Common Ubuntu Keyboard Shortcuts

I've finally started on my Network Technology course, where I will be doing and MCSE, CCNA, and possibly prepping for a Linux+, all in the next eight months. Stay tuned for some more interesting tidbits on the blog as I have time.

On another note, I am aware of some OS keystroke shortcuts, but had the urge to use more. Why don't I know the one for Show Desktop, for instance (it's Ctrl-Alt-D). You can also map keyboard shortcuts, which is really handy if you want to use something like the Windows key.

• Win+E - Shows all workspaces in a nifty way and lets you switch between workspaces easily.
  
• Alt+Ctrl+Left/Right Arrow – Move to Workspace on Left/Right
  
• Alt+Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right Arrow – Move current window to another workspace
  
• Alt + Shift+ Up Arrow – This initiates a cool looking window switcher interface with which you can switch between windows using Arrow keys while holding Alt + Shift
  
• Alt+F9/F10 – Minimize/ Maximize current window
  
• Alt+F5 – UnMaximizes Current Window
  
• Alt+F7 – This shortcut activates the move window option that lets you move current window using arrow keys. You can even move window to other workspace, try moving it to extreme right.
  
• Alt+F8 – Resize current window with arrow keys
  
• Ctrl + Alt + D – Show Desktop/ Restore open windows if show desktop used earlier
  
• Alt+Shift+Tab – Switch Windows in Reverse Direction as done using Alt+Tab
  
• Shift+Ctrl+N – Create New Folder, Very useful shortcut
  
• Alt + Enter – Show properties of a selected file/folder without requiring to right click on it and select Properties.
  
• Ctrl + 1/2 – Change folder view to icon/list.
  
• Ctrl + W – close current Nautilus Window
  
• Ctrl + Shift + W – close all open Nautilus Windows
  
• Ctrl+T – Open a new tab in Nautilus
  
• Alt + Up/Down Arrow – Move to Parent Folder/ Selected folder
  
• Alt + Left/Right Arrow – Move Back/forward in Nautilus
  
• Alt + Home – Move directly to your Home Folder
  
• F9 – Toggle display of Nautilus Sidepane
  
• Ctrl + H – Toggle Display of hidden files and folders
  
• Ctrl + Alt + L - Quick shortcut to Lock Screen if you need to be away from your desktop for few moments and don’t want others to see your desktop.
  
• Alt + F1 – Open Applications Menu
  
• Alt + F2 – Open the Run Application dialog Box
  
• Win + Mousewheel – Zoom in / Zoom out Desktop. This one’s pretty useful if you are having a wireless keyboard/mouse.
  

(shamelessly stolen from TechnoTraits... if you found these of use, be a sport and visit them!)

Fonts Not Displaying Properly on Web Pages

I noticed one day that some webpages were a little difficult to read as the (sans-serif) font it used looked borked, for some reason. The first time I noticed this, I viewed the source, but didn't find a font declaration in that page. The most recent time I looked at a sample, I found this

<FONT face="sans-serif,helvetica,arial">

I haven't done much work with CSS, so I wasn't aware that order matters when declaring a font to use with CSS. If the first font in a list exists on your system, it will use that one first.

There are several font declarations in the HTML source, but for the main text, the results are:

It's just strange. Off. It's lacking some sort of smoothness. The vertical alignment of each letter also seems to be slightly different. Kerning is yucky. Though it is a sans serif (screen) font, I just don't find it very readable or pleasing to the eye.

FYI:

• sans serif (clean) fonts are intended for reading on screen
• serif fonts (fonts with little flicks or marks on the corners) are intended for printed text

The paradigm is that legibility is best when fonts are used this way.

What's funny is this situation appeared on a The Linux Documentation Project page. A Linux page viewed in Linux looks funny.

When typing an Openoffice document, all fonts appear, and are as expected (from screenshot:).


...despite sans-serif having no kerning and ugly tracking.

However, bump that font size down from 24pt to 10pt, and Helvetica is ugly! What the hell happened to those e's and a's?

("Font Darwin Award" once again goes to sans-serif, for its display of horrid kerning and tracking. If it wasn't obvious before, it sure is now.)

Theoretically, since sans-serif exists on my system, that should be the one being used in a web page (because it's first in the web page's font list). However, the evidence suggests it's actually using Helvetica. Why is Helvetica on my machine so ugly once it goes below 14pt or 12pt? I don't know. Still investigating. My monitor is a few years old, and my graphics is a good graphics card less than a year old, so I doubt those are the issue. Even so, why is this an issue with Helvetica, but not with the other fonts?

The only solution I can think of so far is to uninstall Helvetica. The print nerd in me really doesn't want to. If you really want to nerd-out, this is a great guide to fonts on Linux.

Please let me know if you figure this one out!

Apple Patents Computer Hardware that Freezes your Computer to Make you Watch Ads

Apple has patented computer hardware that freezes your computer to make you acknowledge an ad. Adware at its most obnoxious (because it wasn't obnoxious enough as is?)


Apple's patent application.
Article in the New York Times.
Covered on Boing Boing.

"Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn’t simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad — it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message.Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing."

If you read the patent application, they're talking hardware, not software. Ouch. Basically, your computer or device has this mechanism built into it. (It's harder to remove a car horn built into the car than an air horn that's duct-taped to the side mirror.)

