I’ve written software on Linux, compiled kernels, set up servers, and a whole host of other pretty technical feats. Having been a die-hard Linux user for 10 years, I thought I had handled just about every situation a desktop user is likely to encounter. That is, until I installed Linux for a friend, who then said to me “Ok, so how do I add new fonts?”. Such a simple thing, yet I had absolutely no idea how to answer. It just never came up. To help restore my credibility, I did some research to find an easy way for a Linux newcomer to manage fonts, and came across FontMatrix. It’s a simple and powerful way to add, remove and configure your system fonts.
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How to Manage Fonts in Linux with FontMatrix
By | September 7, 2010 |
How to Rip Audio CD in Linux
By | September 2, 2010 |
As MP3 players and mobile devices become very common, more and more people are beginning to convert their audio CD collection to music files so they will listen to them while on the move. In Windows and Mac, the conversion can be done automatically with Windows Media Player or iTunes. What about Linux? Let’s take a look.
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[Snippet] Ubuntu: Backup Your Applications Easily With A Single Command
By | September 1, 2010 |
Installing applications in Ubuntu is as easy as the app store in iPhone. Hit the Ubuntu Software Center, find the application you want and click Install. Due to this convenience, most of the time, you won’t need to backup the applications itself.
However, there are times when you want to restore the newly formatted machine to the original state and you find it a chores to manually install all the applications again. This is when the backup is useful.
When we say “backup” in this case, we don’t really mean backing up the actual application. What we are going to do is to export the list of all your installed app onto a text file. Next time, we can just get the system to reinstall the apps listed in the text file.
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Review of Qimo: Linux for Kids
By | August 26, 2010 |
We’ve talked about Linux software for kids a few times here at MakeTechEasier, but so far we’ve never actually sat down to take a closer look at whole distributions intended for children. Many people are familiar with Edubuntu, the Ubuntu spinoff intended for school and other educational institutions, but you may not know much about Qimo. Unlike Edubuntu, which is designed for a client-server network model, Qimo is intended for a sole desktop user – in this case children 3 years old and up. It uses a customized version of the XFCE desktop, with large icons and simple menus, to make it easy to navigate. Included are many of the top titles in kids software for Linux, such as GCompris and TuxPaint. Today we’ll take a look at what Qimo has to offer, and submit it to the ultimate test: a real live toddler.
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Using the /proc Filesystem to Examine Your Linux Inner Working
By | August 19, 2010 |
Quick – answer me this: How much swap space is in use on your system right now? How big is the cache on your CPU? What kernel modules are currently loaded? How many total drives and partitions are you running? If you’re running Linux, all these questions (and a whole lot more) can be answered one easy way: take a look in /proc. It’s a goldmine of system information, just waiting to be retrieved by users, administrators, and scripts. In this guide we’ll take a trip through /proc to see just what valuable system information you’ve been missing out on.
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Testdrive Let You Test Ubuntu With A Single Click
By | August 17, 2010 |
If you want to test drive a Linux distro, what will you usually do? Download the ISO file, burn it into a CD/USB drive and boot it up in your PC. Alternatively, you can also run the ISO file in virtual machine such as Virtualbox or VMWare. What if you are not a geek and have no ideas how to carry out the above stuff? What if there is a 1-click solution that allows you to test drive a Linux distro without having to go through the above steps?
Test Drive is a package for Ubuntu that allows you to test drive the daily build of Ubuntu with little effort on the user side. With a single click (Well, to be exact, there are several clicks on the first run), you can get the application to download the ISO from the web and run it in your virtual machine. While it is meant for non-technical Ubuntu users to test and provide feedback on the current Ubuntu release under development, it can also be used for any Linux distro as long as you provide it with the ISO URL.
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5 More Linux Games You Probably Haven’t Played
By | August 11, 2010 |
Linux is not known for gaming, and when most people think of Linux games, they think of a few free and open source games that are good but not numerous. Nevertheless, there is a growing pool of free and commercial independent gaming developers who are pushing the envelope by offering their games on multiple platforms, including Linux.
They are available for purchase and download right over the Internet (often DRM-free), and some of them are pretty high quality. Here are five more you might not have played but are definitely worth giving a try.
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How to Easily Create a Custom Lightweight Desktop Environment
By | August 10, 2010 |
Gnome and KDE are great – they give you a beautiful desktop with all the tools and utilities you need. On either system, you’ll find a solid window manager, desktop icons, a panel full of applets, the works. That’s all well and good for your average desktop PC, but what if you need something lighter, faster, or cleaner in appearance? You could try a smaller desktop environment like XFCE or go with something ultra-slim like Openbox or WindowMaker. On the other hand, you could get exactly what you want, no more no less, by combining individual pieces together into your own custom desktop environment.
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Preview of KDE 4.5
By | August 4, 2010 |
When KDE 4.0 was released, it was clear that it was not finished and not ready for production. By version 4.2, the completely redesigned and recoded desktop environment was starting to regain the stability and depth that many loved about KDE 3, while also adding new features that make KDE a unique and rewarding desktop software compilation.
Just as KDE 3.5 was intended to be a stabilizing, long-term release, the primary goal of KDE 4.5 is to fix outstanding bugs and increase stability. Users will not be blown away by the new features, but there are a few worth noting. Last week I installed the release candidate for KDE 4.5 from the Kubuntu repositories and took it for a spin.
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Basket – A Multi-Purpose Note Pad For KDE
By | July 28, 2010 |
Basket Note Pads is a multipurpose note-taking application for KDE. Business people can use it to keep track of important tasks and notes. Writers can use it to organize their thoughts. Students can use it for note taking. And generally anyone can use it as a virtual paste bin or clip drawer.
Basket was one of the last KDE 3 programs to be ported to KDE 4. While the development appeared to have stalled for some time, it has picked up again, and the developers have released a beta version for KDE 4.
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