Sigil is an open source EPUB editor available for Linux, Windows and macOS. With Sigil, you can create a new ebook in EPUB file format or edit an existing EPUB ebook (file ending in .epub extension).

In case you are wondering, EPUB is a standard ebook file format endorsed by several digital publishing groups. It is well-supported on a range of devices and ebook readers except Amazon Kindle.

Sigil lets you create or edit EPUB files

Sigil is an open source software that allows you to edit EPUB files. You may, of course, create a new EPUB file from scratch.

Many people swear by Calibre for creating ebooks or editing them. It is indeed a complete tool with lots of features and supports more than just EPUB file format. However, Calibre could be heavy on resources at times.

Sigil is focused on just the EPUB books with the following features:

• Support for EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 (with some limitations)
• Provides a preview along with the code view
• Editing EPUB syntax
• Table of content generator with mult-level heading
• Edit metadat
• Spell checking
• REGEX support for find and replace feature
• Supports import of EPUB and HTML files, images, and style sheets
• Additional plugins
• Multiple language support for the interface
• Supports Linux, Windows and macOS

Sigil is not WYSIWYG type of editor where you can type the chapters of new book. It is focused on code as EPUB depends on XML. Consider it a code editor like VS Code for EPUB files. For this reason, you should use some other open source tool for writing, export your files in .epub format (if possible) and then edit it in Sigil.

Sigil does have a Wiki to provide you some documentation on installing and using Sigil.

Installing Sigil on Linux

Sigil is a cross-platform application with support for Windows and macOS along with Linux. It is a popular software with more than a decade of existence. This is why you should find it in the repositories of your Linux distributions. Just look for it in the software center application of your distribution.

Sigil in Ubuntu Software Center

You may need to enable the universe repository beforehand. You may also use the apt command in Ubuntu-based distributions:

sudo apt install sigil

Sigil has a lot of dependencies on Python libraries and modules and hence it downloads and installs a good number of packages.

I am not going to list commands for Fedora, SUSE, Arch and other distributions. You probably already know how to use your distribution’s package manager, right?

The version provided by your distribution may not always be the latest. If you want the latest version of Sigil, you can check out its GitHub repositories.

Sigil on GitHub Not for everyone, certianly not for reading ePUB books

I wouldn’t recommend using Sigil for reading ebooks. There are other dedicated applications on Linux to read .epub files.

If you are a writer who has to deal with EPUB books or if you are digitizing old books and converting them in various formats, Sigil could be worth a try.

I haven’t used Sigil extensively so I cannot provide a review of it. I let it up to you to explore it and share your experienced with the rest of us here.

Whenever a major release for GNOME arrives, it is always tempting to try it out as soon as possible. But, to get your hands on it first to test it, you had to mostly rely on Fedora Rawhide (development branch).

However, a development branch isn’t always hassle-free. So, it wasn’t the most convenient solution to try the latest GNOME. Now, by testing, I don’t mean just for users but also being able to test design changes for the developers as well.

So, GNOME OS recently came to the rescue to ease the process of testing. But, what exactly is it and how to get it installed? Let us take a look.

What is GNOME OS?

GNOME OS is not a separate full-fledged Linux distribution. In fact, it isn’t based on anything at all. It’s an incomplete reference system just to make GNOME desktop work. It is just a bootable VM (Virtual Machine) image tailored for debugging and testing features before it hits any distribution’s repository.

One of the GNOME blogs mention it as:

GNOME OS aims to better facilitate development of GNOME by providing a working system for development, design, and user testing purposes.

If you’re curious, you may want to check out a blog post on Planet GNOME to know more about GNOME OS.

If it’s not a full-fledged Linux distribution then what is it used for?

It is interesting to note that a new GNOME OS image can be created for every new commit made, so it should make the testing process efficient and help you test/find issues early in the development cycle.

Not to forget, designers no longer have to build the software themselves to test the GNOME Shell or any other core modules. It saves them time and the whole GNOME development cycle.

Of course, not just limited to developers and technical testers, it also lets journalists to get their hands on the latest and greatest to cover a story about GNOME’s next release or how it’s being shaped.

The media and the GNOME team also gets a good opportunity to prepare visual materials to promote the release in both video/picture format thanks to GNOME OS.

How to install GNOME OS?

To easily install GNOME OS, you will need to install GNOME Boxes application first.

Installing GNOME Boxes

‘Boxes‘ is a simple virtualization software that does not offer any advanced options but lets you easily install an operating system image to test quickly. It is targeted specially for desktop end-users, so it is easy to use as well.

To install it on any Linux distribution, you can utilize the Flatpak package from Flathub. In case you don’t know about a Flatpak, you might want to read our guide on installing and using Flatpak in Linux.

You may also directly install it from the terminal on any Ubuntu-based distro by typing this:

sudo apt install gnome-boxes

Once you get Boxes installed, it is fairly easy to install GNOME OS from here.

Install GNOME OS

After you have Boxes installed, you need to launch the program. Next, click on the “+” sign that you see in the upper-left corner of the window and then click on “Operating System Download” as shown in the image below.

This option lets you directly download the image file and then you can proceed to install it.

All you need to do is search for “GNOME” and you should find the Nightly build available. This will ensure that you are trying the latest and greatest GNOME version in development.

Alternatively, you can head to the GNOME OS Nightly website and download the system image and choose the “Operating System Image File” in the Boxes app to select the ISO as shown in the screenshot above to proceed installing it.

Considering you didn’t download the image separately. When you click on it, the download should start and a progress bar will appear:

Once it is done, it will ask you to customize the configuration if needed and let you create the VM as shown below:

You can customize the resource allocation depending on your available system resources, but you should be good to go with the default settings.

Click on “Create” and it will directly start GNOME OS installation:

Select the existing version and proceed. Next, you will have to select the disk (keep it as is) and then agree to erasing all your files and apps (it won’t delete anything from your local computer).

Now, it will simply reformat and install it. And, you’re done. It will prompt you to restart it and when you do, you will find GNOME OS installed.

It will simply boot up as any Linux distro would and will ask you to set up a few things, including the username and a password. And, you’re good to explore!

If you are curious what it looks like, it’s basically the latest GNOME desktop environment. I used GNOME OS to make an overview video of GNOME 40 before the official release.

Closing Thoughts

GNOME OS is definitely something useful for developers, designers, and the media. It makes it easy to test the latest development version of GNOME without investing a lot of time.

I could test GNOME 40 quickly just because of this. Of course, you will have to keep in mind that this isn’t a fully functional OS that you should install on a physical device. There are plans to make one available to run on a physical machine, but as it stands now, it is only tailored for virtual machines, especially using GNOME Boxes.

GNOME Boxes does not offer any advanced options, so it becomes quite easy to set it up and use it. You might want to tweak the resources if the experience is too slow, but it was a good experience overall in my case.

Have you tried GNOME OS yet? Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

Steam is the best thing that could happen to Linux gamers. Thanks to Steam, you can play hundreds and thousands of games on Linux.

If you are not already aware of it, Steam is the most popular PC gaming platform. In 2013, it became available for Linux. Steam’s latest Proton project allows you to play games created for Windows platform on Linux. This enhanced Linux gaming library many folds.

Steam provides a desktop client and you can use it to download or purchase games from the Steam store, install the game and play it.

We have discussed installing Steam on Ubuntu in the past. In this beginner’s tutorial, I am going to show you the steps for installing Steam on Fedora Linux.

Installing Steam on Fedora

To get Steam on Fedora, you’ll have to use RMPFusion repository. RPMFusion is a series of third-party repos that contain software that Fedora chooses not to ship with their operating system. They offer both free (open source) and non-free (closed source) repos. Since Steam is in the non-free repo, you will only install that one.

I shall go over both the terminal and graphical installation methods.

Method 1: Install Steam via terminal

This is the easiest method because it requires the fewest steps. Just enter the following command to enable the free repo:

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

You will be asked to enter your password. You will then be asked to verify that you want to install these repos. Once you approve it, the installation of the repo will be completed.

To install Steam, simply enter the following command:

sudo dnf install steam Install Steam via command line

Enter your password and press “Y” to accept. Once installed, open Steam and play some games.

Method 2: Install Steam via GUI

You can enable the third-party repository on Fedora from the Software Center. Open the Software Center application and click on the hamburger menu:

In the Software Repositories window, you will see a section at the top that says “Third Party Repositories”. Click the Install button. Enter your password when you are prompted and you are done.

Once you have installed RPM Fusion repository for Steam, update your system’s software cache (if needed) and search for Steam in the software center.

Steam in GNOME Software Center

Once that installation is complete, open up the GNOME Software Center and search for Steam. Once you locate the Steam page, click install. Enter your password when asked and you’re done.

After installing Steam, start the application, enter your Steam account details or register for it and enjoy your games.

