Linux has grown leaps and bounds since its inception in early 1990s. Still, games was an area where Linux critics have been fairly vocal. But, the scenario seems to be changing with lots of games now being available on Linux.
(more…)

Its been a couple of weeks since I have been using Ubuntu 13.04. As far as the look & feel is concerned, its more or less same as Ubuntu 12.04 while with my daily work too I have not encountered something which has drastically changed. But there is something that started annoying me for past 3-4 days. The problem is that when ever I turn on my Ubuntu, a window saying System Program Problem Detected appears. It further says, Do You Want To Report The Problem Now?. I does not provide any way to get the details of the problem. You can either Cancel or Report Problem.

Here is a snapshot of the problem I am talking about :

(more…)

HERE document is a special purpose code block through which text inputs can be supplied to programs on command line and within shell scripts. This way, HERE documents provide a good alternative for fetching inputs from text files.

In this article, we will understand most of the important aspects of HERE documents through some practical examples. Also, towards the end of article will be a list of resources which are worth read on various practical aspects of HERE documents.

(more…)

Linux is considered to be a fairly secure operating system due to the way it is designed. For example, you cannot just download an executable and accidentally run it. If you want to execute it, you have to explicitly set its executable bit ON. Similarly, if you want to tweak any system specific parameter or configuration,  you have to attain root privileges first and after doing stuff, you can de-escalate the privilege level. These types of security pillars work well to ensure that Linux system doesn’t get exploited easily.

Most of the Linux users have this perception that as long as a hacker does not attain root privileges, there is not much damage that he/she can do to a Linux system. I would say it is true but to a certain extent only. And to prove my point, here, in this article, I will discuss 4 ways in which access to a Linux box even with non-root privileges can cause some serious damage.

(more…)

Back in 2012, after my article on Linux ELF Virus was published in Linux Journal, I was curious to come up with a trigger point for this virus. I mean what would compel a Linux user to execute it for the very first time? I thought about it many times but could not come up with something in a working state.

Cut to the present times – Last Friday, when I was coming back from my office through office bus, I was indulged in some technical talk with a guy who works on encoders and decoders for various media file formats. Suddenly the same thought struck in my mind and I asked him whether it is possible for him to come up with a situation where a Linux user clicks on an image file, the image gets displayed but a notorious code gets executed in the back end?
(more…)

Ever since Android has made it big, Linux based mobile OS (refer to our article on Linux based Mobile OS ) have become the flavour of season in the technology world. Here in this article, we will peel of the first layer to know more about Linux based mobile operating system – FireFox OS.

Image Courtesy – Flickr

(more…)

Though there are hundreds of  interesting facts about Linux but in this article I have collected 15 facts that I felt were the most interesting and lesser known.  So, Enjoy and do share if you have some more of these.

(Image Courtesy – ArsTechnica)

(more…)

bc utility is surely one of the underdogs when it comes to calculations on command line. It’s a feature rich utility that has its own fan base but needs time to get comfortable with. Here, in this article, structured in form of Q&A, let’s get comfortable with bc utility by discussing both basic and advanced features of this command line calculator.

(more…)

Vim is one of the popular text editors of Linux. Because of its capabilities, there is a large fan base of this command line based text editor. In this article, we will discuss some impressive features of vim editor that can help you save a lot of time while working on vim.
(more…)

Besides well known devices like Google’s Android, Amazon’s Kindle etc, Linux is powering some of the most amazing devices around the globe and in the sky.

Have a look at these 12 awesome devices that are powered by Linux.
(more…)