Episode: 1886
Title: HPR1886: Moral Volcano's Linux Tips & Tricks podcast for Hacker Public Radio
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1886/hpr1886.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 10:49:41

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This is HBR Episode 1886 entitled Mollolcano Linux Tips and Tricks Podcast for Hacker Public Radio.
It is hosted by first-time post Mollolcano and is about 65 minutes long.
The summary is a collection of Linux tips and tricks that may be useful new users.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR15. That's HBR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at AnanasThost.com.
This podcast I will try to cover all kinds of free and open source software.
Not just new Linux podcast.
Initially I will start with UI user interface.
For some reason Linux developers don't give much attention to how the desktop looks.
It seems that there are some buttons like elementary OS where they have tried to make it look very pretty.
But with non-tree people try to pay more attention to the aesthetic aspect of the desktop.
What they have done is they have made it less useful.
The desktop that I use is known to was created with a great deal of focus on usability and simplicity.
You don't see that in non-tree.
I'll just look at any desktop screenshot that's been published online.
It's all the same known tree.
There are some people who use KD.
But the non-tree desktop doesn't allow you to customize or change the interface.
That is one of the objectives of non-tree.
Surprisingly they don't want you to want users to customize the OS and the desktop and make it more useful.
What they justify this by saying that they want a developer curated design that the user should not tamper with.
That was the justification and to make this to ensure this is done.
The users should not have too many liberties.
They removed all forms of customization that was available in non-tree.
The desktop was managed by notless file manager in non-tree.
They removed features from non-tree and notless.
If you go to edit preferences there is not much you can do there.
What kind of upgrade is that?
What I'm going to say may be an opinion.
You should not just accept it as it is or what are you.
You should always trust your own judgment because somebody is saying that you should not let go of your native intelligence and good sense.
Usually when somebody says something, when you read an article or listen to someone in some event, they might say something so shocking, challenging, existing beliefs that you start believing what are there.
There must be a nagging doubt in the corner of your brain where you think maybe that guy is not saying what are you saying is not correct.
It's not true but the force with which this guy is saying makes you think that what are you saying is correct.
Sometimes you do realize that whatever you had said was wrong but this realization was much later.
And you do remember that you felt that there was something wrong with the assertion.
You had that doubt but you let that guy bamboozle you.
You thought he was right and you were wrong.
You discounted your own judgment and let some guy take away or you're a fine judgment.
So I may be wrong and you should always rely on your own judgment.
Anyway, there's no three.
Those guys felt that.
The user shouldn't be customizing their wonderful desktop and they created a desktop that had less features.
So I've been using Windows desktop from Windows 3.195, 98 millennium, 2000 XP.
Then I did not work with Windows Vista, I stayed with Windows XP for a long time.
Even though Microsoft had released Windows 7, I was with Windows XP because I could always change the desktop team
to the Windows Classic and the computer was faster and it got things done.
I did not like Windows 7.
I got a laptop with Windows 7.
I had the option of installing Windows 8 because I have a MSTN license.
I can install any words from Windows.
I don't think I had a Windows millennium but Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, any of them.
And Windows Server also.
I couldn't install any version of Windows on my computer.
I decided to install Windows 7 because anyway the drivers were all for Windows 7, not for Windows XP.
So there was no point of installing Windows XP.
So in all these versions of Windows they never removed features.
All the features that existed earlier were there.
Here, in Windows 8, Microsoft did remove features from Windows X, Laura, the desktop manager.
Even with Linux, they did not remove features and one of the justifications that
no 3 guys shared was.
That when no 2 was released, it had lots of bugs and people complained about it.
And eventually it became better.
And that is why no 3, there are complaints about no 3.
A lot of people complained about no 3 but Linux.
Linux is the guy who created Linux, Kernel, Linux Pauling for the guy.
So even she did not like the no 3 desktop.
But they went ahead with the published some extensions with which people could add functionality.
And that should have been originally available in the desktop.
That is not less the file manager.
It was really stupid desktop that they provided.
And making things optional means the regular user doesn't get to see how great a desktop could be.
So why would you do something like that?
So I had used to read at 7 or some old version on my home computer.
