Is Your Storage Drive An SSD Or An HDD?

Today’s article aims to answer a simple question, simply is your storage drive an SSD or an HDD? This is not something most folks will have trouble knowing, but it’s still something worth knowing how to do. After all, you never know when you’ll be attached to a remote computer with disks of different types.

And, yes, due to expense and sizes, HDDs still exist and are still in use all over the place. Not everything has been converted to an SSD.

We’ve relied on spinning media for quite some time. We used this in hard disk drives. They were the norm for many years. SSDs (solid-state drives) are more common in end-user computers these days. If you can, you might even have an NVME SSD which is exceptionally fast.

We’re only going to use one command in this article, so it will be quite short. That’s not a bad thing. Not every article needs to be all that long.

We’ll simply be using the cat command. We’ve used this command many times in the past because it’s a handy command to use!

cat:

The cat command is a command used in the terminal. We want to read a file and cat is the correct tool for the job. The cat command reads a file and sends the output to the terminal. You won’t need to install anything.

Let’s check the man page (with man cat) to see:

cat – concatenate files and print on the standard output

See? If we want to read a file to the terminal, this is the correct tool for the job. Again, you won’t need to install anything.

An SSD Or An HDD:

Like oh so many articles, you will need an open terminal. Just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal open, let’s see if you’ve got an SSD or an HDD.

First, identify your drives with this command:

Now, ignoring the partitions, you can run the following command:

So, for example, you’d run this command:

And here’s an example output:

The zero means that it’s an SSD. 

If we run this command against a drive that I know is an HDD (a plugged-in external HDD that’s used for backups and storage):

The 1 means that it is a spinning HDD.

So, if you have both you can now distinguish between an SSD and an HDD.

Closure:

So, now you know how to tell if your device is an SSD or an HDD. This is something easily determined. If you have questions about your storage, this will help answer those questions. I’m not sure that I’d memorize this command, but it’s worth adding to your notes.

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Monitor System Resources With “Resources”

Today is one of those days when I’d like to introduce you to new software as we learn to monitor system resources with “Resources”. That may not make much sense, but it will! The Resources application is a great option if you want a great way to monitor system resources.

I may do a few articles about monitoring system resources. That’ll be fun.

It’s probably important to mention that many of you will not have this in your default repositories. For those who do, it won’t be in the typical repositories but will exist because your distro ships with Flatpaks enabled.

That’s right. To use this article, you should read a previous article:

Installing Flatpaks In Linux

Once you get Flatpak installed and the FlatHub repository added, you can use a great application known as Resources.

Of course, your desktop distro shipped with a GUI resource monitor and it’s usually fit for purpose. However, this Resources application has a bunch of great features and it is easy to live with. 

Another great thing is that this shouldn’t be a very long article…

Monitor System Resources:

Once Flatpak is installed, you might want to keep your terminal open. Yes, Flatpaks are large – but they have great features, including running in isolation and shipping with all their dependencies.

Most of you can open a terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T. If that doesn’t work for you, you’ll have a terminal option in your application menu. It might be under the Administration sub-section.

With your terminal open, you can install Resources quite easily:

That should add Resources to your application menu. It will fall under the Administration sub-section. I’ve seen some distros not show newly added Flatpaks in the menu until after a reboot. If that’s the case, you can manually run Resources with this command:

Once you open the application, all will be revealed. Here’s an image:

Resources default screen.
This should be self-explanatory if you’ve monitored resources before.

One of the great things is that you can monitor applications that might have multiple processes – such as Google Chrome. You can also monitor processes individually, including closing those applications and processes.

Additionally, you can monitor CPU use, memory use, GPU use, and your various storage devices – including optical media. If you want to know read and write speeds on the fly, that information is available in an easily understood graphical tool.

That’s right… I’m covering a graphical tool today! Let it be said that a GUI is sometimes a good tool for the job and that the Resources application is one of those tools.

If you click on the hamburger menu near the top, you can also adjust your preferences. You can choose to display more information than the default and adjust how you’d like to read things like temperature values. It’s a pretty handy application.

Yes, you already have a GUI tool to monitor system resources but you can opt to use this one instead. It’s a pretty large file (or multiple files) but that’s to be expected with Flatpaks. So, get a coffee going while you wait for the application to install.

Closure:

So, there’s a GUI tool you can use to monitor system resources. It’s worth investigating. Some of you may like it well enough to switch to it entirely. Others may find they reach for it when they need more information than they usually have available on one screen. Either way, it’s a handy application and one worth knowing about.

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Short: The Halt Command

Today’s article is intentionally short because we’re simply going to learn about the basics of the halt command. There won’t be much to this article, because there doesn’t need to be.

If you have a Linux system, you can access the halt command. The halt command is one of the commands used for power management but not one you’re likely to use. You’re more likely to run reboot or shutdown command.

