2019 is finally here folks! and what a better way to shed light on some of the best Linux distributions at your disposal. Even we have hundreds of distributions, we have created a list of distro based popularity, features and ease of usage.

In this article, we shall focus on the best Linux distributions for 2019. But remember each distro have their unique features and you should select based on your requirement.

Best Linux Distribution 2019 for Desktop/Laptops

# Ubuntu

Codenamed Cosmic Cuttlefish, Ubuntu 18.10 takes over from Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic Beaver LTS whose long-term support has now been extended to 10 years. On the other hand, Ubuntu 18.10 will only have 9 months support lasting up to July 2019. You can also look forward for Ubuntu 19.04 (named the ‘Disco Dingo’) release date is scheduled for April 18, 2019.

Nonetheless, Ubuntu 18.10 comes packed with an array of new features that improve the user experience. Among the new features are:

• GNOME 3.30
• Improved Battery life for laptops
• Fingerprint Scanner support
• Linux Kernel 4.18
• Faster installation and booting times

Before proceeding to install Ubuntu 18.10, ensure that your system meets the following requirements

• 2 GB RAM
• 2Ghz Dual core processor
• 25 GB of Free hard disk spaces
• 1024×768 screen resolution.
• A DVD drive or USB port for connecting to the installer media

Read Also: How to Install Ubuntu 18.04 Dual Boot with Windows 10

# Elementary

If you have been a long-term Linux user, ElementaryOS should top the favorite list. The latest version gives the user a vibrant feeling as it also helps when working with its intuitive smartphone interface. The OS (Elementary 5.0) is codenamed “Juno” and offers the most refined desktop version. Here are some of its specific features for Juno and any other ElementaryOS.

• Built-in Night Light
• The picture in Picture Mode
• Image Resizing Made Easy
• Easier App Funding
• Simple App Launcher
• Adaptive Panel
• Easily Available Keyboard Shortcut
• Bold Use of Color
• Easy Web Integration
• Transparent Readable Updates

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• Intel Core i3 or compatible dual core 64-bit processor
• 4GB RAM
• At least 15GB of SSD free space
• Internet access
• 1024 x 768
• CD/ DVD/ USB drive for installation

Read Also: How to Install Elementary OS 5.0 Juno with Windows 10

# Solus

Solus is one of the newcomers to the scene and is already making serious breakthroughs. The distribution will give you a clean and polished experience. The robust repositories include any software that you can imagine that are always get updates with every release.

The desktop environment is also known as ‘Budgie’ is attractive, simple and clean and offers a similar experience to Chrome OS without the need to purchase a Chromebook. You will get all the software that you need from the GNOME desktop environment, which is light and fast.

Budgie is clean and has a visually appealing user interface giving a wonderful and spectacular user experience. A single button opens the main menu as you have seen in a typical Windows 10 environment.

• A dual-core of at least 2GH and above
• 4GB RAM
• Direct X11 / GeForce 460 or higher
• 10GB available disk space

Read Also: How to Install Latest Solus from USB

# Fedora

Fedora 29 is the distro that defines new technologies that integrate into the Operating System resulting in some innovative features of any distribution. The only downside is the short support cycles that last for only a month after the release of the next version, which is usually six months.

• Gnome 3.30
• Fedora silverblue
• TLS 1.3
• Python 3.7
• Perl 5.28
• ZRAM support for ARM images
• New notification area

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 6GB free hard disk space
• 2GB RAM
• Intel 64-bit processor
• AMD processor with AMD-V and AMD64 extensions

# Mint

If you are moving from a Windows or Mac OS platform, you may want to use the simple Linux Mint as you try to find your way into the world of Linux. Mint is loaded fully packed with software you need to get back on track. Mint gives you a choice of four desktop environments with Cinnamon being the most closet to the Windows environment; however, MATE is still the popular choice because it is light on resources and loads faster using minimal memory.

Mint is always synchronized with the latest Ubuntu LTS releases meaning once you are running on Mint; there is no chance of getting malware threats.

The default theme on Linux mint is the Mint-Y, a successor to Mint-X. Mint-Y is available in three flavors. The light and the dark theme.

Linux Mint has two software managers known as the synaptic and the Software Manager. They both use APT front end. Synaptic installation window is plain text unlike the software manager, which is a GUI.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 64-bit x86 Processors
• 2GB of RAM
• 10GB of free hard disk space
• A graphics card that supports at least 1024 x 720 resolution
• CD/DVD/USB facilities

# Arch Linux

The Linux gaming platform has been a hot issue for many years, and gamers still cannot conclude whether Linux is a robust gaming platform or not. The verdict depends on strong support to make it a strong contender. Arch has many customization options that offer an opportunity for a gamer to free up system resources for gaming application and still be able to configure for general system performance.

The Operating System ships with the package management tool aptly referred to as Pacman that uses the command tar to package all installations. Pacman handles binary system packages and works with Arch Build System, which manages official Arch repositories, and own builds.

You only need to use pacman-syu to update all packages and to install group packages that come with the software run the command pacman-S gnome

Every time there is a rolling release update a large number of binary updates for the repositories. The timely releases are to make sure you do not need to re-install or update your OS at any given time. Instead, you need regular system updates to get the latest Arch Software.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• An i686 or x86-64 based processors
• 2GB RAM (you can increase for better graphical performance)
• 10GB hard disk free space

Read Also: Beginners Guide For Arch Linux Installation

# Antergos

The Antergos OS is one of the most underrated distributions in the Linux family. Antergos adheres to the arch principles of simplicity, modernity, versatility, centrality, and practicality. There is an option of using a GUI installer to make the task simple.

All the major desktop environments such as Gnome, Cinnamon, KDE, Openbox, Xfce, and Mate are supported. The icons on the interfaces provide superior that matches the beautiful theme.

Antergos is 100% functional straight from the box but with a limited number of packages. Additional packages are installed via the Pacman package manager, which contain new updates straight from the repos.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• An i686 or x86-64 based processors
• 2GB RAM (you can increase for better graphical performance)
• 10GB hard disk free space

Read Also: How to Install Antergos Lastest Version

# Manjaro

Manjaro is an easy and user-friendly Operating System based on Arch Linux. Key features of this distro include the intuitive installation process, automatic hardware detection, stable updates with every release, uses special Bash scripts for managing graphics and more options available in supporting desktop configurations.

Manjaro comes with different desktop flavors such as GNOME 3.26, Xfce 4.12, KDE 5.11, MATE 1.18, Cinnamon 3.6, and Budgie 10.4.

The software comes packed with software such as Firefox, LibreOffice, and Cantata for all your music and library activities. Right click on the desktop to access several widgets that you can use to add icons on the desktop panel.
Use the Manjaro settings manager to give you an option of selecting the kernel version that you want to use as well as installing language packs and third-party drivers for specific hardware. The Manjaro settings are accessible on the M icon on the system tray under the Settings menu.

Cantatta is the default music app among other versions like clementine

Octopi package manager organizes packages and is easy to use

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• Intel-based i686 or i386 processor
• 1 GB RAM
• 8 GB free space on the hard disk

# Pop Linux from System 76

POP Linux is a new Linux distro designed to have minimal clutter on the desktop. The creators of Pop OS system 76 specialize in building custom Linux PCs, and they have managed to tweak the Pop with the necessary improvements on the graphical interface. Switching between integrated Intel graphics and a dedicated NVidia graphics with a single mouse click. However, you can install NVidia drivers when doing the first time installation instead of using the open source Noveau drivers that are present in most distributions.

