Everyday Linux

I use Linux every single day, seeing as how none of the computers at my house run any other OS’ and I have a laptop for school/work. Being a System76 machine, it runs perfectly for me (with an exception for a couple of Kubuntu Hardy bugs) and I’m more than happy with it. The problem is that I work in an office using the *other* OS’ and I have to deal with them on a daily basis.

I entered work and my fellow co-worker in the tech department was having for lack of a better term “issues” with his computer. We had other computers for use in the office so it would be okay once he put in a new hard drive and did a reinstall of Windows over the weekend, he tells me. Note: fourth install of Windows in as many weeks. Near the end of the day, he said something to the extent of ‘my hard drive is broken so I cant get that file you need for you.’ Now to be clear, his OS was broken and even his file system was in a bad state, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t get the files I needed. In fact, this sounds like a perfect job for a Linux algorithm.

Live CD of Finnix (Debian based)
reboot.
boot cd.
fdisk -l (logged in as root so no need for ‘sudo’)
cd /mnt; ls
mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1 /mnt/hda
cd (to the directory containing the files we need)
cp foo.file /mnt/sdb1 (sdb1 being my flash drive)
umount /mnt/sdb1 (or you can just pull the thing out)

Lesson learned: Linux > Windows.

Lesson 1: If I was feeling malicious, I could have installed a key logger, since he wasn’t really paying attention to what I was doing, and I was doing it this at top speed. Write to his file system. Drop in a trojan or any such information I wanted.

Lesson 2: I could easily have rm ‘d his entire file system. This is drawn from Lesson 1 obviously. If someone has your computer, it is worth knowing what they are doing with it. This is a complaint I have against Geek Squad and other such companies. If I’m paying you money to do something with my computer, I expect you to explain it all in terms I can understand and let me watch you, that way no files are stolen.

Lesson 3: Password. Password. Password. No password to change the BIOS or MBR? No password to initialize the Hard Drive? There is no way to guarantee that your computer will always be physically secure, and with the proliferation of these Linux systems that can do such things as described above, it is important that your computer not be tampered with.

Leson 4: Just because it’s broke doesn’t mean it’s broke. As far as my co-worker knew, his files were completely gone. In fact, the idea of a Live CD was new to him, but I will be giving him one for his own uses so he can learn more. This is why Linux users are encouraged to have a separate /home partition. Extendability and flexibility matter. You OS and file system and kernel and window sessions should never be recursively linked. KDE is acting funny? drop to a shell and hit this to be back in business: sudo /etc/init.d/kdm restart
Computers are complex, yes. But to imply that one task can break everything on your system is just silly.

Lesson 5: OS != computer. As discussed above, a broken file system is inherently different than a bug in GNOME. Or a problem with a misbehaving NIC. Knowing all the parts of a computer and how they work will help you skip all the trouble of trying to troubleshoot and go straight to fixing. Note: I’m looking at you, “I need a new computer, my Windows is acting up”

Final thesis: The file we needed was recovered and I dropped some David Copperfield level magic on the office before I came home. And always carry around a flash drive/live cd combo with you to work so any problems with Windows can be easily fixed.

Update! Ubuntu Installation complete on the computer in question. +1

-eddie m.