Don't hate on Ubuntu

I love listening to podcasts, one that I recently started listening to is called "Linux for the rest of us". It is hosted by Stephen McLaughlin (the Door to Door Geek) and Cody Cooper (Super Coop). In Episode 137 Stephen had a soap box moment where he told people not to hate on Ubuntu, especially if you are using Mint, Peppermint or any other distro that has Ubuntu somewhere in it's roots.

I think he has a point, I myself use Peppermint 4 because it runs well on older hardware and I like the LXDE interface. I specifically don't use Ubuntu because of Unity, I might not like everything that Ubuntu is doing or the direction they as a company have taken - but I use a distro that's had a strong influence from Lubuntu and Mint, which ultimately have Ubuntu as their ancestor.

We should not bash one distro (you don't have to wear an Ubuntu tshirt 24/7), but you don't have to hate on it because it uses a desktop interface that may or may not be your first choice. The Ubuntu team have put a lot of "elbow grease" (as Stephen calls it) into Debian to make it easier to use, and it is very hypocritical to hate Ubuntu and rave about how Mint is the best Linux ever.

I hope I have made some sense today; if not then I need help, or a cookie, or both.
You can respect what Ubuntu has done - while using another distro.

Getting started with Peppermint

The Team Peppermint folks have a very nice user guide and if you have never seen it before I suggest you check it out.

It will help you with the basics and has 6 chapters:


Chapter One – Download and Install
Chapter Two – An Intro to the Desktop
Chapter Three – Customizing the Desktop
Chapter Four – Installing and Removing Software
Chapter Five – Site Specific Browsers and the Ice Application
Chapter Six – Additional Reading and Resources


To highlight something from the first chapter: why do I need to check the integrity of the disk image? If after installing Peppermint 4 you find that some things are not working right, then check the integrity of the ISO, only to find out that it's not right - then you have wasted all the time installing and configuring Peppermint. It took me less than 2 minutes to check the integrity of my Peppermint 4 ISO, and fortunately there was nothing wrong with it.

Do things right from the beginning so that you don't make more work for yourself later on.

Linux directory structure: an explanation

If you are a long time Windows user you are probably familiar with the Documents and Settings, Program Files and Windows folders. When you use Linux, things look very different. 

I was going to write a short guide on the subject (but I don't understand everything and I did not want to simply copy & paste info here) so I found 3 good guides for you to read on the subject.

Ubuntu documentation

Linux Command

How to Geek

I will however, discuss the directory that I am the most familiar with. The home directory. When you open the home directory you see a directory with your username, it is similar to the 

C:\My Documents if you were using Windows 98

C:\Documents and Settings\Username if you were using Windows XP, or 

C:\Users\Username if you were using Windows 7

The home directory has sub directories:

Desktop 

Contains your desktop shortcuts

Documents

Make sub directories to fit your needs and save your Word & Excel (or Writer & Calc) and other documents here.

Downloads

The folder your web browser downloads to by default that you are supposed to sort regularly, but seldomly do (well, me at least). Files are meant to stay here short term. 

Music

Put your mp3, ogg, aac, wav, flac, aif (or whatever format you use for your music) files here.

Pictures

A place to save all those lovely tux wallpapers and lol cat pictures you have been collecting. Cut & paste them here from the Downloads directory now ;)

Also a good place for storing your photos from your digital camera, etc.

Public

Used for sharing files over a network. 

Templates

Save your templates files here. Lots of programs like LibreOffice, Scribus & Inkscape use templates.

Videos

Remember to make sub folders here, otherwise things can get a bit messy. 

As you can see the folder structure is self explanatory, and you should not have any trouble with it. Remember that it is dangerous to mess around in folders that you don't understand what they are there for.

Installing my HP Laserjet 1010 on Peppermint 4

I know I have made a lot of blog posts today, compared to what I normally do, but it's important to write this stuff down before I forget.

After installing Peppermint 4, my printer is not automatically detected.
I downloaded hplib using Software Manager.
Click on Menu >> System Tools >> Printers
Click Add
My printer appears in the list that just opened
I clicked Forward
Ticked Duplexer Installer
Apply & print a test page
It works, yeah!

I am very glad that it was this easy to install, not sure if I missed a step last time I write about printing. Hopefully I've done a better job on writing about it this time.

Conky guide for Peppermint 4

I've done bits and pieces on conky before, here I would like to combine everything from start to finish. I love programs like conky, because I want to be able to see how fast something is downloading, or how hard my CPU is working or even what process is is using the most memory at a glance.

There is a lot more that can be done with conky, you can use different fonts, for example. But I'm using it on a 10" netbook monitor, so that's why mine looks the way it does.

Installing Conky

Fire up a Terminal window, type: sudo apt-get install conky

Type root user password and press <ENTER>, the thing is that I keep forgetting how to make Conky autostart.

Making Conky autostart

Open File Manager
Go to /etc/xdg/lxsession/Peppermint
Click on Tools >> Open current folder as Root
Enter your Root password, press <ENTER>
Right click on autostart, left click on Text Editor
Add @conky at the bottom of the file
Save & exit

This should work for making other programs run at startup as well.

The thing about doing stuff like this is if you don't reinstall often, you can forget this - I did at least, so adding it to this blog helps me next time I need to do it.

Customizing Conky:

The config file is located in: etc/conky
Click on Tools >> Open current folder as Root
Enter your Root password, press <ENTER>
Right click on conky.conf , left click on Text editor

Be careful what you change here. Make a backup of your current script before you change anything.

A screenshot of my conky

Here's my conky script

You can copy and paste this over yours if you like:


background yes
use_xft yes
xftfont Sans:size=8
xftalpha 1
update_interval 1.0
total_run_times 0
own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_type normal
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
double_buffer yes
minimum_size 200 700
maximum_width 400
draw_shades yes
draw_outline no
draw_borders no
draw_graph_borders yes
default_color white
default_shade_color black
default_outline_color white
alignment top_right
gap_x 12
gap_y 12
no_buffers yes
text_buffer_size 1024
uppercase no
cpu_avg_samples 2
override_utf8_locale no

TEXT
${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}SYSTEM ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}$sysname $kernel $alignr $machine
Host:$alignr$nodename
Uptime:$alignr$uptime
Battery Status: $alignr$battery

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}PROCESSORS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${cpugraph cpu1}
CPU1: ${cpu cpu1}% ${cpubar cpu1}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}MEMORY ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}RAM $alignc $mem / $memmax $alignr $memperc%
$membar

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}DISKS ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}/ $alignc ${fs_used /} / ${fs_size /} $alignr ${fs_used_perc /}%
${fs_bar /}
SWAP $alignc ${swap} / ${swapmax} $alignr ${swapperc}%
${swapbar}

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}TOP PROCESSES ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}${top_mem name 1}${alignr}${top mem 1} %
${top_mem name 2}${alignr}${top mem 2} %
$font${top_mem name 3}${alignr}${top mem 3} %
$font${top_mem name 4}${alignr}${top mem 4} %
$font${top_mem name 5}${alignr}${top mem 5} %

${font sans-serif:bold:size=8}NETWORK ${hr 2}
${font sans-serif:normal:size=8}IP address: $alignr ${addr eth1}
ESSID: $alignr ${wireless_essid eth1}
${downspeedgraph eth1}
DLS:${downspeed eth1} kb/s $alignr total: ${totaldown eth1}
${upspeedgraph eth1}
ULS:${upspeed eth1} kb/s $alignr total: ${totalup eth1}



Enjoy the goodness that is conky!