Monday, July 31, 2006

Multipost

This is a multipost. Kinda tired to write up invididual posts, hehehehe.

Anyway just came back from FOSSCAR. It was a really intersting event where I got to meet the rest of the #myoss guys. The presentations were really intersting especially the "10 worst sysadmin mistakes" and "Using open source for enterprise networks". You can get the presentation slide for "Using open source for enterprise networks" from here. Got a few photos which I'll upload once I extract it out.

Also, after looking at some of the guys using Expose-like features from OS X, I decided topost the app for others who want a similar feature. I tried it a few months back for sheer eye candy but disabled it cause didn't quite enjoy it especially without a proper graphics card. You can actually see the lagginess. Anyway the app is called skippy. For ubuntu, just "sudo apt-get install skippy" and its done;)

Well seems like a multi post just turned out to be 2 post:P. Off now, cheerioz;)

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Mon It

Recently I tried an application that aids in ensuring your system is running smoothly called monit. From the website of monit "monit is a utility for managing and monitoring, processes, files, directories and devices on a UNIX system. Monit conducts automatic maintenance and repair and can execute meaningful causal actions in error situations." There are packages available for FreeBSD and Ubuntu.

Installing and setting up monit on ubuntu is fairly easy, just do "sudo apt-get install monit" and its installed. Configuring monit is extremely easy. In fact the "/etc/monit/monitrc" file explains in depth the options available and how to use the variables.

The installation step for FreeBSD is "pkg_add -rvv monit". The monitrc file is in "/usr/local/etc/monitrc".

I'm posting a sample of my monitrc here as a simple guide.
#start sample monitrc
set daemon 120 #monitor the system every 2 minutes
set mailserver localhost #use localhost as the mailserver
set mail-format {from: monit@system} #set the from field of the mail
set alert user@localhost #who will receive the mail
#set the http port in which monit will report its status, the address it listens on, who can connect to it as well as the username and password required to login to monit
set httpd port 10123 and
use address localhost
allow localhost
allow admin:monit
include /etc/monit/services/* #Include files containing services, filesystem to monitor
#end sample monitrc

sample /etc/services/ssh #sample file that monitors the ssh service
#start /etc/services/ssh
check process SSH with pidfile /var/run/sshd.pid
start program = "/etc/init.d/ssh start"
stop program = "/etc/init.d/ssh stop"
if cpu is greater than 60% for 2 cycles then alert
if cpu > 80% for 5 cycles then restart
if totalmem > 200.0 MB for 5 cycles then restart
if children > 250 then restart
if loadavg(5min) greater than 10 for 8 cycles then stop
if 3 restarts within 5 cycles then timeout
group Server
#end /etc/services/ssh

As you can notice, the file is pretty self explanatory. Some other things that you can do are monitor if other machines are alive, alert you if the filesystem usage exceeds a certain percentage, ensure that filesystem permissions are set correctly, ensure that the checksum for specific system files are not changed, etc. Feel free to try out the various combination and options available.

Happy MonIt-oring;)

Friday, June 09, 2006

Emu v2

I've managed to get qemu installed and working using the guide posted here. However I'll post a short HOW-TO here as well:) I do not take credit for getting this to work;)

  1. Download the QEMU + KQEMU package from here.
  2. Install the following packages which includes your linux kernel headers "sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) libsdl1.2-dev zlib1g-dev checkinstall qemu".
  3. Create a symlink to your linux kernel for simplifying things at a later stage (which includes updates) using 'sudo ln -s /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r) /usr/src/linux-headers'
  4. Extract the qemu package to a folder of your choice (i.e. /home/user/qemu) and also extract the kqemu package into the same directory. Remain in this directory.
  5. edit the qemu 'configure' file and change the kernel_path="" to
    'kernel_path="/usr/src/linux-headers"', quit and save the file.
  6. type './configure' and look for the line that says "kqemu support yes".
  7. type 'make'. This process might take some time.
  8. Now we're ready to create the debian package. Type 'sudo checkinstall -D' and you will be prompted to answer a few questions. "
    1st question: Answer = default y
    2nd question: Answer = Any description you like about qemu
    "
  9. In my case after the creation of the package I had to install the .deb file manually. This is accomplished using 'sudo dpkg -i '.
  10. Now we have to make sure that the modules required for functionality are loaded. Edit '/etc/modules' and add kqemu and tun to the file. To load it manually type 'sudo modprobe kqemu' and 'sudo modprobe tun'.
  11. Edit your '/etc/rc.local' and add the following
mknod /dev/kqemu c 250 0 # Create the KQEMU device
chmod 666 /dev/kqemu # Make it accessible to all users
chmod 666 /dev/net/tun # Make tun accessible by all
mount -o remount,size=544m /dev/shm
echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq

