Time Saving Linux Desktop Tips? 565
dan_polt asks: "I currently use a Linux desktop system, at work. One of the great things about the Linux desktop is that there are lots of ways to save a lot of time from useful widgets and configuration to minimize the pain of repetitive tasks. Most of my work involves web/e-Mail/SSH access, and I have a very high spec'd machine with dual-head 1600x1200 screens. What software or configuration tips might Slashdot have for me to: make better use of my time; make the most of my screen real estate; and make my use of the desktop more effective?"
Outsource (Score:5, Funny)
2. You have more free time.
3. ???
4. Profit!
Re:Outsource (Score:5, Informative)
I'd recomend root-tail (Score:5, Informative)
About: root-tail is a program that allows printing of text directly to the X11 root window wherever you choose, much like running rxvt with a pixmap background but without the hassle and with more features.
Some code I use with it (there's TONS of options):
Enlightenment == simple?! (Score:5, Funny)
You just literally made me choke on my breakfast. Bad!
Well, choke laughing, so it's not all bad.
Re:enlightenment.org? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:enlightenment.org? (Score:3, Informative)
My advice... (Score:5, Insightful)
That'll save you a ton more time than any of the advice given here
Personally, I have tried to use as much as I can via Putty (SSH+screen) and keep everything I do in one window. It cuts down on how much I have taking up my real estate and it seems to make me more productive.
Even with a 23" LCD it's nice to have everything in one place.
The one useful script (Score:5, Funny)
rm -f
Re:The one useful script (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The one useful script (Score:5, Funny)
apt-get install pr0n;
Re:My advice... (Score:5, Informative)
putty is not a linux program, it's only for ms windoze - it's not needed on linux though, we just use ssh.
Putty is actually available for both Linux and Windows (even NT on Alpha!).
While it probably is overkill for just 'ssh hostname.tld', it is useful if you need to use features like port-forwarding and want to use a saved profile instead of supplying command-line options or hand-editing ~/.ssh/config, or for migrating from Windows while keeping the same SSH client.
Re:My advice... (Score:3, Insightful)
ssh -R 666:127.0.0.1:666 host will forward 666 from localhost to remote
Yeah, and that's ever so much more convienent to type than just setting it up in a GUI, saving it as a profile, and typing "putty -host xyzzy".
Nice to see that you still play Doom though.
putty is a half crippled ssh-client clone for windows.
Your fanaticism is showing. putty is open source, cross platform, and damn good. If you're going to claim that it's "half cripple
Re:My advice... (Score:3, Insightful)
Then you have vim doing the wrong highlighting -- most likely vim is defaulting to background=light when you should use background=dark. Solution? Either change putty to use a light background (e.g. -- white/grey with dark text instead of the default black w/ grey text) or do a
The black on black bit is almost certainly the same issue -- the apps are presuming what color your background is and they're si
Two 1600x1200? (Score:5, Funny)
Time saver (Score:4, Funny)
Quit f-ing around on Slashdot and get back to work!
Re:Time saver (Score:5, Funny)
In
127.0.0.1 www.slashdot.org
127.0.0.1
Helps me at work...
Re:Time saver (Score:5, Informative)
This is like setting your clock fast (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem I have with these tactics is that obfuscation strategies don't work against a sufficiently clever and determined opponent. And I'm very clever and determined when it comes to avoiding work.
No, the important thing to do is to sap your determination for wasting time. The reason people waste time is that they have so many commitments they can't keep them straight, although they're rattling around somewhere in their head.
The mind is like a thick, opaque stew -- you can only be aware of what happens to boil to the surface at the moment. We toss all the commitments we make to ourselves and others into the pot, and pretty soon its beyond us to know all the things that are in there. It's very common to harbor a unnamed suspicion that that something nasty like a severed human finger could surface at any second. This creates a tremendous resistance to even looking at the stew, much less stirring it up to find something important you've lost.
The secret to productivity is to change your mind from stew to consommé. To do this, you have to find some place other than your mind to put all your commitments. Then you have to look at all those things on a regular basis, because they'll sneak into your head if you don't. That's what people miss when they "get organized".
Simple program to clear your mind of frightening junk:
Turn it off (Score:5, Insightful)
Then, open a web browser in one window and a terminal in the other and get to work you slacker!
Linux Desktop (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:4, Insightful)
It's quite nice to be able to have multiple terminals visible at the same time and have quick cut-and-paste. I like X a lot, mostly as a way to hold many xterms.
I do find, though, that as everyone writing for the web expects you to have a GUI browser, firefox is quicker than elinks for most things.
