RBucky » Linux

What is the fastest browser for Linux?

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:36:13 +0000

Benchmarks using SunSpider, a Javascript rendering agent, performance benchmarks were initiated on the major browsers. The goal was to determine the quickest loading browser in Linux. Each test was performed 3 times with clean caches and no extensions.

The Results

source: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/05/what-is-fastest-browser-on-linux-opera.html

Browse Google using a Terminal interface

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:20:00 +0000

Have you ever wanted to browse Google in a Terminal-like interface? Well, here is your chance. Goosh is an open-source product that emulates a Unix shell to traverse Google searches.

This shell uses the same Terminal commands that you would be happy using in Linux, but restricted to Google searches. View a list of help terms by typing “h” on the terminal interface or simply to check out your options. Visit my shell implementation by clicking the image above or visiting the link at

http://rbucky.com/shell

Understanding server load averages

admin — Wed, 26 May 2010 14:00:16 +0000

As I add more domains to my server, I wonder about server load and how much is too much. Generally, I use htop as a system load monitor and Munin for everything else. My current server load averages 0.4 over the course of 5 minutes. The server is hardly at idle (i.e. 0.0%). When you look at load, there are usually three numbers in sequence depending on the tool you use. The first number represents a 1-minute average, second number a 5 minute average, and the third a 15 minute average. Below is a great explanation and real-world example of server load averages.

Explanation

Server Example: Xeon 3200 Series with 4GB RAM

Xeon 3200 series is quad core cpu.

1.0 on a single core cpu represents 100% utilization. Note that loads can exceed 1.0 this just means that processes have to wait longer for cpu a slice.

4.0 on quad core represents 100% utilization.

Anything under a 4.0 load average for a quad-core xeon is ok as the load is distributed over 4 cores.

Ideally, I would say that a sustained load average of 3.0 or under on your machine would be very good as I have had quad cores servers running at over 3.0 every day during peak usage — that had no perceptible slowdown.

Tools

htop – non-GUI based system monitor

Munin – comprehensive GUI charts for your system include I/O, MySQL, Apache, and other processes

mpstat – included in the sysstat apt-get package

top – non-GUI based system monitor (not as pretty as htop)

UbuntuForums post

Upgrade Google Chrome from beta to stable

admin — Tue, 25 May 2010 23:49:48 +0000

Google Chrome is now out of Beta status for Linux. Unfortunately, the apt-get repository is not quite pushing the stable release as of this writing. Upgrade to the stable version of Chrome with the following Terminal commands.

sudo aptitude remove google-chrome-beta
sudo aptitude install google-chrome-stable

Edit: The later command in this string does not seem to work for all systems. In that case, simply use Ubuntu’s default browser Firefox and navigate to http://www.google.com/chrome and download the stable version for Linux.

Trying out gnome-shell on Ubuntu 10.04

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 11:32:08 +0000

Gnome Shell is the new Gnome 3 window manager. It is available in the yum and apt-get repositories. The tow panels are replaced by a single top panel to choose applications and calendar. The time is no longer displayed by default. As of this writing, Canonical does not have plans to ship Gnome 3 is Ubuntu 10.10.

Impressions

Gnome 3 is a fine window manager. However, the system resources from the Javascript and other code base are much to heavy on system resources. One of the main reasons that I love Linux is that it is a simple and lightweight operating system. However, Gnome 3 requires me to have a beefy graphics card. Otherwise, the motions are a bit choppy. For now, Gnome 3 is still in its development stage.

Try out Gnome 3

Using Terminal, type the following.

sudo apt-get install gnome-shell
gnome-shell --replace

When you are done testing, simple Cntrl-C and you will go back to your own Gnome or default manager. You can make Gnome Shell your default manager by typing the following statement into Terminal

ln -s /usr/share/applications/gnome-shell.desktop ~/.config/autostart/gnome-shell.desktop

Screenshots and Video

source: OlyLug Forums

How to download all files from a website based on extension

admin — Wed, 19 May 2010 12:05:59 +0000

This quick tip uses wget to download all files of a given filetype. You can change it to anything you want, however this example uses .pdf.

wget -r -l1 -H -t1 -nd -N -np -A.pdf -erobots=off [website url]

How-to optimize your MySQL datbases in 5 minutes

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 11:23:43 +0000

The quick and dirty method for MySQL database optimization was conducted on v.5.1 Ubuntu 10.04. The first task is to completely stop Apache2 processes.
sudo apachectl stop
Next, run the routine that will do all of the work for you.
mysqlcheck -aA1ceorv -u root -p
If you are like me, you need to know and understand what you are doing with those commands. Here’s is a list.

-a: analyze
A: names all tables in one query instead of multiple
e: checks for consistency
o: optimize
r: repairs any issues
v: verbose – prints out what is going on
-u: requests that you specify MySQL user name
-p: specify associated MySQL user password

Next, fire up Apache2 again.
sudo apachectl start

Canonical shows us the new Unity and Light Desktops in 10.10

admin — Mon, 10 May 2010 11:48:38 +0000

Set for release in October 2010, Unity is the new Desktop environment set for release in the Netbook Edition of Ubuntu. However, it is available as of May 2010 to developers. The design of Unity makes frequently used applications for netbook computing available on the primary screen, while rarely used applications are tucked away.

Conversely, Ubuntu Light is a paired downed version of Unity that is designed for the dual boot environment. Features include applications such as chat, IM, media players, and web browser. Like I said, it is designed to be light!

If you want to get on the developer bandwagon, here is the contact info:

Ubuntu Light is available to PC OEMs by contacting Canonical: oem@canonical.com
Unity is available for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS at https://edge.launchpad.net/~canonical-dx-team/+archive/une
Screenshots of both Unity and Ubuntu Light: http://www.canonical.com/products/unity

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/unity-ubuntu-light-instant-web

mysqldump produces slow queries during backup

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:52:05 +0000

I recently started monitoring my MySQL queries using Munin system monitor. After a couple of weeks time, the graphs started populating. I currently use mysqldump in more than a dozen cronjobs to backup my database tables for various websites and projects. One main advantage of using mysqldump is that the utility is built-in and really simple to use. The downside is that it locks your tables from read/write during the dump. The backup requires approximately 7 seconds in which time my databases are unavailable. I can deal with that. You can really see that Munin is doing its job by reporting the slow queries performed by mysqldump every night during backups.

A highly regarded alternative to mysqldump would utilize Percona’s XtraBackup, which I beleive performs a hot backup without table locking.

Munin network monitoring and sys admin tool

admin — Sat, 01 May 2010 19:04:41 +0000

Munin is a terrific graphical system monitoring and sys admin tool for Linux. It is located in the apt-get repositories and installed by entering the following command at terminal.

sudo apt-get install munin munin-node

The default installation places the relevant .html files in your /var/www/munin directory. I am not certain if you need Apache for the munin installation… Munin reports and graphs various system stats every five minutes and produces around 2 dozen graphs, similar to what is seen below.

In particular, I really like the MySQL graphs because you can see what time of day your MySQL server receives the most requests. In my case, whenever I have a web browser open to view my Piwik analytics, the number of queries increases greatly. Can you tell when I have my browser open from the graph below?

I really like Munin because it is super simple and does not tax your system. The configuration file is located in /etc/munin/munin.conf. Have fun and drop a comment if you have any questions.