Category: Linux

Monit is a free open source utility for managing and monitoring, processes, files, directories and filesystems on a UNIX system. Monit conducts automatic maintenance and repair and can execute meaningful causal actions in error situations.

To install Monit on Debian 10 GNU Linux (Buster) you need to add backports repository:

printf "%s\n" "deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian buster-backports main" | \
sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/buster-backports.list

Then update package list:

sudo apt update

And install buster-backports and monit package:

sudo apt install -t buster-backports monit

To start monit service and show running status use commands:

sudo systemctl start monit
sudo systemctl status monit

If you want to enable auto start monit when system starts use command:

sudo systemctl enable monit

Now let’s configure monit to monitoring Apache2 and Nginx services. Open monit configuration file:

sudo vim /etc/monit/monitrc

To change monitoring interval change option:

set daemon 120

To send email if monitored services is down edit this options:

set mailserver your.mail.server
set alert your.mail.address

You can enable Web-interface where you can view information about monitoring services. By default monit starts on 2812 port. Enable this two lines and change administrator password:

set httpd port 2812 and
allow admin:monit # require user 'admin' with password 'monit'

Don’t forget to open port 2812 in firewall and restart monit service:

sudo systemctl restart monit

Now open http://your-site.com:2812 and see monit web interface:

If you want to monitor some custom services on your server go to /etc/monit/conf-available and copy that configuration files to /etc/monit/conf.d:

Skype is not an open-source application, and it is not included in the default Debian repositories. We’ll install Skype using the Skype deb package.

Download Skype deb package:

wget https://go.skype.com/skypeforlinux-64.deb

When the download is complete, install Skype using command:

sudo apt install ./skypeforlinux-64.deb

Now run Skype and authorize with your login, that’s all

Step 1: install flatpak:

sudo apt install flatpak

Step 2: install Viber:

flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
flatpak --user install flathub com.viber.Viber

That’s all, scan QR code with your phone and use Viber on Debian 10!

i3 is a tiling window manager designed for X11, inspired by wmii and written in C. It supports tiling, stacking, and tabbing layouts, which it handles dynamically.

Configuration is achieved via plain text file and extending i3 is possible using its Unix domain socket and JSON based IPC interface from many programming languages.

Step 1: Install Debian 10.

Download Debian 10 .ISO image from official site: https://www.debian.org/

Step 2: Write ISO image to USB drive using program Etcher:

Step 3: Install Debian 10 on your PC.

Don’t install any other programs and desktop environments, uncheck all check boxes in installation menu. You need clear operating system without any other software.

Installation i3wm and other software:

Now you have clear oerating system with command shell.

First authorize in system with root login, change repositories to testing branch in file /etc/apt/sources.list, it is needed to get latest packages:

Upgrade your system:

apt update
apt upgrade

Install sudo and add sudo privilegies to your username:

apt install sudo
usermod -aG sudo username

Now you can logout from user root and authorize with your username login, Install file manager MC and other additional software:

sudo apt install mc vim htop screenfetch

Install X-Window-Server, I3, and other software for desktop environment:

apt install bash-completion lightdm zenity network-manager-gnome viewnior i3 xserver-xorg xbacklight conky nitrogen compton tilix firefox-esr thunar rofi flameshot

Visual Studio Code is a very powerful free and open source text editor, but before start usage it you need to but to use all its features, you need to configure it.

Visual Studio Code

First of all disable telemetry collection in File > Preferences > Settings menu:

Override “Alt” button to toggle menu bar:

"window.titleBarStyle": "custom",
"window.customMenuBarAltFocus": false

Disable file previewing when clicked on at all is by setting:

"workbench.editor.enablePreview": false

Functionality of Visual Studio Code can be extended with plugins and extensions.

To disable Unicode strings highlight use command:

editor.unicodeHighlight.ambiguousCharacters = false

To change tabulation for existing document use command:

indent using tabs

I prefer to install such basic plugins: Project Manager, Ftp-sync, Show Functions, Beautify, and Material Icon Theme, Atom Material Theme:

This is my basic configuration of Visual Studio Code, you can also change other options and config this amazing text editor as you want.