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:5, Informative)
The utility screen will let you split your terminal space between an arbitrary number of applications (and each one recognizes that it has its own tty).
quick cut-and-paste
Once again, screen has you covered, and will allow you to transport text between hosted applications; it even provides a spiffy vi-like interface for selection, and freezes the program output (no, it doesn't suspend) while you're doing this.
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:5, Informative)
Of course! Screen can do anything!
I'm not sure exactly what you're shooting for, but you can "split" a screen session like this:
In a console, run screen. This will create a new session inside screen. Tell screen to split the window by sending the keystrokes CTRL+a S (that's a capital 's'. If you send a lowercase 's' you will freeze the display. Resume it by sending CTRL+a q).
The screen should split into two vertical windows. Tab into the lower window by sending CTRL+a <TAB> . Now create a new shell by sending CTRL+a c. You can go back and forth using CTRL+a <TAB> . Once you have a shell running in each you can do and/or run anything you want to. To close a split session, give it focus and send CTRL+a X (note the capital 'x').
Gentoo's Wiki site has a nice writeup of screen [gentoo-wiki.com]. It makes it real easy to get up and running with screen. It includes the above example as well as instructions on how to resize the split and do many other things.
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:4, Informative)
PS: I find that wmii isn't very mature yet; I still prefer wmi-10.
Re:Linux Desktop (Score:4, Informative)
The /. effect (Score:4, Insightful)
10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:2, Insightful)
There were 10 hours and 26 minutes between front page posts. And people wonder why we're bleeding users to other sites? It's the BS editors. The BS dupes. The BS factual errors. Seriously, wtf are we paying Slashdot for? If you're buying a subscription, what are you getting? What are the advertisements on the page doing for us? Where does this money go?
I've always left ads on Slashdot because I 'support' the culture, but this is the fi
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:5, Funny)
Back to the drawing board...
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reasons not to implement this (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:3, Funny)
It would require effort.
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Given a choice between a few articles of high quality and many articles of low quality, I'd take fewer articles.
Of course, that's a false choice, in two senses. First, there's no correlation between the number of articles and the quantity of articles. Second, it's not a choice Slashdot offers.
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually you were right both times. Posting the same article 6 times (as was done a few days ago) shows there is no correlation betwen the number of articles posted and the quantity. It was 1 article (number) posted 6 times (quantity). It's slash-math. Don't try to understand it - it'll give you a brain aneurism :-)
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:3, Interesting)
The "cell-phone used to monitor traffic flow" - the last 2 dupes have only 1 story between them http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&ci d =14070720 [slashdot.org] or http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&cid =14070568> and follow-up posts mention.
A lot of us immediately went "Dupe!, then , :"Hey, this was also on yesterday - Tripe!" then, as people checked, sure enough its been run to death.
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the ads are actually useful. My business partner's going to get a gift from ThinkGeek (better not say what it is here since he might be watching!) And it looks like I'll be using ServerBeach for my next venture. So I wouldn't give up on ads, and as you say I like supporting Slashdot.
As for your substantiative criticisms, are we really bleeding users? I certainly haven't noticed any lack of comments. In fact, it might not be so bad if we did. It sure was nice when I could actually read every comment on the articles that interested me. Now I'm lucky if I can finish the first page of ten!
Digg is so different from Slashdot in my experience that I don't see them as competitors. I visited there, didn't see what the fuss was about, and came back here.
That being said, to me it's always been about the comments, and the rich experience they bring us here. For example, I've wanted to learn about on-demand water heaters for some time, and all someone had to do was post an article about some bogus new on-demand technology, and whammo! I found out pretty much everything a person could conceivably want to know about them.
The moderation system is clever, and really works, and that seems to be the main value added that Slashdot's founders have created. Other than that, it's been being in the right place at the right time and having the right idea.
As long as there's a good and active user community here, I'm still loyal to it. The founders aren't the most literate bunch in the world, and they make all kinds of silly mistakes, but this place seems to work and generate interesting stuff, and for that I'm happy.
D
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as there's a good and active user community here, I'm still loyal to it. The founders aren't the most literate bunch in the world, and they make all kinds of silly mistakes, but this place seems to work and generate interesting stuff, and for that I'm happy.
Mistakes generate interesting stuff? What? Trolls, "insightful" comments, and +5 Funny's about duplicates and suggestions on how the "editors" could find duplicat
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:3, Insightful)
Incidentally, in my post you quoted, I was trying to say that the interesting stuff existed despite the mistakes, not because of them. Hope that clears up any confusion.
D
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:4, Insightful)
As for your substantiative criticisms, are we really bleeding users?
