Linux Articles - How-To Geek

How to See Which Groups Your Linux User Account Belongs To

Groups help define the permissions and access your Linux user account has to files, folders, settings, and more. Finding out the groups to which a user account belongs helps give you a better understanding of that user’s access (and troubleshoot when things don’t work right).

January 10th, 2018 - by Lowell Heddings | Leave a reply

How to Check if Your Linux System Is 32-bit or 64-bit

Most modern computers are capable of running a 64-bit operating system. But just because a computer supports it doesn’t mean that’s what’s running. Here’s how to tell whether you’re running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Linux.

January 8th, 2018 - by Lori Kaufman | 3 Replies

How to Change Your IP Address From the Command Line in Linux

This trick should work on all Debian-based Linux distros, including Ubuntu. To get started, type ifconfig at the terminal prompt, and then hit Enter. This command lists all network interfaces on the system, so take note of the name of the interface for which you want to change the IP address.

January 5th, 2018 - by Taylor Gibb | 1 Reply

Why Your Android Phone Isn’t Getting Operating System Updates and What You Can Do About It

Back in the early days of Android, system updates were very random: they would roll out at different times, and often several times per year. Now, Google has taken a much more streamlined approach, releasing one major Android update per year and much smaller, security-focused updates once per month.

December 19th, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | 9 Replies

Seven Things You Don’t Have to Root Android to Do Anymore

For years, Android enthusiasts have been rooting their devices to do things that Android doesn’t allow by default. But Google has added many features to Android that once required root, eliminating the need for many people.

December 18th, 2017 - by Cameron Summerson | 11 Replies

How to See What’s Taking Up Space on Your Android Device

When you picked up your shiny new Android device, you probably thought “yeah, this has plenty of storage. I’ll never fill it up!” But here you are, some number of months later with a full phone and no clue why. No worries: here’s how you can figure out where the space hogs are.

December 14th, 2017 - by Cameron Summerson | 5 Replies

How to Take Screenshots on an Android Phone or Tablet

Sometimes it’s necessary to grab a still image of what’s happening on your device’s screen—that’s called a screenshot. While this used to be a hassle on Android (many moons ago), all modern handsets include the capability. Here’s how to do it.

September 27th, 2017 - by Cameron Summerson | 5 Replies

Five Ways to Customize Android that iOS Still Can’t Match

Android is very customizable–many of its features are just defaults, and can be swapped out for third-party alternatives without any rooting required. When it comes to iOS, well…not so much.

June 20th, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | 4 Replies

How to Optimize Your Android Phone’s Battery Life with Greenify

At this point, smartphones are prolific. We use them for calls, text messages, social networking, photos, quick searches, streaming music, watching videos…the list goes on. But each thing you do drains your battery life, and some apps will even continue to drain your battery in the background when you aren’t using them. A free app called Greenify can fix that.

June 9th, 2017 - by Cameron Summerson | 7 Replies

How to Run Android Apps and Games on Your Windows Desktop with BlueStacks

If there’s an Android application you really love and wish you could run on your computer, now you can: there’s a dead simple way to run Android apps on your PC or Mac without the fuss of moonlighting as an Android developer.

June 8th, 2017 - by Jason Fitzpatrick | 10 Replies

3 Ways to Access Your Linux Partitions From Windows

If you’re dual booting Windows and Linux, you’ll probably want to access files on your Linux system from Windows at some point. Linux has built-in support for Windows NTFS partitions, but Windows can’t read Linux partitions without third-party software.

June 7th, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | Comments (5)

How to Find Files and Folders in Linux Using the Command Line

Most people use a graphical file manager to find files in Linux, such as Nautilus in Gnome, Dolphin in KDE, and Thunar in Xfce. However, there are several ways to use the command line to find files in Linux, no matter what desktop manager you use.

June 7th, 2017 - by Lori Kaufman | Comments (3)

How to Repair GRUB2 When Ubuntu Won’t Boot

Ubuntu and many other Linux distributions use the GRUB2 boot loader. If GRUB2 breaks—for example, if you install Windows after installing Ubuntu, or overwrite your MBR—you won’t be able to boot into Ubuntu.

