Windows Linux Mac Tips » Linux Friday

Power Poll #1 (Linux Friday)

Michael — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 05:00:44 +0000

I decided to come up with a poll in the hope to provoke some comments. I want your opinions!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I’ll start:

I am an Ubuntu user. I have used Mandriva and OpenSUSE before but decided on Ubuntu in the end. The biggest thing I like is the community. I can find out how to do anything because there is such a big community of users. I managed to get things done a lot faster as an Ubuntu beginner than I managed with either Mandriva or OpenSUSE before.

I would have to say Ubuntu is a great beginner Linux distro. The ’safe’ choice. It’s also nice because I know it’s going to work for me day in and day out. If you are someone who loves to delve into the mysteries of computer systems then you will probably find another distro more appealing, but for now I will be sticking with Ubuntu.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I will also say that I am a GNOME user. I tried KDE first and disliked it so much that GNOME was such a breath of fresh air. I have not used any other environment I’m sorry to say, but may be willing to try if you persuade me in the comments.

Force Quit Unresponsive Applictions (Linux Friday)

Eric — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:00:23 +0000

One of the hardest things for former Windows users to get used to is you can’t press Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the task manager. So what do you do when there is a program that has become unresponsive???

There is a simple solution and you actually have a couple different options.

Option 1: (my favorite, also the easiest)
The easiest way to quit a program that stopped responding is by using the force quit button. In Ubuntu this button can be added to any panel by right clicking on the panel and choosing ‘Add to Panel.’ Then scroll down and select ‘Force Quit.’

Then, when there is a program you need to stop, just click on the force quit button (which is now on your panel) and your mouse cursor will change into a set of cross hairs. At this point, click on the program window that you would like to stop. If you decide you don’t want to quit any programs after already clicking the force quit button, just press Esc to cancel.

Option 2:
The second way to stop an unresponsive program is to use the System Monitor. This can be found under System->Administration->System Monitor. I like to add the System Monitor to my top panel so I can keep tabs on what my computer is doing.This can be done by using the same process as above.

Once the System Monitor is running, click on the ‘Processes’ tab.

Then, similar to Windows, click on the process you want to stop and then click the ‘End Process’ button in the bottom right corner. One nice feature of the System Monitor is you can sort processes by name, status, CPU usage, and memory usage.

Option 3:
This option is for more advanced users, and those who wish to use the terminal. If you already know the name of the process you wish to terminate, all you need to do is type the following command:

killall process-name

Here, “process-name” is the name of the process you wish to terminate.

If you don’t know the name of the process, you could type in a command such as ‘top’ to see which programs are using the most resources.

Compiz Fusion Icon (Linux Friday)

Michael — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:00:45 +0000

Do you remember the beryl icon and it’s menu? Here it is:

It wasn’t long ago that Linux users used a thing called beryl and compiz fusion hadn’t been heard of. Maybe you remember these days, maybe you don’t.

For those of you who did use beryl, I bet you miss that red jewel icon in your task bar that allowed you to do such easy tasks as change window managers and even access beryl’s options with just a right click. Well, now you can have these same options for compiz fusion with the Compiz Fusion Icon.

I find it a lot easier to get access to compiz’s settings manager when all I have to do is right click on a little icon instead of going through the menu bars. This is what the icon and options look like:

If you want to download it, it can sometimes be found in the repos, under the name ‘fusion-icon’ but if not, here’s a link to a .deb package.

Once downloaded and installed, you will find it in Applications -> System Tools

If you want to make the icon appear in the panel on startup, be sure to add it to your ‘Sessions.’ If you aren’t sure how to do this, I mentioned it in a recent post on Ubuntu Tweak.

For more information on the Compiz Fusion Icon, take a look at the Compiz Fusion wiki.

Customize Your Settings with Ubuntu Tweak (Linux Friday)

Eric — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 11:00:30 +0000

Are there some settings in Ubuntu you aren’t sure how to change? Is something still not exactly the way you want it? If so, you should give Ubuntu Tweak a try.

Ubuntu Tweak allows you to change hidden system and desktop settings. Ubuntu Tweak is ONLY available for the GNOME Desktop Environment (not Kubuntu, or Xubuntu, etc). However, the author states that Ubuntu Tweak will run on other distributions. If you have any experience with this please post in the comments!

To download Ubuntu Tweak, visit their download page. There you can either download the source files, the .deb package (easiest method) or download the package via the command line. The download page provides more information on the different ways to download Ubuntu Tweak.

Once you download Ubuntu Tweak, you can run the application by clicking Applications->System Tools->Ubuntu Tweak or by typing ‘ubuntu-tweak‘ in the terminal.

When the program starts you should see the following Welcome screen:

The main screen gives you a little information about Ubuntu Tweak. As you can see, along the left side are several subpages.