I would not have lived with it.
Later I moved to Mandrake.
Mandrake had a better support for the AGP card that I had done.
It finally booted into GB, read out booted into console only.
I did not initialize there.
But the default experience that I got from Mandrake was.
Whatever they shipped with the CD, that I also.
So there wasn't much I could do.
Initially the sound card was not directed.
Later it did work with the sound card and I could play in pediatric fields.
But there was no I couldn't make it work with the modem.
It wouldn't dial the internet.
There wasn't a lot I could do.
Later I had a chance to look at an Ubuntu system.
This guy was running Windows XP inside the Ubuntu computer.
He was running a VM.
I was really surprised how much Linux had developed that it could do so many things.
So that I went home on install Ubuntu and everything worked.
The graphics card got detected. The sound was detected.
Even the modem I could I had a USB wireless modem.
It worked. It worked better than it was.
So Ubuntu was great in the initial years that I used it.
The software that I used was WVDEL for this USB 3G 4G modems.
After you configure it, you can make it work.
You can use the GUI version of WVDEL.
It was known as IPP.
It would let you use a variety of modems.
The other thing is the tip that I would like to give is WVDEL.
It supports a wide variety of modems.
And it has an option called stupid mode.
When you select it, it just starts working.
So whichever modem you have, it finds the default and it starts working after that.
Later with each version of Ubuntu, they added similar functionality for the LAN manager also.
So you could with the 3G modem work with the network manager, the GUI version.
But that tend to be since wireless connections get more flaky.
They get disconnected and the network manager will not be able to re-initialize the modem and get connected again.
But WVDEL and no IPP does not have this fault.
If your modem fails, it just starts re-inslices everything and get connected automatically.
So all those who have these 3G devices, modems, they should be WVDEL and no IPP.
That's the software that I recommend, that's my tip.
And as I said, the throughput speed will be better than what you get in Windows.
And going back to the desktop user interface, no 3 guys do say that I am not able to say about.
No 3 guys have contact for users and they created a desktop that could not be customized.
And it was not very usable also.
One of the things that they did was to get a decent future from a copy or a decent future from Mac desktop.
Where there is a single menu for all applications.
You open the application and move it to the modem drive corner.
You have to go all the way up to the top left corner to access it.
Mac users for submission think it is great and when they see that in no 3, they say this is very wonderful.
I like it, this is how it should be.
It's a stupid design.
Why should you move your mouse all the way across the screen to the...
to a change of window that's there.
It's in menu.
It's there on that application.
You don't have to move your mouse a lot.
Some of the things that before this change happened even Ubuntu did the same thing.
They moved the minimize, maximize and close buttons from the right hand corner of the title bar to the left hand corner.
They justified that because they wanted Mac users to feel comfortable.
That was not a big problem.
People who had been using GNOME to were initially perturbed by it.
But it was not a big deal.
But making a common menu for all applications and forcing people to move to the top left corner
was really a stupid design decision.
So what if Mac users did it every day?
Why would you want to copy a bad design from somebody else when you have something working great already?
But no three developers went with it anyway.
So I did not like GNOME three at all.
And when the developers showed contempt to users there is no need to support them as well.
You should take a decision and go on another way.
I really had no choice in this matter.
So I stuck with Ubuntu 1010, the Maverick made cat version.
I had a good firewall called Firestarter, which I mentioned earlier.
Even though I was running an old version of the old kernel,
it was supposed to be back to an old dangerous.
To run an old kernel, I had no problem because I had Firestarter.
Firestarter is a firewall that was available until 1104 I think of Ubuntu.
After that they made so many changes in the networking system that Firestarter did not work well.
Firestarter is a firewall, it's front end to the IP tables internal firewall.
So all the changes that you do in Firestarter just modify some settings in IP tables.
IP tables is the default firewall in real access.
Or at least in Ubuntu.
So Ubuntu comes with another firewall called UFW,
uncomplicated firewall or some simple firewalls.
It's not a really good front end for IP tables.
I did not like it because it had no events, it didn't show active connections.
There are not a lot of options that you could do.
It was basically as the name says uncomplicated.