The Pop! _ OS does not support true hybrid graphics, as it is Windows. Switching between the Intel and NVidia graphics solutions is easy when you compare it with other Linux distributions. Pop! _OS works on any PC and with functionalities expected from a Linux distro. Forbes earlier suggested Pop OS is giving good Desktop experience on Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Laptop.

Pop OS is still emerging as a convenient tool for managing dual graphics options.

Prominent Features

• Ubuntu based
• Built from scratch
• Customized GNOME 3 as the preferred Desktop Environment
• Better Support
• Runs well on System 76 Laptops

Pop! Shop

This is an AppCenter, otherwise known as the Pop! _Shop is a project developed by the ElementaryOS team. The main purpose of this center is to make app organization easy to enable easy search experience.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 2GB RAM though the recommended is 4GB
• Minimum 16GB storage the recommended is 20GB
• 64-bit processors

Read Also: How to Install Pop!_OS from System76

Best Linux Distro 2019 for Security

Online privacy is a big issue in this era of mass surveillance by both the state and online marketers. If you are keen on keeping these surveillance operations at bay, you need an operating system that has been created from the deep inside with one key thing in mind – security or privacy.

Therefore, with this in mind here are what we have in mind for the distros that will work for hackers, pen-testers, and the terminally paranoid.

# Kali Linux

Kali is becoming more popular in the cyber community for being Hackers number one priority. Kali has more than 300 tools that are applicable in different areas such as key-loggers, Wi-Fi scanners, scanning and exploiting targets, password crackers, probing and many other uses.

From the word go this is not a beginner friendly Operating System. Most of its courses are taught online on how to use it effectively, it the preferred choice for ethical hackers black hats, and penetration testers. Kali is relatable for its realism and attention to details. Kali Linux is Debian based OS that means all the software that you need can be installed the Debian commands.

The only available user on Kali is the root user, and all work within the OS works under this identity at all times. You can still add another account without the root privileges, but it will be at the logic of using Kali for security reasons.

Kali has many either penetration texting tools that can be GUI or CLI tools. Testing these applications means that you are aware that some commands may not work with your system or cause further problems to the network. When it comes to security applications ignorance is not an excuse.

If the software you want is not on the Debian packages within Kali, you can install but with the stern warning, that such additions only work to compromise system stability.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 128 MB RAM
• 2GB free disk space
• CPU that supports AMD64, i386, armel, arm64, and armhf

With the Desktop environment

• 2GB RAM
• 20 GB disk space
• CPU that supports AMD64, i386, armel, arm64, and armhf

# Tails

For anyone looking for the best online privacy, then Tails should be able to provide that security. Tails is another Debian based OS with privacy in mind; tails does not store any data by default that is why most developers refer to it as the amnesiac distribution.

Tails works with Tor browsers for all network connectivity and the OS can operate from a flash disk and can disguise itself to look like windows in public. Everything on Tails is encrypted this includes messaging, emails, and files.

The OS uses Gnome 3 classic as its Windows manager. Tails ships with multiple default software including an unsafe browser that you can use to access the internet without anonymity.

Once you boot into the system, a dialog box will pop up with the request to install more options. NO means that you will log in with no administrative privileges, YES will give a choice of setting up a password that allows the changing of network settings. Mac spoofing hides you on the network you just joined as well as giving you root access.

You can use the Onion Circuits to confirm connection details the moment you join the internet. The Tor browser is what any person obsessed with privacy and the latest updates use the Firefox 45.0.3 has new extensions that block any annoying ads.

KeyPassX saves all encrypted passwords, which are only unlocked using the master key. Installation of Tails is possible using a USB drive or installed on the computer and make it bootable

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• CD/DVD/USB ports
• 64 bit x86-64 processor
• 2GB RAM

Best Lightweight distro 2019

Why should you risk running the old insecure Windows XP with no support yet there are tons of secure Linux applications that are lightweight and will work with machines of that era. The outdated machine hardware configurations should not box you into loading unpredictable and insecure Operating System. The Linux distributions are more than light, and they are fast and secure.

# Lubuntu

Lubuntu makes it to the list of the lightweight Linux distributions that can work well in netbooks and older PCs. Lubuntu is an official Ubuntu, therefore, giving its users an opportunity to share the same software on the official Ubuntu software store.

Starting from Lubuntu 18.10 all 32-bit images will no longer get support from its developers, and therefore anyone with old 32-bit hardware configurations will have to move to 64-bit processors.

Lubuntu is a fast Operating System for old desktops that use the LXQt desktop environment alongside a selection of light applications. Switching from the previous LXDE desktop to the current LXQt started with Lubuntu 18.10. Comparing the two LXQt is modern after the merging of LXDE and Razor-qt.

All the necessary software that you need ship with the OS. Lubuntu is even better for anyone who is familiar with Ubuntu and wants to upgrade the old laptop or PC.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• Pentium II or more
• 256MB RAM
• 5GB free disk space

# Linux Lite

The growth of Linux Lite has been quite rapid in the recent past because beginners find it easy to use, it is attractive, and of course lightweight. It is another Ubuntu-based Linux Operating System running on Long-term Software (LTS) and has powerful and popular applications.

Using Linux Lite means you have a functional Linux desktop experience because it uses a more or less similar menu interface on Windows XP. The Xfce desktop environment is making things comfortable for a Linux newbie.
Linux Lite will handle with ease what other distributions are struggling with even with its lightweight structure. Linux Lite offers all the tools that promise the best performance. The latest Linux Lite at the moment is Linux Lite 4.2 that has an auto screen adjustment feature, the Redshift that adjusts the screen temperature at night or day.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 700MHz Processor
• 512MB RAM
• Screen Resolution of about 1024 x 768

# TinyCore

TinyCore is an incredibly compact distribution that is available in three different sizes. The barebone TinyCore is by far the tiniest of Linux distros that allow users to build their own variations.

The lightest TinyCore is about 11MB and has no graphical interface with an option of adding one after the installation. An alternative is the TinyCore Version 9.0, which is 16MB in size and has the option of FLTK or FLWM desktop environments. The third option is the install CorePlus that is more than 106MB and has a choice of Lightweight Window Managers such as IceWM and FluxBox. The CorePlus has support for Wi-Fi and non-US keyboards.

TinyCore saves on storage space because you need a cabled network during initial installation; therefore, it does not have many applications other than the terminal, basic text editor, and network connection manager.

Use the TinyCore Control Panel for quick access to different system configurations. Use the graphical package manager to install more software such as multimedia codecs.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 128MB RAM
• 32-bit and 64-bit processors. The system also accepts other versions such as PiCore
• 5GB disk space

# Puppy Linux

Puppy Linux is a veteran when it comes to the world of lightweight Linux world, and it boasts of a vast range of applications in different versions. The Operating System uses the Xenial Pup edition that works with Ubuntu Repositories.

Being one of the oldest lightweight distributions in the market, project developers have been making efforts to make it slim and light for more than a decade now. The different versions are the Slacko Puppy 6.3.2 based on Slackware while the XenialPulp 7.5 based on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Puppy Linux Is full of apps with the most unusual apps like the Homebank, which helps in financial management, or the Gwhere that manages disk catalogs. A graphical tool is also available for managing samba shares and firewall.

The XenialPulp uses the QuickPet utility that manages the installation of the most popular apps.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 128MB RAM
• 32-bit and 64-bit processors
• 5GB disk space

Best Enterprise Server Distros 2019

In the Operating Systems server arena, Linux enjoys a bigger share because of things like stability, freedom, security, hardware support, and freedom. Linux servers are suitable for expert users and System Administrators as well as special users like programmers, gamers, programming, or ethical hackers.

