Linux Articles - How-To Geek

The Best Ways to Send Money with Your Phone

If you need to pay someone back for dinner, send rent money to a roommate, or send someone cash when they need it, you can do it all easily from your smartphone. We’ve rounded up the best mobile payment apps that help y...

How to Quickly Create a Text File Using the Command Line in Linux

If you’re a keyboard person, you can accomplish a lot of things just using the Linux command line. For example, there are a few easy-to-use methods for creating text files, should you need to do so.

Walter Glenn Feb 21st, 2018

Five Ways to Free Up Space on Your Android Device

Android phones and tablets can fill up quickly as you download apps, add media files like music and movies, and cache data for use offline. Many lower-end devices may only include a few gigabytes of storage, making this even...

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’...

Lowell Heddings Jan 10th, 2018

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-...

Lori Kaufman Jan 8th, 2018

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 th...

Taylor Gibb Jan 5th, 2018

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...

Chris Hoffman Dec 19th, 2017

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....

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 w...

Cameron Summerson Dec 14th, 2017

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 hands...

Cameron Summerson Sep 27th, 2017

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....

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...

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 Androi...

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 partit...

Chris Hoffman Jun 7th, 2017

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 d...

Lori Kaufman Jun 7th, 2017

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....

Chris Hoffman May 15th, 2017

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 ever...

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. How...

Lori Kaufman Apr 24th, 2017

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.

Christopher Welker Apr 17th, 2017

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 fi...

Chris Hoffman Apr 10th, 2017

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...

Whitson Gordon Mar 22nd, 2017

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 Windo...

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