sudo apt-get install nautilus-open-terminal

You may have to restart Gnome, but once you do you can right click on a background or on a folder and choose “Open in Terminal“.

If you’ve never looked in your /tmp directory, you may want to take a gander.  Sometimes it can become quite full and take up precious disk space.

If you’d like to remove all this stuff every time you shut down your box, you’ll have to do a little editing.

First, open up a CLI (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and let’s edit a file called sysklogd (after backing it up of course).

sudo cp /etc/init.d/sysklogd /etc/init.d/sysklogd.bak

gksudo gedit /etc/init.d/sysklogd

Now, look for the bit that says:

log_begin_msg “Stopping system log…”
start-stop-daemon –stop –quiet –oknodo –exec $binpath –pidfile $pidfile
log_end_msg $?

And add the following line after that, but before the double semi-colons (;;).

rm -fr /tmp/* /tmp/.??*

Now save the sysklogd file and your /tmp directory will be emptied every time you shut your machine down.

I recently had a friend using Ubuntu who’s time/date was constantly being set back to UTC, much to her frustration.

Here’s how to change this behavior.

First, we’re going to modify (and make a backup of) your rcS file in the /etc/default directory.

sudo cp /etc/default/rcS /etc/default/rcS.bak

gksudo gedit /etc/default/rcS

Look for the line that says:

UTC=yes

and change it to:

UTC=no

Now, save the file and go to System -> Administration -> Time and Date and set your info to the correct time and date.

Lastly let’s restart the hardware clock

sudo /etc/init.d/hwclock.sh restart

You should be at the correct time and date now.

Say you have a grub password to keep nefarious evil-doers from modifying your er… grubs. Then say a few months go by and you decide to modify some stuff but you’ve forgotten your password.

What do you do? Well, you can try this.

First, open up a Command Line Interface terminal (CLI) and type:

grub

Now you’re in grub. let’s create a new password.

md5crypt

You’ll be asked to enter a password. Do so now.

Then md5crypt will spit out a series of characters at you. That’s your encrypted password. It will probably look something like 3dRdd8i$82kJLKJ232K8/jKj3. You want to copy that line by highlighting it, right clicking and choosing copy.

Now quit grub by typing:

quit

Now we’re going to make a backup of your menu.lst file, the config file that tells grub what’s what.

sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grup/menu.lst.bak

Let’s edit the menu.lst file now and add in the new encrypted password where the old encrypted password used to be.

gksudo gedit /boot/grup/menu.lst

Find the line that looks like this:

password –md5 (a bunch of crazy characters here)

That’s your old encrypted password. You’re going to paste your new encrypted password over it by highlighting the old one, right clicking and choosing paste.

Save your file and you can now use your new grub password to access grub.

The most interesting and dangerous phase of this learning experience is when the start mucking about in the Command Line Interface (CLI). It’s exciting for them to suddenly feel powerful on their own computer. They can make sweeping changes with the tap of a few keys.
Sadly, they do this. A lot.

Before they really know what they’re doing. So I’ve implemented a few quick changes to their machines to always prompt before removing, copying or moving files.

When they know enough about their system, they can change it back. As you may have guessed, I’m not a paid admin to any of them.

Does this foolproof their systems? No, but it does add an extra layer of though (I hope) to their actions. One of my biggest problems with users is making changes to or removing key files without backing them up.
Here’s what you do. Fire up a CLI session yourself. We’re going to edit your bash.bashrc in the /etc directory to tell it to always prompt before removing a file. First, we’re going to back it up.

sudo cp /etc/bash.bashrc bash.bashrc.bak

Now let’s fire up gedit and make some changes.

gksudo gedit /etc/bash.bashrc

Skip down to the bottom of the file and add these three lines.

alias rm=’rm -i’

alias cp=’cp -i’

alias mv=’mv -i’

The -i switch will cause these programs to execute interactively. This means they’ll prompt before acting.

If you’re in the mood for a few new fonts to play around with, here’s how you go about adding them to your system.

First, you’ll have to make sure you have extra repositories added.

Then, open up a terminal session (Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal) and type the following:

sudo apt-get install gsfonts-x11 msttcorefonts

This will install Microsoft’s core fonts and Ghostscript fonts.

Want to install some from another region? Pick and choose from below.

sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-arabic
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-asian
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-chinese
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-chinese-big
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-european
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-japanese
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-japanese-big
sudo apt-get install xfonts-intl-phonetic

When you’ve installed everything you want, type the following:

sudo fc-cache -f -v

This will tell your machine to search it’s fonts directories and add everything to it’s font cache.

I’ve got a folder on my desktop called ‘Element’. This has nothing to do with sharing folders, but this particular folder contains pictures of my new Honda Element, which is a wonderful way to get around.

So, I want to share the images in this folder with folks throughout my workplace and beyond. How to do this?

Right click on the folder, and choose Share Folder.

If you don’t have the proper tools installed (mainly SMB and NFS) it will ask you for permission to install them. Enter your password and let your computer do it’s thing.

Once all the proper stuff is installed, you’ll be given a choice – Share through Windows networks (SMB) or Unix networks (NFS). Choose how you’d like your folder shared and you’re done.

Here’s a real quick one.  Curious as to what ‘ships’ with Ubuntu’s Edgy (6.10)?  Here’s the list.