These Operating Systems have special tools and enjoy long-term support. They give the user the best uptime, security, efficiency, and optimum performance. Let us look at the two of the most used Linux Server options.

# RedHat

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) Server enjoys the same position held by Ubuntu in the world of Desktop Linux. Red Hat, the makers of RHEL, is a player that has been in the industry for a very long time. They have been able to refine this Server Operating system to ensure that most software packages and hardware get their certification support.

In addition, RHEL also has Long-term ongoing support that when it comes to Linux Servers Operating Systems.
The latest version comes in three disks that only need 38 minutes to install using the graphical interface. There is an option of having Desktop version installed for new users who want to try out the features. Installing the server version will only install software that supports server edition.

The Red Hat Server edition has two desktop environments the KDE 3.0 and GNOME 1.4. The Nautilus file manager and Ximian evolution will help you manage the system. You can comfortably use the Office Outlook environment with the presence of similar applications that support emails, calendar, contacts, and Palm OS integration.

The professional (paid) version offers the Sun Microsystems Star Office 5.2.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• Any Pentium class processor (X86, POWER Architecture, z/Architecture, S/390)
• 5GB hard disk space
• 32MB RAM – no graphics, 64MB RAM – with graphics
• Network interface

# Suse Server

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) is an Operating System that opens new avenues for the transformation in the software-defined era. SLES makes the IT infrastructure efficient by providing engaging system developers to help in solving critical workloads in the organization.

Bridges all software-defined infrastructure by giving a common base that enables easy migration of applications, improve system management, and make it easy to adopt containers.

SUSE automatically installs the minimal requires server packages, use the YaST Control Centre to configure network and most of the system settings. The Zypper package manager is good for downloading and installing essential server such as the postfix.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 4GB RAM
• 16GB disk space
• Network interface

Best Linux Distribution 2019 for Programmers

Most developers use Linux Based Operating Systems to get their work done or to create something new. Programmers more than anybody else are concerned with things like power, stability, compatibility, and flexibility found in any OS.

Ubuntu and Debian seem to be the leading contenders but there are several others, and today we will focus on Debian.

# Debian

The Debian GNU/Linux Distribution is the foundation many other Linux distros depend on. The latest version is otherwise known as the Stretch edition that also claims its position as the preferred programmers’ choice.

The infinite numbers of packages that are designed to be stable also have self-help tutorials that will help you solve issues as you work around your project. The Debian project has a testing branch where all the new software packages are stored. The testing site is a good site for advanced programmers and system administrators.

Linux Beginners will not find Debian to be friendly as its focus is on advanced programmers and users. The reason why you should consider Debian for your programming tasks is the ease of availability of resources, and you get to use the .deb package manager.

Version 9 of Debian uses GNOME3.22.2 and KDE 5.8. Other interfaces include the Budgie interface 10.2., Cinnamon, MATE, and LXQt. All are available from the software package manager.

Minimum Requirements for Installation

• 512MB
• 2GB free Hard disk space

Our thoughts

The effort to look for the best Linux Distribution gave us few excellent options in different categories. We tried and experimented with most of them and listed what we saw as the most appropriate in all categories in this article. When doing this we were so much alert to the fact that changes do take place and new things always pop up, we encourage your participation by adding to the list what you think was left out through the comment section below.
Please do not forget to tell us which ones you like or find to be a better distro.

Source

Bash 5.0 Released with New Features

Last updated January 9, 2019

The mailing list confirmed the release of Bash-5.0 recently. And, it is exciting to know that it comes baked with new features and variable.

Well, if you’ve been using Bash 4.4.XX, you will definitely love the fifth major release of Bash.

The fifth release focuses on new shell variables and a lot of major bug fixes with an overhaul. It also introduces a couple of new features along with some incompatible changes between bash-4.4 and bash-5.0.

What about the new features?

The mailing list explains the bug fixed in this new release:

This release fixes several outstanding bugs in bash-4.4 and introduces several new features. The most significant bug fixes are an overhaul of how nameref variables resolve and a number of potential out-of-bounds memory errors discovered via fuzzing. There are a number of changes to the expansion of [email protected] and $* in various contexts where word splitting is not performed to conform to a Posix standard interpretation, and additional changes to resolve corner cases for Posix conformance.

It also introduces some new features. As per the release note, these are the most notable new features are several new shell variables:

The BASH_ARGV0, EPOCHSECONDS, and EPOCHREALTIME. The ‘history’ builtin can remove ranges of history entries and understands negative arguments as offsets from the end of the history list. There is an option to allow local variables to inherit the value of a variable with the same name at a preceding scope. There is a new shell option that, when enabled, causes the shell to attempt to expand associative array subscripts only once (this is an issue when they are used in arithmetic expressions). The ‘globasciiranges‘ shell option is now enabled by default; it can be set to off by default at configuration time.

What about the changes between Bash-4.4 and Bash-5.0?

The update log mentioned about the incompatible changes and the supported readline version history. Here’s what it said:

There are a few incompatible changes between bash-4.4 and bash-5.0. The changes to how nameref variables are resolved means that some uses of namerefs will behave differently, though I have tried to minimize the compatibility issues. By default, the shell only sets BASH_ARGC and BASH_ARGV at startup if extended debugging mode is enabled; it was an oversight that it was set unconditionally and caused performance issues when scripts were passed large numbers of arguments.

Bash can be linked against an already-installed Readline library rather than the private version in lib/readline if desired. Only readline-8.0 and later versions are able to provide all of the symbols that bash-5.0 requires; earlier versions of the Readline library will not work correctly.

I believe some of the features/variables added are very useful. Some of my favorites are:

• There is a new (disabled by default, undocumented) shell option to enable and disable sending history to syslog at runtime.
• The shell doesn’t automatically set BASH_ARGC and BASH_ARGV at startup unless it’s in debugging mode, as the documentation has always said, but will dynamically create them if a script references them at the top level without having enabled debugging mode.
• The ‘history’ can now delete ranges of history entries using ‘-d start-end’.
• If a non-interactive shell with job control enabled detects that a foreground job died due to SIGINT, it acts as if it received the SIGINT.
• BASH_ARGV0: a new variable that expands to $0 and sets $0 on assignment.

To check the complete list of changes and features you should refer to the Mailing list post.

Wrapping Up

You can check your current Bash version, using this command:

bash –version

It’s more likely that you’ll have Bash 4.4 installed. If you want to get the new version, I would advise waiting for your distribution to provide it.

With Bash-5.0 available, what do you think about it? Are you using any alternative to bash? If so, would this update change your mind?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Source

In this article, we will show you various useful ways of doing arithmetic’s in the Linux terminal. By the end of this article, you will learn basic different practical ways of doing mathematical calculations in the command line.

Let’s get started!

1. Using Bash Shell

The first and easiest way do basic math on the Linux CLI is a using double parenthesis. Here are some examples where we use values stored in variables:

$ ADD=$(( 1 + 2 ))
$ echo $ADD
$ MUL=$(( $ADD * 5 ))
$ echo $MUL
$ SUB=$(( $MUL - 5 ))
$ echo $SUB
$ DIV=$(( $SUB / 2 ))
$ echo $DIV
$ MOD=$(( $DIV % 2 ))
$ echo $MOD

Arithmetic in Linux Bash Shell

2. Using expr Command

The expr command evaluates expressions and prints the value of provided expression to standard output. We will look at different ways of using expr for doing simple math, making comparison, incrementing the value of a variable and finding the length of a string.