Yes. Six to twelve months ago, there were a few news stories about the Slashdot effect losing its power, and since then, the traffic analyses a few companies do have shown Slashdot to be receiving less traffic. To add my own anecdote, I've noticed a number of the smarter users who used to contribute here no longer do, and I've certainly been coming less often.
The type of users that are staying is of crucial importance. I've noticed the same thing happen to quite a few Usenet newsgroups. A bunch of newbies come in and annoy people, the signal:noise ratio goes down, the regular contributers/experts leave, and a year later, the place is full of newbie noise and no real answers.
Slashdot can survive pretty much anything, except for one thing: losing the smart contributors. In the past year or so, I've noticed the quality of comments declining rapidly, and if this continues as it has been, I fully expect Slashdot to be a complete joke a year from now.
Re:10 hours and 26 minutes? (Score:4, Informative)
1600x1200? (Score:2)
Term Productivity (Score:4, Informative)
Mount remote filesystems in KDE via ssh (Score:5, Informative)
Just enter in Konqueror
fish://user@yourdomain.com
(yes that is fish) and you will be asked for your ssh password.
Your remote files appear in Konqueror & you can then copy/paste etc to your local filesystem.
Re:Mount remote filesystems in KDE via ssh (Score:5, Informative)
And for the flamebait part, why is kde so unloved here in the USA?
Re:Mount remote filesystems in KDE via ssh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:foreign technologies (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
C got the rep for being fast and cool, because it was all about Unix, which was fast and cool. Every Unix machine (well, most) had a C compiler.
Pascal has a hand-holding feel, like you're in a little box constantly fighting the language. No pointers or similar mechanism. Abstracted strings.
Why do race cars use a manual transmission? That's why programmers use C(++): more control.
But your basic idea that Americans have a "not invented here" bias against some software is jus
Re:foreign technologies (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mount remote filesystems in KDE via ssh (Score:4, Interesting)
sshfs and smbfs work like a charm, although they have some...amusing "file systems" listed as well. (Such as a representation of a relational database as directories and XML files....)
Quicksilver (Score:2, Interesting)
Say I want to start inkscape. I press apple-space,i,n,k. by that point, qs has figured out that i want inkscape and has displayed it's icon, then i press enter and inkscape launches.
or say i want Jack Johnson's phone number. I press apple-space,j,c,k,j,n,s,n. his contact icon pops up, i press the left arrow and his phone number is highlighted, then i press enter and the number fills the screen on a transparent window.
it saves me a whack
Re:Quicksilver (Score:5, Funny)
sounds pretty good but typing all of those commas would just frustrate me.
What has always worked for me. (Score:2, Redundant)
Just approach it differently. (Score:3, Insightful)
What window manager/desktop environment are you using? In general, I would say make use of what you already have. Assuming you use FireFox, make liberal use of the tabs function; I prefer about five per window on my 1280x1024 single screen system, so you could probably do more without the tabs becoming too small. Also, when SSHing or doing general terminal work, use a terminal with tabs. The Gnome terminal will do this, but multi-aterm is less of a resource hog. (For some reason I can't seem to copy and paste into multi-aterm, something I can do in the Gnome term. If there's a way around this I would be interested; the copy and pasting is helpful.) I know this is not much, but I usually find that making more efficient use of your environment is more something to sit and think about a bit. It's better to try to work with what you have than to go and install a bunch of applications that may or may not help.
Easy... (Score:3, Funny)
Hardcore nudity on the left monitor, Slashdot front page auto-refreshing on the right. What more could a geek at work ask for?
Oh wait.. for work you say? Well, how liberal is your boss?
Bind everything to a key combination (Score:5, Informative)
http://hocwp.free.fr/xbindkeys/xbindkeys.html [hocwp.free.fr]
Some good ones from my .xbindkeysrc:
"xmms --stop" Mod4 + Up
"xmms --play-pause" Mod4 + Down
"xmms --fwd" Mod4 + Right
"xmms --rew" Mod4 + Left
"emacs" Mod4 + e
"firefox" Mod4 + m
"oocalc ~/aspreadsheet.sxc" Mod4 + c
Re:Bind everything to a key combination (Score:3, Informative)
If you have taken the time to do that, why not do the same for your window managment? No two windows are more than 3 keystrokes away. Ratpoison [nongnu.org], or (as I would see it) better Ion [cs.tut.fi], allows you to completely control and automate your window mangement. The ability to add keyboard shortcuts to tasks as you prefer it (ch
Depends (Score:5, Insightful)
Keeping in mind that these tips might not be at all applicable to you, here are a few things I've found that help me to be more efficient.
