Linux Community Magazine

In the world of information technology, the words UNIX and Linux are famous and most common because of its wide usage across the world. Both are OS and UNIX is the first operating system written in the C language. It is also a freeware product with lot of extension and new ideas provided by universities and individuals in a variety of versions. Also, UNIX is used in the workstation products from Silicon Graphics, IBM, Sun and other companies. Unix environment and client/server program models were important element in the evolution of interent and changing the face of modern computing as centered in the networks rather than on personal computer solutions. Unlike UNIX, Linux, which is a clone of UNIX, was designed for individual computer segment and available on free of cost or with a very less cost compared to UNIX operating system. It has already gained popularity as a replacement os to proprietary OS like Windows and very efficient and very fast performing system. Even th ough windows occupied the number one spot in terms of desktop operatingsystem, Linux has evolved as an alternative to it. It is also a publicly open and extendible by contributors such as students because it conforms to the Portable OperatingSystem Interface standard user and programming interfaces, software developers can develop applications which can be ported to other OS. There are many electronic equipment are now equipped with Linux such as Mobile Phones, video games, tablet computers, etc.As a matter of fact, UNIX and Linux are somehow similar with their file structure, commands, etc. Some minute differences between them might be how some things are implemented. You can interchange between them and may not experience any difference at all, except for the drivers such as ATi or NVIDIA display drivers, which are not interchangeable. Even though over the years many UNIX Kernels have been developed, Linux has emerged as the most successful and useful by far. Some it said that Linux is the Windows of Unix, means how Windows is DOS based and always has DOS in the background.

I love Linux. I run it on my home PC as a secondary OS and boot into it much more than I do into Windows. With linux being so versatile and able to be installed on all manner of hardware, it's really a good idea to get to know any variant or distribution of linux and get a feel for how linux works. It's no longer just a text based operating system. And now, with the R4 DS Card, and some homebrew called DSLinux, you can actually install and run Linux on your Nintendo DS or DSi system.

Everything from smartphones to media players, all run a variation of linux. Google's own Android is based on linux, and being able to install and run linux on my Nintendo DS with my R4 DS has a cool factor that is hard to describe. Just what does DSLinux do for your Nintendo DS system? Well, it essentially turns it into a little portable computer. Allowing you to browse the web, visit your favorite websites, and load some of the applications that we all love in Linux.

Naturally, because the DS processor isn't as fast as your dekstop, it is a slimmed down version of linux that runs. It does not have many of the bells and whistles of a full linux distribution, but it's lots of fun. My friends thought I was pulling a prank on them when I installed Linux and booted it up for the first time.

One of the best things you can do with your R4 DS Card and DSLinux is use it to browse the web. It's a quick and easy way to have a portable web browser that allows you to go and read your news or visit some of your favorite blogs. While the DS Screen is not very high when it comes to the resolution, its adequate enough to make browsing enjoyable and fun.

My hats off to the people behind this linux port for the DS. I am sure it took a lot of work, and some serious dedication. The fact that you can download, install and use it for free, just like any other linux distro is a testament to the type of people they are, doing a lot of work, absolutely free, for the sheer joy of it.

MBR or the Master Boot record is the first sector in a partitioned data storage device like hard drive. MBR is usually a 512 byte boot sector containing the primary partition table of the hard disk. In Linux system, MBR also stores the machine code instructions to be executed by the operating system after the BIOS passes the pointer to the machine code. Moreover, the MBR holds the unique 32-bit disk signature, which helps in identifying the disk drive and learn its information needed for booting. With all such necessary information in it, if due to any reason the MBR gets corrupted, all the data inside your Linux hard drive becomes completely inaccessible. Under such situations of data loss or inaccessibility, any Linux data recovery utility is of immense help to bring your valuable data back.

The Linux system fails to boot after any instance of corruption or damage to MBR, as the OS failed to fetch the partition table information. In Linux OS based computer system, you can access the MBR through 'dd' command. The 'dd' command is responsible for data backup, restoration and erasing of partition table. As the command gives very high level of authority over several things, it sometimes overwrite or corrupt the MBR.