The following are some examples of doing simple calculations using the expr command. Note that many operators need to be escaped or quoted for shells, for instance the * operator (we will look at more under comparison of expressions).

$ expr 3 + 5
$ expr 15 % 3
$ expr 5 \* 3
$ expr 5 – 3
$ expr 20 / 4

Basic Arithmetic Using expr Command in Linux

Next, we will cover how to make comparisons. When an expression evaluates to false, expr will print a value of 0, otherwise it prints 1.

Let’s look at some examples:

$ expr 5 = 3
$ expr 5 = 5
$ expr 8 != 5
$ expr 8 \> 5
$ expr 8 \< 5
$ expr 8 \<= 5

Comparing Arithmetic Expressions in Linux

You can also use the expr command to increment the value of a variable. Take a look at the following example (in the same way, you can also decrease the value of a variable).

$ NUM=$(( 1 + 2))
$ echo $NUM
$ NUM=$(expr $NUM + 2)
$ echo $NUM

Increment Value of a Variable

Let’s also look at how to find the length of a string using:

$ expr length "This is Tecmint.com"

Find Length of a String

For more information especially on the meaning of the above operators, see the expr man page:

$ man expr

3. Using bc Command

bc (Basic Calculator) is a command-line utility that provides all features you expect from a simple scientific or financial calculator. It is specifically useful for doing floating point math.

If bc command not installed, you can install it using:

$ sudo apt install bc   #Debian/Ubuntu
$ sudo yum install bc   #RHEL/CentOS
$ sudo dnf install bc   #Fedora 22+

Once installed, you can run it in interactive mode or non-interactively by passing arguments to it – we will look at both case. To run it interactively, type the command bc on command prompt and start doing some math, as shown.

$ bc 

Start bc in Non-Interactive Mode

The following examples show how to use bc non-interactively on the command-line.

$ echo '3+5' | bc
$ echo '15 % 2' | bc
$ echo '15 / 2' | bc
$ echo '(6 * 2) - 5' | bc

Do Math Using bc in Linux

The -l flag is used to the default scale (digits after the decimal point) to 20, for example:

$ echo '12/5 | bc'
$ echo '12/5 | bc -l'

Do Math with Floating Numbers

4. Using Awk Command

Awk is one of the most prominent text-processing programs in GNU/Linux. It supports the addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and modulus arithmetic operators. It is also useful for doing floating point math.

You can use it to do basic math as shown.

$ awk 'BEGIN { a = 6; b = 2; print "(a + b) = ", (a + b) }'
$ awk 'BEGIN { a = 6; b = 2; print "(a - b) = ", (a - b) }'
$ awk 'BEGIN { a = 6; b = 2; print "(a *  b) = ", (a * b) }'
$ awk 'BEGIN { a = 6; b = 2; print "(a / b) = ", (a / b) }'
$ awk 'BEGIN { a = 6; b = 2; print "(a % b) = ", (a % b) }'

Do Basic Math Using Awk Command

If you are new to Awk, we have a complete series of guides to get you started with learning it: Learn Awk Text Processing Tool.

5. Using factor Command

The factor command is use to decompose an integer into prime factors. For example:

$ factor 10
$ factor 127
$ factor 222
$ factor 110  

Factor a Number in Linux

That’s all! In this article, we have explained various useful ways of doing arithmetic’s in the Linux terminal. Feel free to ask any questions or share any thoughts about this article via the feedback form below.

Source

$ sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get install aptik

$ aptik --version

$ sudo apt-get install aptik-gtk

$ aptik-gtk

$ aptik

$ aptik --help

$ sudo apt-get remove aptik
$ sudo apt-get remove aptik-gtk

$ sudo apt-get autoremove

Source

Linux systems provide a handy suite of commands for helping you see how busy your disks are, not just how full. In this post, we examine five very useful commands for looking into disk activity. Two of the commands (iostat and ioping) may have to be added to your system, and these same two commands require you to use sudo privileges, but all five commands provide useful ways to view disk activity.

Probably one of the easiest and most obvious of these commands is dstat.

dtstat

In spite of the fact that the dstat command begins with the letter “d”, it provides stats on a lot more than just disk activity. If you want to view just disk activity, you can use the -d option. As shown below, you’ll get a continuous list of disk read/write measurements until you stop the display with a ^c. Note that after the first report, each subsequent row in the display will report disk activity in the following time interval, and the default is only one second.

$ dstat -d
-dsk/total-
 read  writ
 949B   73k
  65k     0    <== first second
   0    24k    <== second second
   0    16k
   0	0 ^C

Including a number after the -d option will set the interval to that number of seconds.

$ dstat -d 10
-dsk/total-
 read  writ
 949B   73k
  65k   81M    <== first five seconds
   0    21k    <== second five second
   0  9011B ^C

Notice that the reported data may be shown in a number of different units — e.g., M (megabytes), k (kilobytes), and B (bytes).

Without options, the dstat command is going to show you a lot of other information as well — indicating how the CPU is spending its time, displaying network and paging activity, and reporting on interrupts and context switches.

$ dstat
You did not select any stats, using -cdngy by default.
--total-cpu-usage-- -dsk/total- -net/total- ---paging-- ---system--
usr sys idl wai stl| read  writ| recv  send|  in   out | int   csw
  0   0 100   0   0| 949B   73k|   0     0 |   0     3B|  38    65
  0   0 100   0   0|   0     0 | 218B  932B|   0     0 |  53    68
  0   1  99   0   0|   0    16k|  64B  468B|   0     0 |  64    81 ^C

The dstat command provides valuable insights into overall Linux system performance, pretty much replacing a collection of older tools, such as vmstat, netstat, iostat, and ifstat, with a flexible and powerful command that combines their features. For more insight into the other information that the dstat command can provide, refer to this post on the dstat command.

iostat

The iostat command helps monitor system input/output device loading by observing the time the devices are active in relation to their average transfer rates. It’s sometimes used to evaluate the balance of activity between disks.

$ iostat
Linux 4.18.0-041800-generic (butterfly)         12/26/2018      _x86_64_       (2 CPU)

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.07    0.01    0.03    0.05    0.00   99.85

Device             tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
loop0             0.00         0.00         0.00       1048          0
loop1             0.00         0.00         0.00        365          0
loop2             0.00         0.00         0.00       1056          0
loop3             0.00         0.01         0.00      16169          0
loop4             0.00         0.00         0.00        413          0
loop5             0.00         0.00         0.00       1184          0
loop6             0.00         0.00         0.00       1062          0
loop7             0.00         0.00         0.00       5261          0
sda               1.06         0.89        72.66    2837453  232735080
sdb               0.00         0.02         0.00      48669         40
loop8             0.00         0.00         0.00       1053          0
loop9             0.01         0.01         0.00      18949          0
loop10            0.00         0.00         0.00         56          0
loop11            0.00         0.00         0.00       7090          0
loop12            0.00         0.00         0.00       1160          0
loop13            0.00         0.00         0.00        108          0
loop14            0.00         0.00         0.00       3572          0
loop15            0.01         0.01         0.00      20026          0
loop16            0.00         0.00         0.00         24          0

Of course, all the stats provided on Linux loop devices can clutter the display when you want to focus solely on your disks. The command, however, does provide the -p option, which allows you to just look at your disks — as shown in the commands below.

$ iostat -p sda
Linux 4.18.0-041800-generic (butterfly)         12/26/2018      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.07    0.01    0.03    0.05    0.00   99.85

Device             tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               1.06         0.89        72.54    2843737  232815784
sda1              1.04         0.88        72.54    2821733  232815784

Note that tps refers to transfers per second.

