The dmesg command is a powerful tool used to control and read log messages stored in the kernel ring buffer of Linux and other Unix-based operating systems. During boot-up and runtime, the kernel stores messages produced by device drivers, hardware devices, and kernel modules in a ring buffer. These stored log messages can be reviewed… Read More »
What is Snap Snap is a software packaging and deployment system (similar to deb) developed by Canonical for Linux. It has version control capabilities which help maintain multiple releases of a particular application (aka snaps). Though it is a proprietary solution from Canonical, Snap is available for other linux distros like Fedora, CentOS and Manjaro… Read More »
Grep Command Grep command in Linux is primarily used to search files for specific patterns of text, but there is a lot more it can do. The name “grep” is derived from the command used to perform a similar operation “ed” text editor with the operation: g/re/p ((globally search for a regular expression and print… Read More »
PyOpenGL is an python module that implements OpenGL functions in python allowing you to write OpenGL applications using Python. With OpenGL you are able to write applications that use “GPU acceleration”. So if you have an Nvidia RTX 3060 gpu on your system, the opengl functions will use it to render the 3D graphics on… Read More »
The 5Ghz band is normally used for wifi5/wifi6 and supports higher data transfer speed. Wifi5 works exclusively on 5ghz band only, but wifi6 can work on both 2.4 and 5ghz. However you might be surprised to know that even wifi4 (802.11n) supports 5ghz band though it will deliver its lower speed only. A lot of… Read More »
Routers are basically embedded devices (or system), and most modern routers run on linux. Think of it like a mini computer that has its own cpu, storage space, ram memory, ethernet ports, wifi chipset, and optionally a usb port. Functionally these are single board computers similar to a raspberry pi. They software that runs on… Read More »
Lets say you upgraded your home or office network with new wifi routers and devices then you should see if your devices are using the new wifi standards like Wifi5 or Wifi6, to ensure high speed data transfer. On Windows it is easy to check, but on linux we need to run a few commands… Read More »
On a linux system you can get details about the wifi adapter using commands like iw, iwconfig, iwlist, ethtool etc. However if you are a usb wifi adapter then it can be tricky. When you plug a usb wifi adapter on your system, linux will not show the details of the device in the lspci… Read More »
In this article we take a quick look at testing wifi throughput over lan using a simple tool called iperf. Wifi lan speed matters when you are transferring large files across devices. For example transferring a big video or zip file from ipad or smartphone to desktop pc connected on ethernet. Wifi speed is not… Read More »
After you install Ubuntu inside VirtualBox its necessary to install guest additions in order to enable enhanced features like native screen resolution, seamless windows, shared clipboard, shared folders and few others. Without it, you would probably have to work with a standard resolution like 1024×768 as the default virtual machine does not support every possible… Read More »
OpenVPN OpenVPN is open source, secure and robust. It is readily available for most platforms and can be setup quickly. The SurfShark native client also uses OpenVPN underneath. It supports both tcp and udp based wrappers for vpn traffic over internet. UDP is significantly faster than tcp and works really well. There are multiple ways… Read More »
DNS Leak DNS Leak is commonly seen in vpn connections, when all the http traffic goes through the vpn tunnel, however the dns queries go directly to system/isp dns servers bypassing the vpn tunnel, which breaks the privacy protection offered by the vpn. Unless dns leaks are fixed, you are not fully privacy guarded in… Read More »
The 7z LZMA benchmark runs dummy compression and decompression tasks to measure the overall performance of the system. It reports measurements in MIPS (million instructions per second) which give an idea of the computer’s raw processing power counting all factors. 7z LZMA compression is a multi-threaded work-load. This means that it can utilise multiple cores… Read More »
Sysbench is a command-line tool that is designed to test and benchmark database performance, but with certain options it can also be used to run tests to measure the raw performance of cpu, ram and storage devices as well. These tests can give a brief and fairly accurate assessment of the system’s performance. In this… Read More »
What are UEFI and BIOS These are specifications that describe and define how the system firmware should work to initialize the hardware and load the OS. In old systems we had the IBM PC “derived” BIOS implementations. Its the blue screen interface that you enter by pressing the Del/F2 keys just AFTER system power has… Read More »
In a pervious article we discussed about the important cpu performance metrics like usage, temperature, power and clock frequency. In this article we shall take a look at various methods of monitoring the same on Ubuntu or similar linux distros. There are quite a few commands on linux for monitoring cpu metrics. If you just… Read More »
So recently I was looking for a command to check the live power consumption of cpu in watts. I tried different commands like powertop, powerstat, lm-sensors but none of them worked properly. lm-sensors did show the temperatures of individual cores of the cpu, but could not display the watts being consumed in realtime. Other commands… Read More »
So I recently bought the Acer Aspire A515-45 Ryzen 5 5500U laptop. This laptop will be used for regular tasks, like web browsing, watching youtube videos, editing documents, blogging, taking notes etc. I checked quite a few laptops from other brands as well including Lenovo, MSI and Asus. Finally settled for this one for some… Read More »
A good pair of headphones is a must-have for any gamer who desires an immersive gaming experience either on their laptop, smartphone, or game console. Now, finding the perfect headphones for you depends on several factors, including your lifestyle, preferences, and budget. However, some things you must consider before you get a pair of headphones… Read More »
Laptops with 4K displays are among the latest trends in the portable tech industry in 2021. Compared to its predecessor, the 1080p or Full High Definition, 4K display is exactly four times the pixel count. Backed with powerful CPUs like 10th/11th gen i7 and GPUs, these new laptops can support resolutions of 3840×2160 pixels also… Read More »