Using Steam as Flatpak

Steam is also available as a Flatpak. Flatpak is installed by default on Fedora. Before we can install Steam using that method, we have to install the Flathub repo.

Install Flathub

First, open the Flatpak site in your browser. Now, click the blue button marked “Flathub repository file”. The browser will ask you if you want to open the file in GNOME Software Center. Click okay. Once GNOME Software Center open, click the install button. You will be prompted to enter your password.

If you get an error when you try to install the Flathub repo, run this command in the terminal:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

With the Flathub repo installed, all you need to do is search for Steam in the GNOME Software Center. Once you find it, install it, and you are ready to go.

Fedora Repo Select

The Flathub version of Steam has several add-ons you can install, as well. These include a DOS compatibility tool and a couple of tools for Vulkan and Proton.

I think this should help you with Steam on Fedora. Enjoy your games :)

When installing Ubuntu, you’re asked to create a user, and that user gets sudo access by default. That’s good, because you need root privileges to do things like perform updates and install packages(probably wouldn’t be too nice if any user could do that).

But what about new users you created after installing Ubuntu? What if the new user also needs sudo permissions?

In this tutorial, I’ll go over the steps you need for adding a user to sudoers in Ubuntu, from both the command line and a GUI.

The GUI method will work for the desktop version of Ubuntu, while the command line method will work for both the desktop and server versions.

Note: this tutorial is not about creating users in Ubuntu. I’m assuming any users you’re doing this for have already been created. Lastly, to give sudo access to another user, you must have sudo access yourself.

Giving sudo permissions from the command line

Giving a user sudo permission from the command line is just a single command if you know the username of the user:

sudo usermod -aG sudo username

The above command adds the user to the sudo group, which is used to track the users who are allowed to have sudo permissions. Just adding the user to the sudo group takes care of everything. Pretty easy, right?

Let’s go over what that command just did:

• usermod: The usermod command is used for modifying an existing user in Linux.
• -aG: The a option means append(or add), G is for groups. So, this adds the specified group to the specified user, without touching the user’s existing groups. If you exclude the a option, the user would be removed from all its groups except sudo (you don’t want that).
• sudo: the second sudo in the command represents the sudo group.
• username: This is the name of the user you want to add to the sudo group.

If you don’t know the exact username, you can list the users on your system using the compgen -u command. You’ll find the username near the end of the command’s output.

How to verify if the user has sudo access

There are various ways you can check if a user has sudo access. You can check if the user is part of sudo group with the following:

groups username

Alternatively, you can log in as the other user you just gave sudo access to and run a command with sudo. For example:

sudo echo "I am root!"

If everything’s set up correctly, it’ll output I am root!. If you get an error about the user not being in the sudoers file, try going through the instructions again, or you can use the graphical method below.

Giving sudo access to a user on Ubuntu Desktop

Giving a user sudo permissions on Ubuntu Desktop is a simple two-step process:

Step 1: Open up the Settings application, go to ‘Users’ and click ‘Unlock’. Enter your password when prompted to do so.

Step 2: Toggle the Administrator switch to on.

And that’s it! If you want to see if it worked, log in as the user you gave administrator permissions to and try running the same command as before. Look for the same output as mentioned before.

sudo echo "I am root!" Wrapping up

With that, you’ve given a user sudo permissions! The commands should be mostly, if not completely functional on other distros such as Debian, Fedora, or Arch Linux.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

There are ways to check CPU information on Linux. Probably the most common is the lscpu command that gives you plenty of information about all the CPU cores on your system.

lscpu command output

You may find CPU information there without installing any additional packages. That works of course. However, I recently stumbled upon a new tool that displays the CPU details in Linux in a beautiful manner.

The ASCII art of the processor manufacturer makes it look cool.

This looks beautiful, isn’t it? This is similar to Neoftech or Screenfetch tools that show the system information in beautiful ASCII art in Linux. Similar to those tools, you can use CPUFetch if you are showcasing your desktop screenshot.

The tool outputs the ASCII art of the processor manufacturer, its name, microarchitecture, frequency, cores, threads, peak performance, cache sizes, Advanced Vector Extensions, and more.

You can use custom colors apart from a few themes it provides. This gives you additional degree of freedom when you are ricing your desktop and want to color match all the elements on your Linux setup.

Installing CPUFetch on Linux

Unfortunately, CPUFetch is rather new, and it is not included in your distribution’s repository. It doesn’t even provide ready to use DEB/RPM binaries, PPAs, Snap or Flatpak packages.

Arch Linux users can find it in AUR but for others, the only way forward here is to build from source code.

Don’t worry. Installation as well as removal is not that complicated. Let me show you the steps.

I am using Ubuntu and you would need to install Git on Ubuntu first. Some other distributions come preinstalled with it, if not use your distribution’s package manager to install it.

Now, clone the Git repository wherever you want. Home directory is fine as well.

git clone https://github.com/Dr-Noob/cpufetch

Switch to the directory you just cloned:

cd cpufetch

You’ll see a make file here. Use it to compile the code.

make CPUFetch Installation

Now you’ll see a new executable file named cpufetch. You run this executable to display the CPU information in the terminal.

./cpufetch

This is what it showed for my system. AMD logo looks a lot cooler in ASCII, don’t you think?

How do you remove Cpufetch? It’s pretty simple. When you compiled the code, it produced just one file and that too in the same directory as the rest of the code.

So, to remove CPUFetch from your system, simply remove its entire folder. You know how to remove a directory in Linux terminal, don’t you? Come out of the cpufetch directory and use the rm command:

rm -rf cpufetch

That was simple, thankfully because removing software installed from source code could be really tricky at times.

Back to cpufetch. I think it’s a utility for those who like to show off their desktop screenshots in various Linux group. Since we have Neofetch for the distribution and CPUFetch for CPU, I wonder if we could have a GPU fetch with ASCII art of Nvidia as well :)

Many times, when I use Markdown, I work on one file and when I’m done with it, I convert it to HTML or some other format. Occasionally, I have to create a few files. When I do work with more than one Markdown file, I usually wait until I have finished them before I convert them.

I use pandoc to convert files, and it’s possible convert all the Markdown files in one shot.

Markdown can convert its files to .html, but if there’s a chance that I will have to convert to other formats like epub, pandoc is the tool to use. I prefer to use the command line, so I will cover that first, but you can also do this in VSCodium without the command line. I’ll cover that too.

Converting multiple Markdown files to another format with Pandoc [command line method]

To get started quickly, Ubuntu, and other Debian distros can type the following commands in the terminal:

sudo apt-get install pandoc

In this example, I have four Markdown files in a directory called md_test.

bdyer@bill-pc:~/Documents/md_test$ ls -l *.md -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 3374 Apr 7 2020 file01.md -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 782 Apr 2 05:23 file02.md -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 9257 Apr 2 05:21 file03.md -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 9442 Apr 2 05:21 file04.md bdyer@bill-pc:~/Documents/md_test$

There are no HTML files yet. Now I’ll use Pandoc to do its magic on the collection of files. To do this, I run a one-line command that:

• calls pandoc
• reads the .md files and exports them as .html

This is the command:

for i in *.md ; do echo "$i" && pandoc -s $i -o $i.html ; done

If you are not aware already, ; is used for running multiple commands at once in Linux.

Here’s what the display looks like once I have executed the command:

bdyer@bill-pc:~/Documents/md_test$ for i in *.md ; do echo "$i" && pandoc -s $i -o $i.html ; done file01.md file02.md file03.md file04.md bdyer@bill-pc:~/Documents/md_test$

Let me use the ls command once more to see if HTML files were created:

bdyer@bill-pc:~/Documents/md_test$ ls -l *.html -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 4291 Apr 2 06:08 file01.md.html -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 1781 Apr 2 06:08 file02.md.html -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 10272 Apr 2 06:08 file03.md.html -rw-r--r-- 1 bdyer bdyer 10502 Apr 2 06:08 file04.md.html bdyer@bill-pc:~/Documents/md_test$

The conversion was a success, and you have four HTML files ready to go on the Web server.

Pandoc is quite versatile and you can convert the markdown files to some other supported format by specifying the extension of the output files. You can understand why it is considered among the best open source tools for writers.

.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper{border-radius:0px !important;padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper > .ugb-container__side{padding-top:35px !important;padding-bottom:35px !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper:before{background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h1,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h2,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h3,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h4,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h5,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h6{color:#222222}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > p,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ol li,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ul li{color:#222222}

Recommended Read:

.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__featured-image{border-radius:0px !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a{color:#000000 !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a:hover{color:#00b6ba !important}11 Best Markdown Editors for Linux

A list of best Markdown Editors for Linux distributions that not only look good but are also feature rich.

Converting Markdown files to HTML using VSCodium [GUI method]

Like I’ve said earlier, I normally use the command line, but I don’t always use it for batch conversions, and you don’t have to either. VSCode or VSCodium can do the job. You just need to add one extension, called: Markdown-All-in-One which will allow you to convert more than one Markdown file in one run.