The first one we will look at is the ‘Computer’ page. If you click on ‘Computer’ you should see System and User information like this:

This is very useful for troubleshooting if you need to know which kernel version you have. This page also displays some information about your computer such as the processor type and amount of memory.

The next subpage is ‘Applications.’ When I tested this I was unable to get software to install or uninstall. However, this page does give you a nice little description of each application. So, if you see an application you want to try but can’t get it to install, take a look at my previous post on How to Install/Uninstall Software in Ubuntu. If you had luck installing or uninstalling software from this page, please post in the comments.

Next is the ‘Startup’ page. Here you can edit settings such as whether or not to show the logout prompt, whether or not to show a splash screen, and what applications run on startup. Here is a look at the settings for the startup applications:

Each program that has a checkmark next to it will run on startup. You can stop it from running by unchecking the mark. You could also remove it by clicking on the application name and then clicking the remove button.

However, if you wish to add an application, click the add button and then enter the name and terminal command. This is useful for such programs as window managers. These same settings can be accessed by clicking System->Preferences->Sessions.

The next setting is one that I usually have to lookup since it either requires a terminal command or using the Configuration Editor. However, Ubuntu Tweak makes adding icons to your desktop a breeze.

To do so, click the ‘Desktop’ tab on the left and you will see the following screen:

Next is the ‘Personal’ tab. This allows you to change such settings as where your default folders are located, document templates, scripts, and keyboard shortcuts.

Here is a picture of the default user folder settings:

If you change these settings to where your data is stored it will save you time when importing music, pictures, video etc. So now, when you go to save a document it will go to where your documents are, instead of simply to your home folder.

Lastly, the ‘System’ tab has some very cool settings for both GNOME and Nautilus. However, the settings I would like to talk about are the Power Manager settings.

Some of these settings are hidden by default in Ubuntu. The only way I know to edit these settings is by using Ubuntu Tweak. Here you can enable hibernation, suspend (aka standby), and CPU scaling:

The CPU frequency control is a great setting especially for laptops since you probably don’t want your system running at full speed when on battery power. If you want to prolong your battery life in Ubuntu try reading these posts on battery saving: CPU Scaling and Save Battery Life with PowerTOP

Of course these are not the only settings you can change. I went over the settings I felt were most important.

If you have a setting I didn’t cover, please post in the comments!

How To Install a New Theme in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Michael — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:00:59 +0000

Changing your theme allows you to change the look and feel of your system. It mainly changes the standard icons to something new.

The first place to look for themes would be gnome-look.org. Click icon on the left. Or just click here. Search around for something that you like.

I like to keep my system looking dark since it doesn’t hurt my eyes too much. With my background being a night picture of London, it was only fitting for me to choose an icon theme that was mainly black. My favorite set is called black-white 2 gloss.

Once you’ve found your icon set, you will need to download it. I usually download everything to my desktop just so that I can find it easily, but that is up to you.

Your file should be a .tar file so you will need to extract it first. This can be done by right clicking the folder and selecting Extract Here. A new folder will have been created, this folder will be used in the next step.

To install the theme you will need to go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance

You should see something like this:

To install your new theme, highlight custom by clicking the custom box (top left) then click install (bottom right). This will open up a directory so just navigate to where ever you downloaded your file.

You will need to choose the file that was created when you extracted the original downloaded file. Once you’ve selected it, it will install and you should have new icons.

Don’t like it? Download some new ones and try each one out. If you can’t find anything you like and want to change it back to the original Ubuntu look, go to the appearance box (in the screenshot above) and scroll down and click ‘human’, then click close.

Did you change your theme? What icon set did you choose?

How To Install New Icons in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Michael — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:00:59 +0000

Changing your icons allows you to change the look and feel of your system. It mainly changes the standard icons to something new.

The first place to look for icons would be gnome-look.org. Click icon on the left. Or just click here. Search around for something that you like.

Once you’ve found your icon set, you will need to download it. I usually download everything to my desktop just so that I can find it easily, but that is up to you.

To install the theme you will need to go to System -> Preferences -> Appearance

You should see something like this:

You will need to choose the file that was created when you extracted the original downloaded file. Once you’ve selected it, it will install and you should have new icons.

Did you change your icons? What icon set did you choose?

Install Microsoft Fonts in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Eric — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 11:30:10 +0000

If you are used to using Windows, you probably have a favorite font. Even if you use Open Office, you still need to have Microsoft fonts installed so that when you open documents created in Word they will look right.

Also, most web pages are created with Microsoft fonts in mind. So, if you have Microsoft fonts installed, web pages will look the way they were intended to.