Now your system can emulate any OS of your choice;) Enjoy

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Dragon Reborn

YESS!!! Dapper Drake has been officially released on the 1st of June. This time we only require a single CD for both the live CD and the installer which makes things easier to manage. I've successfully installed it using the GUI without any hitch and I'm 1 happy dragon rider:D

Friday, May 19, 2006

Pics from Thailand Trip

A beautiful sight to behold indeed




People on the beach during the day




People on the beach during the night

Sunday, May 07, 2006

I see colors

On OpenBSD using 'vi' or 'ls' doesn't yield color by default. Also as I'm too used to having bash I usually install that as well

To start off you first have to install the fileutils, vim and bash package to get the 'gls', 'vim' and 'bash' command respectively. Copy the /usr/local/share/vim/vim64/vimrc_example.vim to ~/.vimrc which will automatically enable syntax highlighting for you. If it still isn't, check to make sure that 'syntax on' is in the ~/.vimrc file.

To make bash your default shell, type 'chpass' and edit the line that says 'shell' to point to /usr/local/bin/bash (I always set the absolute path). Quit and save (ESC,:wq) to store your new information.

Once that is done edit your ~/.profile and add these lines
export TERM=xterm-color
alias ls='gls --color'
alias vi='vim'

Quit and save the file. Now logout and login again and voiila, you will now be able to see colors when you type ls and edit files using vi;) Ciaoz

Thursday, May 04, 2006

Mod to Devil Worshipper's treats

Ok seems like I left out a small step in my procedure for getting various keycodes to work. Not that it doesn't work using that method just that you'll see various messages when you try to scp things over/from. Oopsy. Sorry bout that.

Here is the correct fix for it

instead of putting the keycodes into .bashrc, create a .inputrc and put all the keycodes into that. In the .bashrc put the following 'export INPUTRC=".inputrc"
'. This will fix those darned messages.

Ciaoz

It's alive

I finally managed to burn an OpenBSD cd successfully without any hitches. kekeke. Used this article as a reference to get it working. Basically its easy if you have a linux machine because tools such as mkhybrid are already available by default.

Steps
1. create a folder to store all the OpenBSD files i.e $HOME/openbsd. cd into that newly created folder.

2. download the OpenBSD files from any of the OpenBSD ftp mirrors. I used ftp://openbsd.cc.ntu.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/3.9/i386 because it turned out much faster. i used the command 'wget -rc ftp://openbsd.cc.ntu.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/3.9/i386/*'. this will recursively download all the files from the remote folder into your current folder.

3. depending on your internet connection the download might take up to 1 hour or more. The layout of the folder will be 'openbsd.cc.ntu.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/3.9/i386/' (substituting the host with whichever host you may have chosen. Now comes the interesting part, the creation of the ISO.

from the $HOME/openbsd folder, type 'mkhybrid -b openbsd.cc.ntu.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/3.9/i386/cdrom39.fs -c boot.catalog -l -J -L -r -o obsd39.iso ./'

Take note the last ./ as this will be the BASE working path that will be used to navigate to openbsd.cc.ntu.edu.tw/pub/OpenBSD/3.9/i386/cdrom39.fs

It will now begin creating the iso and after its done from the folder you're in you will find a obsd39.iso. Feel free to use any CD burning software to burn the image onto your CD. I used k3b to do burn my image. You could always use 'cdrecord' if you want everything executed from the console. After you've burned it do try to boot the cd to make sure all is working well. If all works then you can delete the files downloaded including the iso or you can share it with your friends.

Thats all folks :D

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

I am watching you

For some time I've been using a tool called ntop to monitor the traffic that goes through my machine. Just thought I'd share the tool with everyone else who is looking to see what goes on behind closed interfaces. The name of the tool is called ntop and listed below are the instructions to install it (on Breezy of course). Since its a web based tool all you need is a web browser to check the statistics.

apt-get intsall ntop.
first time run ntop -u ntop [-u indicates which user to run as]
it will ask for admin password (min 5 char)

to access the page type this in your browser "http://localhost:3000"

the only snag to this is that it only monitors up to the last 12 hours but its more than enough for normal users who just want to know what kind of traffic passes through their machine ;)

Emuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

We've all at one point or another wanted to run multiple OSes in a single machine simultaneously. One of the best ways to do it was to use VMware. However there is that small issue of licensing fee. There is however a FREE VMWare player for various platforms that can run images of various OSes but it didn't work for me. Earlier on one my friends mentioned bout QEMU which allows you to do exactly what VMWare allows.