There are two ways to install the extension:

• VSCodium’s terminal
• VSCodium’s plug-in manager

To install the extension through VSCodium’s terminal:

1. Click on Terminal on the menu bar. The terminal panel will open
2. Type, or copy-and-paste, the following command in the terminal:

codium --install-extension yzhang.markdown-all-in-one

Note: If you’re using VSCode instead of VSCodium, replace the word, codium, in the above command, with code

The second way to install is through VSCodium’s plug-in, or extension, manager:

1. Click on the blocks on the left side of the VSCodium window. A list of extensions will appear. At the top of the list, there will be a search bar.
2. In the search bar, type: Markdown All in One. The extension will be listed at the top of the list. Click on the Install button to install it. If it is already installed, a gear icon will appear in place of the install button.

Once the extension is installed, you can open the folder that contains the Markdown files you want to convert.

Click on the paper icon located on the left side of the VSCodium window. You’ll be given the opportunity to choose your folder. Once a folder is open, you’ll need to open at least one file. You can open as many files as you want, but one is the minimum.

Once a file is open, bring up the Command Palette by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+P. Then, start typing Markdownin the search bar that will appear. As you do this, a list of Markdown related commands will appear. One of these will be Markdown All in One: Print documents to HTML command. Click on that one.

You’ll be asked to choose a folder containing the files. This is so an output directory (called out) can be made and this is where the HTML files will go. The image below shows that the HTML was made after exporting the Markdown documents. From here, you can open, view, and edit the HTML as you wish.

By waiting to convert your Markdown files, you can concentrate more on writing. Conversion to HTML can come when you’re ready – and you have two ways to get that done.

When Red Hat decided to kill the stable CentOS in favor of rolling release CentOS Stream, it created a sort of revolt.

The adamant sysadmins who preferred a decade old distribution instead of the goodness of the latest software and updates didn’t like this democratic decision of Red Hat. They foolishly looked for CentOS alternatives despite Red Hat repeatedly telling them that CentOS Stream is for their own good.

Red Hat started offering free RHEL licenses to small scale CentOS users with no intention of luring medium to big scale CentOS users into purchasing RHEL licenses.

But no one, not even the executives at Red Hat and Community members at CentOS had expected CentOS Stream to grow so fast in popularity.

Instead of moving to RHEL or any other CentOS alternatives like AlmaLinux or Rocky Linux, people actually opted to migrate their CentOS 8 servers to CentOS Stream. They even liked all the benefits of CentOS Stream that Red Hat team and CentOS board members pitched to CentOS users.

This rise in CentOS Stream gave birth to the idea of RHEL Stream. If CentOS Stream is good for CentOS users, then a rolling release RHEL Stream would be equally good for RHEL users. This simple fact resonated with the team and they decided to announce RHEL Stream.

Doe Joan, executive assistant project developer at Red Hat, cited another reason for the creation of RHEL Stream:

CentOS Stream tracks ahead of RHEL. As a competitive company, we need to keep Red Hat ahead of everyone and everything including CentOS Stream. This is why we decided to launch RHEL Stream that tracks ahead of CentOS Stream or any other development.

Doe Joan, Red Hat

You can get more detail about RHEL Stream in the official announcement post by clicking the link below.

RHEL Stream Official Announcement

If you dual boot Windows and Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution, you might have noticed a time difference between the two operating systems.

When you use Linux, it shows the correct time. But when you boot into Windows, it shows the wrong time. Sometimes, it is the opposite and Linux shows the wrong time and Windows has the correct time.

That’s strange specially because you are connected to the internet and your date and time is set to be used automatically.

Don’t worry! You are not the only one to face this issue. You can fix it by using the following command in the Linux terminal:

timedatectl set-local-rtc 1

Again, don’t worry. I’ll explain in detail how the above command fixes the wrong time issue in Windows after dual boot. But before that, let me tell you why you encounter a time difference in a dual boot setup.

Why Windows and Linux show different time in dual boot?

A computer has two main clocks: a system clock and a hardware clock.

A hardware clock which is also called RTC (real time clock) or CMOS/BIOS clock. This clock is outside the operating system, on your computer’s motherboard. It keeps on running even after your system is powered off.

The system clock is what you see inside your operating system.

When your computer is powered on, the hardware clock is read and used to set the system clock. Afterwards, the system clock is used for tracking time. If your operating system makes any changes to system clock, like changing time zone etc, it tries to sync this information to the hardware clock.

By default, Linux assumes that the time stored in the hardware clock is in UTC, not the local time. On the other hand, Windows thinks that the time stored on the hardware clock is local time. That’s where the trouble starts.

Let me explain with examples.

You see I am in Kolkata time zone which is UTC+5:30. After installing, when I set the timezone in Ubuntu to the Kolkata time zone, Ubuntu syncs this time information to the hardware clock but with an offset of 5:30 because hardware clock (RTC) has to be in UTC for Linux.

Let’ say the current time in Kolkata timezone is 15:00 which means that the UTC time is 09:30.

Now when I turn off the system and boot into Windows, the hardware clock has the UTC time (09:30 in this example). But Windows thinks the hardware clock has stored the local time. And thus it changes the system clock (which should have shown 15:00) to use the UTC time (09:30) as the local time. And hence, Windows shows 09:30 as the time which is 5:30 hours behind the actual time (15:00 in this example).

Again, if I set the correct time in Windows by toggling the automatic time zone and time buttons, you know what is going to happen? Now it will show the correct time on the system (15:00) and sync this information (notice the “Synchronize your clock” option in the image) to the hardware clock.

If you boot into Linux, it reads the time from the hardware clock which is in local time (15:00) but since Linux believes it to be the UTC time, it adds an offset of 5:30 to the system clock. Now Linux shows a time of 20:30 which is 5:30 hours ahead of the actual time.

Now that you understand the root cause of the time difference issues in dual boot, it’s time to see how to fix the issue.

Fixing Windows Showing Wrong Time in a Dual Boot Setup With Linux

There are two ways you can go about handling this issue:

• Make Windows use UTC time for the hardware clock
• Make Linux use local time for the hardware clock

It is easier to make the changes in Linux and hence I’ll recommend going with the second method.

Ubuntu and most other Linux distributions use systemd these days and hence you can use timedatectl command to change the settings.

What you are doing is to tell your Linux system to use the local time for the hardware clock (RTC). You do that with the set-local-rtc (set local time for RTC) option:

timedatectl set-local-rtc 1

As you can notice in the image below, the RTC now uses the local time.

Now if you boot into Windows, it takes the hardware clock to be as local time which is actually correct this time. When you boot into Linux, your Linux system knows that the hardware clock is using local time, not UTC. And hence, it doesn’t try to add the off-set this time.

This fixes the time difference issue between Linux and Windows in dual boot.

You see a warning about not using local time for RTC. For desktop setups, it should not cause any issues. At least, I cannot think of one.

I hope I made things clear for you. If you still have questions, please leave a comment below.

You’ve probably tried to watch a DVD after installing Fedora, only to run into an error.

You are not alone. I faced this issue recently and I am pretty sure plenty of Fedora users like you and me who still use DVDs would like to overcome this petty issue.

libdvdcss error Fixing DVD issue on Fedora

Why do you see this error? Because the manufacturers of DVDs encrypt their disks using a Digital Rights Management system named Content Scramble System.

You can get around it by installing the required software library. Videolan, creators of the VLC player, introduced a project named libdvdcss to get around this issue. According to its page, libdvdcss is a “simple library designed for accessing DVDs like a block device without having to bother about the decryption”.

As an individual, you may use this software library and no company or FBI should be coming after you as an individual but Fedora or other distribution would avoid including it by default to avoid possible legal troubles at an organization level.

Due to this legal reason, this library is not available in the Fedora repos. However, it is available on RPMFusion. You can only install it via the command line, but the instructions are simple.

Step 1

First, you need to install RPMFusion’s free tainted repo. The tainted repos contain “FLOSS packages where some usages might be restricted in some countries”.

To install the required repo, enter the following command in the terminal:

sudo dnf install rpmfusion-free-release-tainted

Enter your password and press Y when prompted to approve the installation.

Step 2

Next, install the required package with the following command:

sudo dnf install libdvdcss

Again, enter your password and press Y when prompted to approve the installation.

Once the installation is complete, you should be able to play your DVD. It’s that easy, at least it was for me. I hope this helps you too.

Some may choose to believe that RSS readers are dead, but they’re here to stay. Especially when you don’t want the Big tech algorithm to decide what you should read. With a feed reader, you can choose your own reading sources.

I’ve recently come across a fantastic RSS reader NewsFlash. It also supports adding feeds through web-based feed readers like Feedly and NewsBlur. That’s a big relief because if you are already such a service, you don’t have to import your feeds manually.