To install the fonts make sure you have the multiverse repositories enabled. To do this, click System -> Administration -> Software Sources. When the window appears, make sure there is a check mark beside all of the repositories except “Source code”

Once you have done this, type the following code in the terminal to update the available software:

sudo apt-get update

When the update is finished, run the following code to install the Microsoft fonts:

sudo apt-get install cabextract gsfonts-other msttcorefonts t1-xfree86-nonfree ttf-f500 ttf-isabella ttf-larabie-deco ttf-larabie-straight ttf-larabie-uncommon ttf-staypuft ttf-summersby ttf-ubuntu-title ttf-xfree86-nonfree xfonts-artwiz xfonts-intl-european

You may need to restart your computer for all of the fonts to be active.

What is your favorite Microsoft font? Let us know in the comments.

Enable CPU Scaling in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Eric — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:30:32 +0000

Almost all new processors have the ability to scale down their frequencies. With laptops this allows you to save a ton of battery life. Read my previous post on how to save battery life in Linux.

With desktops (and laptops), scaling the CPU frequency will not only save you money on your power bill but will also let your computer run cooler. Why would you want your computer running at full speed all of the time when you don’t need it? Instead, here is how to scale your CPU frequency for on demand performance.

Step 1:
Right click on one of the panels (top or bottom of screen) and then choose ‘Add to panel.’

Step 2:
When the Add to Panel window appears, scroll down and select ‘CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor.’ Then, click ‘Add’ to add it to the panel.

Step 3:
At this point you should see an icon appear on the panel similar to this one:

Now, open the terminal and enter the following command:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gnome-applets

Step 4:
Now, you will see the following screen:

Press enter to continue configuring the CPU frequency monitor.

Step 5:
After pressing enter you should see this screen:

Press enter to select ‘YES’

Step 6:
This completes the configuration of the CPU frequency monitor.

Now you should be able to left-click on the CPU scaling monitor and see the following options:

At the top of the options you can choose a specific CPU frequency. The processor will stay at this frequency as long as the setting stays the same.

The following CPU frequency governors control how your CPU frequency is scaled:
Conservative: Sets the CPU depending on the current usage by gracefully increasing and decreasing the CPU speed rather than jumping to max speed the moment there is any load on the CPU.
Ondemand: Sets the CPU based on the current usage. It automatically scales the CPU frequency up and down as the current usage changes. This is recommend for both desktops and laptops
Performance: Sets the CPU to the highest speed.
Powersave: Sets the CPU to the lowest speed. This is recommended for maximum battery life on laptops.

If for some reason this still does not allow you to scale your CPU and you know it has the capability to scale its frequency, read the Ubuntu Guide for an advanced method.

Edit Your Grub Boot Menu (Linux Friday)

Eric — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 12:00:53 +0000

With all Linux distributions come updates, especially with new versions. Usually these updates consist of security fixes and new versions of core software. However, every so often new kernels are released. The Linux kernel is the core of all distributions. When these are updated, most of the time your Grub boot menu will become cluttered with multiple kernels. Here is how to edit your Grub boot menu.

To begin, open the boot menu list in your favorite text editor. The following code will open the list using gedit, with sudo privileges.

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Once the gedit window opens, you will see a text file with lots of information included. Don’t worry if you don’t understand what some of the text does, most items have comments explaining them. Any line that begins with a ‘#’ is considered a comment. Some lines actually have more than one ‘#’. These are merely comments that are meant to stand out.

Inside this file you can change a lot of settings that control your boot manager. For example, you can change the default entry, the time to choose a boot entry, the grub colors, and even completely customize the text for each entry.

Change the timeout
Changing this settings allows for more/less time at the boot menu. The default is set to something fairly high like 25 or 30. For most people this is more than enough time to choose the correct entry. Therefore, if you wish to change the timeout to a lower number, such as 5 seconds look around line 19. This line should read:

timeout 30

Change the “30″ to the timeout value you wish to have. The numbers are in seconds. As I said before, usually 5 or 10 seconds is a good value.

Remove old boot entries (Linux kernels): Safest Method
Scroll near the bottom of the menu.lst file. Here you will find the entries that appear on the boot menu. Look around line 128 and you should see:

## ## End Default Options ##

The very next line after this should be the first entry on the boot menu. This first entry is also usually the newest Linux kernel. To tell which kernel is the newest look at the last number (following the ‘-’). For example, the newest kernel for Hardy is “2.6.24-17″. This is slightly newer than the “2.6.24-16″ version that comes with Hardy.