When doing software development, I like to keep code open in one window and documentation open in another. This is much more useful if your working with an unfamiliar language or API.
When I'm doing web design or coding in PHP I like to keep code open in one window and a web browser open in the other for testing.
Avoid keeping email or IM clients open at all times one one monitor. Even if you are in regular communication with co-workers having these things open all the time is a great distraction.
Choose a good Desktop Environment. While I like KDE for regular non-work stuff, I find that I'm often a lot more productive using WindowMaker, not really sure why this is though to be honest.
A few things you're bound to figure out over time (Score:4, Insightful)
2) Just like your desk, find out what needs to be where by trying new things. I find that email needs to be full-screen on a second monitor, and 'everything else' belongs on my l arger primary. I keep a few SSH terms open in virtual desktops so that I can have an open console when the poop hits the fan, but they're out of the way the rest of the time.
3) Use rsync or tar to backup your home directory frequently, because when you need to restore, you'll be glad you did. Most programming conventions in Linux make this much easier than in (say) Windows, as you don't have to worry about app config stored in weird places (registry), but you still need to be anal about backups.
4) Turn off the silly services to save CPU and Memory. 'chkconfig' in many modern distros (primarily redhat-based) will show you what's going to start at boot - turn off telnet, ftp (if you can use sftp), and the nfs daemons if you won't be serving NFS. Defaults suck, spend a few minutes tweaking these things and it'll help you much in the future.
5) Learn your favorite window manager well. If it's Gnome, or KDE, or whatever, learn it. Those of us who have been using Windows for a decade know the ins-and-outs of the Explorer interface, and it really saves us time - learning their equivalents in Linux will also save you time.
Virtual Desktops (Score:3, Interesting)
Group your running applications by tasks (i.e. browsing, email, development, etc.), and assign each of these tasks a virtual desktop (by remembering on which virtual desktop you grouped these applications). Then switching between different task domains becomes extremely fast, because you just have to click on the correct desktop in the virtual desktop app, and you have all apps you need to complete the task at hand instantly.
This is ways faster than switching between single applications or having them all on one single desktop, and having to dig your way through tons of windows to find the rigt program.
Oh, and use the session manager to save the session before you log-out, so the next time you log-in, you have all the apps you need already running, and on the same virtual desktops as before.
Wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
Really; is your company's IT department stupid? Is your company run by dot-com-bubble-wanna-be's who want to repeat the past? When your tasks are so system-resource-undemanding, why did they pay for that machine for you? You could do your work on a 486! Literally!
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Funny)
My guess is this is just a fantasy question designed to press the buttons for Slashdot, with as much relation to the submitter's real life as a "Letter to Penthouse"; i.e. techno-porn wish fulfilment. "If you had a Lamborghini/a million dollars/a longer dick/..."
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Insightful)
Really; is your company's IT department stupid? Is your company run by dot-com-bubble-wanna-be's who want to repeat the past? When your tasks are so system-resource-undemanding, why did they pay for that machine for you? You could do your work on a 486! Literally!
Have you tried actually using a 486 recently? And I'm not talking about with modern software, but with software we used back then. It isn't pretty. Things were a lot slower and more annoying than you remember, we just didn't notice because we we
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Insightful)
It's mostly the RAM though.
My home system is a PIII 450MHz with 512MB of RAM (running an up-to-date debian unstable/experimental), and I've absolutely no problem with firefox, gnome, etc. I even do ray-tracing on that box (though to be honest that's pushing it... I mostly do smaller test scenes there
I use much more up-to-date systems at work, and honestly, the difference in usability isn't all tha
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Informative)
Really; is your company's IT department stupid? Is your company run by dot-com-bubble-wanna-be's who want to repeat the past? When your tasks are so system-resource-undemanding, why did they pay for that machine for you? You could do your work on a 486! Literally!
I don't know. My tasks at work are split roughly 50/50 between
Re:Wrong question (Score:3, Informative)
a couple of little things (Score:3, Informative)
Use fluxbox. The tabs mean that you can stack up things like xterms.
If you run gnome panel, you can put drawers on it. The drawers can contain swallowed apps, such as xterms running top, tail syslog, watch processes, etc. So you can pop open a monitor drawer and xterms running text monitors emerge.
Check into 3ddesk. It's an applet that maps your desktops onto a 3d cylinder that can be rotated with the mousewheel for desktop switching. Much more useful than it sounds. The visual preview and positional awareness that it gives make it possible to use many more desktops than you ordinarily could without them becoming useless clutter like they can with traditional pagers.