NewsFlash happens to be the spiritual successor to FeedReader with the original developer involved as well.

In case you’re wondering, we’ve already covered a list of Feed Reader apps for Linux if you’re looking for more options.

NewsFlash: A Feed Reader To Complement Web-based RSS Reader Account

It is important to note that NewsFlash isn’t just tailored for web-based RSS feed accounts, you can choose to use local RSS feeds as well without needing to sync them on multiple devices.

However, it is specifically helpful if you’re using any of the supported web-based feed readers.

Here, I’ll be highlighting some of the features that it offers.

Features of NewsFlash

• Desktop Notifications support
• Fast search and filtering
• Supports tagging
• Useful keyboard shortcuts that can be later customized
• Local feeds
• Import/Export OPML files
• Easily discover various RSS Feeds using Feedly’s library without needing to sign up for the service
• Custom Font Support
• Multiple themes supported (including a dark theme)
• Ability to enable/disable the Thumbnails
• Tweak the time for regular sync intervals
• Support for web-based Feed accounts like Feedly, Fever, NewsBlur, feedbin, Miniflux

In addition to the features mentioned, it also opens the reader view when you re-size the window, so that’s a subtle addition.

newsflash screenshot 1

If you want to reset the account, you can easily do that as well – which will delete all your local data as well. And, yes, you can manually clear the cache and set an expiry for user data to exist locally for all the feeds you follow.

.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper{border-radius:0px !important;padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper > .ugb-container__side{padding-top:35px !important;padding-bottom:35px !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper:before{background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h1,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h2,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h3,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h4,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h5,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h6{color:#222222}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > p,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ol li,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ul li{color:#222222}

Recommended Read:

.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__featured-image{border-radius:0px !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a{color:#000000 !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a:hover{color:#00b6ba !important}6 Best Feed Reader Apps for Linux

Extensively use RSS feeds to stay updated with your favorite websites? Take a look at the best feed reader applications for Linux.

Installing NewsFlash in Linux

You do not get any official packages available for various Linux distributions but limited to a Flatpak.

For Arch users, you can find it available in AUR.

Fortunately, the Flatpak package makes it easy for you to install it on any Linux distro you use. You can refer to our Flatpak guide for help.

In either case, you can refer to its GitLab page and compile it yourself.

Closing Thoughts

I’m currently using it by moving away from web-based services as a local solution on my desktop. You can simply export the OPML file to get the same feeds on any of your mobile feed applications, that’s what I’ve done.

The user interface is easy to use and provides a modern UX, if not the best. You can find all the essential features available while being a simple-looking RSS reader as well.

What do you think about NewsFlash? Do you prefer using something else? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Fedora 34 will be releasing next month. Fedora 34 beta is already released and it features the awesome new GNOME 40.

If you are running Fedora 33 right now and want to enjoy GNOME 40 and all the other features that come with Fedora 34, you can easily do that.

In this tutorial, I’ll show the steps for upgrading to Fedora 34 beta using terminal as well as the GUI method.

Keep in mind that you cannot downgrade to Fedora 33 the same way you upgraded to Fedora 34. You’ll have to reinstall it.

Upgrade to Fedora beta via command line

Unlike upgrading to beta version in Ubuntu, Fedora doesn’t need additional steps to exclusively mention that you are looking for a pre-release version upgrade. The steps are the same as upgrading to any Fedora stable version. Fedora presumes that you know what you are asking for.

With that information, it’s time to see the steps of the upgrade procedure.

The first step is to upgrade all the installed packages to the latest available version. Normally, it should not take long if you update your Fedora system regularly.

sudo dnf upgrade --refresh

Then, install the system upgrade plugin for DNF. This will be quick.

sudo dnf install dnf-plugin-system-upgrade

At this step, you should provide the number of version you are upgrading. In this case, you are looking to upgrade to Fedora 34, so instruct your system to download the release of Fedora 34 with releasever=34.

The longest time will be taken by this step. Grab a cup of coffee or even go to lunch if you don’t have superfast internet.

sudo dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=34

When this process completes, you need to reboot your system with this command to start the actual upgrade process:

sudo dnf system-upgrade reboot

You’ll see a dark screen with progress of your system upgrade:

Once the process completes, you’ll be logged in to Fedora 34 beta.

Upgrading to Fedora 34 beta graphically with GNOME Software Center (works only for GNOME desktop)

If you are using the GNOME desktop environment that comes with Fedora by default, you have the option to upgrade to the beta version graphically using the GNOME Software application.

Well … almost graphically. Because you’ll need to run this command in the terminal anyway:

gsettings set org.gnome.software show-upgrade-prerelease true

With that done, open the GNOME Software Center and go to the Updates tab. Make sure there are no pending updates to install. If there are any, install them.

If you don’t see the availability of the next release in the software center, you can either restart your system or kill any instance of GNOME Software with this command:

pkill gnome-software

Now start GNOME Software again and you should see the availability of the beta version of Fedora 34. Hit the download button and when that finishes, you’ll be prompted to install and restart your system.

What happens when the stable version of Fedora 34 is released?

You don’t have to do anything special to get the stable version if you are already using the beta version. Just keep your system updated and you’ll have the stable version automatically. That’s convenient, right?

I hope you find the steps to upgrade to Fedora 34 beta useful. If you have any questions, please do ask in the comment section.

Plausible is a simple, privacy-friendly analytics tool. It helps you analyze the number of unique visitors, pageviews, bounce rate and visit duration.

If you have a website you would probably understand those terms. As a website owner, it helps you know if your site is getting more visitors over the time, from where the traffic is coming and if you have some knowledge on these things, you can work on improving your website for more visits.

When it comes to website analytics, the one service that rules this domain is the Google’s free tool Google Analytics. Just like Google is the de-facto search engine, Google Analytics is the de-facto analytics tool. But you don’t have to live with it specially if you cannot trust Big tech with your and your site visitor’s data.

Plausible gives you the freedom from Google Analytics and I am going to discuss this open source project in this article.

Please bear in mind that some technical terms in the article could be unknown to you if you have never managed a website or bothered about analytics.

Plausible for privacy friendly website analytics

The script used by Plausible for analytics is extremely lightweight with less than 1 KB in size.

The focus is on preserving the privacy so you get valuable and actionable stats without compromising on the privacy of your visitors. Plausible is one of the rare few analytics tool that doesn’t require cookie banner or GDP consent because it is already GDPR-compliant on privacy front. That’s super cool.

In terms of features, it doesn’t have the same level of granularity and details of Google Analytics. Plausible banks on simplicity. It shows a graph of your traffic stats for past 30 days. You may also switch to real time view.

You can also see where your traffic is coming from and which pages on your website gets the most visits. The sources can also show UTM campaigns.

You also have the option to enable GeoIP to get some insights about the geographical location of your website visitors. You can also check how many visitors use desktop or mobile device to visit your website. There is also an option for operating system and as you can see, Linux Handbook gets 48% of its visitors from Windows devices. Pretty strange, right?

Clearly, the data provided is nowhere close to what Google Analytics can do, but that’s intentional. Plausible intends to provide you simple matrix.

Using Plausible: Opt for paid managed hosting or self-host it on your server

There are two ways you can start using Plausible. Sign up for their official managed hosting. You’ll have to pay for the service and this eventually helps the development of the Plausible project. They do have 30-days trial period and it doesn’t even require any payment information from your side.

The pricing starts at $6 per month for 10k monthly pageviews. Pricing increases with the number of pageviews. You can calculate the pricing on Plausible website.

Plausible Pricing

You can try it for 30 days and see if you would like to pay to Plausible developers for the service and own your data.

If you think the pricing is not affordable, you can take the advantage of the fact that Plausible is open source and deploy it yourself. If you are interested, read our in-depth guide on self-hosting a Plausible instance with Docker.

At It’s FOSS, we self-host Plausible. Our Plausible instance has three of our websites added.

Plausble dashboard for It’s FOSS websites

If you maintain the website of an open source project and would like to use Plausible, you can contact us through our High on Cloud project. With High on Cloud, we help small businesses host and use open source software on their servers.

Conclusion

If you are not super obsessed with data and just want a quick glance on how your website is performing, Plausible is a decent choice. I like it because it is lightweight and privacy compliant. That’s the main reason why I use it on Linux Handbook, our ethical web portal for teaching Linux server related stuff.

Overall, I am pretty content with Plausible and recommend it to other website owners.

Do you run or manage a website as well? What tool do you use for the analytics or do you not care about that at all?

There are plenty of to-do list applications available for Linux. There is one more added to that list in the form of Sleek.

Sleek to-do List app

Sleek is nothing extraordinary except for its looks perhaps. It provides an Electron-based GUI for todo.txt.

For those not aware, Electron is a framework that lets you use JavaScript, HTML and CSS for building cross-platform desktop apps. It utilizes Chromium and Node.js for this purpose and this is why some people don’t like their desktop apps running a browser underneath it.

