Ubuntu Tutorials

There was some recent discussion on one of the local User Group lists this week about “What is your favorite underdog OSS application?”  This discussion brought out quite a few of the little never-heard-of applications, yet many of them have proven to be really useful!  If you’ve never spent an hour or two poking around the less-popular section of the repositories you’ll be surprised what you find in there!

Auto-Hide Your Mouse Pointer with Unclutter

The purpose of Unclutter is very simply.  From the man page:

unclutter removes the cursor image from the screen so that it does not obstruct the area you are looking at after it has not moved for a given time.

Not anything too complicated about that.  Now lets get it installed!  Installation can be done by issuing the following command or clicking the link.

sudo aptitude install unclutter

Now that we have it installed the one last thing we’ll need to do is configure it and have it automagically start at boot time.  We’ll do this by way of “System > Preferences > Sessions”

The “sessions” for your Desktop controls what applications and services are auto-started when you login.  This way unclutter will start up automatically.  You’ll want to click “Add” and populate the three fields.  For name “Unclutter” should be fine.  For the command field you’ll want something like:

unclutter -display :0.0 -idle 5

And you can populate the comment with whatever you like.  I used “Remove the cursor image after mouse inactivity.”

You can find more options in the man page (man unclutter), but this should basically hide the mouse pointer after 5 seconds of inactivity on your default display.

In a release long, long ago and in a galaxy far, far away I blogged about how to configure Ubuntu to print directly to a .pdf file.  Looking back to this article it appears to be outdated an in need of some corrections.  This tutorial will outline how to use and, if needed, configure your Ubuntu 8.04 machine to print directly to a .pdf file.

Verifying Setup or Print to PDF Configuration

My Ubuntu 8.04 installation was already configured, out of the box, to print to .pdf.  This means, without any additional configuration I could select “Print” from an application and the output would be generated into a .pdf file and saved to disk.  You can verify whether or not your machine is configured the same way by Navigating to:

System > Administration > Printing

If you already see a Local Printer listed as “PDF” then your machine is already configured as well.  If, for whatever reason, this is not the case for you this can be configured as follows.

1. Install the cups-pdf package using: sudo aptitude install cups-pdf
2. Select “New Printer”
3. Select “Print into PDF file” with the device URI of “cups-pdf:/”
4. Select “Generic”
5. Select “PDF file generator”
6. Assign a name.  “PDF” should be sufficient.
7. Select “Apply”

Again, I would be surprised if this is not configured on your machine by default, but I never can tell what some of you have done to your machines

Printing Directly to PDF

Once you have verified your machine is configured properly you should now be able to print documents directly to a .pdf file.  This should include text documents, web pages, etc.  Simply select “PDF” as the printer when you want to print a document.

After a print job has been sent you can find the generated .pdf file in your users Home folder within a new directory called “PDF”.

Some time ago I blogged about keyboard shortcuts for the Gnome Desktop.  I figure its time to revisit some of these.  If I’ve missed any that you find helpful as usual drop a comment.  I am unaware of any definitive list of Gnome shortcuts.  Could this be a start?

Gnome Desktop Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt-F2 : Run Application Dialog

Alt-F1 : Open Applications Menu

Alt-F9 : Minimize Active Window

Alt-Tab : Rotate Current Window Focus

Ctrl+Alt+Left Arrow : Move Virtual Desktop Left

Ctrl+Alt+Right Arrow : Move Virtual Desktop Right

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left Arrow : Move Current Application Left

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Right Arrow : Move Current Application Right

Ctrl+Alt+L : Lock Screen

Ctrl+Alt+Del : Log Out

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace : Restart Gnome (careful)

Nautilus File Management

Shift+Ctrl+N : Create New Folder

Ctrl+T : Delete (to Trash)

Alt+ENTER : File/Folder Properties

Ctrl+1 : Toggle View As Icons

Ctrl+2 : Toggle View As List

Shift+Right Arrow : Open Directory (List View)

Shift+Left Arrow : Close Directory (List View)

Ctrl+S : Select Pattern [enter pattern]

F2 : Rename File

Ctrl+A : Select All

Nautilus Navigation Shortcuts

Ctrl+W : Close Window

Ctrl+Shift+W : Close All Nautilus Windows

Ctrl+R : Reload Nautilus Window

Alt+Up Arrow : Open Parent

Alt+Left Arrow : Back

Alt+Right Arrow : Forward

Alt+Home : Home Folder

Ctrl+L : Location Bar

F9 : Toggle Sidepane

Ctrl+H : Show Hidden Files

Ctrl++ : Zoom In

Ctrl+- : Zoom Out

Ctrl+0 : Normal Size

I know this is a bit of a long list, but I find that using keyboard shortcuts allows me to get more done than reaching for a mouse to navigate around my Desktop.  I know many are much more comfortable with the mouse, but learning a few of these shortcuts can’t hurt either.  Please comment if I’ve missed any shortcuts.