You can also get iostat to provide repeated reports. In the example below, we’re getting measurements every five seconds by using the -d option.

$ iostat -p sda -d 5
Linux 4.18.0-041800-generic (butterfly)         12/26/2018      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

Device             tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               1.06         0.89        72.51    2843749  232834048
sda1              1.04         0.88        72.51    2821745  232834048

Device             tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               0.80         0.00        11.20          0         56
sda1              0.80         0.00        11.20          0         56

If you prefer to omit the first (stats since boot) report, add a -y to your command.

$ iostat -p sda -d 5 -y
Linux 4.18.0-041800-generic (butterfly)         12/26/2018      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

Device             tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sda               0.80         0.00        11.20          0         56
sda1              0.80         0.00        11.20          0         56

Next, we look at our second disk drive.

$ iostat -p sdb
Linux 4.18.0-041800-generic (butterfly)         12/26/2018      _x86_64_        (2 CPU)

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           0.07    0.01    0.03    0.05    0.00   99.85

Device             tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sdb               0.00         0.02         0.00      48669         40
sdb2              0.00         0.00         0.00       4861         40
sdb1              0.00         0.01         0.00      35344          0

iotop

The iotop command is top-like utility for looking at disk I/O. It gathers I/O usage information provided by the Linux kernel so that you can get an idea which processes are most demanding in terms in disk I/O. In the example below, the loop time has been set to 5 seconds. The display will update itself, overwriting the previous output.

$ sudo iotop -d 5
Total DISK READ:         0.00 B/s | Total DISK WRITE:      1585.31 B/s
Current DISK READ:       0.00 B/s | Current DISK WRITE:      12.39 K/s
  TID  PRIO  USER     DISK READ  DISK WRITE  SWAPIN     IO>    COMMAND
32492 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 %  0.12 % [kworker/u8:1-ev~_power_efficient]
  208 be/3 root        0.00 B/s 1585.31 B/s  0.00 %  0.11 % [jbd2/sda1-8]
    1 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 %  0.00 % init splash
    2 be/4 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 %  0.00 % [kthreadd]
    3 be/0 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 %  0.00 % [rcu_gp]
    4 be/0 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 %  0.00 % [rcu_par_gp]
    8 be/0 root        0.00 B/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 %  0.00 % [mm_percpu_wq]

ioping

The ioping command is an altogether different type of tool, but it can report disk latency — how long it takes a disk to respond to requests — and can be helpful in diagnosing disk problems.

$ sudo ioping /dev/sda1
4 KiB <<< /dev/sda1 (block device 111.8 GiB): request=1 time=960.2 us (warmup)
4 KiB <<< /dev/sda1 (block device 111.8 GiB): request=2 time=841.5 us
4 KiB <<< /dev/sda1 (block device 111.8 GiB): request=3 time=831.0 us
4 KiB <<< /dev/sda1 (block device 111.8 GiB): request=4 time=1.17 ms
^C
--- /dev/sda1 (block device 111.8 GiB) ioping statistics ---
3 requests completed in 2.84 ms, 12 KiB read, 1.05 k iops, 4.12 MiB/s
generated 4 requests in 3.37 s, 16 KiB, 1 iops, 4.75 KiB/s
min/avg/max/mdev = 831.0 us / 947.9 us / 1.17 ms / 158.0 us

atop

The atop command, like top provides a lot of information on system performance, including some stats on disk activity.

ATOP - butterfly      2018/12/26  17:24:19      37d3h13m------ 10ed
PRC | sys    0.03s | user   0.01s | #proc    179 | #zombie    0 | #exit      6 |
CPU | sys       1% | user      0% | irq       0% | idle    199% | wait      0% |
cpu | sys       1% | user      0% | irq       0% | idle     99% | cpu000 w  0% |
CPL | avg1    0.00 | avg5    0.00 | avg15   0.00 | csw      677 | intr     470 |
MEM | tot     5.8G | free  223.4M | cache   4.6G | buff  253.2M | slab  394.4M |
SWP | tot     2.0G | free    2.0G |              | vmcom   1.9G | vmlim   4.9G |
DSK |          sda | busy      0% | read       0 | write      7 | avio 1.14 ms |
NET | transport    | tcpi 4 | tcpo  stall      8 | udpi 1 | udpo 0swout   2255 |
NET | network      | ipi       10 | ipo 7 | ipfrw      0 | deliv      60.67 ms |
NET | enp0s25   0% | pcki      10 | pcko 8 | si    1 Kbps | so    3 Kbp0.73 ms |

  PID SYSCPU  USRCPU  VGROW   RGROW  ST EXC   THR  S CPUNR   CPU  CMD 1/1673e4 |
 3357  0.01s   0.00s   672K    824K  --   -     1  R     0    0%  atop
 3359  0.01s   0.00s     0K      0K  NE   0     0  E     -    0%  <ps>
 3361  0.00s   0.01s     0K      0K  NE   0     0  E     -    0%  <ps>
 3363  0.01s   0.00s     0K      0K  NE   0     0  E     -    0%  <ps>
31357  0.00s   0.00s     0K      0K  --   -     1  S     1    0%  bash
 3364  0.00s   0.00s  8032K    756K  N-   -     1  S     1    0%  sleep
 2931  0.00s   0.00s     0K      0K  --   -     1  I     1    0%  kworker/u8:2-e
 3356  0.00s   0.00s     0K      0K  -E   0     0  E     -    0%  <sleep>
 3360  0.00s   0.00s     0K      0K  NE   0     0  E     -    0%  <sleep>
 3362  0.00s   0.00s     0K      0K  NE   0     0  E     -    0%  <sleep>

If you want to look at just the disk stats, you can easily manage that with a command like this:

$ atop | grep DSK
$ atop | grep DSK
DSK |          sda | busy      0% | read  122901 | write 3318e3 | avio 0.67 ms |
DSK |          sdb | busy      0% | read    1168 | write    103 | avio 0.73 ms |
DSK |          sda | busy      2% | read       0 | write     92 | avio 2.39 ms |
DSK |          sda | busy      2% | read       0 | write     94 | avio 2.47 ms |
DSK |          sda | busy      2% | read       0 | write     99 | avio 2.26 ms |
DSK |          sda | busy      2% | read       0 | write     94 | avio 2.43 ms |
DSK |          sda | busy      2% | read       0 | write     94 | avio 2.43 ms |
DSK |          sda | busy      2% | read       0 | write     92 | avio 2.43 ms |
^C

Being in the know with disk I/O

Linux provides enough commands to give you good insights into how hard your disks are working and help you focus on potential problems or slowdowns. Hopefully, one of these commands will tell you just what you need to know when it’s time to question disk performance. Occasional use of these commands will help ensure that especially busy or slow disks will be obvious when you need to check them.

Source

Bacula Enterprise is an amazing backup solution for your data. It is easy to install in a Virtual Machine or in a Bare Metal server. Bacula Enterprise also has an easy to use web based management panel. You can configure backups, make backups, monitor backups etc from the web based management panel. In this article, I will show you how to install Bacula Enterprise on your computer/server. So, let’s get started.

Downloading Bacula Enterprise:

Bacula Enterprise ISO image can be downloaded from the official website of Bacula Systems. To download Bacula Enterprise ISO image, visit the official website of Bacula Systems at https://www.baculasystems.com/try and click on Download Bacula Enterprise Backup Trial Now.

Now, fill in the details and click on Download Trial.

