The company I work at goes through computers fairly regularly. When we get a new computer, someone has to manually go through and remove all the bloatware that comes with the computer. Right now, I am compiling a database of known bloatware and their silent uninstall commands, but many programs either don't have or require a silent uninstall script to be created. I'm wondering if there are any methods that I have missed that would silently reduce the windows installation to just the barebones OS and drivers.
I'm taking to putting various files in /tmp, and I wondered about the rules on deleting them?
I'm imagining it's different for different distributions, and I'm particularly interested in Ubuntu and Fedora desktop versions.
But a nice general way of finding out would be a great thing.
Even better would be a nice general way of controlling it! (Something like 'every day at 3 in the morning, delete any /tmp files older than 60 days, but don't clear the directory on reboot')
$ ls
bash: no more processes
Uh oh. Looks like someone made a fork bomb. Where I used to work, this pretty much meant that the shared server would need to be power-cycled, since even the sysadmins with root often couldn't get the problem cleaned up. Often, they couldn't even get a prompt.
I've heard a few tricks (notably, to send STOP signals rather than KILL signals, since the latter would allow the remaining threads to immediately replace the killed ones), but I've never seen a comprehensive guide entitled So, You Have Yourself a Fork Bomb?
Let's make one.
Long story short, my server room is a bit ... dirty.
Just had a little construction done, and there is pretty nice layer of dust on a few systems.
From my knowledge, I can either:
- Use an Anti-Static vacuum
- Use an air compressor
Which is better? Any recommendations on particular Anti-Static vacuums?
(I don't want a little belkin "wand", I want a real vacuum if I'm going to buy one.)
EDIT: Below pauska posted a comment. Is anyone else willing to verify this statement?
There are special anti static vacuum cleaners aviable, but I really do not see the point of using that instead of a normal vacuum cleaner with a plastic nozzle. Just make sure youre grounded with a wristwrap and it really shouldnt be any problem. – pauska
I have always been told to never use a normal vacuum on a computer. I've never seen evidence. It's just what I've always been told.
Our old tape drives have failed and we not using tapes for backup anymore. We still have a stack of DLT tapes with backups which may contain sensitive information like credit card numbers, social security numbers, etc.
How do I responsibly dispose of these backup tapes?
If I had a working drive I would be tempted to dd from /dev/urandom to the tape device, but the drives have failed. Would this be a good method if the drive was still working? What do you recommend I do with these tapes given that I have no working drive for them?