I don't know why you're concerned about maximizing real estate with a dual-head display. I get by just fine with a 19 inch display.
That said, there are some technologies emerging that will allow you to use x11 functionality to use a laptop or additional workstation as a second (or third) screen controlled by the same desktop. Check into x2vnc.
Automation (Score:5, Informative)
Also, get a decent window manager like ion [cs.tut.fi] and learn its shortcuts. Developing more than a passing knowledge of Ion and Vim has doubled my productivity when debugging code. Ion makes one monitor feel like two, so I can imagine that on two it would be pretty damn good.
Get into a few habits (Score:3, Interesting)
The main trick is to keep your thoughts focused by getting into a few habits. I also use a dual head system but with 8 different workspaces setup in the workspace switcher (so a total of 16 virtual screens). In order to get the most out of this system, I actually use the switcher's facility for naming the workspaces and change them from the usual 1,2,3..8 to something meaningful. When I work on a new project, I rename the workspaces if necessary and then, for instance, always open the libraryXYZ project in my IDE in the correctly named space.
If you use Gnome Terminal, learn to use the Profiles facility and color code or at least name different terminal windows/tabs. You can even associate custom commands to run, rather than the shell (for instance, one of my profiles launches something like "ssh -C -L3128:localhost:3128 -L10025:localhost:25 -L... remotebox" to tunnel important activity through SSH so all I need is double click an icon). Pretty much every terminal app has facilities for doing this. Create Profiles for repetitive tasks and use shortcuts on your desktop to activate them.
You might also consider reserving blocks of time in which to shutdown gaim, your email client and phone.
HTH
few tricks... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a Gnome desktop, dual-display, but with a laptop, so I keep all my controls on one desktop. I have a window list on the bottom, with just the windows, desktop switcher, show-desktop button. On top, I have the application menus and such, shortcuts to terminals that I often use (quick-launch ssh sessions and such), and the nifty toys (volume meter, screenshot, et cetera). On the left side, I have this little panel on auto-hide, so that if I can mouse over it I can see all my shiny CPU/network/etc usage meters, and a few obscure but useful shortcuts.
A Quake Like Console : Yakuake (Score:3, Informative)
Three Words... (Score:5, Funny)
Two more letters... (Score:5, Funny)
Some simple things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some simple things (Score:4, Interesting)
UNIX lacks a recycle bin, but so does the Windows NT kernel and the MacOSX kernel. "Recycle Bins" are typically a GUI function, not a kernel function. Try doing an "rm" or "del" using the OSX or Windows command line and see if your files end up in the recycle bin.
KDE and Gnome have a "recycle/trash bin" as well. It's just that a lot of users prefer the command line.
This may be getting too nit picky, but unlink(2) shouldn't do things like that. I've thought about how to implement an automatic undelete cache in a file system, but it just ends up being way too much in-kernel maintenance so that it ultimately detracts from performance. But, flexibility is always there. You're perfectly welcome to override unlink(2) with your own function and LD_PRELOAD, and get exactly the behavior you're asking about - even on the command line. Just make sure you have a "realrm" that uses the stock unlink(2)
Re:Some simple things (Score:3, Informative)
You can even automate the snapshotting. It only keeps track of pages that differ, so it doesn't use up much disk space unless/until the writable filesystem and the snapshot diverge a *lot*. The snapshots are presented as readonly block devices that can be left mounted somewhere so you can grab older versions or deleted copies of files. It isn't quite as nice as the Veritas
Let me explain your *BIG* mistake: (Score:5, Interesting)
Making better use of your desktop real estate means getting rid of a lot of junk. If you haven't already, I'd try saying goodbye to KDE/Gnome and getting the lightest possible window manager for the job: That's Fluxbox, ICEwm, Fvwm, or the desktop environment Xfce. (I'm low on sadism, so I won't recommend TWM. Anybody that 1337 wouldn't be posting this question.) This doesn't sound like much, but trust me, when you do away with that extra time waiting for KDE to load, you'll be faster and only have (in Fluxbox's case) a tiny slit in your way. No icons cluttering things up (yeah, we need a home directory icon on the desktop when it's in our menu, too! Sheesh!). Every Linux program on your system can be started from any window manager's menu, it's just a matter of editing the menu to launch the program. Too bothered to edit text menus? Then from the console, try "kicker" for KDE's panel, "gnome-panel" for Gnome's, and "xfce4-panel" for Xfce's, depending on what you have installed. I've tried them all and they work even from TWM!
