Couple of Interesting Linux Links Issue 1

Couple of Interesting Linux Links Issue 1

Hey since i dont get time to actually write articles these days on my blog(Well am in Undergrad college right now doing Bachelor of Technology course in Information and Communication Technology ) so well i guess i would in the meantime post good links related to Desktop Linux frequently on my blog hope you people find them interesting and useful :)

Review of EEE Laptop PC

Asus EEE laptop in past few weeks has received lots of press coverage and well has been selling like hot cakes . Its a compact laptop that sells around 400 $ and well comes with linux loaded .

Here is the review of laptop

and here is the site of the Asus EEE laptop PC


Some More Links about Asus EEE PC


Asus Says Eee PC is Most Successful Product Ever

Simple, tiny computers forcing Microsoft to make changes


Interview with Richard Stallman

Here is a nice interview with Richard Stallman that appeared in a popular indian newspaper .

Digital Colonisation curtailing right to creativity

Reasons why Schools should use free software

The article by Richar M Stallman the founder of GNU Free Software Movement discusses reasons why schools should be using free software as opposed to commercial proprietary softwares

Why schools should exclusively use free software

KDE 4

A few days back the much anticipated KDE 4 was released among much fanfare . KDE 4 has been in development for some time and has some really revolutionary features thats sure to propel desktop linux to new era in coming time .

Here is the link to the visual guide of KDE 4 .

Or if you want to try KDE 4 , here is the OpenSuse 10.3 based Live CD of KDE 4.

and here is the instructions on installing kde 4 on kubuntu/ubuntu .

and here is a nice review of KDE 4 from some one running KDE 4 on Ubuntu gusty gibbon


and Finally Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course

OK folks the long awaited Ubuntu 7.10 Desktop Course is ready, waiting and all yours for the taking! Thanks to all the community members who slogged over writing, reviewing, editing, proof reading and fixing the layout. This is just the beginning of the project which we hope will live and evolve with each new Ubuntu release. Yours to develop, enhance and branch off to your hearts content! There are 10 lessons in total. The course is modular - 2 days if all lessons are covered, however, topics and lessons can be selected as required. There are 2 versions of the course: an Instructor Guide, and a student guide

Here is the Students guide to the Desktop Course

and Here is the Instructors guide to the Desktop Course




Article Written by : Ambuj Varshney (blogambuj@gmail.com)
For Desktop on Linux Blog , http://linuxondesktop.blogspot.com
(C) 2007 , Ambuj Varshney

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Create Symbolic Links in Ubuntu

Create Symbolic Links in Ubuntu

The 2 types of links are hard links and soft links .

A hard link is essentially a file with multiple names, there are multiple copies of the file. So that if one of the hard links is deleted, the file persists to exist.

A soft link (also called symlink or symbolic link) is a file system entry that points to the file name and location. Deleting the symbolic link does not remove the original file. If, however, the file to which the soft link points is removed, the soft link stops working, it is broken.

Symbolic links can be created both from the terminal and from nautilus (file manager, GUI). 

 

Terminal

 

The syntax for creating a symbolic link is,

ln -s target source

where,

• target - The existing file/directory you would like to link TO.
• source - The file/folder to be created, copying the contents of the target. The LINK itself.

For more help see ln --help

Example:

ln -s /home/nargren/Pictures /home/nargren/Pictures_Backup

This would create a symbolic link directory called "Pictures_Backup" to my "Pictures" directory. All the content in either of the 2 directories would appear in the other one as well.

GUI

 

You can easily create a symbolic link to a folder or file by middle clicking on the folder with the mouse and dragging it to its new location, while holding the middle mouse button.

Remove Symbolic Links

 

To remove a symbolic link, be it a file or directory, simply remove the created link. This can be done either through nautilus (GUI) or using the rm and rm -f commands in the terminal.

Use of Symbolic Links

 

Symbolic links are especially useful on computers with dual-boot, running for example Windows and Linux. As symbolic links can be created across partitions and file systems, windows folders can be linked to appropriate Ubuntu folders.

I will bring my own example of using Mozilla Thunderbird as e-mail client. I would like to have my emails and profiles available, including all my downloaded emails on both operating systems. This could be done either by downloading all new e-mails when I start the software on any of the two operating systems, or via symbolic links. As I had problems downloading new emails with multiple clients, I have chosen to make a symbolic link.

I have linked my Windows

[USER]AppDataRoamingThunderbird

 folder to the Ubuntu directory

 home/.thunderbird

This allowed me to download my emails only once and have them available on both Windows and Linux while keeping my entire profile.

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Create symbolic links for multiple files simutaneously

Create symbolic links for multiple files simutaneously

As simple as:

for file in $(ls <path>|grep <something>); do ln -s <path>$file <new_path>$file; done

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