Here is a tip for anyone like me that is running 64 bit Ubuntu on AMD processors and wanting to install Skype.  This is what I ran into recently and I found a solution so I wanted to share.  This is a one liner that will take care of it for you, or at least it did with me on 8.04 Hardy Heron.

sudo apt-get install ia32-libs lib32asound2 libasound2-plugins;
wget -O skype-install.deb http://www.skype.com/go/getskype-linux-ubuntu;
sudo dpkg -i --force-all skype-install.deb;

See? That’s all there is to it! This installs some supporting libraries as well as Skype itself. I broke this into multiple lines at the semicolons so it would display properly, but you can run it all as one big command or seperately. Enjoy!

For any of you out there that work with Linux and ISO images, here is a nifty trick for mounting your ISO images directly without having to burn them to CD’s first. Basically, pick your mount point (/mnt/iso in this example) and your ISO image (/tmp/myimage.iso in this example) and go. Check out this command:

mount /tmp/myimage.iso /mnt/iso/ -t iso9660 -o loop=/dev/loop0

And there you have it, the ISO file is now accessible at /mnt/iso, it’s just that easy!

Also known as, the best little firewall in … well, anywhere! I have been using SmoothWall (the free, open source version) for years. I have used it with modems for dial-up access, as well as with cable and DSL connections. It’s a great product that is robust, feature rich, easy to manage and above all, very secure.

Not familiar with SmoothWall? Read more at http://www.smoothwall.org

I used to run an ISP and the majority of our customer base were dial-up customers. Even now, there are a majority of dial-up users out there still. SmoothWall is a great tool for dial-up users because it is essentially a hardened Linux distribution built solely to be a firewall/router. The IP stack in Linux is more efficient and much faster than Windows, so even on dial-up, you will get a performance boost running SmoothWall, plus the added security of a top notch firewall.

For all of the broadband users out there, you will get a tremendous performance boost when comparing it to the White Box store Linksys products. I am not knocking Linksys or anything like that, but in my own tests, I got almost double the throughput from my SmoothWall box versus my Linksys router. Plus, the SmoothWall box has loads more features and version 3 has even more piled on.

With built in features like this:

• Bandwidth usage graphs
• Transparent caching proxy server
• VPN support
• Anti-virus scanning of incoming pop3 email
• Dynamic and static DNS support
• QoS and more

There are really tons more features than I can list here, the ones listed above are just some highlights. Best of all, this wonderful product is free. Yep, that’s right, free. They do have commercial versions if you have a need for that, but they still maintain the open source GPL release that is absolutely free. So, all you have to invest is the cost of an old low powered pc that has been laying around the house anyway! I very highly recommend you check it out if you have a need for a good firewall product.

How cool is that?  I found this article when I was pondering the idea of running Ubuntu inside of Windows.  I have Ubuntu on several machines around the lab, but I thought it would be cool to hit an icon and bring up Ubuntu in a window like I have done with DSL (Damn Small Linux).  Welp, here I found this article on using QEmu to get Ubuntu running on a USB drive, a USB hard drive in my case.  The install went off without a hitch, just like the article spelled out.  Try it out and have yourself a Linux inside of Windows fun time too!

Check out the article at Pendrivelinux dot com.

Ok, here is a quick tip that has come in handy quite a few times in my days writing shell scripts, for example in bash. Let’s say, for whatever reason, you need to chop off the end of a string (like a variable). Chopping the beginning is easy, just use the cut command, but in order to chop the end you have to know how long the string is so you can tell it where to start. In this example, we are going to us the wc command to figure out how long the string is, and then subtract 1 to cut the last character. You can subtract however many you want depending on how many characters you want to cut. Check it out … Read the rest of this entry »

I have posted a new article on setting up a pop3 server, specifically Qpopper on a Linux server.  Qpopper is a solid, robust pop3 server that has served me (and thousands of my customers) well for many years.  I recommend it for anyone out there that needs a good and free pop3 server.  Enjoy!