Thursday, January 26, 2012

Online vim tutor - web based



For anyone who wanted to have the most very basic of commands to use in VIM in order to break into the command line world, there is a very good online tutorial which is nice for learning vim from a system that doesn't have it installed.  The online version has a specific sub-set of commands which a person would learn from vimtutor, but it is a good start and offers step through video side-by-side.

This might spark the question of "why".  The most impressive first reason to learn vim if you aren't using a linux system would be to log into a system as a user to make a text file in a hidden little corner of their home network.  I have such a server in the house where there is the shared printer, file shares, media and all home servers are run.

Obviously, this is the gateway drug to wanting to learn more, to run vimtutor once logged into that system and then to go online and look up every key combination available.  I still stick to my decision to use vim.  I know the vim vs. emacs war is long and the history trails with the text file bodies of the innocent victims.  I do personally think that emacs is probably much more extensible, but it is default included in 0 popular operating systems.  While every Unix and Linux kernel have vi (vim's grandfather) included and you will never find a system without at least vi.

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CafeNinja
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Sunday, January 22, 2012

MultiBoot LiveUSB - multiple iso + persistence

I had found a usb multiboot solution some time ago and realized that I had not written about it.  I would like to demonstrate an amazing piece of software that does exactly what it claims.  It does it so well, that I have purchased two 8Gig USB keys to manage using this software.

The concept is the same as the Ubuntu USB-creator, or even the same as Unetbootin.  Both of those tools are only loading a single disk image (.iso) onto a usb key (typically 1G).  These tools are amazingly useful to try out liveCD versions of linux distributions without a full blown hard drive install, but also not at the mind-numbing slowness of a proper CD Burn as the CD-Rom devices are so much slower than disk access that you no longer get an experience for an alternative operating system that is enjoyable.

Both of the tools I have already mentioned have over the last year and a half come to incorporate also a persistence mode which means that unlike a burned CD, a usb key in persistence mode with extra space is able to maintain updates across reboots.  So if you add an application to a livecd .iso on usb key using one of those tools with the addition of persistence mode then any application installed would be persistent the next time the usb key was used for a reboot.

Being a very demanding geek, the idea of a collection of usb keys with single unique linux distributions seemed too troublesome.  One key for installing Ubuntu on machines of folks who are converting.  Another key with rescueCD on it for diagnostics and data recovery.  Another key for me to try out the latest version of distros.  And so the list goes on, and then I end up with a small grocery bag filled with 1Gig usb keys each unlabeled and with unique purpose.

Enter the best usb boot tool I have found to date.  MultiBoot LiveUSB.  This software is truly amazing.  Will manage as many distro's/livecd's that the usb key can store.   Will let you load as just the live version or _also_ with persistence.  There are some limitations to which distro's have persistence available.  Most of those limitation have to do with the manner in which the .iso's are made.  The tool also allows you to remove old distro's and add new ones.  The tool also has a list of distro's known to work which looks like the majority listing of distro's from Distrowatch.

I can't say enough about this tool.  An affordable 8G usb key can now be turned into a virtual "swiss army knife" of bootable linux distro's.  It supports much more and my description of the software here is abbreviated.  The website is in original french, but the application has been translated into many languages.  Seems at this time there is no windows or mac port of this app, so you need linux to manage it.  So just to be ironic, maybe you make a persistence install on a usb key with this application installed to manage all other usb keys.

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CafeNinja
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Saturday, January 21, 2012

Tin Foil Hat Show - Episode 017

Episode 17. I'm proud to present the latest entry into the Tin Foil Hat Show Archive :). Only a minor rant but I think a good discussion. I did hope to have more stuff for the interwebbing section of the show, maybe I'll do an extended segment on the next show.

This episode's Podcast review was of the The Command Line by Thomas Gideon. I've done a review of this podcast back in June of 2009. And I have to say that over the time the quality of the podcast is the same, the output much more regular than mine and I would recommend this show to anyone as much today as I would have back in 2009 if you had asked.

The new episode should be in your favorite podcatcher for download already. If you haven't added me to your podcatcher software, please add the RSS feed on the right.

The podcast is also available to play directly online at the Fuzion Podcast Network.

For the instructions to get the show notes please see the instructions as posted in the post from the first episode. These instructions haven't changed.

Feedback as always is welcome, tinfoilhatshow@gmail.com or you can contact me by any of the other methods listed here on this blog. Please remember that the show is very new and still settling in, but constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Enjoy and please do send me feedback and corrections, it can only make the show better. A permanent link to the show's rss feed is listed on the right side of the blog.

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CafeNinja
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.