How to find out the partitions and drives on your linux system

I'm no expert, so I can only say this works on Ubuntu linux, I don't know if this tip applies to everything else. Give it a try..

I often run into commands trying to do things with linux..

Such as trying to use Shred

The question is, what is the name of my disk, and what form does this command want it in?

This may help:

Get to a Command Line and type in:

sudo parted

You should get
[sudo] password for makerspace: 
GNU Parted 2.3
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.

Then Type:

(parted) print devices                                                    

You should get something like:

/dev/sda (80.0GB)
/dev/sdb (15.6GB)
/dev/mapper/mint--vg-root (75.7GB)
/dev/mapper/mint--vg-swap_1 (4081MB)

What's Next 10/6/2015 Geeky Edition

What's Next: A quick look into future technology news

Open Source Kernel Development:

The Linux kernel development community is repeatedly reported to be a source of grief for anyone attempting to penetrate their ranks. Vitriol and insults and questions of the validity of your lineage seem to be the norm. This doesn't make everyone incredibly happy..

So we have a new fork of Linux, and that new guy is in charge or something. Just happened today, maybe it becomes something, maybe it doesn't, at least that guy can sleep easier.

The Quantum Computer are finally on the way:
A team from University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Australia have demonstrated a two qubit quantum logic gate, built in silicon! They are working on patents and partnerships now.

Linux File Systems:

This is a little better than a rumor. But Mark Shuttleworth today responded to a request to include ZFS in ubuntu by saying that it was upcoming.

ZFS is a robust and powerful filesystem with all the features for RAID and distributed drives. It would be great to get it into Ubuntu. Good luck Mark.

Sophisticated Programming Languages:

Larry Wall has unveiled Perl 6, after over 10years of anticipation.
It's quite the change, one day I will learn this language, yes one day.

What's Next 9/25/2015

What's Next: A quick look into future technology news

Qualcomm Has released a SnapDragon Dev board:

A $70 development board that runs linux on cell phone guts.
The inclusion of high speed ports and linux OS could make for a bright future with this board.

 What's Next in Technological Skepticism: Lets not move to Mars

Seems Pretty unlivable.. (for now)

Free Software helped me make a business card

I've got a brand new business card

Being that I'm not quite willing to publish my info free an clear on the internet.. here's a privacy minded version..

In making this card I used all Free and Open source software and fonts!

I used the Linux operating system (Mint standard install).

http://www.linuxmint.com/

Within linux I used the VERY Excellent Inkscape software (fully free and open source)

But: If you want to follow in my footsteps, you don't need Linux, Inkscape is available in all the major operating systems, it even works nearly identically. In my experience its also very solid and hard to crash/mess up. I really cannot say enough good things about Inkscape, if it does the task you need, it should be the first choice!

https://inkscape.org/

The font is Open Sans, which some friends of mine with lots more design experience recommended. It is provided free from Google.

https://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Open+Sans

The graphic is a video card I scanned years ago for another project.

Thanks to my various friends and family that helped with the design decisions, you know who you are (I'm ok at design on a good day).


If you want to make high quality graphics, but don't want to talk to a banker first, Inkscape should be your first stop.

As another bonus:
Many Maker types are using inkscape as a lightweight CAD, they make the designs in inkscape then publish them to the laser cutter at home or the local makerspace.

Open Source WIFI Drivers

Broadcom recently announced releasing the drivers for their very common wireless chipsets.

This means suddenly the software to run WIFI in linux isn't such a hassle or a hack for anyone who is using (or might use) and Broadcom chipset.

It also means drivers and software will be included in Linux and other Open Source Operating systems, without any wonky licensing issues.

Way to go Broadcom!!

Check out their website..

News Via Hardocp and Here

X Windows Graphics Drivers problems

Installing the graphics drivers in Linux can be rather tricky, but I recently discovered a way to get out of the command line and into the easier to understand graphical interface. These tips should work for most distributions, but the only one I have done it with is Ubuntu. If your in Debian or Ubuntu and using an ATI or NVIDIA card then Automatix or Envy are definitely the way to go for installing your video drivers. Although envy can also be run in text mode I couldn't get it to work.

I worked on the problem for quite a while and although there is a moderately easy solution I didn't see it anywhere that I looked on the Internet, I don't know if its one of the few remaining "everybody should know that" things in Ubuntu or if everyone else really does use the more complicated methods....

Anyways, here's how to get out of text mode so you can install your drivers. Just change the video driver to vesa!

The easier way to do this (in Ubuntu/Debian) is to type:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

This command runs the Xorg setup script, the very first question is which video driver the server should use, there should be a Vesa driver in that list, just hit enter once you have it highlighted, then just hit enter for the rest of the options (unless you really want to change something else). Then after the program exits just type:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$startx

Of course there is also the good old method of manually editing your Xorg.conf

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Then you need to find the part that looks like:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "nvidia" ....

Then just change Driver to "vesa" then save the file and:

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$startx

X should start now, it might be a bit slower and not able to do Beryl, but at least you can use this mode to get Envy or Automatix going and get the proper drivers installed without having to muck about in the CLI. :D

(P.S. if I got anything wrong Please correct me in the comments)