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mkdir – Creating directories with the Linux command mkdir

Dec 012011
 

The Linux command mkdir (make directory/make directories) can be used to create new directories.

Basic Usage

Creating directories in the current working directory

The most basic usage of mkdir is the following:

mkdir <name>

This will create a new directory with the given name in the current directory. Therefore, if your username is “me” and in the terminal you are using you are currently in your home folder (/home/me) then running the command

mkdir backup

will create a the directory /home/me/backup.

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Creating Screenshots of Virtual Machines [VirtualBox]

Nov 272011
 

If you ever wanted to create screenshots of a virtual machine (for a tutorial, a presentation, a forum post or any other reason), you probably already noticed that the VirtualBox GUI does not offer a screenshot function.

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Converting FLAC to MP3 (including Tags) on command line

Nov 232011
 

 (Download the script from this article flac2mp3.sh)

When converting FLAC files to MP3, the first problem you will notice is that lame does not support FLAC files. This might now seem like big problem, because you can easily decode FLAC files using the command line tool flac and then use the decoded file with lame.

The Problem

The real problem is that you will loose your metadata in this process, so the tags you added to your FLAC won’t be copied to the MP3 file. While you could “easily” add them by hand, it is pretty annoying to do that even if you only want to convert a handful of files.

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xwd – Using xwd To Take Screenshots In Linux

Nov 222011
 

Introduction

One of the possibilities of taking screenshots in Linux is using

xwd

, a utility of the X Window System.

I just want to give a short overview on how to take interactive and non-interactive screenshots, view them and convert them to different formats. Continue reading »

“ERROR: Input file is not a supported format” when using oggenc to convert a FLAC to OGG Vorbis

Nov 162011
 

(Download the script here: reflac.sh)

Problem

When using oggenc to convert a FLAC file to OGG Vorbis using oggenc, you might encounter the following error:

"ERROR: Input file <file> is not a supported format"

Explanation

One possible reason for this can be an ID3 tag in the flac file. This can happen if the program you used to create your FLAC files uses ID3 tags instead of native FLAC tags to store metadata.

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How to enable sudo in Linux (here: Debian Squeeze)?

Jun 242011
 

Introduction

In Linux, it is recommended to work in a terminal as a normal user and use sudo to run commands as a superuser in case you need root privileges for a specific task, instead of creating a root session with su and eventually shoot yourself in the foot (if you’re lucky), which is far more likely this way.

Problem

In a fresh Debian (Squeeze) installation however, sudo will not work. If you try to run sudo, you will get the following error message:

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Error Message “fusermount – failed to open /etc/fuse.conf – Permission denied” in Linux (here: Ubuntu)

Jun 242011
 

Problem

Using curlftpfs, encfs, sshfs etc. in Linux as a normal user can result in the following error message:

fusermount - failed to open /etc/fuse.conf - Permission denied

Explanation

The error occurs, because only root and members of the group fuse have the permissions which are required to run these commands.  To confirm that this is the root of your problem, enter the following in a terminal:

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How to disable Adblock Plus on specific sites?

Jun 152011
 

The current situation

A lot of people use the “Adblock Plus” extension for the Mozilla Firefox browser to block annoying ads while browsing. This is understandable since a lot of web sites out there are barely usable without an extension like Adblock Plus and seem to deliberately annoy the user by putting flashing ads on top of, around and inside the content.

Those sites are responsible for the existence of extensions like Adblock Plus.

The problem

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