It was meant for very simple uncomplicated resources problem.
But Firestarter was not like that, it had lots of options.
So when you have several applications connecting to the network, it would show those connections.
It would show which port is connecting.
Which application is connecting from which IP to which IP on which port.
It would show all those applications.
And there would be an event style where it would show connections that are blocked.
So this would tell you the IPs from which the connections are being made.
So you could take further action.
Those block connections were very useful.
So you were connecting from another computer and you wanted to find its IP.
The block connection would show the IP.
And we just added that IP to the list of hosts from which connections could be accepted.
There was another tab in Firestarter where you could specify the IPs.
I mean the hosts from which connections could be made.
To which connections could be made.
And you could specify on the last tab you could specify all those ports.
There was an unversed of options called white listing and black listing.
You could either white list certain ports to which connections could be made.
Or you could black list specific ports to which connections cannot be made.
So first we had all these options.
So my install fire started and I stuck with Maverick made cat for several years.
It is running without any problem for several of my laptops and one desktop.
But I would like to move to the latest version.
So if you missed num2 and num3 is something you just had to live with.
Because you wanted to use the latest distribution.
Then you don't have to use num3.
There is a fork of num2 called tomato desktop.
Equal Linux.
Which is the next distribution based on Ubuntu.
As a version called with that comes with the desktop called the tomato desktop.
May desktop is a fork of num2.
Another thing that these guys got to do was stop all development of num2.
So when num3 was developed they said we are not going to develop num2.
And we are going to migrate a lot of applications or those applications.
We would no longer work with num2.
So you just do not have a great deal of choice.
They had to accept them.
They had forced to accept them.
But this made desktop.
I discovered it much later than I would have.
num3 is a drop in replacement for num3.
It has the same, it has its own.
The desktop that ships with Linux comes with a menu system that is different from the num2 menu.
You need not use that.
You just delete it from your desktop and add new panel.
I mean delete the Linux menu from your metadata.
And then add the num2 menu for the num2 menu to the panel.
And it looks exactly like num2.
And for this made desktop is the noteless file manager of the shell manages the desktop.
And num3 guys use the same name noteless.
And made a lot of changes to it.
So that it wouldn't work with num2.
So the made desktop guys, they created a replacement for noteless.
And it called it kaya, kaza or kaya, C-A-G-A.
If you were typing noteless in command line, you would have to type kaya in kaza in the command line.
So my other tip in this podcast is to use the made desktop and Linux Mint if you did not like num3.
And another program that the made desktop had to change was the text editor.
Earlier it was g editor, g editor.
Now it's called plume plume plume plume plume plume plume.
So if earlier you would type something, if you are editing from command line with g editor, you would have to type plume on that name.
And the next step that I would like to give is the team.
So if you have the made desktop, all the desktop teams, gtk teams that came with num2 would work with made desktop also.
So you could go back to all those great desktop teams that you had earlier.
And they would work without any problems in made desktop.
The menu that I had asked you to add earlier, the num2 menu is a very intelligent design menu.
It has three main menus.
One is applications, the other is places, the third one is system.
So all your applications are in applications, all the places in your file system, your network, and other places.
And your recent documents are all in places.
And all options later to managing your system, such as proof frances, administration and shutting down the system are all in system menu.
So if you are on the phone and you want to give directions to somebody, if you are offering troubleshooting advice on the phone, norm2 menu is the best.
That sort of thing is not, you couldn't do that with norm3.
No3 has another feature that they copy from Mac is that they have one search feature.
So you want to type, if you want some application, find some application you type which name in the search box.
And it will show us some options and you click content.
So that means you will have to take your hand off the mouse or to type this.
It also prevents you from exploring the system by just browsing the menu.
Why would you do this in a Mac?
Because Steve Jobs, I have written an article about Steve Jobs, he was not, I will just give you the link, you will just see it.
I don't know why people copy Mac is a great system and all kinds of features need to be copied from there when you already have a great system in norm2.
So this, when you install Linux Mint with Mac desktop, you remove the Mint menu and add the norm2 menu.
The first thing I would do after this is to install the themes.