Todo.txt is a text-based file system and if you follow its markup syntax, you can create a to-do list. There are tons of mobile, desktop and CLI apps that use Todo.txt underneath it.

Don’t worry you don’t need to know the correct syntax for todo.txt. Since Sleek is a GUI tool, you can utilize its interface for creating to-do lists without special efforts.

The advantage of todo.txt is that you can copy or export your files and use it on any To Do List app that supports todo.txt. This gives you portability to keep your data while moving between applications.

Experience with Sleek

Sleek gives you option to create a new to-do.txt or open an existing one. Once you create or open one, you can start adding items to the list.

Apart from the normal checklist, you can add tasks with due date.

While adding a due date, you can also set the repetition for the tasks. I find this weird that you can not create a recurring task without setting a due date to it. This is something the developer should try to fix in the future release of the application.

You can check a task complete. You can also choose to hide or show completed tasks with options to sort tasks based on priority.

Sleek is available in both dark and light theme. There is a dedicated option on the left sidebar to change themes. You can, of course, change it from the settings.

There is no provision to sync your to-do list app. As a workaround, you can save your todo.txt file in a location that is automatically sync with Nextcloud, Dropbox or some other cloud service. This also opens the possibility of using it on mobile with some todo.txt mobile client. It’s just a suggestion, I haven’t tried it myself.

Installing Sleek on Linux

Since Sleek is an Electron-based application, it is available for Windows as well as Linux.

For Linux, you can install it using Snap or Flatpak, whichever you prefer.

For Snap, use the following command:

sudo snap install sleek

If you have enabled Flatpak and added Flathub repository, you can install it using this command:

flatpak install flathub com.github.ransome1.sleek

As I said at the beginning of this article, Sleek is nothing extraordinary. If you prefer a modern looking to-do list app with option to import and export your tasks list, you may give this open source application a try.

By default, all Linux distributions already come pre-installed with a terminal application or terminal emulator (correct technical term). Of course, depending on the desktop environment, it will look and feel different.

Here’s the thing about Linux. You are not restricted to what your distribution provides. You can opt for an alternative application of your choice. Terminal is no different. There are several impressive terminal emulators that offer unique features for a better user experience or for better looks.

Here, I will be compiling a list of such interesting terminal applications that you can try on your Linux distribution.

Awesome Terminal Emulators for Linux

The list is in no particular order of ranking. I’ve tried to list the interesting ones first followed by some of the most popular terminal emulators. Also, I have highlighted the key features for every terminal emulator mentioned, choose what you prefer.

1. Terminator

Key Highlights:

• Multiple GNOME terminals in one window

Terminator is decently popular terminal emulator which is still being maintained (moved from Launchpad to GitHub).

It basically provides you multiple GNOME terminals in one window. You can easily group and re-group terminal windows with the help of it. You may feel like using a tiling window manager but with some restrictions.

Gnome Terminator How to install Terminator?

For Ubuntu-based distros, all you have to do is type in the following command in the terminal:

sudo apt install terminator

You should find it in most of Linux distributions through the default repositories. But, if you need help installing, go through the GitHub page.

2. Guake Terminal

Key Highlights:

• Tailored for quick access to terminal on GNOME
• Works fast and does not need a lot of system resource
• Shortcut key to access

Guake terminal was originally inspired by an FPS game Quake. Unlike some other terminal emulators, it works as an overlay on every other active window.

All you have to do is summon the emulator using a shortcut key (F12) and it will appear from the top. You get customize the width or position of the emulator, but most of the users should be fine with the default setting.

Not just as a handy terminal emulator, it offers a ton of features like ability to restore tabs, having multiple tabs, color-coding each tab, and more. You can check out my separate article on Guake to learn more.

Guake How to install Guake Terminal?

Guake is available in the default repositories for most of the Linux distributions. You can refer to its official installation instructions.

Or if you’re using Debian-based distro, just type in the following command:

sudo apt install guake 3. Tilix Terminal

Key Highlights:

• Tiling feature
• Drag and drop support
• Drop down Quake mode

Tilix Terminal offers a similar drop-down experience that you find with Guake – but it also lets you have multiple terminal windows in tiling mode.

This is particularly useful if you do not have tiling windows by default in your Linux distribution and have a big screen to work on multiple terminal windows without needing to switching between workspaces.

We’ve already covered it before separately if you’re curious to learn more about it.

Tilix How to install Tilix?

Tilix is available in the default repositories for most of the distributions. If you’re using Ubuntu-based distro, simply type in:

sudo apt install tilix .ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper{border-radius:0px !important;padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper > .ugb-container__side{padding-top:35px !important;padding-bottom:35px !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper:before{background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h1,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h2,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h3,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h4,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h5,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h6{color:#222222}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > p,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ol li,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ul li{color:#222222}

Recommended Read:

.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__featured-image{border-radius:0px !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a{color:#000000 !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a:hover{color:#00b6ba !important}5 Tweaks to Customize the Look of Your Linux Terminal

Want to beautify your Linux terminal and give it a different look? Here are a few ways you can customize your terminal.

4. Hyper

Key Highlights:

• Terminal built on HTML/CSS/JS
• Electron-based
• Cross-platform
• Extensive configuration options

Hyper is yet another interesting terminal emulator that is built on web technologies. It doesn’t provide a unique user experience, but looks quite different and offers a ton of customization options.

It also supports installing themes and plugins to easily customize the appearance of the terminal. You can explore more about it in their GitHub page.

Hyper How to install Hyper?

Hyper is not available in the default repositories. However, you can find both .deb and .rpm packages available to install through their official website.

If you’re new, read through the articles to get help using deb files and using RPM files.

5. Tilda

Key Highlights:

• Drop down terminal
• Search bar integrated

Tilda is another drop-down GTK-based terminal emulator. Unlike some others, it focuses on providing an integrated search bar which you can toggle and also lets you customize many things.

You can also set hotkeys for quick access or a certain action. Functionally, it is quite impressive. However, visually, I don’t like how the overlay behaves and does not support drag and drop as well. You might give it a try though.

Tilda How to install Tilda?

For Ubuntu-based distros, you can simply type in:

sudo apt install tilda

You can refer to its GitHub page for installation instructions on other distributions.

6. eDEX-UI

Key Highlights:

• Sci-Fi Look
• Cross-platform
• Theme options to customize
• Supports Multiple terminal tabs

If you’re not looking particularly for a terminal emulator to help you get your work done faster, eDEX-UI is something that you must try.

It is absolutely a beautiful terminal emulator for sci-fi fans and for users who just want their terminal to look unique. In case you didn’t know, it is heavily inspired from the TRON legacy movie.

Not just the design or the interface, overall, it offers you a unique user experience that you will enjoy. It also lets you customize the terminal. It does require a significant amount of system resource if you’re planning to try it.

You might want to check our dedicated article on eDEX-UI to know more about it and the steps to install it.

eDEX-UI How to install eDEX-UI?

You can find it in some of the repositories that include AUR. In either case, you can grab a package available for your Linux distribution (or an AppImage file) from its GitHub releases section.

.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper{border-radius:0px !important;padding-top:0 !important;padding-bottom:0 !important;background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper > .ugb-container__side{padding-top:35px !important;padding-bottom:35px !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-wrapper.ugb-container__wrapper:before{background-color:#f1f1f1 !important}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h1,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h2,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h3,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h4,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h5,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > h6{color:#222222}.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > p,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ol li,.ugb-a4f08a0-content-wrapper > ul li{color:#222222}

Recommended Read:

.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__featured-image{border-radius:0px !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a{color:#000000 !important}.ugb-921b5c0 .ugb-blog-posts__title a:hover{color:#00b6ba !important}5 Tweaks to Customize the Look of Your Linux Terminal

Want to beautify your Linux terminal and give it a different look? Here are a few ways you can customize your terminal.

7. Cool Retro Terminal

Key Highlights:

• Retro Theme
• Animation/Effects to tweak

Cool Retro Terminal is a unique terminal emulator that provides you with a look of a vintage cathode ray tube monitor.

If you’re looking for some extra-functionality terminal emulator, this may disappoint you. However, it is impressive to note that it is decently light on resources and allows you to customize the color, effects, and fonts.

Cool Retro Theme How to install Cool Retro Terminal?

You can find all the installation instructions for major Linux distributions in its GitHub page. For Ubuntu-based distros, you can type in the following in the terminal:

sudo apt install cool-retro-term 8. Alacritty

Key Highlights:

• Cross-platform
• Extension options and focuses on integration

Alacritty is an interesting open-source cross-platform terminal emulator. Even though it is considered as something in “beta” phase, it still works.

It aims to provide you extensive configuration options while keeping the performance in mind. For instance, the ability to click through a URL using a keyboard, copying text to a clipboard, and performing a search using “Vi” mode may intrigue you to try it.

You can explore its GitHub page for more information.

