line:
sudo dmidecode | more
"sudo" means "super user do" ... and will cause the system to ask for your password. The "|" thingie "pipes" the output of dmidecode to the command "more" which, in turn, fills one screen of your terminal at a time . Just hit the space bar to ... read more.
This command will be useful if you need to know how much memory you have, what kind of processor you have, etc.
- Remote Desktop
- If you want to hook up to a distant computer using your local computer (like accessing your home computer from your laptop), there are ways to do that in Windows that don't work that well and may cost you money (for third party software), and maybe you can do it in a Mac. But in Linux, it is now and always has been easy, effective, secure, and free. And it's not that hard to do. Here is a pretty good post telling you how to do it.
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Maybe you should warn the readers that "sudo" is specific to *buntu Linux. In other variants you "su" to root to do serious damage.
BTW, "su" is short for "substitute user", not "superuser". It is mostly used to switch to root to get the superuser privileges, but you can switch to any other user as well.
http://www.linfo.org/su.html
Lassi, sudo is installed on debian and possibly others by default and can be added to any linux distro. Ubuntu does make it the default way of accessing root though, which is nice.
Lassi: Thanks for the additional information. Unfortunately, it is not necessarily correct or helpful in this case.
"sudo" is not specific to Ubuntu. It is a third party add in and it occurs on many systems or can be installed. But yes, it is not universal to Unix.
I always understood SU to be "superuser." I'm sticking to my guns on this. The "man" page does not tell us anything to contradict this, it does use the phrase "super user," thought it does not specifically say that this is what the command means. "su" defaults to super user but can also be used to "switch" users by specifying a different user. Thus, it may be one of those quirky *nix things that is meant to amuse us all, such that "s" in "su" means "super, switch, or Substitute".
The Linux Information Project. a worth source, is one of many possible sources on the meaning of "s" in "su" and they do not all provide the same information. Linuxinfo says:
This is one of those wonderful Linux things, if you gnow what I mean.
In OS X Leopard this is easy as hell.... simply use the new feature: "Back to your Mac" and you can instantly, and easily, connect to your desktop from anywhere in the world! Run your desktop or any number of desktops and use your apps, files, etc. as if they were on your laptop!
Leopard, now certified as 100% Unix 3, is very similar to Linux, but, in my mind, being a TRUE Unix, the first BSD to achieve such a certification, rather than simply being "Unix Like," is better than Linux. I can run via "Fink," etc. Linux programs and do basically anything a Linux OS can. The terminal in OS X is, more or less, identical to Linux distros.
Linux, on the other hand, is so much like OS X that I can easily imagine I'm running OS X whenever I'm using Linux.
Great blog, by the way!
I like the new Mac system, and I agree completely that it is great. However, it has the flaw that it only runs on certain hardware, and the full blown system is like windows in the sense that it has fairly hefty hardware demands. In fact, I'm not sure that i can upgrade our old Titanium (now running Linux) to Leopard ... I was hoping to do that but it may not be possible (it's a G-4).
OK, I was being too brief. Of course you can customize your Linux system as you wish. I meant the default behaviour, because I thought Greg is writing these comments primarily to new users, who haven't done much modding yet. *buntu doesn't just offer sudo as the default, it even tries to hide su from normal users. Old trick scripts that use su won't work.
About the name: "su" may have meant superuser at the time the first hello was flung on the unsuspecting world, but it really is a misnomer. It doesn't just flip a magic bit, it substitutes the user in a very real way. As an example: you don't give a username, and su defaults to the root (giving you the magical powers). Try helping some normal user by mucking around his/her/its directories, and nothing works, because all files you created are owned by root. Better to use "su - ", and all new files will be owned by the user.
'Better to use "su - " '
Aaarghh. The HTML machine eat the angle brackets. It was meant to be "su - (username)".
Lassi: Thanks for the further discussion. Yes, being any kind of super user where there are actual other users needs to be done correctly. I am the super user for my daughter's Linux machine, and I'm forever screwing her up in ways such as you have described....