Quick Tip – Running Executable Files In Your File Browser

Some of us don’t like the Terminal, I get that, so here is a quick tip on executing downloaded binary or script files.  This requires no use or knowledge of running programs on the command line.

SteamOS – Turning On The FPS Counter For Metro Last Light

Here’s a quick tip for you playing Metro: Last Light under SteamOS, and you want to guage how many FPS you are getting by using these new fangled “video quality sliders.”  While I like the ease of adjusting the graphics, you won’t really get a feel for the effects under you can see the frames per second during gameplay.  Personally, even on an Nvidia GTX 560ti, I have moved the slider all the way up at times, and even with FPS as low as 17-24, have not noticed such horrible gameplay.  I think on SteamOS some of it can be subjective of course.  Anyway, if you are interested in seeing the FPS, there is a quick way to do this.  Read on for more.

Quick Tip – Remove Programs Installed With WINE

Here’s a quick tip that some,even myself, forget from time to time.  If you use WINE and wish to remove or uninstall a program, but have no idea how, here’s what yo do

1. Open the run box for your desktop (typically Alt+F2) or open a Terminal window
2. type 'wine uninstaller' and hit enter
3. You will know have a box to select and uninstall any applications installed by you via WINE
4. To remove an entire WINE “bottle” , type ‘rm -rf ~/.wine‘ (use this with caution!)

That’s all there is to it.  This is especially useful for those who use Crossover vs. WINE.

Quick Tip: Changing Applet Alignment In Cinnamon Desktop’s Panel

I recently installed the Window List Group applet to free up some window list space.  The applet groups you normal icon+text entries to single boxed icons that have the potential to expand beneath them, much like Windows 7.  When I added this applet, it was centred  at the top of my screen, which I did not want at all.  To remedy this, you must dive into the dconf editor for a quick change.

Open dconf-editor

If you haven’t got it installed its

 sudo apt-get install dconf-tools 

Then, navigate to org >> cinnamon.  Now click on the item “enable-applets”

You will want to look for your “centered” panel in the list of “enabled-applets.”  Once you change this to “left” and restart cinnamon, you should be good to go.

Example:

 'panel1:center:11:window-list@cinnamon.org', 

 

 'panel1:left:11:window-list@cinnamon.org', 

Quick Tip: Moving Around Workspaces In Cinnamon

Just a quick tip on moving around the Cinninmon Desktop. Here are some quick commands to move around while using a Cinnamon DE.  What is unknown to some, is that while cinnamon has its own control center, a good portion of the old gnome control center is still needed to officiate some things such as Power Management.  Keep in mind, the WINDOWS key is mapped to the cinnamon menu.  For now, let’s just look at moving around:

Quick Tip: Moving Gnome 3 Icons On Panel

This one is awkward, yet simple, since there is no extension yet I know how that arranges the icons on the Gnome3 top panel bar.  The solution is to go into you extensions page in “gnome-tweak-tool” turn off everything on the bar.  EVERYTHING.  Now add them as you wish them to appear from right to left.  For example, if I wanted the eject button at the far left of the right side of the panel, it would be the LAST icon I enable in gnome-tweak-tool.  Get it?  Good!

_professor

Quick Tip: Change Your Default Editor

EDITOR = emacs
VISUAL = emacs
export EDITOR VISUAL (optional, makes changes globally)

I prefer vim/vi, but you may prefer something entirely different. The EDITOR variable is for text manipulation in the Terminal window. On the flipside, VISUAL represents the GUI based text editor side.

_professor

Quick Tip: Checking Disk And File Usage In Linux

After restoring a friends iMac last night I thought it would nice to do a quick How To on exploring usage statistics in Linux, which by extension is “Unix-like” and pretty much interchangeable.  Mac OS X is more BSD based, but Unix in nature.  This will be a simple post, but some useful commands to try out no doubt, if you don’t already know them.

Quick Tip: Clear Terminal Command History

If you’ve ever wanted to erase your command history (much like your browser history), take note of these two commands:

List history of entered commands:

 history

Clear the history of entered commands:

history -c

That’s it. There really isn’t a huge reason to clear the command cache other than cleaning your slate, just in case you did something you are not supposed to 😉

_professor

Quick Tip: Change Your rEFIt Boot Order

Yea yea yea, I still have a partition for Mac OS X. Why? Primarily as a fallback just in case my system has an issue, and I need it for work.  I am regularly on call, and having a backup is just plain smart.  Also, Mac OS X as a Virtual Machine has always been less than ideal for me anyway.

That said, this quick tip will tell you what .conf file to modify so that when you boot up with rEFIt, Linux will be the default operating system.  That’s good! Viva la Linux!  Read on…