When writing system administration scripts, you often need to check if a user account exists before taking action. There are several reliable methods to accomplish this. Using id command The id command retrieves user information and returns a non-zero exit code if the user doesn’t exist. This makes it ideal for conditional testing: user=”hello” if…
If you need to jump to a particular byte position in a file, Vim provides the goto command. This is useful when debugging binary files, working with hex editors, or when error messages reference byte offsets. Using the goto command In normal mode, press go followed by the byte number: 20go This moves the cursor…
If you’re running Linux Mint and want to install the MATE desktop environment, you’ll need to use the appropriate metapackage for your distribution. Using apt The standard approach for most Linux Mint versions is to install the mint-meta-mate metapackage: sudo apt install mint-meta-mate Note that aptitude is largely obsolete in modern Linux distributions. apt is…
MATE’s mouse settings don’t include a graphical toggle for natural (or inverted) scrolling on touchpads, unlike GNOME or Cinnamon. You’ll need to configure it through the command line or configuration files. Using synclient If your system uses Synaptics touchpad driver, you can invert scrolling direction with synclient: synclient VertScrollDelta=-111 synclient HorizScrollDelta=-111 Verify the change took…
The tilde expansion ~username works fine when the username is literal, but fails when the username is stored in a variable like ~$user. Bash doesn’t perform tilde expansion on variables by default—it only expands ~ at the beginning of a word before variable expansion happens. Using eval The most common approach is to use eval:…
When you try to unmount a filesystem, Linux sometimes refuses with a “device is busy” error. This safety mechanism prevents data loss when processes are actively using the filesystem. But there are legitimate cases where you need to force an unmount: a dead NFS server, a failed USB device, or a hung mount that won’t…
When renewing an SSL certificate, your CA will request a Certificate Signing Request (CSR). If you have the private key but need to generate a fresh CSR, OpenSSL handles this straightforwardly. Basic CSR Generation Generate a CSR from your existing private key: openssl req -new -key ssl.key -out req.pem This creates req.pem containing your CSR,…
When Linux fails to boot with the error message “sulogin: can not open password database” despite /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow appearing intact, SELinux is often the culprit. The files exist and have correct content, but SELinux context labels are missing or corrupted, preventing the login process from reading them. Diagnose the Problem Boot into the initramfs…
Vim’s filetype detection usually works well, but sometimes it fails—especially with newly created files, unconventional extensions, or files without extensions. When that happens, you need to set the filetype manually. Setting Filetype in the Current Session The simplest way is to use the filetype option while Vim is open: :set filetype=php Replace php with whatever…
Webpages often render differently when printed than on screen. Firefox’s developer tools make it straightforward to preview and debug print stylesheets without wasting paper. Using the CSS Media Type Emulator The fastest way to test print styles in Firefox: Open DevTools with F12 Click the Inspector tab (usually open by default) Look for the “Emulate…
Sorting text file lines by their length is useful for analyzing text patterns, finding anomalies, or preparing data for processing. Here are the most practical approaches. Using awk with sort The standard approach combines awk to calculate line length with sort to order them: awk ‘{ print length(), $0 | “sort -n” }’ /path/to/text/file This…
When you run journalctl without options on a system with years of log history, it can take seconds or even minutes to parse everything. The slowness comes from journalctl loading and deserializing potentially gigabytes of journal data. The solution is targeted querying — you almost never need the entire journal, so restrict what journalctl reads…
For exhibition displays, kiosks, or continuous playback scenarios, you need a video player that can go fullscreen and loop indefinitely without user intervention. Using mpv (modern replacement) MPlayer is largely unmaintained. mpv is the actively developed fork and recommended alternative: mpv –fullscreen –loop=inf video.mp4 Or use the shorthand flags: mpv -fs –loop=inf video.mp4 The –loop=inf…
Bash provides several straightforward ways to test whether a string contains a substring. The best approach depends on your use case and performance requirements. Using [[ ]] with glob patterns The fastest and most Bash-native method is the [[ conditional construct with glob patterns: if [[ “$string” == *”substring”* ]]; then echo “Found it!” fi…
The dd command doesn’t evaluate arithmetic expressions in its parameters. If you try this: $ dd if=/dev/zero of=./4Ktest100M bs=4KB count=25000*9 dd: invalid number `25000*9′ You’ll get an error because dd expects literal numeric values, not expressions. The shell doesn’t expand 25000*9 as arithmetic—it’s passed to dd as a literal string. Using shell arithmetic expansion The…
When accepting path input in Bash scripts, users might provide /path/to/dir/ or /path/to/dir. Normalizing these to a consistent format without the trailing slash is a common requirement. The Problem You need a reliable method that: Removes trailing slashes if present Works with both files and directories Handles paths that already lack a trailing slash Works…
LevelDB allows key ranges to overlap across SSTables in Level 0, unlike higher levels where overlaps are eliminated through compaction. This design choice is fundamental to LevelDB’s write performance and is worth understanding in detail. Why Level 0 Allows Overlaps The reason comes down to write efficiency. When you write data to LevelDB, it follows…
When you need to access files from a Xen guest’s disk image without booting the VM, you can attach and mount its partitions directly on the host using kpartx. This is useful for recovery, forensics, backup verification, or migrating data between systems. Using kpartx to expose partitions The kpartx utility creates device mappings for partitions…
Getting the directory path of a running script is a common requirement in bash, whether you’re sourcing files, building paths to config directories, or navigating relative to the script itself. The naive approach often fails with symbolic links or when the script is sourced rather than executed directly. The Problem Using $0 alone is unreliable….
By default, xargs appends its input as arguments at the end of the command. This works fine when you need a utility once per item, but becomes problematic when you need to reference the same input multiple times in different positions. The Problem Consider renaming files by appending .bak to each filename. You might try:…