As for time-saving: the key here is "automate". Anything you type in a terminal more than once is grounds for automation. Simply take the same commands you type and save them on a line each in a plain text file with the line "#!/bin/bash" at the top and the line "end" at the bottom. Save that file somewhere in your executable path (type "echo $PATH" if you don't know), and type "chmod +x [name of your program]". You can now execute it just like any other system program.
The next level of automation is programs that require interaction. Two work-arounds exist for this: "Here" documents are little scriptlets you can slip into Bash scripts to do simple keyboard commands for interacting with command-line programs that insist on recieving input. The more sophisticated approach is Tcl/Tk's "expect", which can be used to script damn-near anything (take a command-line web browser like lynx and feed it an expect script with the right instructions, and you can auto-post B1FF comments to Slashdot, even! (Provided you had a nick signed in.), sorry, guys, the secret's out!) I can't think of anything having to do with ssh and email accounts that couldn't be handled with all of the above.
This might be overkill, but anybody who's read "Beginning Linux Programming" by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones, courtesy of www.wrox.com, wouldn't have to post this question. I promise you could skip the GTK and Qt parts and brush up on Bash, at least, which is easier than BASIC on the Apple ][.
Doubtless, part of the indiference/hostility in here is because this is also the kind of question spammers ask, and you wouldn't find any people on Slashdot who deal with too much spam, now would you? I don't mind answering because, if you're a *good* wizard, you deserve to know this stuff as well as I do, and if you're a *bad* wizard, I haven't given you a damn thing you couldn't have gotten from a few hours of Googling.
I like to plaster the root window... (Score:3, Interesting)
On my laptop, depending on whether the relevant watcher is better suited to vertical presentation (top, netstat) or horizontal (most log files), I can arrange 4 or so that don't get completely covered with my windows all over the place. Two big screens would at least double that.
My best (Score:5, Informative)
Apps (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll echo the "Use WindowMaker" mantra. The only reason I'm running Gnome now is for the little graphical workspace switcher. I'm still upset that the window thumbnails don't dynamically update their contents anymore like Enlightenment or even older versions of Gnome.
I usually configure my window managers to use Meta + various mouse keys to move/resize windows. Gnome's Metacity does not allow you to move the window title above the top of the screen - very annoying when you want to put, say, a web browser's various rows of buttons off-screen so you can fit more precious content onto your screen (more so than you could get with using the full screen view, which isn't available for all apps). Window Maker does the right thing, and allows you to move the window off the top of the screen (but only if you use the Meta-click technique, so the titlebar only disappears if you prove that you know how to move the window back without it).
I also configure focus-follows-mouse, and disable raise-on-click. This allows me to organize my workspace and have more control, say, copying and pasting stuff between windows without the "behind" window popping to the foreground unless I tell it to (by Meta-clicking on it or clicking on the titlebar/frame).
Configure a larger virtual desktop in the Xorg.conf if you really want more scrollable space. I imagine this would be more complicated with your dual-monitor setup, though... maybe you just want to add a few pixels to the top of each screen. I trust that you've read and configured the extra Xorg directives that came with your Nvidia / ATi drivers to optimize your Xorg.conf already.
Also useful to configure some means of "pushing" windows back, usually by middle-clicking on the titlebar/frame or Meta-down.
I've heavily configured gkrellm - it works great as an app launcher that works under any window manager, in addition to doing all of its normal monitoring. It can really give you a good feeling for what your computer is doing, when it's finished downloading or compiling or transferring to USB drives, how well your RAID throughput is behaving, etc From the default, I usually tweak it to use a better theme (the default wastes a few columns of pixels on the sides!), show system CPU time and network TX / disk writes as inverted, and of course set it to sticky so it's always in its corner when I switch virtual desktops.
Learn to use gnu screen. It's indispensible for managing multiple consoles. I usually start mine as "screen -e ^Zz", since I use Ctrl-a quite more often than Ctrl-z... what a silly default.
Give the Galeon web browser a serious try. It has much better tab management than Mozilla, even with Mozilla's tabextensions plugin. Plus, it remembers the last tab state after crashes by default... why isn't that a standard Mozilla feature yet??!
Check out Hotkeys for making use of those extra multimedia button keys on your keyboard for launching apps.
Does anyone know of a mechanism for launching apps using keystrokes like Win-e for explorer.exe under MS windows? Best I could do outside of mapping "extra" keys with hotkey is to map the Super key to gnome's "Run command" dialog and then type in the app
Well, have fun.
Control-R (Score:4, Informative)
If you crank up your history list to a few thousand entries and set it to forget dupes, you can recall any command you've issued in the last couple of months with just a couple of keystrokes.