My previous incarnation of Breezy had QEMU + KQEMU set up all well but after the resurrection I seem to have forgotten to install it. Till now that is. The basic guide I used for Breezy was based on this link.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

Devil Worshippers treats

Here's a little trick i would like to share with my Devil Worshipper buddies (even if I don't use it. Argh! Gotta stop using shortforms. Damn IMs).
This trick is to enable all those keys such as HOME, DELETE which don't work as well out of the box in *BSD. Since I'm really used to having them, I searched a solution and I hope this helps someone else.

Create a '~/.bashrc' and add the following lines

set meta-flag on
set output-meta on
set convert-meta off
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[2~": yank
"\e[3~": delete-char
"\e[4~": end-of-line
"\e[C": forward-char
"\e[D": backward-char
"\e[A": previous-history
"\e[B": next-history
"\C-?": delete-char
"\C-H": backward-delete-char
"\e[1~": beginning-of-line
"\e[4~": end-of-line

Quit out your existing session and re-log back in and now all those keys that were unavailable earlier are now at your disposable. Enjoy;)

Quickies

Here are some quick tips to help using Linux easier.

  • We tend to use 'grep' to search through our files but finding the occourence of the word can be tricky especially if there are alot of output. grep comes with color option to highlight the word using the --color=auto option. I add an alias in my .bash_profile so I don't have to keep typing it all the time.
    • alias grep='grep --color=auto'

  • vi can be your best friend as it's a very powerful editor and it's always available in every Linux distribution. However, it can get tedious looking at merely looking at black and white fonts. The newer distribution of vi is called vim (vi improved) which offers color options. To enable it (if it isn't) just fire up vi and press the ESC key, and type ':syntax on' exactly. NOTE: The following instruction is for Ubuntu. To make sure every file you open has syntax highlighting, copy '/etc/vim/vimrc' to '~/.vimrc'. Open '~/.vimrc' and look for the line that says 'syntax on' which is disabled by default. Quit and save and every file you open from now on will have syntax highlighting. The syntax highlighting information is stored in '/usr/share/vim/vim63/syntax'.
  • GTK fonts too small? When using Fluxbox, most of the GTK application fonts tend to be really tiny. This doesn't appear in GNOME because it will load 'gnome-settings-daemon' to make the apps streamlined. This however is not a good approach for minimalistic WMs (isn't that why we CHOSE the minimalistic WMs in the 1st place:P). Here is a trick that will make your fonts in the GTK apps, appear exactly as you want them. Edit (or create) a '~/.gtkrc-2.0' and add 'gtk-font-name="<font name> <font size>"', save the file, reload your GTK applications and voila all your fonts are now as you defined them.
Well that's all for now folks;) Gotta go configure my development tools now. Ciaoz.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Return of the Badger

Geez. Looks like an agreement with the devil didn't go so well. The installation went just fine however the update didn't go as expected (as usual). Yeah i see 1 guy starting to curse me now. You know who you are Tough luck man. Told you i never could get it to work properly for me. Now i've reinstalled my ol failthful Badger and surprise surprise. Lost my tutorials again. Gotta redo it but now that I've got it I can ACTUALLY paste it up now. WHEE!!!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

Rise of the Devil

Finally running FreeBSD the way its meant to be;). When you initially start up Fluxbox you will notice that all your GTK applications will be utilizing REALLY small fonts. Previously I used to run gnome-settings-daemon to get the fonts in the right size but now I've found another way to get the fonts just right.

I execute Fluxbox using the "Use system default" option in GDM. This will look for a .xprofile (as opposed to .xsession in UIbuntu) in your home directory. However in my case I symlink .xprofile to .xinitrc (just used to the normal standards I guess). I find this a better way to start up new WMs as I can logout and login to change different settings without disrupting the other users WM settings. Also, I can start up any custom apps I would like loaded using this method. Couldn't get fluxbox to read the startup file in the ~/.fluxbox folder though. Have to check that out later.

