Feb
26
Using Ubuntu to Crack WEP
February 26, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 97 Comments
Posted in Hands On, How To
I was sent a great URL yesterday, that (in essence) was a hands-on guide to cracking WEP. Personally I question the ethics of such activities, however I'd also like to learn how this is done, so that I might further enhance the wifi security here. I'd like to adapt this to Feisty or Gutsy, so will be interesting to see new versions and how they stack up against those in the guide. Below is the actual guide from the original author (listed below). Make a backup, first, BEFORE you do any of this:
This post should enable anyone to get Linux up and running and crack a WEP key. It took me about 2 days and myriad tutorials to finally get this to work, and now that I have I feel that I should share it with everyone. I am by no means a Linux expert, but this works regardless. All you need is an old laptop with a wireless card and Read more
Feb
26
Duplicate Your DVD’s Using Ubuntu
February 26, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | Leave a Comment
Posted in Applications, How To
Looking for a simpler way to make a backup copy of your valuable DVD's? Try "K9":
sudo apt-get install k9copy
K9Copy is a small utility which allows the copy of DVD on Linux. The DVD video stream is compressed by the program Vamps.
Site: http://k9copy.sourceforge.net/
If you are using KDE, it will appear in the “Multimedia” section of your menu once it’s installed; if you’re using Gnome, it will probably do similar. Run it. It should be plain sailing after that.
Also, there's a great bash script at this site : http://flavor8.com/index.php/2006/03/26/how-to-back-up-your-dvds-in-ubuntu/
(I've not tried this bash script).
Feb
26
Create a “Hands-Free” Linux Install Disk
February 26, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | Leave a Comment
Posted in Editorials
While looking for a solution to another issue, I bumped into a site that enables us to create a hands-free install disk! Coolest feature? We can choose which distribution we'd like.
From their site:
"Why would I want to do that?
Let's look at a few scenarios:
you are a sysadmin and you need to build twenty web servers, all almost exactly the same
you are working with other people who aren't very familiar with Linux and you want them to be able to easily rebuild a special purpose machine if it fails, even if you are on holiday
you have many machines at remote sites which might fail. You want to leave a CD at each site that the local staff can boot from which will automatically rebuild the machine to a known state so that you can then remotely restore the backed-up data and get it running: all without having to travel half across the country to do it."
We can choose from the following:
centOS
Debian
Fedora
OpenSUSE
Scientific
SuSe
Ubuntu
It's a great (and welcomed) find! Take a look at the tool here: http://www.instalinux.com/
Feb
25
5 Cool Linux/Open Source Easter Eggs.
February 25, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 5 Comments
Posted in Applications, Editorials
Just a quick post. Short but fun. Promise!
I was playing around with some of the applications on my Ubuntu desktop over lunch... and trying easter eggs that I've been emailed over time. There were quite a few, but these are the ones that I thought were the best. They should work on most flavours of Linux, I'd think.
Here are some of the best (in no particular order).
1) Cow Power!
In a terminal, type:
apt-get moo
And you'll see this:

2) Ubuntu Fish.
Using Gnome? Try this...
Press alt+f2 and type
free the fish
see what happens...
(killall gnome-panel removes it). UPDATE: One of our readers (James) rightly pointed out in the comments below that we don't have to kill the panel, simply right click on the fish and it'll swim away. - Thanks!
3) Use the Force.
Using Open Office Calc, in a cell of the new document, type:
=Game("StarWars")
4) Team Photo
Using Open Office Writer, type:
StarWriterTeam
Then press f3 and see what happens.
5) The Book of Mozilla
Upen Firefox and type this in the address bar:
about:mozilla
You'll need to know this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon
and this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_book_of_mozilla
My favourite? Star Wars!
Feb
25
Using Ubuntu as an Electronic Document Management System
February 25, 2008 | By: UbuntuLinuxHelp | 2 Comments
Posted in Hands On, How To
Over the weekend a client phoned me as she was interested in the Knowledge Tree Document Management System. She runs a small business that provides document creation services for clients in the US and Canada, and needed an effective solution to manage her (electronic) documents. She also emailed this URL: http://www.knowledgetree.com/
About a year ago she switched from Windows XP to Ubuntu and her business has since grown, hence the phone call about this. To get to the point, she needed a new PC configured as a "Knowledge Tree Document Server", but wanted this also on an Ubuntu platform. This was completed in a couple of hours or so, it's not hard, but I thought some of you readers might find this an interesting solution for you. So... Here's how it was done (below).
We will need a few components:
Base server install that will host everything.
SSH server which Read more

