Linux Network Speed Test

Linux Network Speed Test

I recently purchased a power line network adapter and wanted to see how it performed relative to the stated specs on the packaging. After playing around with wget and sftp to copy files from my desktop to my laptop I wondered if there was a better way to test network speed without involving the hard drive of my server or my client machines. What I found was that it’s possible to use a few simple commands on the Linux command line to test local network speed without copying actual files. Continue reading

Netflix on Linux

Netflix on Linux – Now Works With Chrome Browser

I recently wrote a post showing how to get Netfix working on Ubuntu and its derivatives. That process originally involved installing the beta version of the Chrome browser and manually updating some libraries on your system. Further, you had to use the Useragent Switcher extension in Chrome to trick Netflix into thinking you were a Windows user.
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Synaptic Mark All Upgrades

Mark All Upgrades in Synaptic on Linux Mint 17

I’ve written before how to restore the Mark All Upgrades button to Synaptic in Linux Mint. Things have changed in the latest version: Linux Mint 17 Qiana. The previous technique no longer works because the Mint team is providing their own version of Synaptic rather than using the package from the Ubuntu repositories. The following will show how to restore the Mark All Upgrades button to Synaptic in Linux Mint 17. Continue reading

Streaming Netflix on Linux

Netflix on Linux Mint 17 and Ubuntu 14.04

Update: 10 October, 2014 – Netflix now works on Linux without any special hacks using the Chrome browser.

There have been many tutorials posted on how to get Netflix working on Linux. Personally I’ve had limited success using the Pipelight plugins. There’s good news for Linux users though. Recent development versions of the Chrome browser from Google include the required DRM code to allow HTML5 video streaming from Netflix. The goal of this tutorial is to provide easy instructions to get Netflix streaming working on Linux Mint 17, Ubuntu 14.04, and Ubuntu 12.04. Continue reading

bash getopts

Bash Getopts – Scripts with Command Line Options

I’ve always wanted to know how to create command line options for my Bash scripts. After some research I found there are two functions available to handle this; getopt and getopts. I’m not going to get into the debate about which one is better. getopts is a shell builtin and seems a little easier to implement than getopt, so I’ll go with that for now.

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