Linux for sys admins

First Aid

© Lead Image © Kritiya Sumpun, 123RF.com

© Lead Image © Kritiya Sumpun, 123RF.com

Article from Issue 287/2024
Author(s):

SysLinuxOS puts an end to searching for the right tools for admin tasks.

For many admins, Linux is the operating system of choice when it comes to tools for system management, monitoring, data recovery, and rebuilding complete systems. But conventional distributions have limits in this respect, because they typically only come with a few of the required tools. For admins, this means laboriously compiling a toolkit yourself. SysLinuxOS [1], based on Debian 12 "Bookworm," steps into the breach providing a sys admin toolkit.

Strategy

SysLinuxOS v12.3, released in early 2024, comes as a hybrid Live system that can be set to boot from various removable media. The project currently offers two ISO images on its homepage: A 5.1GB version uses the lean MATE desktop, while a second 3.6GB version uses Gnome as its desktop environment. Both versions only run on 64-bit computers.

In addition to numerous standard applications such as LibreOffice, Gimp, and Firefox, the system comes with a variety of smaller, desktop-specific applications and an impressive collection of system administration tools, including both graphical and command-line tools. Instead of targeting a specific application scenario, SysLinuxOS's developers bundle a wide variety of tools for virtually any admin task you can imagine.

In testing, the Gnome variant refused to launch in various environments. An error reading sector message briefly flashed in the GRUB boot menu on both virtual machines (VMware, VirtualBox) and when stored on a DVD.

First Launch

After starting SysLinuxOS, you are first taken to a conventional GRUB boot menu that only offers a Live option. However, you can install via the Live system. After a short wait, a login screen opens, and you can log in as admin with a password of root.

The graphical desktop environment then opens (Figure 1). The developers have already integrated a large number of monitoring apps, which tends to make the desktop a little cluttered. Despite this, the many, constantly changing status displays makes for a genuinely eye-catching user interface. The interface is optimized for a minimum resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. As a result, the individual status displays partly overlap at lower resolutions.

Figure 1: The eye-catching SysLinuxOS desktop requires a full HD resolution.

Interface

In addition to a conventional panel bar at the top of the screen, the MATE desktop offers a Plank dock bar at the bottom for launching more applications. The panel bar also comes with several applets including some that display data transfers on the network, as well as various small status displays for CPU and RAM utilization in near real time.

Conky, a well-known system monitor, is also onboard to keep you up to date with the most important system statuses. Conky runs two instances: the conventional vertical status bar on the right-hand side of the screen and several graphical displays at the center. There are also some icons at the top that give you direct access to the corresponding directories on the local system and remote servers.

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