Why do all the sudo? [was Re: Software updater no longer functional]

[Karl Auer]

I wrote:
> > If you can, experiment on a computer that you can treat as
> > disposable. Virtual machines are ideal.

And you can have Ubuntu virtuals for FREE in AWS.

Go to aws.amazon.com and sign up for an account. You have to give them
a credit card, but you won't pay anything for a year if you use only
small Linux instances and don't ship gigabytes of traffic about the
place.

In AWS:

Under VPC:
- click "Start VPC Wizard"
- select the top VPC type (public subnet)
- fill in a name, leave the other defaults
- click "Create VPC"
- wait until your VPC has been created

Under EC2:
- click "Launch Instance"
- select any image that is "free tier eligible"
- select any instance type ditto
- click "Configure instance details"
- make sure the number of instances is 1
- make sure the "Network" is your new VPC
- make sure "auto-assign public IP" is enabled
- click "Review and launch"
- click "Launch"
- select "Create a new key pair"
- give the key pair a name
- click "Download key pair"
- save the key pair carefully!
- click "Launch instances"
- a minute later you are ready to go.

To get to your instance:
- Under EC2, click "Instances" at left
- look for your new instance in the list
- click on its checkbox at left
- grab the "Public DNS (IPv4)" at bottom
- ssh to that address

For example, if you called your key pair "fred", you will have
downloaded a file called "fred.pem". Make sure this file is readable
only by you:

     chmod go-rwx /path/to/fred.pem

Then use it like this:

   ssh -i /path/to/fred.pem ubuntu at address_of_instance

You're in - go wild :-) Just remember to stop your instances when you
are not using them. Right click on the instance in the list and select
instance state -> stop.

By default, the "ubuntu" user has no password, but since you cannot log
in unless you have the .pem file this is less of a problem than you
might imagine. It certainly makes using sudo a lot easier :-)

If you snapshot this instance, you can restore it easily as often as
you like.

This is absolutely the best way to learn about Linux without expending
money on hardware. The only thing you can't do easily is learn about
the installation process; all the ready-to-use images are pre-
installed.

Regards, K.

PS: You can learn about Windows this way too...

PPS: Use a STRONG password for your AWS account and consider turning on
MFA as well. Someone who cracks your account can run up SERIOUS bills.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer
http://twitter.com/kauer389

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