Luke Smith, Based Cooking, DigDeeper - /page/digdeeper.love/Linux-Essentials.mu

Micron Document

Linux Essentials

Introduction

The more accurate title would be the things I do after installing a Linux

system to make my experience more comfortable. Even with such a user-friendly

distro as Salix (which this guide will assume - but most of it can be adapted to

other distros), it is easy to get overwhelmed, especially for a recent Windows

refugee. So, hopefully this article will provide some direction and save you

time, effort, and possible frustration for when you break something and / or

have to install Linux on another machine.

Manual Wifi configuration

Putting this in first since Internet access is required for much of the guide.

Since NetworkManager is a famously terrible piece of junk and the Slackware

scripts don't always pick the network up, here's how you can do it on your own

(WIP):

Type iwconfig or ifconfig to see the name of your interface (say, wlan0).

Type sudo iwlist wlan0 scan to see the Wifi networks found. Take note of the

one you want to connect to.

Type sudo wpa passphrase my beautiful network amazingly

strong_password, filling in the necessary values. Copy the output.

Type sudo leafpad /etc/wpa_supplicant.conf. Paste the output and save.

Type sudo leafpad /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf. Add this at the end (of course, if

you already have another network with the number 4, use a higher number):

IFNAME[4]="wlan0"

IPADDR[4]=""

NETMASK[4]=""

USE_DHCP[4]="yes"

DHCP HOSTNAME[4]="my beautiful_network"

WLAN WPA[4]="wpa supplicant"

WLAN_WPADRIVER[4]="wext"

The Slackware scripts should pick it up on reboot now. To test it out, type sudo

sh /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0 restart. You can debug the terminal output if it

still refuses to work, or inspect /var/log/messages for even more information.

Failing that, we can bypass the Slackware scripts and connect with wpa

supplicant directly by typing sudo wpa supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa

supplicant.conf&. This should be foolproof, but in case it's not - the wpa

supplicant log resides in /var/log/wpa supplicant.log. If you want to

connect with wpa_supplicant at every boot (bypassing Slackware scripts), add

these commands to /etc/rc.d/rc.local:

sh /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 wlan0_stop

wpa supplicant -iwlan0 -c/etc/wpa supplicant.conf&

dhcpcd&

In case the network is still failing after reboot, the issue might be

resolv.conf not being updated by dhcpcd. If that happens, type sudo resolvconf

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same as before (for example, I've had it become wlan.ra), so take that into

account. Paste the output into /etc/resolv.conf, which should look something

like this (of course, the IPs will be different):

# resolv.conf from wlan0.ra

# Generated by dhcpcd from wlan0.ra

nameserver 55.55.55.55

nameserver 33.33.33.33

Application-related

Adding repositories

Now, Salix repositories are quite large and should be enough to get you started,

but someday you will need to branch out. The defaults are limited to packages

from Slackware 14.2, while sometime you just might need a newer version (for

example, certain python3 applications require 3.6 which Salix does not provide).

Some packages are also not available at all, such as SpaceFM, my favorite file

manager. In come the Slackel (http://www.slackel.gr/repo/x86 64/current/) and

SlackOnly (https://packages.slackonly.com/pub/packages/14.2-x86 64/)

repositories. Just start up Gslapt, go to Preferences - Sources, click Add, and

copy those links. Remember, though, that you can easily break shit if you

aren't careful - a repo can, for example, pull in a library that a package

requires, and that one will replace the one you had before - breaking everything

that was dependent on it. There are also other available repositories, such as

Ponce or Alien - search around!

Installing and removing packages

It is hard for a distro to contain everything you need and nothing else - in

fact, it is impossible (but Salix comes close). So you will always have to add

and remove something. You can use the repositories you've added in the previous

step - or, another nice way to install a particular package you need is to use

SlakFinder (http://slakfinder.org/ - here are my search plugins for its

easier usage). This website allows you to type a package name (even partial) and

it will show you all the repositories you can download it from (including the

links!). You will have to use the installpkg command to use those. This way

will also not bring in any dependencies, which has its advantages (no breakage)

and disadvantages (package might not work). Note: if you want to skip installing

dependencies, you can use the Download packages only option in Gslapt - or

find a repository that doesn't contain dependency information. I will assume

you've managed to install everything you need without breaking anything (harder

than it sounds sometimes). Slapt-get (what Gslapt uses) keeps all its installed

packages in /var/slapt-get/, so I recommend copying those to a pendrive. This

way, if you ever install Salix elsewhere, you can immediately bring it to your

preferred state by running the command "sudo installpkg ./*" while inside the

folder you've stored them in. And you won't even have to connect to the Internet

anymore to download those packages.