Re:Control-R (Score:4, Informative)
control-R is very useful, but you can complement it with some other goodies. For example, you can make bash automatically search in your history based on what you've already input. For example "ls foo" would get you to your previous command that starts with ls foo, even if it wasn't the last command you typed. In your .inputrc:
If you just want to insert another option after the last command you wrote, but before the filenames etc (uses alt-o) put this in your .inputrc:
Make tab-completion case insensitive, and make it stop matching hidden files (in your .inputrc):
Make your history immediately available from all your bash instances - in your .bashrc:
Translucency (Score:3, Interesting)
I gave it up because of stability issues, but using window translucency, tinting, and shading (via Xorg's Composite and Render extensions) REALLY helped improve my productivity.
Seriously.
It allowed me to keep an eye on multiple window levels at once, yet everything but my current window being tinted darker ensured that my focus stayed where I needed it. That and the shadowed windows also helped me identify things much faster.
If it's just used for eye candy, it can be distracting, but used properly I found it helped me a great deal.
Screen Real Estate (Score:3, Informative)
Good Tip (Score:3, Funny)
Easy
execute the following as root:
echo "127.0.0.1 slashdot.org www.slashdot.org" >>
After this one command, you will start making better use of your time.
screen is your friend (Score:4, Informative)
Stop Trying to Save Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course that wouldn't be anywhere near as much fun. That's what you should do if you are really interested in saving time. If you just want to have the enjoyment of knowing your machine is optimally set up to do whatever it is you do then follow the other suggestions you find here.
Been there (Score:3, Insightful)
* Create key bindings. If you don't go to the mouse as often, not only will you be more productive, but you will also prevent RSI's. I could open a terminal window, browser, maximize both, and move either to another virtual desktop with just two fingers on the left hand.
* speaking of virtual desktops, Use virtual desktops. I like having everything maximized, but I quickly run out of space that way. Normally, I have the terminals on one desktop, the code on another, my reference documents/browser windows on the third, and then the forth for everything else --normally a running version of the project I'm fixing. Figure out what apps you use most, and designate a v.desk to each which makes it easier for the mind to find that information it was looking for.
* Love the terminal window. By making use of aliases, scripts and various other 'hacks,' most tasks can be boiled down to a handful of keystrokes. It is worth the time to learn either shell scripting and/or perl so that more complicated tasks can still be done rapidly with a reduced chance of error.
* Thing about the ergonomics. You are obviously a professional computer jockey, otherwise you wouldn't have dual monitors being driven by linux. Until your computer responds to 'computer,' you're going to need your wrists, so take five minutes to consider how you could improve the layout to minimize the chances of an RSI or other strains and pains -- this includes neck strains which is a very common pain resulting from dual monitors. Although this is not a time saving tip per se, it will add years to your useful geek life.
Well, that is all of the advice I can think of right now. The most important thing you need to consider is ways to eliminate repetition. Anytime I type anything more than 3 times, or click an icon that is more than 2 levels deep, I will consider, if only for a second, alternative means to envoking that task.
Good luck and good hunting.
Don't pretend it's 1970 (Score:3, Interesting)
Use a graphical file explorer like Rox to navigate and sort through directories quickly. Don't rely on ls for everything; it is far faster and more flexible to organize files graphically. Dragging a box and one click-drag can replace dozens of keystrokes across multiple commands.
If you always startup X after you login, then have X startup automatically. No reason to type "startx" every time.
Use Conky [sf.net] for system monitoring.
Let normal users halt or reboot [linuxquestions.org] the system if appropriate. In many, many cases it's silly to maintain the *nix default behavior of only letting root shutdown/reboot the system. If you're running a server with dozens of remote users then yes, this would be unwise. If it's your personal workstation though, it's completely reasonable.
Use "slocate" instead of "find." Pardon me if this is obvious, but I still see too many *nix diehards waiting for "find" to finish when there's a perfectly up to date slocate DB ready for searching. "find" is nearly obsolete.
Have your drives automounted with Submount [sourceforge.net]. It's pretty sad that something like this is not standard in the 2.6 kernel. Typing a command every time you want to read a CD looks pathetic to the average Windows user used to autorun or clicking "My Computer."
That's all I have for now. Basically, I liberally automate outdated procedures (which many *nix users still tolerate). This makes day-to-day operations much smoother overall, and doesn't disrupt tasks by having to constantly bring up new terminal windows.
VNC (Score:3, Interesting)
Then you can play with KDE or Gnome, and never have to worry about losing your active sessions.
IceWM also can snap window edges, support gnome and kde. So its my favorite for vnc.
