Unit 4—Different User Configuration Methods

I thought that going through a few different methods to accomplish the same end goal was very edifying. I didn’t have any problems downloading or installing Webmin. I did run into some difficulties in Assignment 2—Add a User using the Command Line. Like many of my classmates on the forum, I couldn’t change the default shell to bin/bash, I entered the command multiple times and nothing changed. Since I read on the forum that changing the shell wasn’t a big deal for subsequent assignments, I just skipped it.

It was fun to try to use sudo on my new user’s account. That account wasn’t in the sudoers file, and the incident of the new user (Grendel) trying to use sudo was recorded. And then when I looked into the authlog on my primary account, I could see the evidence with the new user’s name (Grendel) in red. It was thoroughly amusing, since the new user, Grendel, is my cat. It was probably smart to not give him any administrative capabilities…

Adding a user using Gnome in the desktop VM was very easy. One interesting thing was that I didn’t feel a huge amount of relief going back to the GUI—I guess I am getting used to working in the command line. It was interesting comparing the user files from the desktop to the server. The desktop passwd and group files had a few syntactical differences from the server files.

Adding a user using Webmin was my favorite method. It was simple, but elegant. I felt comfortable enough using Webmin that I went back to my first new user’s (Grendel’s) file and changed the shell to bin/bash, since I was unable to do it on the command line. That simple fix of using an alternate method to accomplish the goal of changing a user’s shell is a great example of why it’s useful to learn multiple ways to accomplish something!

Unit 3--Configuring Files and Playing with Vim

Like everyone has been mentioning on the discussion forum, I really enjoyed the vim tutor experience. It was nice to have a place to practice commands without feeling like I could mess anything up by doing the wrong thing. My favorite thing I learned from the tutorial was using % to move to matching parenthesis or brackets. I can see this coming in handy to make sure that all parenthesis are closed in a program!

Also the quit without saving command (:q) reminds me of a little face that’s screaming because you quit without saving. The quit and save command (:wq) is a little bird who is happy you wrote the file (that’s what the “w” stands for) and then quit. Similarly, I liked that the tutorial explained that the command for copy is “y” for “yank”. I am much more likely to remember a command if it is rooted in a familiar word or concept.

I have looked at a few vim cheat sheets and encyclopedias online. Clearly, using vim can be as simple or sophisticated as you want. I am interested in becoming more of a vim virtuoso!

Configuring the files per the assignments went well for me. I was paranoid, so I took a few snapshots, but I only had to use one once. The first time I tried to configure Aptitude the /etc/apt/sources.list file was blank! I don’t know what happened, but when I loaded from my snapshot that I took before beginning the configuration, everything worked out fine.

Configuring my Mac is very different from configuring in Linux. On my Mac, I usually mess with settings using “System Preferences” which is a graphical representation of all of the different areas of my computer. I have never had to figure out terminal-level commands for my Mac. If I want to learn how to modify something, I usually Google it, and end up with directions of what pre-determined option to select, or a new application or program to purchase. It is a much more “hands off” approach that modifying settings using the CLI.

Also, somewhat relatedly, thank you Professor Fulton for referencing that XKCD comic (http://xkcd.com/149/)! When I fist read that one years ago, I had no idea what “sudo” meant. Now I know!

Unit 2—Exploring the Ubuntu desktop

The Ubuntu desktop reminds me a lot of the Mac OS X system that I typically use. The Ubuntu software center looks a lot like the Apple App Store. I browsed some of the games available for download and was interested in one called “Pingus” (the name made me giggle). It is a lemmings-like game about guiding penguins through obstacle-filled levels. I checked the Apple App Store to see if there is an IOS version of the game—there wasn’t.

I thought it was odd that the launcher on the side came pre-loaded with an Amazon.com icon that launches the Amazon.com website. Did Amazon pay for that kind of endorsement? I am not sure how that kind of corporate sponsorship fits with the ideological mission of Share Ware.

Once I started opening apps and creating sample documents, I had difficulty getting back to the graphical desktop screen. Without thinking, I used “Command S” to save my sample LibreOffice Writer document and it worked just like it does on my Mac (I try to use “Command Q” or other Apple shortcuts on the Windows OS all the time—they don’t work). But once I used “Command Q” to try and quit an open program, and it quit VMWare instead, so maybe my commands were only working because I was using VMWare? I don’t know.

Overall, a lot of the Ubuntu desktop felt very familiar, but it was just different enough to be slightly frustrating when I couldn’t intuit how to do something or where to find something. I am looking forward to learning more about Ubuntu in the following weeks.

I went about the tutorials very linearly. I have taught myself how to knit and crochet, how to make cheese, and other relatively complex tasks, so I know what learning methods really work for me. I like to read all the directions through once to get an idea, and then go through each small part of a tutorial while doing the task in real time. The command line tutorials were difficult because I don’t know all the commands to make things work. Having to refer back to the “cheat sheet” and the linuxcommand.org instructions over and over again got old fast.

I preferred the written linuxcommand.org tutorials to Griffith’s UACBT tutorials. I liked that reading text gave me time to sit and think about things before I did them, and let me work at my own pace, rather than constantly pausing and resuming the videos. However, the Griffith tutorials were helpful as background.

Unit 1--Ubuntu User Forum

I spent some time on the Ubuntu forums this week. I also looked up the definition of the word “Ubuntu” online, it means “human kindness” or “the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity,” which makes sense for some free and open source software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy)).   

There were many posts in the “New to Ubuntu” forum that were over my head, but some of them were easy enough to understand.

A post called “projector woes” piqued my interest—a professor who is running Ubuntu on his laptop has run into problems using his computer with projectors. This is an issue because he uses the laptop to teach his classes. Forum moderator QIII responded to the professor’s post, asking for hardware specs and some other information. QIII also said something I found really interesting, “I'm going to say something that may Linux folks would consider anathema: If we can't get this fixed, use what works -- if that's Windows, then so be it. You have a job to do” (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2242019).

I thought this was interesting because QIII acknowledges that sometimes certain applications or peripherals (in this case, the three different projectors the professor uses in each of his classrooms) just work better with a certain operating system (in this case, Windows). It’s not that the Linux OS can’t run these things; it’s just that they’re designed to be run by the more popular Windows OS. I was surprised that the idea that some things work better on some operating systems would be “anathema” to Linux users. For example, we all know that many servers run better on Linux, so why is it odd that some projectors run better on a Windows machine? It seems like if it’s a hassle to get the projectors to work on Linux, the options are to find a simple workaround or use the OS on which they work better.

I don’t anticipate taking this “If it doesn’t work, then trash it” philosophy very far in this course, but I really appreciated QIII’s candor about the topic.