Tag Archives: Linux

Changing the default config editor in Ubuntu

Published Apr 25, 2008 | In Unix/Server Stuff

If you are following the articles at Slicehost, then you may notice that PickledOnion uses nano as the default editor. I somehow like vi more than nano (not ready for a debate 😉 ) and was looking for a way to make vi the default config editor. After some googling, I found how to do it.

I am writing it down here so that all I have to remember is that I just need to search my blog if I need to do it again in future.

Okay the command you have to use is (I am assuming that you are not logged in as root, which is the recommended approach)

sudo update-alternatives --config editor

And then press the number corresponding to the editor which you want to use. Below is the screenshot of how it looked in my slice.

Changing default config editor in Ubuntu

Posted in Unix/Server Stuff | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Good Bye Dreamhost, Hello SliceHost

Published Jan 29, 2008 | In Unix/Server Stuff

Finally, I am out of Dreamhost. My annual plan expired last November and I changed to monthly plan and was searching for a reason to change. The incident which happened last week became the final nail in the coffin and I am out of it now.

I have faced the bad neighbour problem and have had some outages because of it occasionally, but to be fair to Dreamhost, the problems I faced with them were not as bad as the ones which I had with my previous web host.

The other reason for me to change the host is that I have got fed up with shared hosting and wanted to dive into VPS. I thought of going with MediaTemple, but they were expensive and then tried GoDaddy Linux Virtual Dedicated plan. It really sucked! I was not getting the kind of control which I was expecting. More over the control panel itself took too much memory of 256 MB and the server was always at its knees.

It was then I read the review about SliceHost from Hosting Fu. I was doing some research and the moment I found the excellent article repository, I immediately went and registered. Right from the OS, everything is in your control and you can configure or install any software which you want. This is the type of control I was looking for. I selected Ubuntu Gusty as OS and have so far installed and configured Apache, MySQL, PHP, Subversion and Ruby on Rails. Finally I can get my hands dirty with Ruby on Rails, (which was actually one of my resolutions for 2007 🙂 )

I will keep you guys posted about my experience with SliceHost and also will post the interesting code snippets or configuration tricks which saves me some time. I am back to slicing my slice from slicehost 🙂

Posted in Unix/Server Stuff | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Thank You Google and Linux

Published Apr 21, 2007 | In Google/Yahoo, Random/Personal

One big advantage in having a unique name is that people can google and find you. Well, that’s what has happened now. One of my friends at school, (with whom I lost contact) found me after 7 long years through a Google search about Linux which let him to this blog post of mine. Thanks Google and Linux.

So I have found one more reason to blog, to help my old buddies find me through Google search 🙂

Posted in Google/Yahoo, Random/Personal | Tagged , | 1 Comment

How best Linux compared with windows

Published Mar 1, 2007 | In Unix/Server Stuff

I got this as an email forward from my friend the other day and I was not able to control my laugh for a couple of minutes. Hope even you enjoy it.

Long long ago, soo long ago, no one knows how long ago there was a classroom and the following is a dialogue between her and her students.

Ok so the stage is set and here it goes..

Question 1:

Teacher: What is 5 ^ 2? ( ^ stands for ‘raised to the power’ )

Windows said:

Windows Calculator

Linux: Huh! That’s too easy! Are you insulting me? Here’s the answer. Now ask more difficult ones.

Unix Shell

Question 2

Teacher: What is 123 ^ 123 ?

Windows said:

Windows Calculator

Teacher: Windows? What is this e+257 crap? Who asked you to express the result in an exponential form? I want the complete result, accurate up to the last unit’s place.

Windows: Sorry Madam! I don’t know how to calculate so accurately.

Teacher: Linux! Can you answer it the way I want?

Linux: Sure Ma’am! Have a look at my answer.

Unix Shell

Question 3

Teacher: Calculate 12345 ^ 12345 ?

Windows said:

Windows Calculator

Teacher: You are calling my question invalid? Ridiculous!! You should rather be saying, “Sorry! This is too much for me to calculate. I can’t do such huge computations.” Linux, I hope you won’t let me down.

Linux: Certainly not ma’am! You give me anything to do! I will always give you the answer and that too the way you want, correct up to the unit’s place. 🙂 Here’s my answer.

(The output was too big to capture in one screen shot! The output had to be redirected to a file. Then it was copied from there and pasted here. You can also get that file, if you want)

Ma’am the length of this result is seven hundred and forty lines (740 lines!!!) and I have calculated all the fifty thousand, five hundred ten digits (50510 digits!!!) accurately.

Teacher: Mind blowing Linux! Very well done! You’ll do great in your life. Windows, you might earn a lot of money in your life but you’ll never earn respect. You might find your way to every home and children might love to play games on you, but computer scientists and hackers would stay away from you. They would choose Linux instead. You’ll only manage to become an idiot-friendly operating system but never a useful operating system.

By the way, I tried to find out the original author but couldn’t find him. If you are the original author and if you have any license issue then do contact me.

Posted in Unix/Server Stuff | Tagged , , , | 16 Comments