Ubuntu

This is a new section about image-manipulation programs for Linux, including GIMP, Inkscape, ImageMagick and more!

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon. On the Ubuntu Gutsy live CD the "desktop visual effects" (Compiz) worked fine. Once it was installed I would get errors and could not use Compiz.

I've been using Linux for a few years and have found it to be a great productivity improvement over Windows. I recently started using a couple of new programs: Tomboy Notes and Sticky Notes.

In Ubuntu's Gutsy Gibbon Release, the Firefox Profile Manager is broken. If you try to run the profile manager with the following command, it just opens up a new Firefox window with the same profile; not the profile manager:

If you need to uncompress a .rar archive in Linux, you can download a program called unrar. If you are using Ubuntu or Debian, you can install unrar by opening a terminal and typing sudo apt-get install unrar. Then read the instructions by typing man unrar.

[UPDATE: to install unrar in Ubuntu you need the Multiverse Repository enabled.]

Basically, to unrar a file in Linux, just navigate to the directory where your rar archive is and type unrar x [filename.rar], replacing [filename.rar] with the name of your rar archive.

Also check out the great page over at cyberciti.biz on how to install and use rar files on Linux.

I use Ubuntu Dapper Drake as my main operating system. Sometimes I have difficulty connecting to wireless connections. I am writing this post to share what I have learned about using wireless Internet on Ubuntu.

My computer is an Lenovo (IBM) ThinkPad T43 with Centrino. I can usually just turn on the computer and be connected to a wireless signal. At other times, it requires some tinkering, and in the worst (rare) cases, it does not connect at all. But by following these steps, you should be able to troubleshoot most wireless connection problems in Ubuntu.

I've wanted to add tab completion to IRB for a while, but when I had tried a tutorial that I found on the Web a few weeks ago, it didn't work for me.

I just found a great Flash video on how to enable tab completion in IRB. I was glad to see that the author of the tutorial was also using Ubuntu, and that the solution is very fast and easy.

Xara Xtreme is a vector graphics program that until recently was only available for Windows. There is now a version of Xara Xtreme for Linux that has been released under the GNU GPL. It's still only in version 0.7, but I've just downloaded it and installed in on Ubuntu Dapper and it works great.

Here is a screenshot of Xara Xtreme LX on Ubuntu 6.06:

I'm using GNOME terminal (bash) in Ubuntu. These tips should work on other terminals also.

Cursor Movement

You can navigate with the cursor using the same keystrokes as you would use in Emacs. A few examples:

C means the "Ctrl" key. M means the "Alt" key (meta key). Often the Ctrl key will act on one character (or smaller unit) and the Meta key (Alt) will act on one word (or larger unit).

• C-f — Forward one character.
• C-b — Backwards one character.
• M-f — Forward one word.
• M-b — Backwards one word.
• C-a — Move to the beginning of the line.
• C-e — Move to the end of the line.
• C-d — Delete one character.
• M-d — Delete one word.

You can also highlight text and use Ctrl-Shift-c to copy, and Ctrl-Shift v to paste (at least in GNOME Terminal in Ubuntu).

Scrolling the Terminal

To scroll the terminal text, use Shift-PageUp and Shift-PageDown. In GNOME terminal you can also use the mouse wheel to scroll.

Terminal History

Your computer stores a history of commands that you type. You can use the up arrow key or down arrow key to navigate through your history.

You can view your history by typing history in the terminal.

You can search for a previously typed command by using the key combination C-r (which means "reverse search" in Emacs).

You can also use grep to find previously typed commands like this: history | grep "search words here"

GNU / Linux documentation

Your computer has documentation built in. The two commands are man and info. For example, if you want to learn more about the history command, just type man history in the terminal. You could alternatively type info history.

There are several ways to bulk rename files in Linux. If you want to bulk rename files with a GUI tool, try Thunar file manager, or Krename.