Here’s a quick edit to one file that will tell Ubuntu to automatically fix any file system errors it encounters on boot.

sudo gedit /etc/default/rcS

Find the line that says ‘FSCKFIX=no‘ and change the no to a yes.

Save your file and the next time you reboot this will be in effect.

Technorati Tags: ubuntu, file syste, fsck, automatically fix, wwfsmd

If you’ve got a machine that boots via grub and you’d like to hide the menu when it’s booting up there’s a simple little edit you can do to accomplish this.

First, let’s go to your menu.lst file, and make a backup of it.

cd /boot/grub

sudo cp menu.lst menu.lst.bak

Now we’re going to edit it

sudo gedit /menu.lst

Search for the line that says “#hiddenmenu” and remove the ‘#‘ so it looks like this:

hiddenmenu

Save your menu.lst file and the next time you boot, no grub menu.

If you find yourself working in the shell a lot and you’re on Ubuntu using the default Bash shell, or any other distro using Bash, then you’ll probably want to set up some aliases to make your work flow a lot smoother.

The first thing I do when I set up a new machine that I’ll be using is create a number of aliases in Bash that point to the machines I SSH to a lot. However, you can create an alias that does just about anything. For our examples here, we’re going to look at aliases for quick SSHing but you can substitute any shell command, or series of commands.

First, let’s open up a terminal session. Now, in your home directory, if you do an ls -las you’ll see a file called .bashrc. We’re going to edit this to allow us to use an aliases file.

gedit .bashrc

Find the section that looks like this:

#if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
# . ~/.bash_aliases
#fi

And remove all of the ‘#’ pound signs. Now we’ve told Bash to look for a file called .bash_aliases. Save your .bashrc and let’s create the .bash_aliases file.

gedit .bash_aliases

In this file we’re going to add the aliases that will allow us to ssh into servers by simply typing their names. So I have two servers I regularly ssh into. The first is gogogadget.server.net and the second is gonegonegadget.server.net.

alias gogo=’ssh gogogadget.server.net’

alias gonegone=’ssh gonegonegadget.server.net’

Obviously these two servers have horrible, horrible names. Also, you’ll want to replace these with machines you have the ability to log into. Now save your .bash_aliases file. Back in your shell type:

source .bashrc

You can type gonegone and what actually happens is your shell knows to execute the command ‘ssh gonegonegadget.server.net‘. Also, whenever you open a new terminal session these aliases will now be in effect.
You can see where this could be helpful with other commands as well. If you always to an ls -la rather than just plain ls, make an alias for it.

Technorati Tags: quicktips, linux, bash, shell, aliases, linux newbie, Ubuntu, arsgeek

Here’s one way to solve this problem if you’re experiencing it.

I found that it was one or more of the IE7 Addons that did not load properly. This was due (it would seem) to the fact that I had a personal firewall and a real-time anti-virus checker running. I find this odd, as I’ve installed literally hundreds of programs on this machine with no problems due to my firewall/AV solution but who am I to talk about designing good software.

To check that the base install worked, go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Internet Explorer 7 (No Addons). If this starts up IE without any apparent problems, then you’ve got to reinstall it with your firewall and AV solution turned off. Of course, you have to leave your machine online for MS to validate it. So, brave these few minutes standing with your arms wide open to all comers after you download IE7 from here and install it manually.

Once I did this I found that my bookmarks didn’t carry over. That’s fine, being the error-prone geek that I am, I had exported them from IE6 before doing the install. So I just went to… er… wow, there’s no obvious way to import bookmarks in IE7.

After a bit of digging I found that you have to enable the classic menu in order to import anything. Feel free to grumble a bit as you do this, I know I did.

First, go to Tools in the upper right, then select Menu Bar. This will restore the ‘classic’ menu where you can then go to File -> Import/Export and get your old bookmarks back.

Technorati Tags: ie7, internet explorer 7, internet explorer, menu bar, blarrrrrrg

Here’s a few quick ways to determine just what is chewing up all of your disk space.

If you’ve got a terminal session open, and you’d like to see how much of each partition is currently being used, you can use the df command.

Simply typing df will spit out some interesting numbers. You may find this option more useful:

df -h

This will show you in (h)uman readable format how much you’re using in each partition. If you’re just interested in the partition you’re currently on, try:

df -h .

Similarly if you’d like to see how much space various files and directories are taking up, you can use du. If you’re in your home directory, try this:

du -h .

This will list all of the files in your home directory. If you’re just curious about your .gnome2 directory, try:

du -h .gnome2

Want a total?

du -ch .gnome2

Technorati Tags: linux, ubuntu, quicktips, arsgeek

We’ve all agreed that Man pages are a wonderful utility and probably the best thing invented since air-sickness pills.

Now wouldn’t it be nice if you could save the output from a man command into a handy text document? Then you could look at it with cat, less, more, vi, gedit, open office, word and countless other programs.

Fortunately for us, this is a very simple process. First, open up your terminal. Then decide what you want to get info on. For this example, we’ll use man itself. So, to get a manual for man, you’d type ‘man man’. To get this into a text document you’d type:

man man > man.txt

What you’ve told your machine to do is take the output from your command (man man) and copy it to a file called man.txt

Now you can open man.txt with whatever text editor your most comfortable with.