My .xprofile file contains the following lines

fbpager -rc ~/.fluxbox/fbpager&
exec /usr/X11R6/bin/fluxbox

I guess I'm just used to having a pager in my previous WMs that I just had to have it in fluxbox itself. A pager application is the one you use to switch to multiple desktops in XFCE4, GNOME or KDE.

Will add more on the status of the devil after I find more things to do >:)

Birth of the Devil

I've successfully reinstalled my OS to FreeBSD. This is my...errr... 12th try at this. Every single installation teaches me something new like what I SHOULDN'T do and what I SHOULD do. So far so good. I just might end up keeping this OS. But I aint keeping my hopes up TOO high though. The entire installation (including X) took about 45 minutes to complete (no surprise there). After that it was a matter of installing Fluxbox and GDM. I've also learned a new trick to get my GTK applications to have decent sized fonts too. Will post the HOW-TO in a while, once ALL my upgrades are done and it's working as well as it should. I'm currently upgrading my RELEASE-6 to STABLE-6. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Dragon's Death

Today is a sad day indeed. My new dragon hatchling has just died. I did an update today morning and it somehow caused all my apps to segfault. Sigh. I would like to take a moment of silence in honor of my valiant OS.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Moment of silence over. Looks like I'll never be able to see what are the changes in Dapper Drake after all. Oh well, time to go see the devil now.

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Walls ablaze part 2

Ok earlier I have set up Firestarter as my firewall GUI tool. Now I would like to make it work just the way I like it.

In the preferences ("Edit -> Preferences") the first thing i ensure is that "Enable tray icon" and "Minimize to tray on window close" is enabled. Another thing to change would be to "Apply policy changes immediately" in the "Policy" section. For the more paranoid cases, enabling "ICMP Filtering" would be the way to go but be careful what you enable as some network tools might not work as expected if you do enable it.

"ToS Filtering" would require an entire posting of its own but for a quck run through, I enabled ToS filtering, chose "Workstation" and optimized the traffic for "Throughput".

Finally in the "Advanced Options", maintaining "Preferred packet rejection method" to "Drop silently" is good. I personally prefer this option because sometimes its harder for another person to know if there is even a machine if they scanned you. Not that they cant find out using, its just that it makes it slightly harder. Anything that gives you even the slightest edge helps right;). Blocking broadcast traffic is a good idea to prevent you from getting DoS-ed. It also helps in reducing excessive traffic and prevents the degredation of network performance.

As a final note I also enable "Block traffic from reserved addresses on public interfaces". If you're connected directly to the internet using a public IP, it would be ridiculous to get a connection from a LAN IP right. You obviously don't want these spoofed addresses eating up your bandwidth. However this is not just restricted to LAN IP connecting to public IP, it also works for multicast traffic or any range which is deemed restricted. Save your preferences and you're back to where you started earlier.

Now that you have a pretty safe machine, you will want to allow certain connections to come INTO you system such as SSH, Torrent, NetBIOS. Click the "Policy" tab and in the "Inbound traffic policy" you have to add any ports and/or IPs that can connect to you in the "Allow service" section. Once you've added it the rule will immediately become active and you can connect to the service. For a workstation this will be more than sufficient. For controlling outbound traffic, change the "Inbound traffic policy" to "Outbound traffic policy" and you will notice whether to allow all traffic by default or restrictive by default. For those who intend to run it as a server or are just plain paranoid, change the default "Permissive" to "Restrictive" and restrict what kind of connections you wish to allow from your system. But do be careful with this as you may deny connections from other system apps that need to connect out.

You can monitor all blocked connections in the "Events" tab. This is a good place to check in case you set your rules too strict or just want to know what kind of traffic you are being hit with.

Well I finally have my first tutorial on something up. Hope to put something else up soon;)

Walls ablaze part 1

For those of you looking to setup a Linux firewall for your workstation, allow me to introduce you to Firestarter. Its a GUI application to manage iptables, which is the kernel level ip filter. Installing it is a piece of cake.
  • apt-get install firestarter -y
and you're done. Hahaha. Now comes the configuration part. For those running GNOME, clicking on "Application -> System Tools -> Firestarter" will execute the application. Since it's a front-end for iptables which requires root privileges, you'll be prompted for the root password (or the sudo password). Just type it in and you're all set. For those wishing to execute it from the terminal (for whatever reason it may be), typing "gksudo firestarter" will execute the program as well.

