2013 Linux for Newbies

[AIR]

If you went the partition route as AIR mentioned, what would be a good partition size?  VirtualBox when making virtual disk recommends 8GB, is this a good common size for Linux Distros?

8 is ok, depending on what you're doing.

My Mint15 VM, with full GTK dev packages installed, clocks in at about 5.5GB.

VMWare allows you to increase the size of the disk, if you need to.  Not sure about VBox, since I don't use it (VBox isn't allowed where I work, whereas VMWare is).  IF it does allow you to increase after the fact, then the defaults are fine.

AIR.

[John]

VirtualBox lets you set a max image size and dynamically grow as file space is needed. You also have the option to pre-define the image which is suppose to make it faster. (I never noticed a difference)

[kryton9]

Thanks for the info guys.

I watched a Hak5 episode about installing not a live boot, but a full linux install to a secure usb thumbdrive. This way if lost or stolen, you are safe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omtbebYaRqw

The 7:30 mark gets you passed all the show intro stuff to the secure encrypted mint install to thumbdrive.

[kryton9]

My Setup:
Host computer Windows 7.
VirtualBox installed in Windows 7.
Installed Ubuntu Server as a Virtual Machine in VirtualBox.
I checked SSH, LAMP and SAMBA during the install.
I also encrypted the whole install. (Not needed for home use, but wanted to try it out.)

I got it configured now so that I can access my VM Ubuntu Server from Windows in 3 ways.
1. I can use Putty a nice telnet client for Windows and SSH in.
2. I setup my LAMP to serve on my local ip of 192.168.1.75, so I can use any computer or even my cell phone to access the VM Ubuntu Lamp server.
3. I got Samba server setup and I can read and write to the shared folder on the ubuntu server.

[John]

It's a great setup. I do something similar with one of my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablets. It's used as a rooted Android Linux device that sits off to the side as a wireless Linux development server. I use the USB cable with the development (non-rooted) tablet with adb. SSH/SFTP even works through your GUI file explorer.

[kryton9]

I ssh'd in from my android cell phone using JuiceSSH.
I accessed the samba server from the phone via  AndSMB
I could edit the lamp server with DroidEdit Free after downloading the files with AndSMB.
Of course then I could view the updated web page with the browser all while lying in bed!

Amazing!!!

[John]

Sounds like you made it through the pearly gates. 

[kryton9]

I am looking at getting a tablet this month. My contract is up with Sprint.

I will go with AT&T or T-Mobile and get a Samsung with sim slot or a Nexus with sim slot.
Then I can use my tablet as my phone also and have one device I can take everywhere.

So this route we are going with your great cloud9 setups is going to be a perfect fit
for fun this Winter!

[kryton9]

I screwed up my Beaglebone Black(BBB) setup, not hardware wise but software.

Very brief recap of what the BBB can do:
1. It comes with Angstrom Linux on built in 2GB emmc memory and can boot up 2 ways.
1a. Usb BBB to PC: It gets its power from usb and you can access it via a nice web interface.
1b. BBB to usb hub(keyboard and mouse), micro HDMI to HDMI capable display-- boots to standard GUI linux desktop

2. You can also install any arm compiled Linux onto a microSD card and boot from it.
2a. You can SSH into the BBB from the PC
2b. Hook like 1b, but boot your linux distro to command line or gui if installed

I had everything tweaked the way I wanted for 1a and b and 2a.
I decided to tinker with different desktops for 2b setup.
Nice all worked well, but I decided I like 2a and removed all the desktops.

Found out linux can clean up after itself better than windows... not true.
After booting in root, I could find many files left all over the place in root folders eating up tons of space.
All of this after I apt-get purged desktop, apt-get autoclean and apt-get autoremove which all did stuff,
but still left a lot.

So I reinstalled a clean microSD image again.
This time all the same steps of setting up a static ip that worked before are not working now.
Instead of driving me nuts, I am having fun trying to figure out what is wrong. Anyways this has delayed
my work on our joint projects, so sorry about that.

Also found out that the myth linux does not need defragging is not 100% true.
Linux does a smart thing with ext4 partitions. Instead of placing files one after the other, it puts a file, leaves a lot of empty space and then places the next file.
This allows files to grow and contract, but eventually when the drive fills up you run into fragmented files.
So yes it is better than the way Windows does it and not a problem if you have a big drive. But not 100% true.

Anyways, I just wanted to explain my absence as working on this stuff 18 hours a day time flies by like nothing and all of it a blast to work on.