Why the halt command? Well, it’s archaic these days. I really can’t think of all that many, or any really, reasons to use it. I’m told you can use this command for low-level maintenance but I’ve never been able to use that for anything.

The Halt Command:

Under the hood, when you issue the halt command, the operating system goes through a series of steps to ensure a clean shutdown. It stops all running processes, unmounts filesystems, and sends signals to devices and services to shut down gracefully. Once everything is properly shut down, it halts the CPU and powers off the system hardware.

If you check the man page (with man halt) you’ll see that it agrees with the above statement and is a tool for managing your power state.

halt, poweroff, reboot – Halt, power-off or reboot the machine

While there’s more to the command, we’ll just cover the basics. So, press CTRL + ALT + T and open your default terminal emulator.

Or not… You only want to run the halt command when you need the command. It will shut everything down and that’s not something you necessarily want to do while reading this article.

The syntax is quite simple:

This will halt all the processes and leave the computer running. To completely turn it off, you’ll need to use the power button.

You can also try this command:

Now the -p is handy. After halting the computer, it will initiate a shutdown.

Then, you might find this a bit handier…

If it’s not obvious, the --reboot flag will reboot the computer. This means you needn’t use the power button for anything. It should just halt the system and then initiate a reboot sequence.

Closure:

That’s all there is today. I told you, it’s a short article. We just covered the halt command and nothing more. This isn’t complicated enough for a full-length article but is still a command that deserves to be mentioned. So, it has been mentioned. The good news is that there might be a future article that refers to this article, so my time might not be wasted.

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Installing Flatpaks In Linux

Today we’re going to have a pretty easy article where you’ll learn about installing Flatpaks in Linux. I’m writing this article because I want to write another article. Once I write this article, I can write that article!

I did write a previous article about installing Flatpaks in Lubuntu. I want this to cover more distros than that, so that’s one of the reasons for this article.

So, I asked AI to tell us about Flatpaks… Let’s see how it did.

“ChatGPT, explain Flatpaks in Linux please.”

Flatpak is a modern packaging format for Linux that aims to simplify the distribution and installation of software applications across different Linux distributions. Here’s a breakdown of Flatpaks in under 600 words:

What is Flatpak?

Flatpak is a technology developed for Linux-based operating systems that allows developers to package applications and their dependencies into a single, portable format. These packages, called Flatpaks, are designed to run on any Linux distribution, regardless of its specific package management system.

How does it work?

Flatpak packages contain everything an application needs to run, including libraries, dependencies, and runtime environments. This eliminates compatibility issues with different distributions and ensures that applications run consistently across different Linux systems.

Key Components:

  • Flatpak Runtime: A standardized environment that provides essential libraries and services needed for applications to run. Runtimes are shared among multiple applications, reducing duplication and ensuring consistency.

  • Flatpak Builder: A set of tools that developers use to create Flatpak packages. Builder automates the process of bundling applications and their dependencies, making it easier to package and distribute software.

  • Flatpak Repository: A centralized location where Flatpak packages are hosted and made available for download. Users can add repositories to their system to access a wide range of Flatpak applications.

Benefits:

  1. Cross-Distribution Compatibility: Flatpaks are designed to work on any Linux distribution, simplifying software distribution and installation for developers and users alike.

  2. Isolation: Each Flatpak application runs in its isolated environment, with its own set of dependencies. This improves security and stability by preventing conflicts between different applications and system libraries.

  3. Sandboxing: Flatpak applications can be sandboxed using various security mechanisms, such as containerization and permission controls. This reduces the risk of malicious software compromising the system.

  4. Upstream Compatibility: Flatpak packages are often built directly from upstream sources, ensuring that users get the latest versions of software with minimal delay.

How to use Flatpak:

  1. Installation: Most Linux distributions provide tools for installing Flatpak support. Once installed, users can add Flatpak repositories to their system to access a wide range of applications.

  2. Searching and Installing Apps: Users can search for Flatpak applications using the command-line interface or graphical software centers. Installing a Flatpak is as simple as running a single command or clicking a button in the software center.

  3. Running Flatpak Apps: Once installed, Flatpak applications appear alongside native applications in the system menu. Users can launch them like any other application, and they will run within their isolated environment.

Drawbacks:

  1. Storage Overhead: Flatpak applications include their dependencies, which can lead to increased storage usage compared to traditional package management systems.

  2. Performance Overhead: Running applications in a sandboxed environment can introduce some performance overhead compared to native installations, although this is usually minimal.

Final AI Thoughts:

Flatpak is a promising technology that addresses many of the challenges associated with distributing and installing software on Linux. Its cross-distribution compatibility, isolation, and security features make it an attractive option for both developers and users looking for a more streamlined and secure software ecosystem on Linux.