Now, Bacula Systems will mail you a link from where you can download Bacula Enterprise ISO installer image. Open your email and click on the download link. Then, click on the Download ISO button.

Now, click on the ISO image link as marked in the screenshot below.

Your browser should start downloading the Bacula Enterprise ISO installer image.

Making a Bootable USB of Bacula Enterprise:

Once you have Bacula Enterprise ISO image downloaded, you can use Rufus to make a bootable USB of Bacula Enterprise. Once you have the Bacula Enterprise bootable USB installer, you can use it to install Bacula Enterprise on your computer/server.

You can download Rufus from the official website of Rufus at https://rufus.ie

If you want to install Bacula Enterprise as a VMware/VirtualBox virtual machine, then you can use the ISO image directly. You don’t have to make a bootable USB thumb drive of Bacula Enterprise.

Installing Bacula Enterprise:

Once you boot Bacula Enterprise from the ISO installer image or the bootable USB thumb drive, you should see the following GRUB menu. Select Install on Virtual Machine if you’ve booted Bacula Enterprise installer in a virtual machine. Otherwise, select Install on Physical Hardware. Then, press <Enter>.

Bacula Enterprise is loading.

Now, select OK and press <Enter>.

Press <Enter> to continue.

Now, you have to set your keyboard layout. Some keyboard layout keymap codes are given as examples. For example, keymap code us for United States keyboard layout, uk for United Kingdom etc.

NOTE: For more keymap code, visit https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/6/html/installation_guide/s1-kickstart2-options and scroll down to the keyboard section.

Now, type in the timezone keyword and press <Enter>. For example, if you’re on US Eastern timezone, then the timezone keyword would be US/Eastern.

You can find a list of supported timezone keywords at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones

Now, all the available storage devices should be listed. I have only one storage device sda of size 300GB. Just type in the name of the storage device where you want to install Bacula Enterprise and press <Enter>.

Now, type in the amount of disk space you want to allocate for the root (/) directory in GB and press <Enter>. You should allocate at least 16 GB of disk space here.

Now, type in your swap size in GB and press <Enter>. It should be twice the amount of RAM/memory you have.

Now, type in the amount of diskspace you want to allocate for the /var directory and press <Enter>. Allocate at least 4GB of diskspace for the /var directory.

Now, type in the amount of diskspace you want to allocate for the /opt directory and press <Enter>. Allocate at least 4GB of diskspace for the /opt directory.

Now, type in the amount of diskspace you want to allocate for the /tmp directory and press <Enter>. Allocate at least 4GB of diskspace for the /tmp directory.

Now, type in the amount of diskspace you want to allocate for the /catalog directory and press <Enter>. Allocate at least 8GB of diskspace for the /catalog directory.

Now, type in the amount of diskspace you want to allocate for the /opt/bacula/working directory and press <Enter>. Allocate at least 8GB of diskspace for the /opt/bacula/working directory.

As you can see, about 184 GB of disk space will be allocated for the OS and 116 GB of disk space is still left for data. Press <Enter> to confirm.

Bacula Enterprise installation should start.

All the required packages are being installed.

Bacula Enterprise is being installed.

Now, type in a password for the root user and press <Enter>.

Now, type in a password for the bacula user and press <Enter>.

Now, type in the hostname for your Bacula Enterprise server and press <Enter>.

Now, you have to configure a network interface. To do that, press y and then press <Enter>.

If you want to use DHCP to configure the network interface, then press y and then press <Enter>. If you want to configure the network interface manually, then press n and then press <Enter>.

If this network interface is the default route, then press y and then press <Enter> to continue.

If you’ve decided to manually configure the network, then you have to type in an IP address for the network at this point and press <Enter>.

Then, type in the netmask and press <Enter>.

Now, type in the default gateway and press <Enter>.

Now, press y and then press <Enter> to confirm the details that you’ve provided.

Now, type in a domain name for your Bacula Enterprise server and press <Enter>.

Now, type in the IP address of your primary DNS server and press <Enter>.

Now, type in the IP address of your secondary DNS server and press <Enter>.

Now, press y and then press <Enter> to confirm.

If you want to configure NTP, press y. Otherwise, press n. Then, press <Enter>. NTP is optional. I am not configuring NTP in this article.

If you want to configure email, press y. Otherwise, press n. Then, press <Enter>. Email configuration is optional. I am not configuring email in this article.

Now, type in the amount of disk space you want to allocate for the Bacula Enterprise file storage and press <Enter>.

If you don’t want to use Virtual Tape Library, then press n. Otherwise press y. Then press <Enter>.

If you want to enable DeDuplication, then press y and then press <Enter>.

Now, type in the amount of disk space you want to allocate for dedupe storage and press <Enter>.

Now, type in the number of deduplication devices you want and press <Enter>. The default is 4.

If you don’t want to set any default storage, then press n. Otherwise, press y. Then press <Enter>.

Normally, you don’t want any demo configuration in a production server. So, press n and then press <Enter>.

Now, type in the number of days Bacula Enterprise will keep backups (retention period) for restore. The default is 90 days. At most, you can keep backups for 365 days.

Now, Bacula Enterprise will install additional software packages depending on how you configured it.

Once Bacula Enterprise is installed, you should be booted into the following GRUB menu. Just press <Enter>.

You should be booted into Bacula Enterprise and you should be able to log into the system. Your management IP address is available here. You can access it from any web browser (Bacula prefers Firefox) to manage your Bacula Enterprise server.

Now visit the management IP address (in my case https://192.168.21.5) from any web browser and you should see the BWeb dashboard. From here, you can configure Bacula Enterprise and backup your import data.

So, that’s how you install Bacula Enterprise on your computer/server or a Virtual machine. Thanks for reading this article.

Source

Install PyCharm on Ubuntu

PyCharm is an intelligent and fully featured IDE for Python developed by JetBrains. It also provides support for Javascript, Typescript, and CSS etc. You can also extend PyCharm features by using plugins. By using PyCharm plugins you can also get support for frameworks like Django, Flask. We can also use PyCharm for other programming languages like HTML, SQL, Javascript, CSS and more. In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to install PyCharm on Ubuntu 18.04.

Prerequisites

Before you start to install PyCharm on Ubuntu 18.04. You must have the non-root user account on your system with sudo privileges.

Install Snappy Package Manager

Snappy provides better package management support for Ubuntu 18.04. It’s quick and easy to use. To install Snappy package manager type following command. If its already installed on the system skip to next step

NOTE: Ubuntu 18.04 may have already installed Snappy package manager.

sudo apt install snapd snapd-xdg-openCopy

Install PyCharm

Now to download and installed PyCharm snap package run following command. It will take some time to download and install package.

sudo snap install pycharm-community --classicCopy

After successfully downloading and installing the package you will get the following output.

pycharm-community 2018.2.4 from 'jetbrains' installedCopy

Start PyCharm

After successful instalation to start PyCharm via terminal run following command.

pycharm-communityCopy

You can also start PyCharm from activities

You will get the following output after accepting the license and setting up the initial configuration.

Conclusion

You have successfully learned how to install PyCharm on Ubuntu 18.04. If you have any queries regarding this then please dont forget to comment below.

—————————————————————————————–

Install PyCharm on CentOS 7

PyCharm is an intelligent and fully featured IDE for Python developed by JetBrains. It also provides support for Javascript, Typescript, and CSS etc. You can also extend PyCharm features by using plugins. By using PyCharm plugins you can also get support for frameworks like Django, Flask. We can also use PyCharm for other programming languages like HTML, SQL, Javascript, CSS and more. In this tutorial, you are going to learn how to install PyCharm on CentOS 7.

