How-To Geek

Ubuntu and other Linux distributions have extensive package repositories to save you the trouble of compiling anything yourself. Still, sometimes you’ll find an obscure application or a new version of a program that you’ll have to compile from source.

If you have a lot of windows open on your Linux Mint desktop, wouldn’t it be nice to “roll up” windows to get them out of the way, but still see what you have open?

Linux is a great operating system, but its software catalog can be lacking. If there’s a Windows game or other app you just can’t do without, you can use Wine to run it right on your Ubuntu desktop.

Screenlets are small applications that are similar to Gadgets in Windows 7, that allow you to place things like sticky notes, clocks, calendars on your Linux Mint desktop. Screenlets represent items you might keep on a physical desktop, plus more.

Ubuntu displays an informative message, known as the message of the day, when a user logs in at the terminal. The MOTD is fully customizable — you can add your own text and other dynamic data.

Tired of Ubuntu’s Unity desktop environment? Try Cinnamon, the latest desktop environment from Linux Mint. Cinnamon offers a more traditional, GNOME 2-like layout, but it’s based on the modern GNOME Shell — and you can install it on Ubuntu.

In Windows we have the Startup folder where we can easily place a shortcut to a program that we want to launch automatically. In Linux Mint there is a way easier way to manage startup applications–here’s how to do it.

Mark Shuttleworth has made an announcement introducing a new UI enhancment in the upcoming 12.04 LTS release. Application menus will be replaced by a new Heads-Up Display (HUD) that utilizes an intelligent search-based approa...

W3M is a terminal web browser for Linux. It’s got a few tricks up its sleeve, including support for images, tabs, tables, frames and other features not usually included with terminal web browsers.

If you like to use multiple operating systems but don’t have extra computers to spare, we at How-To Geek have can help you set up your computer or tablet to run more than one operating system.

Ubuntu’s Grub boot loader lets anyone edit boot entries or use its command-line mode by default. Secure Grub with a password and no one can edit them — you can even require a password before booting operating systems.

Ubuntu’s Unity desktop environment has customizable keyboard shortcuts and animations, but its options are all hidden. We’ll show you how to get started with the CompizConfig Settings Manager and point out some of Unity’s more interesting configuration options.

The cron daemon on Linux runs tasks in the background at specific times; it’s like the Task Scheduler on Windows. Add tasks to your system’s crontab files using the appropriate syntax and cron will automatically run them for you.

Before we start there is a couple of things that you are going to need:

Do you have an OS installed on your USB thumb drive? Booting from it in a VM is now possible, you’ll just have to use a simple trick to get it to work.

We have discussed installing Ubuntu on a USB thumb before. This time, we’re doing it differently, to make it cleaner and easier to store your files.

Windows XP just isn’t secure anymore! If the expense of the new Windows operating systems is too great, here’s an easy and painless way to get a completely free Linux, keep your old Windows XP installation, and start surfing securely.

This week we learned how to encrypt and hide your personal files inside of a photo, “display image size in Google Images, preserve tabs while using CCleaner, & what to backup on your Windows box”, look up Event IDs from the Event Viewer using a free tool, turn your friends into zombies for Halloween (in Photoshop), found out what your favorite Windows Explorer alternatives are, and more.

Are you less than pleased with Unity but want to keep using Ubuntu without switching to KDE, XFCE, or LXDE? Then you may want to take a closer look at the GNOME Shell Remix of Ubuntu 11.10.

This week we learned how to get the Windows 8 Explorer ribbon in Windows 7, make ghosts in Photoshop or GIMP, remotely use a PC’s DVD drive across your network, install or enable Hyper-V Virtualization in Windows 8, enjoyed the latest set of Geek Deals, and more.

Windows/Mac/Linux/iOS: Popular screen-dimming software f.lux is now available for jailbroken iOS devices. Install f.lux to enjoy gently adjusted brightness based on the time of day for easy-on-the-eyes computer use.

Have you installed Ubuntu 11.04 as a virtual machine in VirtualBox but have had problems getting the Shared Folders feature to work? We were able to add a shared folder, but were unable to access it.

Want to learn some new tricks for using the Ubuntu Software Center or know someone who is new to Ubuntu? Then grab a copy of this free 49 page guide and get ready to enjoy (or share) the goodness.

This trick is for Linux and SSH users who often log in to remote systems. Having to type the same info over and over again is mind-numbingly repetitive, but using an SSH config file makes the process much more convenient.

Every file on your computer has a timestamp, which contains the access and modification time for a file, but did you know that you can change that timestamp? Here’s how to do it.