In this Linux tip, learn how to use the free command. It doesn't mean a command that you are not paying for, but one that tells you how much memory – physical and swap – is being used on your Linux system including how much is "free" and how much...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the bpytop command. It's one of many "top" commands (like top and htop) that make it easy to gauge many aspects of system performance on Linux.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the cheat command. It provides what have come to be called "cheat sheets" on a huge assortment of Linux commands. Once installed, all you have to do is type "cheat" followed by the name of the command for which you...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the xargs command. It accepts input that is piped to it and then uses that input as arguments to whatever command you specify.
In this Linux tip, learn how to add comments to your scripts. It's a super easy thing to do and can make it a lot easier for you or someone else to figure out what your script is intended to do – especially if the script is complex or you haven't l...
The advent of 5G introduced more opportunities for networking innovation. Private 5G is one of those newly hyped innovations, but what makes it different than public 5G? While the market for private 5G is small, it could be a promising solution for e...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the sar command. The name "sar" stands for "system activity report". It provides details on all aspects of system performance including system load, CPU usage, memory use, paging, swapping, disk usage, device load,...
A 20-year VMware veteran, Raghu Raghuram explains why he was chosen to be VMware’s CEO, where the company is headed, and the reasoning behind VMworld 2021’s major announcements.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the wait command. It's a command that allows you to wait for a process running in the background to finish before you move on to the next command.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the sleep command. The sleep command introduces a pause on the command line or in a script.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the export command. It's a bash built-in that allows command line variables to be available to a child process – a second shell or a script that you run.
In this Linux tip, you'll learn two checksum commands -- one that provides an easy way to compare a copy of a file to the original, and one that computes a 256-bit checksum that is cryptographically secure.
In this Linux tip, learn an easy way to do math on the command line using double parentheses. This construct is often used in scripts, but also works just fine on the command line.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the shuf command -- short for “shuffle”. It randomly rearranges lines from a file or output that is sent to it.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the nl command. It stands for “number lines” and it does just that.
In this Linux tip, learn how easy it is to install Apache on Fedora. The first thing you need to do is run a command to install the software. Then, you can run other commands to ensure it starts when your system reboots, to view Apache processes, to ...
In this Linux tip, learn how to ask a Linux command for help. You can type the command you want to know about and then add --help. What the command should send back is an explanation of the command's options, maybe a usage example and something about...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the bzcat and zcat commands. They allow you to look at the contents of files compressed with the bzip2 and gzip commands without having to uncompress the files first. Instead, these commands uncompress the files an...
The COVID-19 pandemic stressed the semiconductor supply chain, and manufacturers are feeling the pinch. Semiconductors power many enterprise and consumer electronics, from smartphones to cars, and the shortage affects availability and price. Mario Mo...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use bash shell's "debugging mode". It can help you pinpoint problems, especially in long or complicated scripts.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use exiftool. It's an app that you can install on your Linux system to pull metadata from jpg and png files. That metadata provides information such as the date the image was created or last modified, the image size in...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the help command. It's a command that provides useful information on bash "builtins". Those are commands that are built into, in other words "part of" the bash shell, not executables on their own.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the traceroute command. It reports on the route taken to reach a remote system and provides timing details for each "hop" along the way (the time between routers).
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the tool called speedtest. It allows you to check the speed of your connection to your Internet provider. The tool is not installed on Linux systems by default, but is easy to find and install.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the cat command. It's one of the most basic Linux commands, though it's used for two very different operations and not everyone is likely familiar with the second.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the blkid command. It gives you a very useful view of block devices on your Linux system. First, it shows the devices (e.g., /dev/sda1). It shows the UUIDs (the 128 bit long "universally unique identifiers") associ...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the ps command. It displays information on running processes. If you want to see only certain processes, you can pass the output of a ps command to grep and specify what you want to see – for example, by username...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the nmap command. It's generally used for security auditing, but provides interesting and useful information on systems connecting to your local network.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the more and less commands. They each allow you to browse the content of text files.
Enterprises are thriving during the pandemic by offering flexible working arrangements that keep employees happy, productive, and aligned around the corporate mission. IT plays a major role in enabling this effort, which includes everything from vide...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the head and tail commands. They're basic commands that every Linux user should know. The head command is generally used to display the top lines in a text file, and the tail command shows the last lines in a file.
A year into the coronavirus pandemic, IT continues to support remote employees. As organizations begin planning to bring workers back into the office, IT must now consider upgrading their networks to best support employees in a post-COVID world. IDC ...
In this Linux tutorial, learn how to use the pi command. You probably won't need it very often, but, if you need to calculate pi to some arbitrary number of digits, you'll probably be surprised at how easy this can be.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the rig command. It randomly generates name, address and phone number listings. It's useful when you're testing an application and need hundreds or thousands of addresses to make sure that it works correctly.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the lslogins command. It provides some useful details on user accounts and logins. In its simplest form, you could just type lslogins, but without using sudo, some of the details you'll probably want to see won't b...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the autoexpect command. You can use it to build expect scripts that let you run scripts without having to provide answers interactively.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use expect. It's a tool that allows you to automate interactions with other scripts so that you can run them with a set of predefined answers.
In recent months, IDG invited 30 senior IT leaders to participate in our CIO Think Tank program to discuss their multicloud architecture goals along with the top challenges they face in making multicloud a reality. These conversations across six hour...
Kristie Grinnell is Global CIO and Chief Supply Chain Officer at General Dynamics Information Technology, and her philosophy isn’t just “cloud-first,” but “why not cloud?” This approach is how she leads 30,000 employees to deliver enterpris...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the ip neigh command. It works a lot like the arp command, but is considerably newer and still in active development. It provides network details – IP and MAC addresses -- along with an indication of each system'...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the arping command. If it sounds like a combination of arp and ping, that should serve as a hint for how it works. It's a command that you can use to discover or probe systems on your local network.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the pidof and pgrep commands. Both help you to find the process IDs (PIDs) of running processes. All you have to do is enter the command followed by the name of the process you're interested in.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the screenfetch and neofetch commands. They're actually both bash scripts that you'll need to install if you haven't already. Once installed, without anything more than invoking them by name, either one will fetch ...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the groupmod command. It’s a command that allows you to change the name of a user group. It does this by changing the entry in the /etc/group file (the line that connects the group name with the group number) and...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the usermod command. It’s a command that allows you to make a lot of different changes to user accounts without having to edit configuration files.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the factor command. It’s not one that you will likely need very often, but it can be very useful when you’re doing math on the command line. It provides the factors for any number you offer as an argument.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the disown command. It provides a way to detach a process you’re running from your login session so that it isn’t killed (hung up on) when you log out. This means that the process can continue running after you...
In this Linux tip, learn how to use ranger. It’s a tool that allows you to easily browse files in a terminal window, but in a much different manner than you normally would on the command line.
In this Linux tip, learn how to use the tar command. It’s used to create (and extract contents from) file archives. The name “tar” stands for “tape archive” though “tape” is rarely part of the equation anymore.
Learn each of the seven layers of the Open Systems Interconnection, or OSI, model with this easy mnemonic trick. The OSI Model was developed in order to help troubleshoot network problems, promote interoperability among devices, and to simplify the t...