Recently I blogged about the advanced permission management tool for nautilus, which could be switched on using the gconf-editor.  I noticed that one of the comments mentioned that neither of them had adequate support for ACLs.  This post will remedy that.

If you have no idea what ACLs are you might skip this post as I’m not going to go into detail explaining them. I simply want to outline how to add graphical support for ACLs with a tool called eiciel.

Installing eiciel

The eiciel package can be installed in Ubuntu by way of the standard repositories.  Either click the link below or run the command, and you’ll be on your way:

sudo aptitude install eiciel

This will install an extension to the native “Properties” of a file (find this via right-click, Properties) which will let you add and update ACLs.  note: You may not see this listed until you restart nautilus, which can be done using:

killall nautilus

Troubleshooting

If you find that this isn’t working for you you’ll need to ensure that your file system is mounted with ACL support.  This can be done one of the following ways:

sudo mount -o remount,acl /filesystem

You can also update your /etc/fstab to include “defaults,acl” for the filesystem(s) that you want to be supported and then remount.  Again, I’m assuming you know what ACLs are.  A definition for ACLs may be for a later post.

I like to keep on top of my machines health.  I like to do this without programs getting in my way, or dedicating desktop space to monitoring applications.  The way I’ve found to do this simply and effectively is with the System Monitor panel Applet.

Adding the System Monitor Applet

To add the system monitor applet to one of your panels (I prefer the top panel), simply right-click and select “Add to Panel”.  Scroll down until you see “System Monitor: A system load indicator”.  Select it and select Add.  You should now have a small black box on your panel which will monitor cpu activity.

I like to take this one step further and also monitor memory, network, load average, swap and disk activity.  This can be done by right-clicking on the new applet and selecting “Preferences”.  At the top of this preferences window you have the options of activating the resources you wish to monitor.  I check all of these boxes.

As you check each one you’ll get an additional box in your panel.  Each one monitors something different and in a different color (customizable).  You can now, at a glance, see the cpu load, network usage and all the rest without running any additional applications.

I find this to be a quick, efficient and out-of-the-way method of monitoring my machine.

A few of us were discussing minimal desktop environments the other day and I was reminded of the olden days when I used XFCE.  I really liked the clean interface which did not display any desktop icons by default.  Looking back on that I was reminded that it is an option available in Gnome as well, so here is how to do it.

Disable Desktop Icons In Gnome

A lot of Gnome configuration is done via the gconf-editor.  I’ll outline how to do this manually and graphically, including a command you can use to activate it from the shell.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.  Do you prefer icons or not?  They always seem like clutter to me.

The graphical method of stopping icons from displaying on your desktop is as follows:

Alt-F2 "gconf-editor"

Navigate to “apps > nautilus > preferences” and on the right-side look for “show_desktop”.  Toggling this will toggle, in real-time, the icons from being displayed on your Desktop

This setting can also be achieved by entering the following command at your shell:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop --type bool 0


and to revert these changes set the bool to 1:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_desktop --type bool 1

Activating Additional Icons

A second, similar setting is to disable mounts from being displayed, or adding the “Computer”, “Home” or “Trash” icons to the desktop.  The graphical method of displaying the additional icons is as follows:

Alt-F2 "gconf-editor"

Navigate to “apps > nautilus > desktop” and select the boxes “computer_icon_visible”, “home_icon_visible”, “trash_icon_visible”.

Disabling the display of mount points (CDs, USB drives, etc) is done by deselecting the “volumes_visible” option.

Again, these can also be toggled by way of the following commands:

Activate Computer Icon

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/computer_icon_visible --type bool 1

Activate Home Folder Icon

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/home_icon_visible --type bool 1

Activate Trash Icon

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/trash_icon_visible --type bool 1

De-Activate Volumes

gconftool-2 --set /apps/nautilus/desktop/volumes_visible --type bool 0

update: I realize the formatting for this post is a bit screwed up.  If anyone has any tips on fixing it I’d appreciate it.  It looks fine in the editor view, but when I publish it everything gets screwy.