May 15th, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | 7 Replies

The Complete Guide to Speeding Up Your Virtual Machines

Virtual machines are demanding beasts, providing virtual hardware and running multiple operating systems on your computer at once. As a result, they can sometimes be a little slow. Here are some tips to help you squeeze every last drop of performance out of your virtual machine, whether you’re using VirtualBox, VMware, Parallels, or something else.

May 2nd, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | 1 Reply

How to Clear Your Browser History on Android

Web browsers you use on your mobile phone or tablet remember your browsing history, just like browsers on your PC or Mac. Anyone who borrows your phone or gets access to it somehow can see which webpages you’ve visited. However, it’s easy to protect yourself.

April 24th, 2017 - by Lori Kaufman | 1 Reply

How to Edit Your Hosts File on Windows, Mac, or Linux

On occasion you will need to edit the hosts file on your machine. Sometimes because of an attack or prank, and others so that you can simply and freely control access to websites and network traffic.

April 17th, 2017 - by Christopher Welker | Comments (19)

How to Use Your Bash History in the Linux or macOS Terminal

The bash shell is the standard terminal environment included with most Linux distributions, included with macOS, and available for installation on Windows 10. It remembers the commands you type and stores them in a history file. You probably know a few basics of the bash history, but it’s a lot more powerful than you might realize.

April 10th, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | 1 Reply

How to Get Rid of Bloatware on Your Android Phone

Manufacturers and carriers often load Android phones with their own apps. If you don’t use them, they just clutter your system, or–even worse–drain your battery in the background. Take control of your device and stop the bloatware.

March 22nd, 2017 - by Whitson Gordon | 2 Replies

The Best Keyboard Shortcuts for Bash (aka the Linux and macOS Terminal)

Bash is the default command-line shell on most Linux distributions, from Ubuntu and Debian to Red Hat and Fedora. Bash is also the default shell included with macOS, and you can install a Linux-based bash environment on Windows 10.

March 17th, 2017 - by Lowell Heddings | 1 Reply

How to Clear Your Dropbox Cache in Windows, macOS, and Linux

When you delete sensitive files from your Dropbox account, you may think you’ve deleted them permanently. However, the files remain in a hidden cache folder on your hard drive for efficiency and emergency purposes that is cleared automatically every three days.

March 8th, 2017 - by Lori Kaufman | 2 Replies

Beginner: How to Install Google Chrome in Ubuntu 14.04

If you’ve tried to install Google Chrome in Ubuntu Linux, you may have noticed that it’s not available in the Ubuntu Software Center. However, it’s easy to download a package file for Google Chrome and install it on your system, and we’ll show you how.

March 3rd, 2017 - by Lori Kaufman | 3 Replies

What’s the Difference Between Bash, Zsh, and Other Linux Shells?

Most Linux distributions include the bash shell by default, but you could also switch to another shell environment. Zsh is a particularly popular alternative, and there are other shells, like ash, dash, fish, and tcsh. But what’s the difference, and why are there so many?

March 3rd, 2017 - by Chris Hoffman | 3 Replies

Which Linux File System Should You Use?

When formatting partitions on a Linux PC, you’ll see a wide variety of file system options. These options don’t need to be overwhelming. If you’re not sure which Linux file system to use, there’s a simple answer.

March 1st, 2017 - by Justin Garrison | 7 Replies

How to Run Android on Your Computer

Android isn’t largely thought of as a desktop operating system, but if you’re curious about how Google’s mobile OS works, running it on a device you already have isn’t a bad idea. This will give you an idea of what to expect on a phone or tablet, all without making a single change to your laptop or desktop since you can easily do this from a flash drive or memory card.

February 7th, 2017 - by Cameron Summerson | 25 Replies

The Best Free Tools for Creating a Bootable Windows or Linux USB Drive

If you need to install Windows or Linux and you don’t have access to a CD/DVD drive, a bootable USB drive is the solution. You can boot to the USB drive, using it to run the OS setup program, just like a CD or DVD.

February 2nd, 2017 - by Lori Kaufman | Comments (29)