Alacritty How to install Alacritty?

Alacritty can be installed using package managers says the official GitHub page, but I couldn’t find it in the default repository or synaptic package manager on Linux Mint 20.1.

You can follow the installation instructions to set it up manually if you want to try it.

9. Konsole

Key Highlights:

• KDE’s terminal
• Lightweight and customizable

If you’re not a newbie, this probably needs no introduction. Konsole is the default terminal emulator for KDE desktop environments.

Not just limited to that, it also comes integrated with a lot of KDE apps as well. Even if you’re using some other desktop environment, you can still try Konsole. It is a lightweight terminal emulator with a host of features.

You can have multiple tabs and multiple grouped windows as well. Lot of customization options to change the look and feel of the terminal emulator as well.

Konsole How to install Konsole?

For Ubuntu-based distros and most other distributions, you can install it using the default repository. With Debian-based distros, you just need to type this in the terminal:

sudo apt install konsole 10. GNOME Terminal

Key Highlights:

• GNOME’s terminal
• Simple yet customizable

If you’re utilizing any Ubuntu-based GNOME distribution, it already comes baked in. It may not be as customizable as Konsole (depends on what you’re doing) but it lets you configure most of the important aspects of the terminal easily.

Overall, it offers a good user experience and an easy-to-use interface with essential functions.

I’ve also covered a tutorial to customize your GNOME terminal if you’re curious.

How to install GNOME Terminal?

If you’re not using GNOME desktop but want to try it out, you can easily install it through the default repositories.

For Debian-based distros, here’s what you need to type in the terminal:

sudo apt install gnome-terminal 11. Yakuake

Key Highlights:

• Drop down terminal
• Based on KDE’s Konsole

Yakuake is yet another impressive terminal emulator which can replace Guake depending on what you like. It is based on KDE’s Konsole technologies which is also a powerful terminal emulator that comes loaded by default with KDE Desktop.

It supports customizing the width, height, and also gives you the option of a full-screen mode. You can add multiple shells as well.

You also get to create/manage profiles and assign keyboard shortcuts to adapt with your workflow.

Yakuake How to install Yakuake?

You should find it in your default repositories. To install on any Ubuntu-based distro, all you have to type in the terminal is:

sudo apt install yakuake

If you do not find it in the repository of your Linux distribution, you can try to build and install it by following the instructions in its GitHub page.

12. Kitty

Key Highlights:

• Feature-rich
• GPU-based
• Fast performance
• Cross-platform (macOS)

Kitty is apparently an underrated and a popular option among terminal emulator users that I seemed to have missed in the first version of this article.

It offers plenty of useful features while supporting tiling window as well. Also, it is a GPU-based emulator which depends on the GPU and takes the load off CPU when you work on it.

Especially, if you are a power keyboard user, this will be an exciting option for you to try!

Kitty How to install Kitty?

Kitty should be available in all the default repositories of your Linux distributions. For Ubuntu-based systems, you can install it by typing:

sudo apt install kitty

To integrate it with your desktop or if you want an alternative installation method for your system, you can refer the official installation instructions.

13. Simple Terminal (st)

Key Highlights:

• Simple terminal with essential features
• Wayland supported

Simple Terminal or popularly known as st is an alternative for users who dislike bloated terminal emulators like xterm or rxvt.

It offers a couple of useful features like 256 color support and more.

Simple Terminal How to install st?

For Ubuntu-based distros, you can install it by typing in:

sudo apt install stterm

You can try looking for the same package on your distro. It should be available as st in AUR for Arch-based distros as well. If you don’t find it, you can simply download the archive file from its official website to build it from source.

14. XTERM

Key Highlights:

• Feature-rich
• One of the oldest terminal emulators

XTERM is one of the most popular terminal emulators out there. Even though it might seem to be a bloated option when compared to st, it’s still a decent option that you can try for X Window System.

It’s been actively developed for more than two decades now and seems to be constantly evolving. This is not visually appealing nor offers things like drop-down mode, but you can try it out.

XTERM How to install XTERM?

You can easily find it in your system repositories. For Ubuntu-based distros, you can install it by the following command:

sudo apt install xterm

You can find other packages (including NetBSD) from its official website.

Honorable Mention

urxvt is a fork of rxvt terminal emulator with unicode support that you might want to know. It allows you to have multiple windows on different displays along with a bunch of other features.

Unfortunately, the official website is being flagged by Firefox due to SSL certificates being messed up for it and the changelog seems to be last updated in 2016. Hence, I’ve avoided linking it here, you’re free to explore more about it by yourself if you’re curious.

Wrapping Up

There are several terminal emulators available out there. You can try anything you like if you’re looking for a different user experience. However, if you’re aiming for a stable and productive experience, you need to test the terminal emulators before you can rely on them.

For most of the users, the default terminal emulators should be good enough. But, if you’re looking for quick access (Quake Mode) or Tiling feature or multiple windows in a terminal, feel free to try out the options mentioned above.

What’s your favorite terminal emulator on Linux? Did I miss listing your favorite? Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments down below.

There are two popular ways to check disk usage in Linux terminal: du command and df command. The du command is more for checking the space used by a directory and the df command gives you the disk utilization on filesystem level.

There are more friendly ways to see the disk usage in Linux with graphical tools like GNOME Disks. If you are confined to the terminal, you can use a TUI tool like ncdu to get the disk usage information with a sort of graphical touch.

Gdu: Disk usage checking in Linux terminal

Gdu is such a tool written in Go (hence the ‘g’ in gdu). Gdu developer has benchmark tests to show that it is quite fast for disk usage checking, specifically on SSDs. In fact, gdu is intended primarily for SSDs though it can work for HDD as well.

If you use the gdu command without any options, it shows the disk usage for the current directory you are in.

Since it has terminal user interface (TUI), you can navigate through directories and disk using arrows. You can also sort the result by file names or size.

Here’s how to do that:

• Up arrow or k to move cursor up
• Down arrow or j to move cursor down
• Enter to select directory / device
• Left arrow or h to go to parent directory
• Use d to delete the selected file or directory
• Use n to sort by name
• Use s to sort by size
• Use c to sort by items

You’ll notice some symbols before some file entries. Those have specific meaning.

• ! means an error occurred while reading the directory.
• . means an error occurred while reading a subdirectory, size may not be correct.
• @ means file is a symlink or socket.
• H means the file was already counted (hard link).
• e means directory is empty.

To see the disk utilization and free space for all mounted disks, use the option d:

gdu -d

It shows all the details in one screen:

Sounds like a handy tool, right? Let’s see how to get it on your Linux system.

Installing gdu on Linux

Gdu is available for Arch and Manjaro users through the AUR. I presume that as an Arch user, you know how to use AUR.

It is included in the universe repository of the upcoming Ubuntu 21.04 but chances are that you are not using it at present. In that case, you may install it using Snap through it may seem like a lot of snap commands:

snap install gdu-disk-usage-analyzer snap connect gdu-disk-usage-analyzer:mount-observe :mount-observe snap connect gdu-disk-usage-analyzer:system-backup :system-backup snap alias gdu-disk-usage-analyzer.gdu gdu

You may also find the source code on its release page:

Source code download for gdu

I am more used to of using du and df commands but I can see some Linux users might like gdu. Are you one of them?

There is not a single decent screen recording software for Linux that supports Wayland display server.

GNOME’s built-in screen recorder is probably the rare (and lone) one that works if you are using Wayland. But that screen recorder has no visible interface and features you expect in a standard screen recording software.

Thankfully, there is a new application in development that provides a bit more feature than GNOME screen recorder and works okay-ish on Wayland.

Meet Kooha: a new screen recorder for GNOME desktop

Kooha is an application in the nascent stage of development. It can be used in GNOME and it is built with GTK and PyGObject. In fact, it utilizes the same backend as the GNOME’s built-in screen recorder.

Here are the features Kooha has:

• Record the entire screen or a selected area
• Works on both Wayland and Xorg display servers
• Records audio from microphone along with the video
• Option to include or omit mouse pointer
• Can add a delay of 5 or 10 seconds before start the recording
• Supports recording in WebM and MKV formats
• Allows to change the default saving location
• Supports a few keyboard shortcuts

My experience with Kooha

I was contacted by its developer, Dave Patrick and since I desperately want a good screen recorder, I immediately went on to try it.

At present, Kooha is only available to install via Flatpak. I installed Flatpak and when I tried to use it, nothing was recorded. I had a quick email discussion with Dave and he told me that it was due to a bug with GNOME screen recorder in Ubuntu 20.10.

You can imagine my desperation for a screen recorder with Wayland support that I upgraded my Ubuntu to the beta version of 21.04.

The screen recording worked in 21.04 but it could still not record the audio from the microphone.

There are a few more things that I noticed and didn’t work smoothly to my liking.