There is already a good tutorial available from the Firestarer homepage which is accessible through this link but I will run through the 3 step process here as well.
  • Click "Forward" on the first page. This is merely stating that you're ready to begin the setup.
  • In "Network Device Setup", select the interface that you want the filtering to take place. For Linux, the first interface is usually called eth0, the second interface eth1 and so forth. For those using your Linux machine to dial out for DialUp or ADSL, select the "Start firewall on dial-out option". For those who obtain their IP automatically from a DHCP server, do remember to check the "IP address assigned via DHCP" option box. Click "Forward" when you're done.
  • In "Network Device Setup", this is the section that allows your computer to act as a gateway for multiple PC's in your network. Enable it if you wish to share your connection with others. This is also a good tool to be used on gateway servers as it simplifies configuration but I wouldn't recommend running a full fledged GUI on a server. You would need a minimum of two interfaces for thise to work. One for the internal network (where all your clients are) and another which is connected to the internet. In the interface selection, select the interface connected to the internal network. If you wish to assign address to the clients in your personalized LAN, click the "Enable DHCP for local network" and enter the settings as you require it.
  • And your now set to run your newly configured firewall. Just click "save" and your're good to go.
This is the default configuration and setup for Firestarter. From now on everytime you reboot your machine, your firewall rules will automatically be loaded on system startup. If you would like to load Firestarter when you log into your account you will have to make it load using whichever method your desktop uses to start programs on startup. In the next part I'll run through some other configuration options. Till then ciaoz;)

Monday, February 27, 2006

trAPT

Ubuntu comes with a great command line tool for installing/updating/removing packages called apt* and dpkg*. The * denotes the various applications you can use i.e. apt-get, apt-cache, dpkg, dpkg-reconfigure, etc. The use of each tool is pretty much self explanatory. apt-get downloads and installs/updates packages/distro and apt-cache queries for a package you're looking for. The best part is that it will automatically connect to the server to download it without you having to have it prior to installation. Also since ubuntu is based on debian, all package format is in .deb therefore chances are you can use existing debian packages on ubuntu.

/etc/apt/sources.list is the file that stores the location of repositories to download the .deb files from.

Here are some command line options that I regularly use
  • apt-get install [package_name]
    • downloads and installs [package_name]
  • apt-get remove [package_name]
    • removes [package_name]. I usually use dpkg --purge to completely delete everything, including its configuration files as well.
  • apt-get update
    • downloads the new package information from the repositories
  • apt-get upgrade -y
    • ran after the above command, it will download and update any packages that are outdated. the -y option answers 'yes' to all questions regarding upgrades. It's es.pecially useful when running it from a crontab
  • apt-get dist-upgrade -y
    • this is the best way to upgrade your existing version to the latest version. Just run this command after a few hours, with a mere reboot, you will have your new distro ready for use. Usually most of your previous applications will work just fine but at times you will need to remove and reinstall the application for it to function but its very rare.
  • apt-cache search [package_name]
    • the best way to search for packages instead of searching via packages.ubuntu.com. Useful if you don't know the entire name of the package.
  • dpkg -L
    • list all the files installed by .
These are some of the main commands I use regularly. If i come across any new tips I'll be sure to add it here later;) Till then ciaoz;)

Dragon's Breath

Yesterday i decided to upgrade by Breezy Badger to Dapper Drake (which is still in the testing stage). I just couldn't help myself. I absolutely HAD to see what it's all about. Patience was never one of my strong points anyway. The last time i tried to upgrade my system (from Hoary to Badger) it caused a massive problems i.e. not booting properly, not being able to mount my remote drives, etc. But did those problems and spending days to reconfigure back my machine back to the way i like stop me from trying. HELL NO!!. Especially after what I read about Dapper and its new features. These are the steps i used to upgrade it
  • edited my /etc/apt/sources.list
  • changed all references of "breezy" to "dapper"
  • "apt-get update"
  • "apt-get dist-upgrade -y"
and voila, after 3 hours plus all the new packages were installed and updated and after a reboot, which i find to be faster than Breezy (at least thats how it seems to me), I was presented with my NEW GDM login screen.

The first thing I did was to login to GNOME just to see what changes have been made. Granted that I already had a previous configuration setting for GNOME anyway so i might be missing out on some default settings/layout. Graphically its the same as the previous version but what caught my eye immediately was that the GNOME panel is now slightly smaller (I've been trying to figure out how to change the size but never managed it. Probably have to edit it using gconf but I was too lazy after switching to XFCE4) and they have applets that warn you about your impending hard disk capacity exhaustion. Also it now comes with gnome-screensaver which offers a whole slew of REALLY cool looking screensavers and a OS-X like password prompt.

