10 Expert Ubuntu Tricks
Recently I started work on a new Ubuntu tips book that will partner my existing title, Ubuntu Kung Fu. The new book is still being planned and won't be published until next year, but I thought I'd share 10 tips that are on my list to be included. If you have any others that you think would go into such a book, put them in the comments below. I'd love to hear them, as would other readers, I'm sure.
These tips aren't Ubuntu-specific, but they've been tested on Ubuntu, and I can't guarantee they'll work on other distros. You might already know about some or all of them, but resist the temptation to gloat about this in the comments. You're just extra clever, OK?
With that said, let's start!
1. Open a Superuser Run Programs Dialog
You probably already know that hitting Alt+F2 will cause a "Run Programs" dialog box to appear. Here you can type any program name to run it -- I often use it to run gconf-editor, which hasn't got a menu entry, or example. However, if you type gksu into a terminal window (with nothing following), a similar dialog box appears, but this time it will let you run the program as root (or any other user on the system). You can bind the gksu command to a keyboard shortcut (perhaps Shift+Alt+F2) using System, Preferences, Keyboard Shortcuts, to effectively produce a "superuser" Run Programs dialog.
2. Install Packages Quickly With GDebi
I spent a long time ignoring the GDebi program. To remind you, this is a GUI application that allows the installation of packages you've manually downloaded. It attempts to resolve dependencies using the repositories, which is a very useful feature. However, I've always preferred the good old-fashioned dpkg command. Then one day I tried GDebi at the command line and was shocked to find it also runs in a fuss-free non-GUI mode (i.e. sudo gdebi package.deb), yet still has the ability to resolve dependencies. Give it a try. Once you do, you may never want to use dpkg -i again.
3. CD Tricks
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deborphan to find leftover packages
"deborphan -Psa" shows packages which have no dependencies/recommendations/suggestions on them. if you don't recognize a package, then you can probably remove it because no other package references it.