For example, while recording the counter remains visible on the screen and is included in the recording. I wouldn’t want that in a video tutorial. You wouldn’t like to see that either I guess.

Another thing is about multi-monitor support. There is no option to exclusively select a particular screen. I connect with two external monitors and by default it recorded all three of them. Setting a capture region could be used but dragging it to exact pixels of a screen is a time-consuming task.

There is no option to set the frame rate or encoding that comes with Kazam or other legacy screen recorders.

Installing Kooha on Linux (if you are using GNOME)

Please make sure to enable Flatpak support on your Linux distribution. It only works with GNOME for now so please check which desktop environment you are using.

Use this command to add Flathub to your Flatpak repositories list:

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

And then use this command to install it:

flatpak install flathub io.github.seadve.Kooha

You may run it from the menu or by using this command:

flatpak run io.github.seadve.Kooha Conclusion

Kooha is not perfect but considering the huge void in the Wayland domain, I hope that the developers work on fixing the issues and adding more features. This is important considering Ubuntu 21.04 is switching to Wayland by default and some other popular distros like Fedora and openSUSE already use Wayland by default.

Dual booting Ubuntu and Windows is not that complicated and I have covered it in detailed tutorial in the past. Recently, I also wrote about dual booting on a Bitlocker encrypted Windows system.

And yet here I am talking about it again. Why? Because the scenario is slightly different and several It’s FOSS readers have asked questions about this particular scenario.

Here’s the scenario: you got a new computer. It comes with a SSD with limited disk space like 120 GB and an additional HDD with 500 GB or 1 TB disk space. This is usually the scene with gaming laptops where large disk space matters for storing game files but SSD is required for faster boot and computing experience. 1 TB SSD would increase the system price a lot and hence this particular combination of SSD and HDD.

Now, if you want to dual boot on a system with two disks, you may get confused about where should you be installing Linux.

You have three options:

1. Install Linux completely on the SSD. You’ll get full advantage of SSD speed, but then you will have only a limited disk space. This could work if you have 180 GB or 200 GB or more on SSD but won’t work with 120 GB SSD.
2. Install Linux completely on the HDD. You’ll have plenty of disk space, but Linux will boot slower, and you won’t get the SSD advantage.
3. A compromise between SSD and HDD. You keep the root (and thus swap and boot) on SSD and you put your Home directory on HDD. This way, you boot faster into Linux and you have plenty of disk space for your personal documents and downloads.

There is also a fourth option here. You keep root as well as home on SSD. And you make a partition on the HDD and then soft link it to your Music, Videos and Downloads folder. This way, application-specific files like browser caching utilize the SSD and other big files stay on HDD. But this could be complicated to set specially with fast boot enabled on Windows which would mean special efforts to auto-mount the partitions.

I recommend going with the third option for dual booting on separate hard drives and this is what I am going to show you in this tutorial.

Dual boot Ubuntu and Windows on a system with SSD and HDD

I have used an Acer Predator gaming laptop in this tutorial to install Ubuntu alongside Windows. The tutorial should work for other hardware manufacturers and Linux distributions.

I advise reading through all the steps first and then follow the tutorial on your system.

Prerequisite

Here are the things you need in this tutorial:

• A computer that comes preinstalled with Windows 10 and has both an SSD and an HDD.
• A USB key (pen drive or USB drive) of at least 4 GB in size and no data on it.
• Internet connection (for downloading Ubuntu ISO image and live USB creating tool).
• Optional: External USB disk for making back up of your data.
• Optional: Windows recovery disk (if you encounter any major boot issues, it could be fixed).

Step 1: Make backup of your data

Since you’ll be dealing with disk partitions, it will be wise to make a copy of your important files on an external disk. This is optional but having a backup is always a good idea.

You can use an external HDD (slower but cheaper) or SSD (faster but expensive) and copy the important files and folders on it.

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In the Windows menu, search for disk and go to ‘Create and format hard disk partitions’.

You’ll see both SSD and HDD here. You have to shrink both SSD and HDD one by one and make some free space that will be utilized later for installing Ubuntu Linux.

Right click on the SSD and choose Shrink Volume option.

It will give you the largest possible disk partition you can make here. Don’t use it all. Leave some extra space for Windows. I have given it 30 GB which is a decent disk space for the root partition. Anything between 20 and 40 GB is a fair choice.

Repeat the process with the HDD as well. I made around 200 GB of free space for Linux. You are free to decide how much space you want to allocate to Ubuntu.

Here’s what the final disk scenario looks like for my system. 29.3 GB free space on SSD and 195.3 GB free space on HDD.

Step 3: Download Ubuntu

Go to Ubuntu’s website and download the ISO file. If you need torrents, you can find it under the ‘alternative downloads’.

Download Ubuntu ISO Image Step 4: Create bootable Ubuntu USB

You can easily create bootable Ubuntu USB in Windows, Linux and macOS. Since the focus here is on Windows, you can use a Windows specific tool like Rufus. Etcher is also a good tool in this regard.

Download Rufus from its website.

Download Rufus

Plug in your USB. Make sure it doesn’t have any important data because it will be formatted.

Run the Rufus tool. It automatically identifies the plugged in USB but double check it anyway. Then browse to the location of the downloaded ISO image and ensure that it uses GPT partitioning scheme and UEFI target system.

Hit the start button and wait for the process to complete. Once you have the live Ubuntu USB ready, the next step is to boot from it.

Step 5: Boot from the live USB

You may choose to access the boot settings when the system starts by pressing F2/F10/F12 button but a more robust way is go through Windows.

In the Windows menu, search for UEFI and then click on ‘Change advanced startup options’:

Under the Advanced startup option, click on Restart now button.

On the next screen, click on ‘Use a device’:

Recognize the USB disk with its name and size. It may also be displayed as EFI USB Device.

Now it will power off your system and reboot into the disk you chose which should be the live USB disk. You should see a screen like this:

Step 6: Installing Ubuntu Linux

Now that you have booted from the live USB, you may start the installation procedure. The first few steps are simple. You choose the language and keyboard.

• Choose your language
• Choose keyboard layout

On the next screen, choose Normal installation. No need to download updates or install third-party software just yet. You may do it after installation completes.

After some time you’ll see the Installation type screen. Here, opt for ‘Something else‘ option:

You should see the free space you had created earlier on the next screen. Select the free space created on SSD (you can guess by its size if nothing else) and click on the + sign to use this free space.

By default, it will take the entire free space which is a good thing. Keep the partition type primary.

What you need to change is the file system type to Ext4 and mount point to / (/ means root in Linux).

Now, select the other free space on the HDD and click the + sign.

This time choose Home as the mount point. Partition remains primary and file type ext4.

You don’t need to worry about ‘Device for boot loader installation’. You have a pre-installed Windows UEFI system. You should have an EFI partitioning (ESP) already (for me it’s 100 MB partitioning with type efi). The Ubuntu installer is intelligent and can automatically detect this partition and use it for Grub bootloader.

This is the final partitioning scheme for my system. If everything looks good, hit the Install Now button.

Things are pretty straightforward from here. Select a timezone.

Enter a username, computer’s name, i.e. hostname and an easy to remember password.

Now wait for like 7-8 minutes for the installation to finish.

Restart the system when the installation finishes.

Restart after installation completes

You’ll be asked to remove the USB disk. Remove the disk and press enter.

Remove USB and press enter

If things go right, you should see the black or purple grub screen with option to boot into Ubuntu and Windows.

You can choose the operating system from the grub screen

That’s it. You can now enjoy both Windows and Linux on the same system with SSD and HDD. Nice, isn’t it?

I hope this tutorial was helpful to you. If you still have questions or facing any issues, let me know in the comment section, and I’ll try to help you out.

Linux Mint is undoubtedly one of the best Linux distributions for beginners. This is especially true for Windows users that walking their first steps to Linux world.

Since 2006, the year that Linux Mint made its first release, a selection of tools has been developed to enhance user experience. Furthermore, Linux Mint is based on Ubuntu, so you have a large community of users to seek help.

I am not going to discuss how good Linux Mint is. If you have already made your mind to install Linux Mint, you probably get a little confused on the download section on its website.

It gives you three options to choose from: Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce. Confused? I’ll help you with that in this article.

If you are absolutely new to Linux and have no idea about what the above things are, I recommend you to understand a bit on what is a desktop environment in Linux. And if you could spare some more minutes, read this excellent explanation on what is Linux and why there are so many of Linux operating systems that look similar to each other.

With that information, you are ready to understand the difference between the various Linux Mint editions. If you are unsure which to choose, with this article I will help you to make a conscious choice.

Which Linux Mint version should you choose?

Briefly, the available choices are the following:

• Cinnamon desktop: A modern touch on traditional desktop
• MATE desktop: A traditional looking desktop resembling the GNOME 2 era.
• Xfce desktop: A popular lightweight desktop environment.

Let’s have a look at the Mint variants one by one.

