In a nutshell, Google Chrome OS is a glorified web browser that will support applications that reside not on the machine itself, but on remote servers accessible via the World Wide Web. So essentially, the browser is the operating system. For this reason, Chrome OS is a lightweight system that will initially be targeted at netbooks, as netbooks are known to have low-end specifications.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects going into the Google Chrome OS project and one of the most interesting things to note is the speed at which you can turn your computer on and be browsing the web, a mere 7 seconds. Compare that to the traditional 45+ seconds and you can see why Chrome OS might well make a huge impact. One other thing to think about: Will viruses affect Chrome OS, since supposedly nothing is stored on the computer? I suppose only time will tell.

And while there’s still another year to go until Chrome OS is actually released. Google has made the code open source, which means that people can go download and compile the source to see what it’s really all about.

Want to give Chrome OS a try?

• Download VirtualBox
• Download Google Chrome OS .vmdk file

Then follow these steps:

1. Install the latest version of VirtualBox
2. Start VirtualBox and click on “New” button. This will start a wizard that will help you create a new VM in VirtualBox.
3. Name your VM “Chrome OS” and select “Linux” from Operating System dropdown menu, and “Other Linux” from Version dropdown menu.
4. Assign your VM some RAM.
5. Now Select “use existing hard disk” option and select the .vmdk file of Chrome OS that you downloaded.
6. Click Next and finish the wizard.

And you’re done. Simply click on the green start button and wait for about 7 seconds for Chrome OS to boot up. You must use your Google ID to log into the operating system. What are your impressions of the new OS?

Proprietary software helps you maximize your Internet experience, but is not open source. The software available includes Multimedia Codecs, Java Runtime Environment, and plug-ins for Firefox.

The Ubuntu Restricted Extras will install Adobe Flash Player, Java Runtime Environment with Firefox plug-ins, a set of Microsoft Fonts (msttcorefonts), multimedia codecs (w32codecs or w64codecs), mp3-compatible encoding (lame), FFMpeg, extra Gstreamer codecs, the package for DVD decoding (libdvdread3), and the unrar archiver.

To install, open a terminal and type:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

And that’s it, with that one simple command you can now listen to MP3s, play DVDs, and much more.

Here I have compiled a fairly short list of useful terminal commands. Most of these I use on a daily basis to administer my Linux box, some of them are just for fun or to find out useful information about your Linux box. If I missed a command you would like to have added, leave me a comment.

How to read this list:

System Information <—– The Command Category

Find the Process ID of a running program <—– Description of the command

• pidof program <—– The terminal command (Italic means to insert your own value)

System Information

Show system uptime

• uptime

Show computer stats

• lspci

Show a list of all running processes

• ps aux

Kill a process using the PID (Process ID)

• kill PID

Find the Process ID of a running program

• pidof program

Killing a process by name

• killall program

View the current time, date, and year

• date

Find the processor architecture

• arch

Show the amount of disk space in use and available on the system

• df

Show amount of free and used memory in the system

• free

Show hostname of the machine on the network

• hostname

Show operating system, hostname, kernel version, date, time, and processor

• uname –a

Show the username of the current account

• whoami

Modify Files

Change the access permissions of a file

• chmod +x /where/the/file/is

Change the owner and group of a file

• chown newowner /where/the/file/is

Copy a file

• cp /original/file /new/location/of/file

Move a file

• mv /original/location/file /new/location/file

Remove a file

• rm /directory/file

Modify Directories

Make a directory

• mkdir /new/directory/

Remove directory

• rmdir /directory/to/remove/

Interact With Terminal

Clear the terminal window

• clear

Change the working directory of the terminal

• cd /new/directory/

List the contents of the current directory

• ls

Exit the terminal

• exit

Search for files

• find filename

Interact With The System

Shutdown the system

• shutdown now

Talk to another user on the system

• talk USERNAME message to user

Read your fortune

• fortune

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After having a few people ask me how to install Flash Player 10 under Ubuntu Linux, I’ve decided to write a guide. This guide was written with Ubuntu in mind, but it should work with any Debian based distribution.

Uninstall Old Flash Player

First, you must uninstall any currently installed Flash Player version before installing Flash Player 10. So open Firefox and type the following into the address box:

about:plugins

And look the for heading that says “Shockwave Flash”, If there is no Shockwave Flash installed, you can skip this step.

Flash Player 9 Installed (Highlighted in Red)

Then look under File name: libflashplayer.so to see the version currently installed, if it doesn’t say Shockwave Flash 10, then run this command to uninstall the old version of Flash.

sudo apt-get remove flashplugin-nonfree

Install Flash Player 10

Next, Visit the Adobe Flash Player website and grab the .deb file.

Now cd (Change Directory) to the wherever you downloaded the file.

For example, if you downloaded it to your home directory, use the command cd /home/YOURUSERNAME/, then install Flash Player 10 (after making sure Firefox is not running) with this command:

sudo dpkg -i sudo dpkg -i install_flash_player_10_linux.deb

Now start Firefox and type about:plugins into the address box again. You should see a list of plugins, including Flash Player 10.

You can now visit and enjoy any Flash based website you want.

Losing your root password isn’t the end of the world, though. You’ll just need to reboot into single user mode to reset it. Here’s how to do it on a typical Ubuntu machine with the GRUB bootloader:

Boot Linux into single-user mode

1. Reboot the machine.
2. Press the ESC key while GRUB is loading to enter the menu.
3. If there is a ‘recovery mode’ option, select it and press ‘b’ to boot into single user mode.
4. Otherwise, the default boot configuration should be selected. Press ‘e’ to edit it.
5. Highlight the line that begins with ‘kernel’. Press ‘e’ again to edit this line.
6. At the end of the line, add an additional parameter: ’single’. Hit return to make the change and press ‘b’ to boot.

Change the admin password
The system should load into single user mode and you’ll be left at the command line automatically logged in as root. Type ‘passwd’ to change the root password or ‘passwd someuser’ to change the password for your “someuser” admin account.

I’ve thought about it quite a few times before, and especially after reading that article. That workaround, to me, seems dangerous to the security of a Linux system.

Ubuntu Grub Menu

It says howto reset a Ubuntu password, but I’ve used it with practically every distro I’ve ever tried (quite a few) and it always works, there’s only one problem: Anyone can use it. It’s nice if you forget your own password and need to reset it, but someone else with bad intentions could just as easily use it to lock you out of your system, or they could even use it to gain access to all of your files.

I’ve always believed that Linux is very secure, but this one exception has always made me think. Does anyone else have any further thoughts on the matter? Or maybe someone could explain to me why they added this feature in the first place? Any input is appreciated on the matter, I’m simply curious as to why they allow this.