After that I decided to switch back to fluxbox which somehow seems much faster. However all my fonts are like super humongous at the moment but i'll let it stick for now. It's kinda nice not to have to squint your eyes trying to read all the config file. I've had it running for more than 18 hours now and it seems just fine and dandy. i just hope it stays that way though.

Some of the other changes include Firefox 1.5 and Thunderbird 1.5 that comes default with Dapper. Previously I had to download Firefox manually and do some reconfiguring (which aint hard anyway) but now that i have it default it makes me even happier. Also i get to retain my extensions that I have already been using ;).

Will post more as I come across newer features/changes ;) Time for lunch:D

Change is in the air

Ok I've finally changed my template to something new. Got a lot of complaints regarding the pinky-ness. I've been trying to change the look to something more pleasant but didn't succeed so I changed the entire theme. Will get back to having blood red (or is it maroon) theme once i get to it

Sunday, February 26, 2006

I am what I am because of who we all are

What DOES the title mean anyway? No its not about some human rights discussion or a cool catch phrase (actually it just might. Hmm). Actually its the definition of the Linux distro I've been using as of last year. Ubuntu.

Linux. Ahhh...my favorite OS. Aside from OS-X that is. Not that I haven't tried out any *bsd systems its just that Linux just works better for me (And easier too. Though i know of 1 or 2 people would disagree with me). Anyways I've tried out quite a few distro's i.e. RedHat, Slackware (my FAVORITE distro EVER), Fedora Core, CentOS and of course, Ubuntu. Now Ubuntu is TRULY a distro suited for the masses IMHO. It has such a simplistic and intuitive installer. If memory serves me right you just need to answer 6 questions to get a fully functional system.

I've been using Ubuntu 5.0.4 or more commonly known as Hoary Hedgehog (they seem to like to name their releases using animal names). The default desktop is GNOME (there are versions for other desktops or window managers i.e. Kubuntu using the KDE desktop). Ubuntu uses Debian as a base so for all of you who have used Debian before this would be a breeze. Regardles of the system you choose, you can opt to install any of the desktops using apt-get. Ubuntu itself can be obtained from ubuntu.com

In Breezy Badger (5.1.10) they also offered another desktop option, which incidentally does not have its own release cd, called xubuntu which uses XFCE4 as the desktop environment. I've had a liking for this as it was small and simple so the moment i knew it was available i decided to download it. Obtaining it was rather simple. ALl i had to do was type "apt-get install xubuntu-desktop" and watch apt-get perform its miracle by downloading, installing and setting up the new desktop for me and i've been using it ever since. Quite recently i stumbled upon another ubuntu version called nubuntu.org which uses the fluxbox window manager for those looking for a more simplestic and HIGHLY configurable wm. I decided to give fluxbox a try since I've been hearing so many good things about it. I'll post my guide to configuring fluxbox later. Once I can find where i stuffed that tutorial of mine in the 1st place :P.

Why oh why did I write this blog


The real reason i created this blog was to put up any tutorial I did whilst doing configuration for my machine. Since i have a nasty habit of writing up some minimalistic guide so that i can remember it for future use AND losing it, thus putting up online seems to be the sanest thing to do. I got this idea from a friend of mine who puts up lots of food tutorials and guides for *BSD (or *NIX) in general. Thx geek;)

What's in a name (and looks)

Why oh WHY did i pick THIS color scheme :S. Gosh it's PINK. Or is it dark red. Its, its, its, HORRIBLE. ARGH!!. Never blindly pick a template without looking at it properly. Sigh. No matter i'll change it when i come around to it.

The name "afriel" was stumbled upon when i was busy searching for some RPG stuff. Turns out the name i chose is an angels name and it supposedly means
"
Afriel is known as the Angel of Youth and encourages exploration of all things new and inspires us with Hope.

"

Either way the name sounds cool so i decided to use this as the name for this blog. And besides, an angel that encourages us to do new things is my kinda guy. Or gal, whichever suits it. :D

My First Post

Gosh I finally have my own blog. Weird considering i swore i'd never create one of my own. Goes to show how true the old adage "Never say never" is. Now if i can just remember to post frequently ;)

Anyway peace ya'll

-End-