Linux Mint Cinnamon edition

Cinnamon desktop is developed by Linux Mint team and clearly it is the flagship edition of Linux Mint.

Almost a decade back when the GNOME desktop opted for the unconventional UI with GNOME 3, Cinnamon development was started to keep the traditional looks of the desktop by forking some components of GNOME 2.

Many Linux users like Cinnamon for its similarity with Windows 7 like interface.

Linux Mint Cinnamon desktop Performance and responsiveness

The cinnamon desktop performance has improved from the past releases but without an SSD you can feel a bit sluggish. The last time I used cinnamon desktop was in version 4.4.8, the RAM consumption right after boot was around 750mb. There is a huge improvement in the current version 4.8.6, reduced by 100 MB after boot.

To get the best user experience, a dual-core CPU with 4 GB of RAM as a minimum should be considered.

Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon idle system stats Pros

• Seamless switch from Windows
• Pleasing aesthetics
• Highly customizable

Cons

• May still not be ideal if you have a system with 2 GB RAM

Bonus Tip: If you prefer Debian instead of Ubuntu you have the option of Linux Mint Debian Edition. The main difference between LMDE and Debian with Cinnamon desktop is that LMDE ships the latest desktop environment to its repositories.

Linux Mint Mate edition

MATE desktop environment shares a similar story as it aims to maintain and support the GNOME 2 code base and applications. The Look and feel is very similar to GNOME 2.

In my opinion, the best implementation of MATE desktop is by far Ubuntu MATE. In Linux Mint you get a customized version of MATE desktop, which is in line with Cinnamon aesthetics and not to the traditional GNOME 2 set out.

Screenshot of Linux Mint MATE desktop Performance and responsiveness

MATE desktop has a reputation of its lightweight nature and there is no doubt about that. Compared to Cinnamon desktop, the CPU usage always remains a bit lower, and this can be translated to a better battery life on a laptop.

Although it doesn’t feel as snappy as Xfce (in my opinion), but not to an extent to compromise user experience. RAM consumption starts under 500 MB which is impressive for a feature rich desktop environment.

Linux Mint 20 MATE idle system stats Pros

• Lightweight desktop without compromising on features
• Enough customization potential

Cons

• Traditional looks may give you a dated feel

Linux Mint Xfce edition

XFCE project started in 1996 inspired by the Common Desktop Environment of UNIX. XFCE” stands for “XForms Common Environment”, but since it no longer uses the XForms toolkit, the name is spelled as “Xfce”.

It aims to be fast, lightweight and easy to use. Xfce is the flagship desktop of many popular Linux distributions like Manjaro and MX Linux.

Linux Mint offers a polished Xfce desktop but can’t match the beauty of Cinnamon desktop even in a Dark theme.

Linux Mint 20 Xfce desktop Performance and responsiveness

Xfce is the leanest desktop environment Linux Mint has to offer. By clicking the start menu, the settings control panel or exploring the bottom panel you will notice that this is a simple yet a flexible desktop environment.

Despite I find minimalism a positive attribute, Xfce is not an eye candy, leaving a more traditional taste. For some users a classic desktop environment is the one to go for.

At the first boot the ram usage is similar to MATE desktop but not quite as good. If your computer isn’t equipped with an SSD, Xfce desktop environment can resurrect your system.

Linux Mint 20 Xfce idle system stats Pros

• Simple to use
• Very lightweight – suitable for older hardware
• Rock-solid stable

Cons

• Outdated look
• May not have as much customization to offer in comparison to Cinnamon

Conclusion

Since all these three desktop environments are based on GTK toolkit, the choice is purely a matter of taste. All of them are easy on system resources and perform well for a modest system with 4 GB RAM. Xfce and MATE can go a bit lower by supporting systems with as low as 2 GB RAM.

Linux Mint is not the only distribution that provides multiple choices. Distros like Manjaro, Fedora and Ubuntu have various flavors to choose from as well.

If you still cannot make your mind, I’ll say go with the default Cinnamon edition first and try to use Linux Mint in a virtual box. See if you like the look and feel. If not, you can test other variants in the same fashion. If you decide on the version, you can go on and install it on your main system.

I hope I was able to help you with this article. If you still have questions or suggestions on this topic, please leave a comment below.

I have been an Ubuntu user for as long as I remember. I distrohopped a little but keep on coming back to Ubuntu. But recently, I have started using openSUSE to try something non-Debian.

As I keep exploring openSUSE, I keep on stumbling upon things that are slightly different in SUSE-worse and I plan to cover them in tutorials on It’s FOSS.

As a first, I am writing about updating openSUSE system. There are two ways you can do that:

• Using terminal (valid for openSUSE desktops and servers)
• Using a graphical tool (valid for openSUSE desktops)

Update openSUSE via command line

The simplest way to update openSUSE is by using the zypper command. It provides full functionality of patches and updates management. It takes care of the file conflicts and dependency problems. The updates also include Linux kernel.

If you are using openSUSE Leap, use this command:

sudo zypper update

You may also use up instead of update but I find it easier to remember.

If you are using openSUSE Tumbleweed, use the dist-upgrade or dup (in short). Tumbleweed is rolling release distribution and hence it is advised to use dist-upgrade option.

sudo zypper dist-upgrade

It will show you the list of the packages to be upgraded, removed or installed.

You’ll be notified if your system requires reboots.

If you just want to refresh the repositories (like sudo apt update), you may use this command:

sudo zypper refresh

If you want to list the available updates, you can also do that:

sudo zypper list-updates Graphical way to update openSUSE

If you are using openSUSE as a desktop, you’ll have the additional option of using the GUI tools for installing the updates. This tool may change depending on which desktop environment you are using.

For example, KDE has its own Software center called Discover. You can use it to search and install new applications. You can also use it to install system updates.

In fact, KDE notifies you of available system updates in the notification area. You’ll have to open Discover explicitly because clicking on the notification doesn’t automatically take you to Discover.

If you find that annoying, you may disable it using these commands:

sudo zypper remove plasma5-pk-updates sudo zypper addlock plasma5-pk-updates

I wouldn’t recommend it though. It’s better to get notified of available updates.

There is also the YAST Software Management GUI tool which you can use for more granular control on package managements.

That’s it. It was a short one. In the next SUSE tutorial, I’ll show you some common zypper commands with examples. Stay tuned.

Brief: gImageReader is a GUI tool to utilize tesseract OCR engine for extracting texts from images and PDF files in Linux.

gImageReader is a front-end for Tesseract Open Source OCR Engine. Tesseract was originally developed at HP and then was open-sourced in 2006.

Basically, the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine lets you scan texts from a picture or a file (PDF). It can detect several languages by default and also supports scanning through Unicode characters.

However, the Tesseract by itself is a command-line tool without any GUI. So, here, gImageReader comes to the rescue to let any user utilize it to extract text from images and files.

Let me highlight a few things about it while mentioning my experience with it for the time I tested it out.

gImageReader: A Cross-Platform Front-End to Tesseract OCR

To simplify things, gImageReader comes in handy to extract text from a PDF file or an image that contains any kind of text.

Whether you need it for spellcheck or translation, it should be useful for a specific group of users.

To sum up the features in a list, here’s what you can do with it:

• Add PDF documents and images from disk, scanning devices, clipboard and screenshots
• Ability to rotate images
• Common image controls to adjust brightness, contrast, and resolution
• Scan images directly through the app
• Ability to process multiple images or files in one go
• Manual or automatic recognition area definition
• Recognize to plain text or to hOCR documents
• Editor to display the recognized text
• Can spellcheck the text extracted
• Convert/Export to PDF documents from hOCR document
• Export extracted text as a .txt file
• Cross-platform (Windows)

Installing gImageReader on Linux

Note: You need to explicitly install Tesseract language packs to detect from images/files from your software manager.

You can find gImageReader in the default repositories for some Linux distributions like Fedora and Debian.

For Ubuntu, you need to add a PPA and then install it. To do that, here’s what you need to type in the terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:sandromani/gimagereader sudo apt update sudo apt install gimagereader

You can also find it for openSUSE from its build service and AUR will be the place for Arch Linux users.

All the links to the repositories and the packages can be found in their GitHub page.

gImageReader Experience with gImageReader

gImageReader is a quite useful tool for extracting texts from images when you need them. It works great when you try from a PDF file.

For extracting images from a picture shot on a smartphone, the detection was close but a bit inaccurate. Maybe when you scan something, recognition of characters from the file could be better.

So, you’ll have to try it for yourself to see how well it works for your use-case. I tried it on Linux Mint 20.1 (based on Ubuntu 20.04).

I just had an issue to manage languages from the settings and I didn’t get a quick solution for that. If you encounter the issue, you might want to troubleshoot it and explore more about it how to fix it.

Other than that, it worked just fine.

Do give it a try and let me know how it worked for you! If you know of something similar (and better), do let me know about it in the comments below.