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Time Saving Linux Desktop Tips?
dan_polt asks: "I currently use a Linux desktop system, at work. One of the great things about the Linux desktop is that there are lots of ways to save a lot of time from useful widgets and configuration to minimize the pain of repetitive tasks. Most of my work involves web/e-Mail/SSH access, and I have a very high spec'd machine with dual-head 1600x1200 screens. What software or configuration tips might Slashdot have for me to: make better use of my time; make the most of my screen real estate; and make my use of the desktop more effective?"
I use Linux mostly at work as well, I do work in a Windows-centric environment so I use VMWare to run Windows. Otherwise I would rather just use the virtual consoles, with ssh, elinks (for browsing), and rarely X. I do find X to be useful for things that I must use it for, but for the most productivity, nothing beats a console.
Of the four or so high-content-rate sites I frequent, none of them had anything happening in the last 10 hours. Would you prefer that Slashdot lower their content standards even further? Is that even possible?
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
There were 10 hours and 26 minutes between front page posts.
Given a choice between a few articles of high quality and many articles of low quality, I'd take fewer articles.
Of course, that's a false choice, in two senses. First, there's no correlation between the number of articles and the quantity of articles. Second, it's not a choice Slashdot offers.
Well, it is Thanksgiving weekend. Most people are out doing stuff with their physical world friends.
Some of the ads are actually useful. My business partner's going to get a gift from ThinkGeek (better not say what it is here since he might be watching!) And it looks like I'll be using ServerBeach for my next venture. So I wouldn't give up on ads, and as you say I like supporting Slashdot.
As for your substantiative criticisms, are we really bleeding users? I certainly haven't noticed any lack of comments. In fact, it might not be so bad if we did. It sure was nice when I could actually read every comment on the articles that interested me. Now I'm lucky if I can finish the first page of ten!
Digg is so different from Slashdot in my experience that I don't see them as competitors. I visited there, didn't see what the fuss was about, and came back here.
That being said, to me it's always been about the comments, and the rich experience they bring us here. For example, I've wanted to learn about on-demand water heaters for some time, and all someone had to do was post an article about some bogus new on-demand technology, and whammo! I found out pretty much everything a person could conceivably want to know about them.
The moderation system is clever, and really works, and that seems to be the main value added that Slashdot's founders have created. Other than that, it's been being in the right place at the right time and having the right idea.
As long as there's a good and active user community here, I'm still loyal to it. The founders aren't the most literate bunch in the world, and they make all kinds of silly mistakes, but this place seems to work and generate interesting stuff, and for that I'm happy.
D
Of course, unless you actually wanted your remote file system mounts to actually be something more than a hack and used something like Fuse (http://fuse.sourceforge.net/) where file system syscalls can be handled by behavior defined in user space.
sshfs and smbfs work like a charm, although they have some...amusing "file systems" listed as well. (Such as a representation of a relational database as directories and XML files....)
Making better use of your desktop real estate means getting rid of a lot of junk. If you haven't already, I'd try saying goodbye to KDE/Gnome and getting the lightest possible window manager for the job: That's Fluxbox, ICEwm, Fvwm, or the desktop environment Xfce. (I'm low on sadism, so I won't recommend TWM. Anybody that 1337 wouldn't be posting this question.) This doesn't sound like much, but trust me, when you do away with that extra time waiting for KDE to load, you'll be faster and only have (in Fluxbox's case) a tiny slit in your way. No icons cluttering things up (yeah, we need a home directory icon on the desktop when it's in our menu, too! Sheesh!). Every Linux program on your system can be started from any window manager's menu, it's just a matter of editing the menu to launch the program. Too bothered to edit text menus? Then from the console, try "kicker" for KDE's panel, "gnome-panel" for Gnome's, and "xfce4-panel" for Xfce's, depending on what you have installed. I've tried them all and they work even from TWM!
As for time-saving: the key here is "automate". Anything you type in a terminal more than once is grounds for automation. Simply take the same commands you type and save them on a line each in a plain text file with the line "#!/bin/bash" at the top and the line "end" at the bottom. Save that file somewhere in your executable path (type "echo $PATH" if you don't know), and type "chmod +x [name of your program]". You can now execute it just like any other system program.
The next level of automation is programs that require interaction. Two work-arounds exist for this: "Here" documents are little scriptlets you can slip into Bash scripts to do simple keyboard commands for interacting with command-line programs that insist on recieving input. The more sophisticated approach is Tcl/Tk's "expect", which can be used to script damn-near anything (take a command-line web browser like lynx and feed it an expect script with the right instructions, and you can auto-post B1FF comments to Slashdot, even! (Provided you had a nick signed in.), sorry, guys, the secret's out!) I can't think of anything having to do with ssh and email accounts that couldn't be handled with all of the above.
This might be overkill, but anybody who's read "Beginning Linux Programming" by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones, courtesy of www.wrox.com, wouldn't have to post this question. I promise you could skip the GTK and Qt parts and brush up on Bash, at least, which is easier than BASIC on the Apple ][.
Doubtless, part of the indiference/hostility in here is because this is also the kind of question spammers ask, and you wouldn't find any people on Slashdot who deal with too much spam, now would you? I don't mind answering because, if you're a *good* wizard, you deserve to know this stuff as well as I do, and if you're a *bad* wizard, I haven't given you a damn thing you couldn't have gotten from a few hours of Googling.
Pet peave: why doesn't unlink(2) move stuff to a filesystem-wide deleted area?
;)
UNIX lacks a recycle bin, but so does the Windows NT kernel and the MacOSX kernel. "Recycle Bins" are typically a GUI function, not a kernel function. Try doing an "rm" or "del" using the OSX or Windows command line and see if your files end up in the recycle bin.
KDE and Gnome have a "recycle/trash bin" as well. It's just that a lot of users prefer the command line.
This may be getting too nit picky, but unlink(2) shouldn't do things like that. I've thought about how to implement an automatic undelete cache in a file system, but it just ends up being way too much in-kernel maintenance so that it ultimately detracts from performance. But, flexibility is always there. You're perfectly welcome to override unlink(2) with your own function and LD_PRELOAD, and get exactly the behavior you're asking about - even on the command line. Just make sure you have a "realrm" that uses the stock unlink(2)
The problem I have with these tactics is that obfuscation strategies don't work against a sufficiently clever and determined opponent. And I'm very clever and determined when it comes to avoiding work.
No, the important thing to do is to sap your determination for wasting time. The reason people waste time is that they have so many commitments they can't keep them straight, although they're rattling around somewhere in their head.
The mind is like a thick, opaque stew -- you can only be aware of what happens to boil to the surface at the moment. We toss all the commitments we make to ourselves and others into the pot, and pretty soon its beyond us to know all the things that are in there. It's very common to harbor a unnamed suspicion that that something nasty like a severed human finger could surface at any second. This creates a tremendous resistance to even looking at the stew, much less stirring it up to find something important you've lost.
The secret to productivity is to change your mind from stew to consommé. To do this, you have to find some place other than your mind to put all your commitments. Then you have to look at all those things on a regular basis, because they'll sneak into your head if you don't. That's what people miss when they "get organized".
Simple program to clear your mind of frightening junk:
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.