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Installing/Upgrading VirtualBox Guest Additions on Linux Desktop/Server

How to Install/Update Linux VirtualBox Guest Additions

This article will describe how to install or update VirtualBox Guest Additions in Linux, showing the commands you need to run. VirtualBox is a free, open source virtualization platform that allows you to create virtual machines that run on your Linux system. These virtual machines act just like their own self-contained computers, and can run other Linux distributions, or even other operating systems entirely, such as Windows, or MS-DOS. Virtual Machines – Hosts vs Guests In virtualization terminology, the Host is the computer that runs a virtual … Read more

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How to Get the Path to the Current Bash/Shell Script

How to Get the Path to the Currently Running Bash/Shell Script in Linux

This short tutorial will demonstrate how to get the path to the currently running Bash/Shell script in Linux, and provide a code example. Getting the path to the current script is useful if you have other files in the same directory as the script that you want to access when calling the script from elsewhere. For example, you may have a script that plays music located with your music files, and have a second script on your Desktop that calls it. The first script will … Read more

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How to use the Bash wait Command (it’s Different to sleep)

How to use the Bash wait Command, and How it's Different to sleep

This short post will explain how to use the bash wait command to wait until a process has finished, and how if differs to the sleep command. What does the Bash wait Command Do? The wait command is a simple program that waits for a process to change state – this means waiting for it to exit. How to Use the Bash wait Command The wait command expects a list of process ids that it should wait to complete, for example: Above, the process ids 111 and 222 are supplied to wait. wait will only complete its own execution once the processes supplied to … Read more

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How to Check if a String is Empty in Bash Scripts

How to Check if a String is Empty in Bash Scripts

This short article will demonstrate how to check whether a string variable is empty in Bash and other Shell scripts in Linux, with examples. Bash Operators Bash operators are the symbols and expressions that perform comparisons, assignments, and arithmetic. The -z Bash Operator The -z operator returns true if a string variable is null or empty. How the use the -z Bash Operator After declaring a string variable, use the -z operator in an if statement to check whether a string is empty or not: For more Shell scripting tips, check out or Bash/Shell scripting articles!

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How to Grow a Linux Partition to Fill a Disk with growpart

How to Easily Grow a Linux Partition to Fill the Whole Disk using growpart

This article will show how to grow a partition on your Linux partition to fill the entire disk using growpart. This is useful if you have resized a virtual machine disk, or moved to a larger disk on your desktop or laptop Linux system. Resizing Linux Virtual Machine Disks Most commonly, you’ll be looking to grow your Linux partition to fill the entire disk on a virtual machine after resizing it. Cloud hosts like Amazon AWS and Google Cloud, and virtual machine solutions like VirtualBox and Hyper-V allow … Read more

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How to Convert a USB Printer to Wireless with a Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi Wireless Printer

This tutorial will show you how to turn a USB printer into a wireless, AirPrint enabled printer using a Raspberry Pi. The shared printer will be accessible from Windows, Mac and of course, Linux devices. Printers are one of the few bits of tech that haven’t really changed much in the last few decades. The only real change has been that they are increasingly locked down, they are expensive to re-fill, detecting generic cartridges and refusing to print unless an expensive name-brand cartridge is purchased. … Read more

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How to Use a Raspberry Pi for Digital Signage

Raspberry Pi Digital Signage

This tutorial will show you how to set up your Raspberry Pi with info-beamer and a TV to use as digital signage for your shop, office, school… or anywhere really. Digital signage is super useful. You may want to display advertisements in your shop window, timetables in your office, bulletins in school hallways – really, for anywhere you would hang a poster or noticeboard, a digital sign makes a cool replacement that is highly visible and can be easily updated. Lets get to it. Setting Up the … Read more

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How to Share a Printer using AirPrint with a Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi AirPrint Server

This tutorial will show you how to share your USB printer with iPhones and iPads using AirPrint from a Raspberry Pi. AirPrint is Apple’s printer sharing technology and is required to print from iOS devices like iPhones and iPads, and can also be used to print from laptops and desktops running MacOS. AirPrint is usually only available as a baked-in feature for consumer printers or by sharing a printer that has been plugged into a mac. However, it’s possible to set up an AirPrint server … Read more

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The Worst Things You’ll Probably Google As a Programmer on Linux

The Worst Things You'll Probably Google As a Programmer on Linux

Programming terminology isn’t always well thought out. Language changes, or the people building out languages don’t consider the full implications of what a function or program or program name may look like when taken out of context – especially when combined with other technical terms. This leads to some pretty awful sounding phrases that you’ll have to search up online when learning how to code, or reminding yourself of the syntax for a command. Here are the worst 25, summarized from this Reddit thread. The Worst … Read more

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How to Build a Raspberry Pi Internet Kiosk

Raspberry Pi Internet Kiosk

This tutorial will show you how to build an internet kiosk using a Raspberry Pi and FullPageOS. It can also be used as digital signage! Internet kiosks are useful when you want to allow your customers or visitors to be able to use the internet – to browse a catalogue or access services – but want to limit them to the web browser only, and make sure that they can only use the websites you deem necessary (or appropriate). FullPageOS provides this functionality for free … Read more