I mean the main desktop supports all the themes that was available with the, that are supported in norm2.
The theme that I always use is nimbus theme.
Nimbus theme was created by I think Solaris.
I mean Sun, Sun was bought by, yeah, Sun was bought by Oracle.
So this Sun Solaris, Sun had an operating, Unix based operating system called Solaris.
And they had this nimbus theme developed for, or I think they released an Solaris based open source distribution called Open Solaris.
Sun made a nimbus that default came there.
This nimbus theme is a beautiful theme.
It is extremely useful.
I don't know why most users are like this.
Whether it is norm2 or norm3, people don't change the theme at all.
First thing I do after installing the system, whether it is Windows, I change the theme to what I think looks best.
Looks best means you should be able to find stuff easily with just a glance.
If you have to take more than half a second, it's too long.
Seeing Windows XP and Windows 7, they made so many changes to the theme that it became very difficult to find stuff.
So what I do in those operating systems is I would change to the Windows Classic theme.
And it would become infinitely more useful.
In norm2 before I discovered nimbus theme, I would change the theme that was there.
The default theme that Ubuntu or whichever operating system came with was totally depressing.
And that was one of the reasons why people wouldn't like Linux.
So if you are using Linux system, make it look good.
Change the theme.
If somebody else comes and takes a look at your desktop, they should appreciate it.
They should find it less beautiful than their Windows system.
I think that I would install after the theme was the, what is it called?
Compass desktop manager, which would add a lot of desktop effects.
So it would make the Linux desktop infinitely more useful and a pleasure to use than a Windows system.
And with this nimbus theme came with open salaries.
And when this was released or was about to be released, the Steve Jobs guy, he called for a meeting with some company officials.
And he told them that the team with a look and feel sent to copy or entered a lot of stuff from Mac.
And if they went ahead with releasing it, Apple would sue Sun.
And Jonathan's flash, I think, was do you have some top position in Sun?
Yes, he has made this meeting, yes.
Here's a second block post about this.
You can go to his website and he threatened Sun with the lawsuit based on the team and other stuff that he thought was Mac or Apple's property.
Then Sun officials, and this Jonathan's to us, he said a copy, a lot of stuff from Sun.
And he would also like to sue you.
And would you like that?
And Jonathan's watch, it was a short meeting after that.
Even B gets, I think he said B gets also back to the same thing.
Or Steve Jobs says that his motive was to maximize the return from intellectual property.
And she left Sun to do whatever they wanted to with the open Solaris distribution.
So the member's team came with it.
It is also part of the job applications, I think.
So it's a great team.
I tried to install open Solaris on my computer, but I couldn't install no PPP or a WV dial that's not exist in Solaris.
That's what I found in some forums.
So without internet there was not much I could continue with open Solaris.
But I liked the team very much.
So I did a search to see if that team could be installed in my room to open to the stuff.
And some guy had created a no team for open to us.
I mean the nimbus team for no two.
This comes in two depth files.
One contains all the icons, the other contains the team files.
I wish all the next users installed this team.
And because it will make your desktop look very beautiful.
And also make it very usable also.
The minimize maximize buttons are all in different colors and the window colors are all different.
I customize even that.
I use a combination of the nimbus team, depth file, such three different teams.
One is the light nimbus and the regular nimbus and the dark nimbus.
I choose the dark nimbus for the title and then use windows decorations from another team.
And that I think is as better usability.
This no team is not vast made available in the no.org website.
It used to be available but it is not available anymore in those links on the nimbus website.
So I will provide my links from file sharing site.
So I would also like you to ask the net distribution to show it as the default thing for the net distribution.
So maybe we should ask the next many people, the next many people.
So please install this nimbus team, the desktop looks very beautiful after this.
And I think Compus setting is also work after this.
Install Compus, Compus is a desktop special effects.
It is a set of collection of desktop effects.
Then it can do a lot of.
And we just used to introduce it.
Something called arrow class.
You could see a cascade of all your open windows.
And in a college, Compus does that.
And it looks much better than what windows we started out of in the 7.
And it is just not that. It has several other stuff like desktop cubes.
Where you press Alt app and your workspaces start rotating.
