Okay, there are many ways to backup your files in Linux and preserve the permissions and structure. But what is the fastest way to create one? The one line linux command below creates a backup of a directory recursively and preserve the file structure:

root@host# tar -pcvzf mytarball.tar.gz myfiles

WHERE: mytarball.tar.gz is the filename of the compressed backup file and myfiles is the directory you want to back  up.

Popularity: 1% [?]

There are numbers of socket options in smb.conf that can be tuned to enhance/optimize the performance of a Samba  server.  Socket options are configurable controls on the networking layer of an operating systems that allow the connection to be tuned.

The single configuration line below when added to the global section of your smb.conf  can give you up to 200% throughput increase compared to the smb.conf’s default settings.

socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=65536 SO_SNDBUF=65536

TCP_NODELAY tells the samba server to send as many packets as necessary to keep delay low. Setting this option can increase the speed up to 30 to 50% and in Samba 2.0.4, socket options = TCP_NODELAY became the default value for that option.

SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF The send and receive buffers can often be the reset to a value higher than that of the operating system. This yields a marginal increase of speed until it reaches a point of diminishing returns. A modern Linux Systems serving Samba shares to Windows systems, setting the  SO_SNDBUF and SO_RCVBUF to 65536 can give you an additional 20% throughput.

IPTOS_LOWDELAY is an option that trades off throughput for lower delay, but which affects routers and other systems, not the server. All the IPTOS options are new; they’re not supported by all operating systems and routers. If they are supported, set IPTOS_LOWDELAY whenever you set TCP_NODELAY. If supported, this setting accounts for another 20% speed increase.

SO_KEEPALIVE initiates a periodic check every four hours to see if the client has closed connection or not. This setting will close dead connections and return unused memory and process-table entries back to the operating system.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Toshiba introduces their new pair of external hard drives, the  StorE Art 3 series portable USB hard drive with a stylish and modern design.

The stylish 2.5-inch hard drives with internal shock protection sensor and rubber edging for bump resistance will be  available in 750GB and 1TB capacities giving users more space for documents, digital photographs, music or videos. The 1TB model is available in black, with the 750GB option available in blue and they will come with NTI BackupNow EZ software pre-installed enables users to easily backup their complete PC system with a single click.

The Toshiba StorE Art 3 will be released in May 2010.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Well suited for old computers, TinyMe is a small Linux Operating System based on PCLinuxOS, it replaces KDE with Openbox, a small and faster window manager. TinyMe is aimed at making the computing experience as bloat- and lag-free as possible.

The distribution produces two Live CD ISO images which can be installed into a hard drive or a USB flash drive.. The larger, codenamed “Acorn”, is a 200 MB ISO image. The other, “Droplet”, is a 150 MB ISO image.

TinyMe 2010 RC1 is the current test release with the following specifications:

• Kernel 2.6.31.12
• SLiM logs you in
• Pragha, audio player
• AbiWord, a light and fast yet powerful word processor
• Midori, web browser
• Ayttm, instant chat client. Handles IRC, AIM-ICQ, Jabber, LiveJournal, MSN, Yahoo, and even can send e-mails via SMTP.
• Osmo, personal information manager
• Sylpheed, e-mail client
• Viewnior, image viewer
• Recorder, disk burner
• Asunder, a CD ripper
• MtPaint, a basic image editor (also takes screenshots)
• MEdit, a tabbed text editor
• MuPDF, a very small PDF viewer
• Conky, a small system monitor
• Parcellite, a very small clipboard utility
• TightVNC Viewer, view the screen of another computer over a network
• Tilda, a Quake-esque terminal similar to Yakuake– just press F12 to pull down from the top of your screen!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Whew, after year and a half of being silent online due to pressure from the harsh environments, I am now officially blogging in again. Rest assured that this blog will be updated and more Linux tips and tricks will be posted as I am now focused again on the Operating System that we love to use.

As we enjoy great advantages from inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously. – Benjamin Franklin

Popularity: 1% [?]

AMD has officially launched its first ever 45nm ‘Shanghai’ Opteron processor for servers and workstations.

The Shanghai chips are designed using the 45nm technology using a new technique called “Immersion Lithography”. The chips come with a higher amount of cache amounting to  8MB and the core frequency rises up to 2.7GHZ from a 2.3GHZ base model. The chips feature an integrated memory controller supporting up to DDR2-800.

AMD is also expected to launch its 45nm “Deneb” desktop CPUs before the end of the year.

Popularity: 99% [?]