Top new questions this week:

How do I know if a partition is ext2, ext3, or ext4?

I just formatted stuff. One disk I format as ext2. The other I want to format as ext4. I want to test how they perform. Now, how do I know the kind of file system in a partition?

/ linux / ext4 / ext3 / ext2

asked by Jim Thio 21 votes answered by Gilles 12 votes

Vi vs vim, or, is there any reason why I would ever want to use vi?

I know a bit about *NIX text editors (currently migrating from nano to vim), and, after looking around a bit on the Unix & Linux SE, have noticed that a fair about of question use vi instead of …

/ vim / vi

asked by InkBlend 9 votes answered by archmonk 9 votes

Linux on a 286?

I don't own a 286 nor do I intend to run Linux on one. However since the 286 has protected mode, why is it frequently stated that Linux requires a 386 CPU or higher? From …

/ linux-kernel / hardware-compatibility

asked by ioctlvoid 8 votes answered by goldilocks 1 vote

Is using a read only root file system a good idea for embedded setup?

I have been tasked with running Linux as an operating system on an embedded device. The target has an x86 processor and has 8 GB CompactFlash device for storage. I have managed to use buildroot to …

/ embedded / ram / readonly / root-filesystem / buildroot

asked by mathematician1975 7 votes answered by F. Hauri 4 votes

Testing, from a script, if audio devices are in silent?

Is there a default program where I can check if my audio devices are in silent? Edit: By silence, I mean that if there is something playing on that (not just activated or opened) Something like …

/ linux / scripting / audio / devices

asked by RSFalcon7 5 votes answered by Eddy_Em 3 votes

How to decide that mv moves into a directory rather than replacing directory?

Say I have a directory /hello. Then I do mv /hello /hello2. Am I moving /hello into /hello2/hello? Or am I moving /hello to /hello2? It seems that when I do something like this, I get inconsistent …

/ rename

asked by Jim Thio 5 votes answered by Don Simon 9 votes

Is it a good practice to have different users for different contexts?

I'm a software developer and I have a new laptop with Ubuntu. I plan to set up this laptop as a development workstation where I'll do my professional work (for my company) and also I'll develop some …

/ users / multiuser

asked by Iago 4 votes answered by Rory Alsop 3 votes

Greatest hits from previous weeks:

Why is cd not a program?

I've always wondered why cd isn't a program, but never managed to find the answer. Anyone know why this is the case?

/ shell / cd / command

asked by AkshaiShah 52 votes answered by Daniel Pittman 106 votes

Streaming to an Apple TV (3) from Linux

Alright, here is the setup: One apple tv 3 in the living room, connected to the network (wired). One pc running Linux (Arch Linux x64, AMD), containing all music, movies and series (wired). Now I …

/ networking / video / streaming

asked by MaienM 10 votes answered by Sympower 2 votes

Can you answer these?

cpu time measurement with wait4 vs. cpuacct cgroup

I want to start a process and measure the cpu time (user+sys) it needs until it terminates. I know I can use the wait4 system call, which returns a struct with user and system time (I use the sum of …

/ time / cgroups

asked by Philipp Wendler 1 vote

How to get Wine to work with SELinux?

I want to run a .msi file on Fedora 17. After installing Wine Windows Program Loader on my Linux machine, it failed to run the file. A check on /var/log/messages shows the following line: Jan 11 …

/ fedora / selinux / wine

asked by Question Overflow 1 vote

Making the keyboard eject switch work

My keyboard switch for ejecting the CDROM does not work though it displays an eject button on the screen. I need to make it work. I know ejecting a cdrom using system call is as simple as …

/ linux / keyboard / data-cd / eject

asked by PaulDC 1 vote