Depending on how it is implemented, it could be a firmware rootkit, or a hardware equivalent of a rootkit.

In any case, thanks in advance to all the white hat crackers.

Or, you know, just don't buy an Apple device that has this.

On another note, it occured to me applying for a patent for something like this guarantees no one else could implement it... or not for long, anyways. If you never plan on implementing it yourself, you could use it as a tool for protecting users. That being said, I doubt that's Apple's intent. I would guess they're keeping the option open until such time as they figure they can get away with using it. So the more you get hooked on Apple...

Maybe the EFF should apply for a whole whack of patents?

Yet another compelling reason for the general public to take an interest in alternative computers and media players.

As Steve Gibson says, "It's MY computer."

pdflush process isn't what you think it is

Yeah. Please don't try to kill the pdflush process.

Having started as a Windows user, it would really, really irk me that a whole bunch of (unnecessary) processes would be running. I would annihilate them at every opportunity, but at least I'm (usually) smart enough to look up what it is first.

Having moved to linux, there's a whole new ballgame of processes to look up.

How to (Quickly) Check What Version of Ubuntu You Have

Applications --> Accessories --> Terminal. In the box type the following command:-

lsb_release -a

Share Mouse and Keyboard with Software

Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and keyboard between multiple computers with different operating systems, each with its own display, without special hardware. It's intended for users with multiple computers on their desk since each system uses its own monitor(s).

I'm currently using a KVM switch (and one monitor), but it's nice to know there is a multi-monitor open software solution out there!

"Can't install gnome-desktop-environment, gnome-keyring-manager not installable"

My current version of OS is KDE 8.04 with Xfce installed (I actually run Xfce daily). I got the error

"Can't install gnome-desktop-environment, gnome-keyring-manager not installable"

When trying to install the gnome desktop with either the terminal or Synaptic Package Manager.

Some searching led me to advice to type both of these commands in the terminal (don't type the $, and you may have to type "sudo" before the apt part...)

$ apt-cache show gnome|grep Depends|cut -f2- -d:|tr ',' '\n'|cut -f2 -d' '|grep -v gnome-desktop-environment|xargs sudo apt-get install -y

$ apt-cache show gnome-desktop-environment|grep Depends|cut -f2- -d:|tr ',' '\n'|cut -f2 -d' '|grep -v gnome-keyring-manager|xargs sudo apt-get install -y

Found this in a launchpad support forum (bugtracker). https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/meta-gnome2/+bug/216756

Be warned this may take the better part of an hour to install (the rest of your system should be usable while it installs.)

I ran both of these commands, and yes, it worked. Next time I rebooted, I had the option of a Gnome session, and it seems to be running smoothly so far.

Other links I found had some interesting info, if you want further reading:

Launchpad question

Lock issue I encountered in the meantime (oopsie.) Thought it was a bug until I realized I should listen to actual directions (ARE YOU RUNNING AS ROOT???... i.e. use sudo)

Launchpad bug that actually indicates it's a duplicate of another bug.

The Command Command

man -k list directory

Lists commands and a very brief description of each. Lots of enlightening stuff here.

USB Hard Drive Runs Slow

Came across this in a forum. Hey, I have this problem too!

'I had the odd Linux version mount external FAT32-drives (USB sticks) with some crappy mount parameters that it would have been quicker to write the data on the HD with my own hands - yes, literally.

So if you happen to use Linux..

Try mounting the external FAT drive without the "sync" option, i.e. with

"mount -o async".

But you'll have to remember to umount the external device manually before removing it; sometimes a lot of the writing happens only delayed at the time of umounting - at least it did sometimes with my SuSEs.'

(Thanks to The Voice of Doom on Fark.com)

I Like Toys

I finally got a digital camera. I'm not experienced with them at all on any system, so when it came time to plugging it in to my computer, I wasn't sure of what I was doing.

I plugged the sucker in, and I expected a little USB-type drive would pop up on my desktop, but that did not happen.

Searching for a solution was kind of a pain because lots of ads for my camera kept popping up. Samsung doesn't exactly give directions for linux, either.

A little more searching finally revealed this page.

You have to turn the camera on after you plug it in to the computer. The page also warns to turn it off before unplugging it. By this, I would assume the USB device doesn't draw power from the computer via the USB connection, but it draws power from the camera's batteries.

A green light came on on the camera when connected. The screen momentarily asked me to choose between "computer" and "printer", so I chose... computer. The screen then turned black, but the light stayed on. At this point, a device appeared on my desktop, and I was able to sift through the directories in there like a regular USB flash drive.

Hope that solves a "what now" scenario for some of you camera/linux newbies.

What camera did I pick up? A Samsung S760 at "Wally World". 7.2megapixel, 3x optical zoom, takes SD cards only (not SDHC). Set me back $87 (November 01, 2008). Yes, I got the pink one. I'm generally anti-pink, but in my defense, I think it's less likely to get stolen and less likely to be mistaken for someone else's.

Pretty decent pictures, especially if you stablile the camera well when snapping photos. I used Digital Image Stabilization mode to take a few night shots outside my window. Best sample:


You're looking down Broadway Ave towards Main in Winnipeg, MB. The large white lit-up building is the Hotel Fort Garry.