Today’s tip is a Gnome Desktop tweak that may be new to some of you.  Did you know you can activate a weather applet as part of your desktop clock?  You can also add locations around the globe, which can be a great way to keep track of day and night for all of your international buddies .

Activating the Weather Applet

To activate the Weather Applet right-click on the desktop clock in the top-right of your screen and select “Preferences”.

Select the “Locations” tab, and “Add” a location.

You’ll need to find your location around the globe within the list.

Once you’ve selected your location you can also change your weather preferences on the “Weather” tab.

Now you can enjoy weather at a glance, or quickly see the time around the globe for multiple locations!

Yesterday it was brought to my attention that the Gnome-Do team had released a major update, 0.5!  Being completely addicted to Gnome-Do I immediately upgraded to check out the new features.  Here is a basic rundown of the new features and, of course, how to upgrade your system!

Features

After taking a look at the mile-long list of improvements I realize that I won’t nearly have enough room here to outline everything.  I figure I’ll give you a link to the long list, and just outline some of the stuff that impresses me the most.

First of all I really like the new interface to handle the plugins.  Gnome-Do is a great tool, but a lot of the best functionality comes in the shape of plugins.  In the new version you’re able to manage all of your plugins by way of a central UI.  Activation, configuration, deactivation, etc all in one place.  Its a great way to try out all the plugins available without requiring manual downloading and setup, which was the previous method.

You really do need to check out all the plugins available–there are a bunch of new plugins that I’m sure you haven’t tried before.

You might notice, as I did, that some of the plugins you were previously used to need to be activated before they can be used again.  After you install (below) make sure to open the preferences and activate your favorites.

You can see an exhaustive list of additions at Dave’s blog, here.

How To Upgrade?

Now that I’ve got you interested I’ll outline how to upgrade.  In Ubuntu this is done by way of the Launchpad hosted PPA (Personal Package Archive).  This command will add the PPA repository to your sources.list:

echo "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ubuntu hardy main" | sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list


Once you’ve got this added you’ll need to update (refresh), and then request the upgrade:

sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude safe-upgrade

If you’re a new user you’ll definitely want to check out Gnome-Do with this release.  Install it using:

sudo aptitude install gnome-do


You should see an update for gnome-do at this point.  Accept the upgrade and the latest greatest version should install.

Thoughts?

I’d love to get some of your thoughts on Gnome-Do.  Do you use it as much as I do?  Hell, I don’t even have menu’s anymore.  I launch everything with Gnome-Do–everything!  Let me know what you think or share your favorite plugins.

Recently you may have seen this topic on Tombuntu’s blog, but if you missed it here is an outline of how to enable the advanced permissions dialog in the Nautilus file manager.

Activating the Advanced Permissions Dialog in Nautilus

Activating (or deactivating) the advanced permissions dialog can be done by way of a single command.  To activate the dialog use the command:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_advanced_permissions True

To deactivate the dialog and revert to the default settings, use the command:

gconftool-2 --type bool --set /apps/nautilus/preferences/show_advanced_permissions False

Do you prefer one over the other?  The more advanced dialog reminds me of old permission dialogs in FTP clients I remember.  I think I may prefer it, but I haven’t used it long enough to decide.

I wanted to quickly toss something out there for all of you on the interweb.  I spent some time last evening cleaning up a few of my code projects.  If you have been using either of them you may want to update.

apturl for Gnome Do

I spent some time in the #gnome-do channel last nite seeing what needed to be done for the apturl plugin to become better supported.  The end result is that its much cleaner, properly licensed and has been submitted to the do-plugins branch on launchpad for possible future inclusion in the “official” plugins package.  If you have been using the apturl plugin for Gnome Do and saw some recent breakage, you can download the new known-to-be-working-on-0.4 version here.

GoogleSecure Greasemonkey Script

I’m a big fanboy of data encryption, including encrypting as much of my web traffic as I can.  I hacked together a small Greasemonkey script long ago that will force encryption on any supported Google application (gmail, reader, docs, calendar, etc), and recently added Twitter as well.  I guess that might be cause for a name change, but I didn’t get that far.  I would like to extend the list of sites that it supports, so if you know of any sites that offer https on login but don’t require (but support) https session-wide, let me know.  If you’re interested in this tool you can download Greasemonkey here and GoogleSecure here.

folding.sh

I also have time set aside today to try and squash two remaining bugs in folding.sh.  For all of you great folks that have been using folding.sh, expect an update fairly soon.