Usually, such cases of MBR corruption is common in case of dual boot systems, where you have installed other operating systems like Windows along with Linux. The reasons behind MBR corruption can be anything, including virus/malware intrusion, unexpected system shut-down etc.

In order to resolve the system you need to repair the MBR. You can use the 'fsck' utility to scan the hard drive for possible corruptions and repair them as well. The 'fsck' is an inbuilt utility in Linux to check the disk for its consistency. However, sometimes, with severe corruption, 'fsck' fails to repair the disk and simply exits without doing nothing. If you are an advanced user, you can perform Linux Data Recovery by editing the MBR through any disk editor utility or provide the address of an alternate partition table.

However, by all the above means, if you fail to resolve the problem, you need to look for a valid backup to restore the data back. Failing to the same, you are left with a single option to format the hard drive and make a fresh installation of Linux. After that, you can run any Linux MBR Recovery software to recover the formatted data back.

Linux is an advanced operating system and over the years, it has given more ease of usage. Since its development, with every passing year, more and more users have opted for Linux. For it's useful and quality features, many industries, entrepreneurs and individual users have shown faith on this comparatively new operating system. As this is the most frequently updated operating system among its class, many users even consider Linux as absolutely flawless. However, as we all know, no application is completely free from problems and Linux also has its share as well. But, the good thing is that with Linux data recovery utilities, you have ample chance of recovering your data back after any occurrence of data loss or inaccessibility problem.

There can be a number of situations, in which you may lose your valuable data from your so called robust Linux system. Below mentioned are some of the mostly encountered ones:

* Accidental or intentional deletion of data from the Linux system. * File system corruption. * Operating system malfunction. * Virus/malware infection. * Any application contradiction resulting in the crash or corruption of the Linux OS etc.

The list can be very long and the most threatening point of all these situations is the loss or inaccessibility of your valuable data from the Linux system. But, the good thing that may sooth your nerves a little is that after any occurrence of data loss, the data from the Linux drive does not get lost permanently. If the lost data is not overwritten, you can always have a chance of recovering the data back from the troubled drive or volume.

Therefore, once, you encounter any data loss situation and if you do not have a valid backup of your data, ensure that there won't be any activity on the troubled drive. Then, without any further experimentation, run any good Linux data Recovery utility.

These Undelete Linux applications have immense potential to dig into the troubled Linux hard drive or volume and locate the lost data. These utilities are completely read-only in their operations and do not make any modification to the original data or its format.

In a Linux operating system based computer, directories, blocks, sockets, files, and other items are referred by their corresponding file descriptors. File descriptor is one of the significant data structures of Linux operating system. It is very essential for the file descriptor to be consistent for proper working of your system. In case it is damaged, you can not access your precious data from the disk and face severe data loss situations. In such cases, you need to opt for Linux data recovery solutions.

If you encounter any error from your system related to file descriptor corruption, it can be due to corruption to the Linux file system. File system corruption is a major reason of data loss and cause serious problems for you. For a practical instance of this problem with your Linux system, you may encounter the following error message when you attempt to access data from your Linux hard drive-

Bad file descriptor

The above error may also occur while booting your system or mounting a hard drive volume. It renders your precious data inaccessible. At this point, you need to find out the root of this problem and fix it using Linux Data Recovery solutions.

Grounds of the problem-You may encounter this behavior of Linux operating system due to any of the following reasons-

Linux uses /dev/null file that removes all data, which is written to the file after reporting that write process is completed successfully. You might encounter the file description problems if the file is deleted.If this error occurs while accessing any file from the hard drive, it can be due to corrupt disk blocks or file system corruption.

ResolutionTry using the below methods to sort out this issue-To fix overwritten or deleted /dev/null file problems, you are required to replace the file with suitable iNode.Run fsck command on the affected Linux hard drive to resolve file system inconsistency and hard drive integrity issues. Before you run this command, file system must be un-mounted and system must be running in single-user mode.

Restore data from the most recent backup. It is an efficient Ext3 recovery solution to get your precious data back.If none of the above methods work, use third-party Linux recoverysoftware to perform data recovery Linux. The applications are capable of retrieving your significant data in all data loss situations.