Steve Smith, host of your TQA Weekly, demonstates how to use the terminal within Ubuntu 11.10 to do common commands tasks, like installing Tor, changing file modes, and making file executable.
Episode #2-16 released on January 15, 2012
The scariest thing about any operating system can be the terminal prompt. I'm going to start demystifying Ubuntu 11.10's terminal by continuing my lesson on how to install Tor into your computer. Get ready, set, go!
Unlike previous version of Ubuntu, there have been a few changes to the terminal that make it safer, and a bit harder to use. I'm not just going to explain how to get Tor working, but how to get other processes up and running by explaining what I believe Canonical did to make the terminal safer and harder to use at the same time.
Let's start off with the most commonly used thing web developers use in Linux based servers, the CHMOD, or the change file mode command. It is comprised of several standard pieces that allow the root operator to define if the file is executable, writable and readable by the owner, group or public. A newly adopted setting in Ubuntu, is the executable activate add-on, I'm naming it this way. If you ever tried to launch a configure option in Ubuntu 11.10, you may have noticed you don't have permission, even if your the ROOT. In this case, instead of writing something like ./configure, you need to use chmod +x filename.extension, then run your command. This allows you the rights to run as a program the file in question. Please keep in mind that Linux is cap sensitive, so write the name of the file exactly the same way, for this reason, most files and commands are left lower capital, instead of full capital.
Now, to load the Terminal, you need to either click the terminal icon on the left, or CTRL-ALT-T. Remember, we are going to be using Tor as an example operation to getting an application running within the terminal.
Now, we will be entering the following commands in order to install all the packages from Tor. Copy each line of command one at a time. To paste into the terminal, right click the mouse and select paste, then click enter on the keyboard.
Now, the installation of Tor is finalized, Ubuntu may have some packages to update, update, as usual.
Next week, I will explain what Tor is, what it does, how it does it, what it shouldn't be used for, and what it can't do.
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Host : Steve Smith | Music : Jonny Lee Hart | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Productions