Prerequisites

Before you start to install PyCharm on CentOS 7. You must have the non-root user account on your system with sudo privileges.

Install PyCharm

First we will download PyCharm using official PyCharm download page using wget command. At the time writing this tutorial the current latest version available is 2018.3.2. You can check latest version for installation if you want.

sudo wget https://download-cf.jetbrains.com/python/pycharm-professional-2018.3.2.tar.gzCopy

Now extract the downloaded package using following command.

tar -xvf pycharm-professional-2018.3.2.tar.gzCopy

Navigate inside the extracted directory.

cd pycharm-professional-2018.3.2Copy

Now to run PyCharm like normal programs you should create symbolic link using the following command.

sudo ln -s ./pycharm-community-2018.3.2/bin/pycharm.sh /usr/bin/pycharmCopy

Start PyCharm

You can launch PyCharm using following command.

pycharmCopy

On starting PyCharm first time you will be asked to import settings. If you have settings from older version then you can import or select “Do not import settings”.

You will get the following output after accepting the license and setting up the initial configuration.

Conclusion

You have successfully learned how to install PyCharm on CentOS 7. If you have any queries regarding this then please dont forget to comment below.

Source

Foo
Bar
Baz

cat test | sort
sort < test
sort test

Bar
Baz
Foo

Foo
Bar
Baz
1. ZZZ
2. YYY
11. XXX

11. XXX
1. ZZZ
2. YYY
Bar
Baz
Foo

sort -n test

Bar
Baz
Foo
1. ZZZ
2. YYY
11. XXX

du -ckx

du -ckx | sort -n

du -ckx | sort -rn | head

du -chx | sort -rh | head

cat namelist1.txt
Jones, Bob
Smith, Mary
Babbage, Walter

cat namelist2.txt
Jones, Bob
Jones, Shawn
Smith, Cathy

sort namelist1.txt namelist2.txt | uniq
Babbage, Walter
Jones, Bob
Jones, Shawn
Smith, Cathy
Smith, Mary

sort namelist1.txt namelist2.txt | uniq -d
Jones, Bob

sort namelist1.txt namelist2.txt | uniq -c
1 Babbage, Walter
2 Jones, Bob
1 Jones, Shawn
1 Smith, Cathy
1 Smith, Mary

sort namelist1.txt namelist2.txt | uniq -c | sort -nr
2 Jones, Bob
1 Smith, Mary
1 Smith, Cathy
1 Jones, Shawn
1 Babbage, Walter

Source

Drugs on the command line

There’s a lot of raw material on the Web for data auditors to tinker with, but I’ve found only one website that advertises Datasets for data cleaning practice. It’s a 2018 blog post by computational linguist Rachael Tatman. Among the offerings is a link to the National Drug Code Directory website of the US Food and Drug Administration, and one of the FDA downloadables there contains a table with 123,841 product records (2018-12-28 version).

The product table is plain text and tab-separated, but it’s in windows-1252 encoding with a Windows carriage return at the end of each line. (Sigh.) I deleted the carriage returns and converted the table to UTF-8 as the file “prods0”.

Tatman writes “Issue: Non-trivial duplication (which drugs are different names for the same things?)”

Answering Tatman’s question isn’t straightforward, because the product table contains partially duplicated records. Although each record has a unique product ID, if that ID is ignored there’s a set of more than 1100 duplicates:

Duplicate pair example from “prods0”, with PRODUCTID in red:

0009-0039_5e394712-e775-435b-a4e0-32e1d9647ff5 0009-0039 HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG SOLU-MEDROL methylprednisolone sodium succinate INJECTION, POWDER, FOR SOLUTION INTRAMUSCULAR; INTRAVENOUS 19590402 NDA NDA011856 Pharmacia and Upjohn Company LLC METHYLPREDNISOLONE SODIUM SUCCINATE 40 mg/mL Corticosteroid [EPC],Corticosteroid Hormone Receptor Agonists [MoA] N 20191231

0009-0039_95289567-4341-4b6c-bc3c-aa13036bc9b4 0009-0039 HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG SOLU-MEDROL methylprednisolone sodium succinate INJECTION, POWDER, FOR SOLUTION INTRAMUSCULAR; INTRAVENOUS 19590402 NDA NDA011856 Pharmacia and Upjohn Company LLC METHYLPREDNISOLONE SODIUM SUCCINATE 40 mg/mL Corticosteroid [EPC],Corticosteroid Hormone Receptor Agonists [MoA] N 20191231

I cut away the unique ID and sorted and uniquified the records to build the file “prods1”, retaining the header line:

cat <(cut -f1 –complement prods0 | head -n 1) <(tail -n +2 prods0 | cut -f1 –complement | sort | uniq) > prods1

Next, I focused in “prods1” on the fields SUBSTANCENAME (field 13), ACTIVE_NUMERATOR_STRENGTH (14) and ACTIVE_INGRED_UNIT (15). The FDA’s explainer page describes these as follows:

SubstanceName
This is the active ingredient list. Each ingredient name is the preferred term of the UNII code submitted.

StrengthNumber [older field name?]
These are the strength values (to be used with units below) of each active ingredient, listed in the same order as the SubstanceName field above.

StrengthUnit [older field name?]
These are the units to be used with the strength values above, listed in the same order as the SubstanceName and SubstanceNumber.

If these 3 fields are the same, then the product is the same so far as the active ingredients are concerned. To find these partial duplicates I used the two-pass method described in a previous BASHing data post:

awk -F”\t” ‘FNR==NR {a[$13,$14,$15]++; next} $13 != “” && $14 != “” && $15 != “” && a[$13,$14,$15]>1’ prods1 prods1 | wc -l

Wow! That’s a lot of “same product” out of 123,205 unique product records. To investigate further I added the fields STARTMARKETINGDATE (field 8 in prods1), PROPRIETARYNAME (3), PROPRIETARYNAMESUFFIX (4) and LABELERNAME (12) to a print as the new file “prods2” (no header this time).

awk -F”\t” ‘FNR==NR {a[$13,$14,$15]++; next} $13 != “” && $14 != “” && $15 != “” && a[$13,$14,$15]>1 {print $8 FS $3 FS $4 FS $12 FS $13 FS $14 FS $15}’ prods1 prods1 > prods2

—–

StartMarketingDate
This is the date that the labeler indicates was the start of its marketing of the drug product.

ProprietaryName
Also known as the trade name. It is the name of the product chosen by the labeler.

ProprietaryNameSuffix
A suffix to the proprietary name, a value here should be appended to the ProprietaryName field to obtain the complete name of the product. This suffix is often used to distinguish characteristics of a product such as extended release (“XR”) or sleep aid (“PM”). Although many companies follow certain naming conventions for suffices, there is no recognized standard.

LabelerName
Name of Company corresponding to the labeler code segment of the ProductNDC.