Added benefit, you can vnc from another computer on the net and have your desktop, like using your laptop on wifi from the living room.
And you even run multiple VNC servers on the same machine, have one with kde, or gnome, etc, but you loose accelerated gfx.
Multi-monitor management (Score:4, Informative)
Xdmx will allow you to have very, very flexible control over how your dual monitor setup works. It not only supports your local two monitors, but will allow you to strap network pc's/monitors on to your existing setup with little fuss. I ran a six induvidual laptops as my primary display at work for some time with xdmx, and it worked very well. The only downside was my desktop was not quite beefy enough to handle a display size of 3072x1536. It also handles bezel sizes, if you prefer the "looking through a window" perspective versus xinerama's standard continuous desktop. It will support just about any monitor layout you want.
xmove gives you screen-like functionality for your desktop. Get up from your workstation, jump on a laptop with wifi, and xmove will pull the display output across the network - just like screen. Send the applications back to your desktop, and shut your laptop down. Bazing!
NX suppliments this with fantastic compression and will allow you to do stupid things, like do xmove/remote x work at home. Or resume a particularly stunning game of bejewled.
Email Customization is a MUST for a business env.. (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the biggest productivity saps for a sysadmin is dealing with the massive volume of email that we get. In even a moderate-sized business, it's easy to get 1,000 mails per day, with a couple 100 actually from a person, not an automated script.
Now, what I'm about to say is predicated on the assumption that your external mail server already runs SPAM filters, and that virtaully everything that you actually get is "real" mail. If this is not the case, FIX THIS FIRST. Get your company to pony up for some serious anti-spam software. It saves EVERYONE a ton of time, and at the same time, cuts down on your (the company's) exposure to the nasties that inhabit email.
First, pick an email client which has filters. My preference is for Evolution or Thunderbird, but there are many out there. Pick one. As a previous poster noted, GIVE IT ITS OWN DESKTOP - that is, in your window manager which has virtual desktops, dedicate one solely for the email client. Now, configure it with lots of filters to sort your mail. Personally, I have a reasonable hierarchy with 3 folders at the top level: NOW, LATER, and WHENEVER. Underneath these, there should be folders for every type of email you get: ones from your boss, ones from the company HR, ones from the monitoring scripts running on your servers (you do have these, right? RIGHT?). Take a good long time figuring out how to get these down cold - you want a good balance of sufficient sorting without going overboard. I find that having about 30-50 folders total is optimal for me. If you can, also have the email client tag your mail with "importance" color coding (most clients have this, and it's really useful).
Now to reading: obviously, your should read the NOW, well, NOW. However, you don't want to be completely interrupt-driven. I would turn off any biff-style mail notification, or at best, turn down its check time to no less than 10 minutes between check. Instead, train yourself to periodically check the NOW folder. Read and deal with the NOW stuff during your normal workflow.
The LATER folder should probably be read every couple of hours, or if you truly haven't anything else to do. Resist the temptation to open it and look. Finally, the WHENEVER shouldn't be read until the end of the day (or maybe while your eating lunch at your desk ;-)
Email is one of the great things about networks; however, it can be an enormous timesink if not properly handled. -Erik
Fix Less and vim (Score:5, Informative)
(whomever caused this behavior to be default; a pox on you)
p.s. Some bonehead in Usenet advises frobbing your terminal type to vt100 to get the same result. Do not do this. If you don't know why then especially don't do this!
Re:Fix Less and vim (Score:3, Interesting)
This is highly useful, except when you're editing an encrypted file in vim. I can't find the syntax for .vimrc. Anybody know the solution? I've gotten as far as this, but it doesn't work:
Anybody got the solution?
(Yes, I know it shouldn't be used since it's trivial to defeat, but it's useful to prevent the occasional viewer).
Configuration and useability tips: (Score:5, Informative)
2) run prelink -v --conserve-memory -q -a
but first add
prelink.conf (and any other software such as openoffice)
3) on debian, edit
FSCKFIX="n" with FSCKFIX="y"
4) on debian, install hal, dbus-1 and udev, and then edit
commented out (this will make it possible for you to
mount auto-detected USB drives etc.)
5) cd to
ln -s
5) edit
export KDE_IS_PRELINKED="1"
these simple things will make your system faster, more robust in the face of complete technically incompetent blithering idiots who would otherwise blindly press ctrl-d when faced with a prompt saying "your filesystem is corrupted. give root password for maintenance or press ctrl-d", and also provide automatic access to USB devices that is otherwise bloody inconvenient.
Kuake (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Switch... (Score:4, Informative)