So, that explains Flatpaks according to ChatGPT. I think it did a great job in this role, but that’s all I wanted ChatGPT to do for me.

Installing Flatpaks In Linux:

This is going to require a terminal. Some distros will have Flatpak installed and be able to install Flatpaks from the GUI. So, open up a terminal before proceeding. You can usually open a terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T but some of you will have to open a terminal via your application manager.

Some distros will come with Flatpaks already enabled. If you have Flatpaks already enabled, you can skip this article. To find out if you have Flatpaks already enabled, run this command:

If that returns a version number, you already have Flatpaks installed.

By the way, if you have Flatpaks enabled but not the centralized repository (FlatHub) then you may still need to run the following command:

Anyhow, now on to the installation instructions:

Debian/Ubuntu:

Linux Mint:

Already Installed.

Fedora/CentOS:

Already Installed.

RHEL:

Rocky Linux:

SUSE/OpenSUSE:

Arch:

Manjaro: 

Already Installed.

There you go. Those are the distros I usually cover. One of those commands is going to work for most of you. If those commands do not cover you, you can likely install Flatpak from your repositories. It should be fairly easy.

As you can see, more and more distros are starting to ship with Flatpaks enabled by default. I’ve seen more of this since Ubuntu started shipping Snaps by default, so maybe those distros are trying to provide something similar while not relying on Ubuntu.

Anyhow, once you’ve done this, you can visit FlatHub to start installing software:

FlatHub

Then, I shared the command earlier, if you find the repo isn’t working properly, you can run the following command to try to fix it:

That should do it. You can now use Flatpaks and I can write that future article!

Closure:

If you’ve ever needed to know about installing Flatpaks in Linux, this is a start. This is the preparation and, once done, you should be able to install software from the repositories easily enough. There are a ton of great applications that you can use after installing Flatpaks in Linux, or at least enabling Flatpaks in Linux.

Also, this seemed like a bit ‘over-the-top’ as far as ChatGPT responses go. It was more verbose than it usually is. I did decide to include all of the output as it does make for a more interesting article. That’s far more than I’d have written about the subject. 

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A Quick Look At The Shutdown Command

This is going to be just a quick article about a command many of you will be familiar with, as we take a quick look at the shutdown command. This is pretty basic and something everyone should be familiar with.

Our pure-GUI users will just shut the computer down with the menu option but sometimes a GUI is unresponsive. There are other times when you don’t have GUI access, as there’s no desktop environment loaded. When this happens, you can still shut the computer down. To do this, you can use the shutdown command.

There’s not a lot to the shutdown command, but the good news is that you won’t have to install anything to use it. If you’ve got a Linux system, you’ve got access to the shutdown command.

In fact…

shutdown:

As I said, you won’t need to install anything to use the shutdown command. It’s something that’s built in. You can check the man page with the following terminal prompt:

If you run that command, you’ll see that this is the correct tool for the job. It will in fact shut down the computer, though it has a few options that we’ll cover. We won’t cover everything,  just the things you’re likely to need.

The man page describes the command like so:

shutdown – Halt, power-off or reboot the machine

See? If you want to shut the computer down (including halt and reboot) then this is the correct command for the job.

The Shutdown Command:

As mentioned above, this is a terminal-based command. That means you’re going to need an open terminal. If you press CTRL + ALT + T a terminal should pop up. If not, there’s a terminal in your application menu.

Some systems may require ‘sudo‘ for this. This is not true for all distros and you’ll need to discover that on your own. I’ll omit the sudo in this article.

The basic syntax is this:

That command will stop anyone from logging in and shut the computer down in five minutes. It’s the basic usage of the shutdown command.

If you want to shut down the computer immediately, try this command:

If you want to reboot, try this command:

Again, that will reboot the computer in five minutes and stop anyone from logging into the system. 

If you want to reboot immediately, add ‘now’ to the command like so:

You can also halt the system. If you halt the system, it will remain powered on but all CPU functions will cease immediately. That works just like the above commands. To halt the system in five minutes run this command:

If you want to halt the system immediately, run this command:

You’ll need to power the system down and back on with the power button.

You can also schedule a shutdown, reboot, or halt. To do that, you use the HH:MM (hours/minutes in 24-hour time), like so:

If you schedule a shutdown, nobody will be able to log in within five minutes of the scheduled shutdown command. You’ll remain logged in and people can log in until that time is reached, but after that time is reached no new users can log into the system.

There is more to the shutdown command but that’s all you’ll realistically need, even as a system administrator. And, if you don’t know this already, you’re a system administrator even if you’re just a basic Linux desktop user. You’re in control of your computer.

Closure:

I thought I’d cover the shutdown command because it’s something I haven’t covered yet. I started off trying to cover the basics first, but I didn’t cover everything. There are still basic functions that I’ve yet to cover. I’ll get to them eventually.

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