Making Linux Approachable
Here’s a nice and quick way to see what software you have installed – assuming you’re using a distro with Aptitude.
Crack open your terminal. You can use CTRL + ALT + T. Enter this:
That doesn’t do you a whole lot of good, but it works. So, let’s make it more usable.
Now, open your Documents directory and you’ll have a handy list of your installed apps in a file with an intuitive name.
I’d been trying to figure out how to minimize Pidgin to the tray and finally figured it out. It turns out, it’s easier than I’d expected.
Lately, I’ve been lurking a few of the Lubuntu IRC channels. This means leaving a chat client open and I figured I might as well use the default and Pidgin used to be pretty good back when I still regularly used IRC. Seriously, IRC has been around for a long, long time – eons in Internet time.
It also turns out I should have used a search engine. That would have saved so much time.
Open Pidgin, click on Tools, click on Preferences, and set it to always show the system tray icon. That’s all it takes.
And that’s all it takes.
My email button on my keyboard didn’t work. It has never worked. I decided to make the keyboard email button open Thunderbird.
This is done in Lubuntu 18.04, but I presume it’s going to work in any Linux that uses OpenBox. It should also work with any ‘standard’ keyboard that has a dedicated email button. First, you should set Thunderbird (or whatever client) as the default email handler. I’m sure this will work with any Linux email client.
Try as I might, the “Setup Hot Keys” GUI method would not take. You’re really not supposed to edit the XML file that stores OpenBox configs. In fact, there’s a rather explicit warning stating that you should not do this.
Depending on your distro, your OpenBox config may be called something else. In Lubuntu 18.04 it is in ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml – so use that as a guide to find your own.
Then, make a backup of the file and open it up with a plain text editor and add this:
<!-- Keybinding for email button-->
<keybind key="XF86Mail">
<action name="Execute">
<command>lxsession-default email</command>
</action>
</keybind>
Save the file, overwriting the original, logout and login again, now test it. I doubt it really matters where you put it in the file, but I tucked it in with the other keybindings. That will open your default email client. In my case, that is Thunderbird. Whatever you’ve registered as the default email client is what will open.
Want to know how long your version of Ubuntu is supported? You can find the support status by cracking open your terminal and entering:
ubuntu-support-status
If you’re using 20.04 or newer, then the command is slightly different:
ubuntu-security-status
I’m told that Windows can reboot to UEFI mode. I have no idea if it can or not. If you want to reboot to UEFI mode on Linux, it’s really simple.
Open up your terminal, usually with CTRL + ALT + T, and enter this:
systemctl --firmware-setup reboot
You will, of course, need sudo for that.