Therefore, you can remove the old versions from the boot menu by placing a ‘#’ at the beginning of each line corresponding to an old kernel. Here is a copy of my boot menu for comparison:

title        Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-17-generic
root        (hd0,4)
kernel        /vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic root=UUID=a049d4fa-84cb-4fac-bed4-082641c201e3 ro quiet splash
initrd        /initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic
quiet

title        Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-17-generic (recovery mode)
root        (hd0,4)
kernel        /vmlinuz-2.6.24-17-generic root=UUID=a049d4fa-84cb-4fac-bed4-082641c201e3 ro single
initrd        /initrd.img-2.6.24-17-generic

#title        Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic
#root        (hd0,4)
#kernel        /vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=a049d4fa-84cb-4fac-bed4-082641c201e3 ro quiet splash
#initrd        /initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic
#quiet

#title        Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (recovery mode)
#root        (hd0,4)
#kernel        /vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=a049d4fa-84cb-4fac-bed4-082641c201e3 ro single
#initrd        /initrd.img-2.6.24-16-generic

title        Ubuntu 8.04, memtest86+
root        (hd0,4)
kernel        /memtest86+.bin
quiet
### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

# This is a divider, added to separate the menu items below from the Debian
# ones.
title        Other operating systems:
root

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title        Microsoft Windows XP Professional
root        (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader    +1

I do NOT recommend deleting the entries for the old kernel versions. You can do this but if you were to make a mistake and delete part of the wrong line, you will not be able to boot your computer.

Once you have commented out the old kernel versions you boot menu will look more like this (this is merely an example and does not correspond to the sample text above):

Remove old boot entries (Linux kernels): Advanced Method
This is for you advanced users who don’t like to edit text files. Again, USE WITH CAUTION

To begin, navigate to ‘/boot’ either in the terminal or using nautilus with sudo privileges. Then, delete all files with the old kernel version in the name. The easiest way to do this is to look for the name which has the lowest number at the end.

Once you have deleted these files, run the following code in the terminal to automatically update your grub menu:

sudo update-grub

Customize entry titles
If you don’t like how the entries read, you can change them to whatever you want. To do this, change the line beginning with “title” for each entry. This also applies to the “Other Operating Systems” line. Be careful to only change the lines beginning with “title”

Change default boot entry
This will set the entry that you want to boot automatically upon startup. To do this look around line 14. This line should read:

default 0

Once you have the boot menu with ONLY the entries you need, change the “0″ to the line number corresponding to the boot entry you want. In other words, if the entry you want as default appears as the 3rd line in the boot menu, change the “0″ to a “2″ (the first line is line 0). Therefore, if you want the first entry to be the default, leave it set to “0″.

TIP: IF you want Windows to be your default entry, and there is a separator (“Other Operating Systems”), don’t forget to include this line in your count.

Once you are done editing the menu.lst file, save your changes and reboot your computer. The Grub boot menu should now be a little easier to read.

Take a look in the menu.lst file for some other settings: password protection, colors, hidden entries, etc.

How to Install/Uninstall Software in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Eric — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:15:55 +0000

This post is the next in the series on the newest version of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron). Be sure to check out the most recent Linux Friday posts for other tips on the newest Ubuntu.

There are a few ways to install software in Ubuntu. The first being Add/Remove Applications. To open this window click Applications -> Add/Remove…

Here you can click and install software by category or by searching. As you can see you can sort the search results by the name of the application or popularity.

The second way to install software is using the Synaptic Package Manager. To open this window, click System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager. This has the same programs that are available in the Add/Remove Applications. The only difference is the package manager doesn’t have quite the same GUI that Add/Remove Applications does.

Be sure to enable all the standard repositories so you have more programs to choose from. To do this click Settings -> Repositories. Then under the “Ubuntu Software” tab, check all of the repos except for “Source code.” While you are here, go ahead and change the download server. Choose the server that is the closest to you or have it choose the fastest for you. This could significantly decrease your download time.

The next way to install software is via the Terminal. To access the terminal click Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal. Once the Terminal is open the command to install programs is ’sudo apt-get install’. So, type this command and then the name of the program or file you wish to install.

Of course this program must be in the repositories or you will get an error message and it will not install. To uninstall software via the terminal type ’sudo apt-get remove’ followed by the name of the package.

The last method to install software is by downloading a ‘.deb’ file. These are being more and more popular as Ubuntu continues to grow. To install the package simply double click on the file once you download it from the Internet. Then click the ‘Install’ button. You will probably be prompted for the admin password. When the installer finishes your program should be installed.

For more information check out these links:
How to install ANYTHING in Ubuntu! – EXCELLENT GUIDE!
Installing software in Ubuntu
Install and Uninstall software in Ubuntu
Updates and Upgrades and Installing Software

Windows Linux Mac Tips » Linux Friday

Power Poll #1 (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

Force Quit Unresponsive Applictions (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

Compiz Fusion Icon (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

Customize Your Settings with Ubuntu Tweak (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

How To Install a New Theme in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

How To Install New Icons in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

Install Microsoft Fonts in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

Enable CPU Scaling in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

Edit Your Grub Boot Menu (Linux Friday)

Related Posts

How to Install/Uninstall Software in Ubuntu (Linux Friday)

Related Posts