Posted by BigWhale on January 5th, 2010 in
Software |
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File sharing has a long history and I will start with the time when I first got into it. At that time I was using ZX Spectrum 48k and games were distributed mostly on magnetic tapes packed in plastic boxes more commonly known as compact cassettes.
Twenty years ago, give or take a few, violation of copyrights wasn’t really a big issue in a country behind the iron curtain. Getting a new game involved borrowing the tape from a friend, going back home and copying that tape with a double cassette recorder that supported high-speed dubbing.
The other a more sophisticated way of getting a game was to tune your FM radio to a certain local radio station. Then you had to put a blank tape in a cassette recorder and press Record when they started airing the games. Yes, the local radio station was in fact airing all sorts of ZX Spectrum games and you were able to record them on tape. This was the first method of file sharing that I encountered and by today this is the only one that is limited only by the range and not by the bandwidth. A billion clients can connect at the same time and perform a download.
Read on if you want to know more on how to set up the best BitTorrent client in the Galaxy. ;)
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BitTorrent . File sharing . Linux . Torrent . TorrentFlux . Ubuntu
Posted by BigWhale on December 20th, 2009 in
Software |
1 comment
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You tried everything, booting from CD, DVD, USB, and in your desperate attempts you already started to look if there is a floppy drive laying around the house, just to get the damned thing to boot. The very same thing happened to me today. Computer, simply, would not boot. The only thing left to do is booting your computer from the network. Sounds scary, I know, but in reality this can be a trivial thing to acomplish. I have a Linksys WRT54 router that is running DD-WRT and it serves me as a DHCP server. DD-WRT is using dnsmasq which can provides DNS, DHCP and TFTP services! Great news, since this is all that you need for network boot. Unfortunately TFTP server is disabled and not really usable if you don’t have any extra storage where you could put the tftp files. You will have to use an alternative tftp server, in my case Ubuntu Workstation. Continue reading for the whole recipe …
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Howto . Installation . Linux . Operating system . Ubuntu
Posted by BigWhale on October 25th, 2009 in
Software |
1 comment
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Nowadays almost every laptop comes equipped with the camera that is sitting a little bit above the LCD screen, staring at you. Desktops are a different story since monitors with built in cameras are not that common. Unless you’re one of those fruitcakes and you own the Cinema Display. However getting a camera isn’t all that difficult and you will be overwhelmed by the offer. Cameras connected to computers are mostly called webcams and they come in various shapes, sizes and prices. Prices range from $10 up to $100 and there is a real difference between $10 camera and $100 one.
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Audio . Converting . Gstreamer . Linux . Streaming . Tutorial . Ubuntu . Video . Webcam
Posted by BigWhale on October 19th, 2009 in
Software |
2 comments
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Time sure flies when you’re having fun and now we are about ten days from final release of Ubuntu 9.10 – Karmic Koala. What kind of stew did Ubuntu guys cook for us this time? Four days after the FinalFreeze stage in the Ubuntu development cycle means that what didn’t make it in the distribution will be left out and that we will get the Release Candidate in three days. I decided to install Kubuntu 9.10 which differs from Ubuntu regular in primary desktop environment and installation program. Instead of Gnome based desktop you will get KDE based desktop. Is KDE 4.3 up to the task? Let’s dig in and see how Koala tackles the legendary horned rabbit! ;)
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KDE . Kubuntu . Linux . Operating system . review . Ubuntu
Posted by BigWhale on October 17th, 2009 in
Software |
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Image by kevygee via Flickr
It took some time, but the next batch of Linux Tips is ready. If you are following me on Twitter then you have already received all the tips. Now they are here again with some explanation just like previous time. All the feedback is appreciated and corrections are gladly accepted. ;) Obligatory ‘your computer might blow up’ disclaimer follows: All these commands were tested on my computer with my K/Ubuntu Linux installation. Before you actually use any of the commands that are published here, make sure you test them on your computer with your test files, not your actual data. I don’t want to be responsible for any tears and hair being pulled out.
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Bash . Linux . Open source . Operating system . Shell . Tips . Tricks . Unix