They have several kind of effects.
Instead of rotating it would move to the left or it would move to the right.
So it give its work.
When somebody else is a computer, they will be impressed.
And when you are recommending Linux, you should show this.
You can demonstrate this stuff.
It is not a dull, difficult operating system.
It looks great.
It can do a lot of stuff.
And another great thing about Linux is that.
The name to desktop is that workspaces.
You could have an unlimited number of desktop.
And you play some windows in desktop.
You know, other windows in another workspace.
You can move between workspaces.
But all the windows need to be on the panel or in a single workspace.
You can always move between various workspaces.
And you have to configure Compus. Compus is a bit difficult software.
You have to do a lot of search trial and error. You get it right.
I always use to keep combinations.
Control shift hierarchies to move between these workspaces.
And I also use most bindings in some corners so that I can just move my mouse there.
And immediately we show the desktop cube or the windows plus.
It will allow me to shift between various workspaces or the various windows.
For example, if I am pressing all tab, let me choose between windows in the current workspace.
Or if I press this upper plus that is the windows key plus the tab key,
it will show me windows from all workspaces.
And I could choose any window to go to that workspace.
And I could start working from there.
So, Compus is something that you should install after installing the main desktop.
Compus requires a good graphics card.
Most laptops and computers that come today can handle it.
There is no issue.
So, the next tips that I had given today is WVTL.
And the second one is install main desktop,
which is a fork of num2.
You will have to stick with num3 and server.
You can install, after that you can install Compus.
It works with main desktop.
And the other tip was installing the bus team.
And before I go, I would like to give one more tip.
This is regarding the command type num3.
Usually the num3 in source black text on white I think.
That's not very good for your eyes.
You go to preferences and change to green on black.
It would look much better.
And I have published a num2 in my open door article.
It is a line that you have to add to your bash rc file.
The bash rc file is there in the home folder.
It starts with dot.bashrc.
You have to add that line to this file.
You have to open it in the text editor.
And it sets the ps1 variable.
It is by default.
What happens in the terminal?
It shows the user name at computer.
That part takes some space.
And the terminal window is a small window.
It takes about one third of a desktop.
So there is less space to type your commands.
If you are typing a long command, it would wrap.
So I have this bash rc setting.
I set this ps1 variable.
Once you added what happens is it shows your user name at computer name.
And also the current date and time in the first line.
Basically this changes your prompt.
The first line shows user name at computer name, time and time.
And the second line shows you the current path.
The third line contains just the dollar symbol.
So you have an entire line for your command.
Try this.
And you will like it.
And the other thing that this variable does is it does.
It adds some color to your.
It adds several colors.
These three lines that it adds are in different commands.
So you have a monthly colored terminal window.
And even the output of commands they appear in different colors after this.
And it looks very good.
So you should try it.
Don't use the default black and white terminal window.
It looks really ugly.
And one more tip that I would like to give you is to install free fonts that are available.
One font that I used to download is the CMU fonts.
It was created by Donald Note, I think.
And it is currently made by some Russian guy.
CMU is a correction of some 30 plus fonts.
They look really good on a Linux desktop, it has.
There is one font in it, which does not look very well on some applications such as browsers and text data.
When I'm in text data, I'm in office, library office or open office.
But in a terminal window it looks really great.
It has several types of fonts.
You should install it.
Apart from that, I used to download all the fonts from the Google fonts collection.
I have published a command-line script that could be written, which will download all the fonts from the Google website.
Note that it is a collection of several hundred fonts.
People will say that you will not install too many fonts in your fonts directory because it will slow down.
In your botar, it's not on your system.
I have installed all the fonts from the Google fonts collection.
What Google has done is they found the rest of them for all the free fonts that people have published.
And now they have let it pop up.
And people call it Google fonts.
They are not Google fonts, they are free fonts.
Google is just providing them to people for free.
So you can just install them.
But it's not on most users' country.
It doesn't slow down.
It's using some very old system that don't use it.
So I think this is enough for today.
All the scripts, the bar charts, the variable and the investing files will be available along with this podcast.
I think I can sign off now.
Thank you, Bart.
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