In order to be able to zip file and ignore directory structure that gets created with it, we first must understand what the zip command on Linux actually means and how we can make use of it.The zip command that Linux provides us with allows us to specify a compression level with a number prefixed with dash and that number is usually in between 0 and 9. In simple terms, it is used to reduce the size of files with the help of compression and sometimes also used as a file package facility.The compression of files actually involves one or ... Read More

Linux provides us a way with which we can create symbolic links or symlinks, that issimply pointing to another file or folder on your machine. Now let's understand what symbolic links actually mean and how to make use of it. Symbolic links in simple terms mean advanced shortcuts. A symbolic link that you create will appear to be the same as the original file or folder which it is pointing to, even though it’s simply a link. For example, let’s say that you have a program that needs to store its files at /home/user/Downloads/.program. But you actually want to store ... Read More

If you have been programming, then you might have observed certain cases and scenarios where the program gets stuck or the process is running in an infinite loop which in turn puts pressure on the core of that thread which is handling that process.There are many such cases where this is quite a possibility.We usually make use of different techniques to avoid such cases, like handling them in code logic itself or using third party tools to deal with them.Linux also provides us with a command that we can use to keep track of the different parameters of the CPU ... Read More

Let’s consider a case where we have two directories, say, d1 and d2 and both these directories contain some files, which may be the same or different. Now we want to compare the files that are present in both these directories and by comparison we need to print out what files are different, what files are the same and in what directory.In order to do that we must be familiar with either the diff command as the diff commands can be used to solve the above problem.Let’s first explore the diff command, which is short for difference. This command is ... Read More

There are always chances that we will make some type of error whenever we are programming. Compilers and interpreters are always there to help us in these cases, but in order to use them we must run the program or some sort of an IDE that constantly checks for these errors and reminds us every time, so that we can correct them.What if we don’t want to write our code in a fancy IDE and also don’t want to run the program either, in that case we are left with very few options if any. In case you are writing ... Read More

We know that we can make use of the top command to print all the processes that are running in the background. Though the top command is used to print the list of processes or threads that are currently managed by the Linux kernel, it is still not a convenient way to check if a particular service is running in the background or not.In order to understand how to check whether a particular service is running or not, we first must understand what a service actually means in Linux. A service is basically a process or group of processes that ... Read More

Apache web server is one of the most used web servers across all the platforms even after including different Linux distributions and windows. Apache server is an open source HTTP server that is mainly used to deliver web content and can also be used to serve many queries at once.In this article, I will try to explain how to change the root directory for Apache web server.It is usually the case that to change the root directory we must first be aware of its exact location and in the case of the Apache server, the root directory which is also ... Read More

When we talk about keeping our dependencies in a separate location from our logic code we are indeed creating nothing but a virtual environment, which in python, we usually use the term venv to refer to as.So a venv is nothing but a virtual environment which is in turn a tool that allows us to keep our dependencies that are required by the project to be kept in a separate folder. These separate folders that we create are known as the python virtual environments.Python venv is one of the most widely used tools.Now we know what virtualenv is and what ... Read More

Linux utility commands are what makes Linux such a powerful operating system, while there are plenty of commands that we can use to interact and get information about the signals and system calls, but the most used and preferred command when it comes to getting the information about the system calls and signals is the linux trace command.It can be used for getting a diagnosis of the system, for monitoring specific processes or instruction tools of Linux. It has variety of use cases and some of these use cases are −Print timestamp for each system callOutput line with clock timeTrace ... Read More

When we talk about something as big as the Linux operating system, one thing that also comes into my mind is how they make it work so effectively. Sure, it works like a charm, but how do they handle all the bugs and errors that can literally exist anywhere in the source code of the entire systemWe know that we get a new Linux operating system every three months and in that period roughly two weeks are reserved for the “merge window”. This window is the time where all the code that has already been developed and approved will be ... Read More