That still apparently doesn’t capture all the variation in FDA’s database, because “prods2” contains a lot of exact duplicates

and there don’t seem to be any differences between the duplicated records in the original downloaded table (“prods0”), apart from the FDA product code and the unique ID based on that code:

Example from “prods0”:

17518-080_7aa3171b-36c0-48d6-e053-2991aa0a6aec 17518-080 HUMAN OTC DRUG 3M SoluPrep chlorhexidine gluconate and isopropyl alcohol SOLUTION TOPICAL 20181008 NDA NDA208288 3M Company CHLORHEXIDINE GLUCONATE; ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL 20; .7 mg/mL; mL/mL N 20191231

17518-081_7aa3171b-36c0-48d6-e053-2991aa0a6aec 17518-081 HUMAN OTC DRUG 3M SoluPrep chlorhexidine gluconate and isopropyl alcohol SOLUTION TOPICAL 20181008 NDA NDA208288 3M Company CHLORHEXIDINE GLUCONATE; ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL 20; .7 mg/mL; mL/mL N 20191231

Once again I sorted and uniquified, converting “prods2” to “prods3”, which has 92,452 records. One source of duplication in “prods3” is in the proprietary name suffix field, because the same basic product can be sold with slightly different formulations not affecting the active ingredients. Here’s an example (from “prods0”) — a dental fluoride paste that comes in 3 different flavours:

65222-401_6155acd9-8ec2-a87d-e053-2991aa0a7b43 65222-401 HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG Nupro Fluorides NaF Oral Solution Mint Sodium Fluoride GEL DENTAL 19000101 UNAPPROVED DRUG OTHER Dentsply LLC. Professional Division Trading as “DENTSPLY Professional” SODIUM FLUORIDE 20 mg/g N 20191231

65222-411_6155acd9-8ec2-a87d-e053-2991aa0a7b43 65222-411 HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG Nupro Fluorides NaF Oral Solution Mandarin Orange Sodium Fluoride GEL DENTAL 19000101 UNAPPROVED DRUG OTHER Dentsply LLC. Professional Division Trading as “DENTSPLY Professional” SODIUM FLUORIDE 20 mg/g N 20191231

65222-421_6155acd9-8ec2-a87d-e053-2991aa0a7b43 65222-421 HUMAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG Nupro Fluorides NaF Oral Solution Apple Cinnamon Sodium Fluoride GEL DENTAL 19000101 UNAPPROVED DRUG OTHER Dentsply LLC. Professional Division Trading as “DENTSPLY Professional” SODIUM FLUORIDE 20 mg/g N 20191231

A larger source of duplication in “prods3” is the marketing date. Walgreens, for instance, has 2 different registrations for an allergy medicine, differing only in start and end marketing dates (example from “prods0”):

0363-0211_997032ac-0110-4004-9697-d82146ba7128 0363-0211 HUMAN OTC DRUG 24 Hour Allergy Cetirizine HCl CAPSULE ORAL 20130301 NDA NDA022429 Walgreens CETIRIZINE HYDROCHLORIDE 10 mg/1 N 20181231

0363-1219_f3168f2c-27a7-4dd7-9770-e91443a580f1 0363-1219 HUMAN OTC DRUG 24 Hour Allergy Cetirizine HCl CAPSULE ORAL 20180914 NDA NDA022429 Walgreens CETIRIZINE HYDROCHLORIDE 10 mg/1 N 20191231

I generated “prods4” from “prods3” by cutting out marketing date and sorting and uniquifying again. That reduced the set of “basically the same product” records to 84,163. Here are the top 10 formulations:

cut -f4-6 prods4 | sort | uniq -c | sort -nr | head

Those 25 mg lots of diphenhydramine hydrochloride (an antihistamine) were sold by a nominal 188 labelling entities, but again there’s duplication. The FDA lists multiple strings for what’s presumably the same company

Allergy relief     [no suffix]     Topco Associates LLC
Allergy relief     [no suffix]     Topco Associates, LLC
Allergy relief     [no suffix]     TopCo Associates LLC

the same product

Sleep Aid     Nighttime     CVS Pharmacy
Sleep- Aid     Nighttime     CVS Pharmacy
Sleep-Aid     Nighttime     CVS Pharmacy

or both

sleep aid     nighttime     Target Corporation
Sleep Aid     NightTime     TARGET Corporation

Summing up, the answer to Tatman’s question about this dataset, namely “Which drugs are different names for the same things?” has several answers depending on how you define “things”. But even after you’ve decided what you’re looking for, the surprising messiness of the FDA’s data means you have a lot of data cleaning to do before you can start looking. The FDA’s product table is indeed a good dataset for data cleaning practice!

Some of the ingredient fields in the product table contain semicolon-and-space-separated strings, like

ACETALDEHYDE; ARSENIC TRIOXIDE; BALSAM PERU; OYSTER SHELL CALCIUM CARBONATE, CRUDE; PHENOL; CONIUM MACULATUM FLOWERING TOP; COUMARIN; SAFFRON; HISTAMINE DIHYDROCHLORIDE; LACHESIS MUTA VENOM; LYCOPODIUM CLAVATUM SPORE; PHOSPHORUS; SEPIA OFFICINALIS JUICE

Could there be additional duplication in these entries, with the same items listed in different orders in different records? Checking for different orders of items within a single field is an interesting exercise in data auditing: see the next BASHing data post.

Source

Are you having trouble remembering what IP addresses are in use on your network? Jack Wallen shows you how to discover those addresses with two simple commands.

How many times have you tried to configure a static IP address for a machine on your network, only to realize you had no idea what addresses were already taken? If you happen to work with a desktop machine, you could always install a tool like Wireshark to find out what addresses were in use. But what if you’re on a GUI-less server? You certainly won’t rely on a graphical-based tool for scanning IP addresses. Fortunately, there are some very simple-to-use command line tools that can handle this task.

I’m going to show you how to scan your Local Area Network (LAN) for IP addresses in use with two different tools (one of which will be installed on your server by default). I’ll demonstrate on Ubuntu Server 18.04.

Let’s get started.

The arp command

The first tool we’ll use for the task is the built-in arp command. Most IT admins are familiar with arp, as it is used on almost every

platform. If you’ve never used arp (which stands for Address Resolution Protocol), the command is used to manipulate (or display) the kernel’s IPv4 network neighbor cache. If you issue arp with no mode specifier or options, it will print out the current content of the ARP table. That’s not what we’re going to do. Instead, we’ll issue the command like so:

arp -a

The -a option uses and alternate BSD-style output and prints all known IP addresses found on your LAN. The output of the command will display IP addresses as well as the associated ethernet device (Figure A).

Figure A

You now have a listing of each IP address in use on your LAN. The only caveat, is that (unless you know the MAC address of every device on your network), you won’t have a clue as to which machine the IP addresses are assigned. Even without knowing what machine is associated with what address you at least know what addresses are being used.

Nmap

Next, we use a command that offers more options. Said command is nmap. You won’t find nmap installed on your Linux machine by default, so we must add it to the system. Open a terminal window (or log into your GUI-less server) and issue the command:

sudo apt-get install nmap -y

Once the installation completes, you are ready to scan your LAN with nmap. To find out what addresses are in use, issue the command:

nmap -sP 192.168.1.0/24

Note: You will need to alter the IP address scheme to match yours.

The output of the command (Figure B), will show you each address found on your LAN.

Figure B

Let’s make nmap more useful. Because it offers a bit more flexibility, we can also discover what operating system is associated with an IP address. To do this, we’ll use the options -sT (TCP connect scan) and -O (operating system discovery). The command for this is:

sudo nmap -sT -O 192.168.1.0/24

Depending on the size of your network, this command can take some time. And if your network is large, consider sending the output of the command to a file like so:

sudo nmap -sT -O 192.168.1.0/24 > nmap_output

You can then view the file with a text editor to find out what operating system is attached to an IP address (Figure C).

Figure C

With the help of these two simple commands, you can locate IP addresses on your network that are in use. Now, when you’re assigning a static IP address, you won’t accidentally assign one already in use. We all know what kind of headaches that can cause.

Source