Packages from other distros

Unfortunately for us Slackware-based distribution users, Ubuntu / Debian are the

primary target for many Linux developers. Therefore, many packages cannot be

found in the Slackware .t*z format, but can in .deb or sometimes Red Hat's

.rpm. What to do then? deb2tgz and rpm2tgz to the rescue. These scripts

allow you to convert any .deb or .rpm package so that it is compatible with

Slackware-based distros. deb2tgz is found in the SlackOnly repository, while

rpm2tgz - in the Salix one.

Add commonly-used applications to the panel

By default, Salix includes only a few generic icons on the panel - the terminal,

text editor, file manager and web browser. But of course you will use so much

more of them - so why not put the most used ones in there as well? Let's add a

music player - right click the panel, hover over Panel, and click Add new items.

Now choose Launcher and click Add. An empty icon will appear in there - right

click it and choose "Properties". Now click the plus button. Type the name of

your music player (for example QuodLibet) or find it in the list of

applications, then click on it and use the Add option to put it in the panel.

Close the launcher editor, right click the icon that appeared, and Move it to

wherever it is convenient for you. You will probably install packages pretty

often, so let's add Gslapt in there as well. Then the mail client, painting

program, IDE, and movie player. You're all set! The result should look something

like this: XFCE panel with various programs in it This should heavily boost your

productivity - no more clicking around to find the program you're looking for.

The panel settings (as well as other Xfce-related ones) are stored in

/home/YourUsername/.config/xfce4/, so you can easily copy them to a pendrive

or something. And if you break Linux on this machine, you can just reinstall it

and keep the home partition, so the settings will be carried over.

Making it look good

Themes

Let's face it, Xfce's default look sucks. And all its default themes also

suck. Now you can install the murrine engine and its associated themes, but

they are only slightly better. Chances are, if you want to actually enjoy

looking at your computer, you will need to peruse the website

https://xfce-look.org/. But first, go to Settings > Settings manager and

let's see how the look of Xfce is actually decided. You can divide it into five

parts:

Theme (the color scheme of everything except the title bar - set through the

Appearance menu)

Icons (also Appearance menu)

Wallpaper (in Desktop)

Title bar (colour and buttons; in Window Manager menu)

Cursors (in Mouse and Touchpad > Theme).

Now wouldn't it be nice to have all these put together, instead of scattered

around? Download the package Xfce-theme-manager (find it through the

aforementioned SlakFinder). Now a new section will appear in your Settings

Manager. There you can modify all the settings as well as some additional ones -

and save them as actual whole themes. Anyway, visit https://xfce-look.org/

and look around. First, time to dump the boring single-colored cursors. Let's

have some fun - how about a [fucking

Katanattps://www.xfce-look.org/p/999888/] as your cursor - download it by -

you guessed it - clicking the Download btton. To install the cursor set, move

the archive to /usr/share/icons, open it in Engrampa and extract the folder that

is INSIDE - just extracting the archive will create a folder with its name,

and the theme will not work. Some of my favorites are

Charged, Dragon"s Jewel, and Dragon Claw. Keep in mind anyone could submit a

theme, so there's bound to be a few low quality or even incomplete ones. Now do

the same for Icon Themes and XFCE/XFWM4 Themes (extracted in /usr/share/themes)

and you're all set! Note: while seeking themes, try to find ones that have GTK3

support instead of just GTK2; otherwise, the GTK3 programs will use the default

look and seem out of place compared to the GTK2 ones (edit: or trash gtk3

altogether, then you can use all the gtk2-only themes). As for the wallpaper -

well, you can get it from anywhere - any png/jpg image will work. Put them in

/usr/share/xfce4/backdrops/ to have them displayed in the settings manager. It

is also possible to edit a theme (or create your own, but that's way too much

effort) - for that, go to your theme's folder, then gtk2.0 and open the gtkrc

file in your favorite text editor. There's really no proper documentation for

doing this, so you'll have to figure out what stuff means on your own.

Other settings you can change

Lots! Let's go through them one by one:

Screensaver

you're a lucky guy; there are a lot of them by default! Even a fucking

Pacman one. Find them in Settings > Screensaver. Some fun ones are Kumppa,

Fireworkx, or BinaryRing.

Transparency

a common criticism of "ricing" is that you never see your wallpaper. Well, not

if you have this enabled! Go to Window Manager Tweaks > Compositor, enable it

if it isn't already, and choose your preferred transparency levels for

inactive and moving windows. I recommend making them mostly transparent. While

we're here, turn on your Terminal emulator (if you're new to Linux - trust

me, you will use this a lot) and change its transparency as well (Edit >

Preferences > Appearance. Background > Transparent).

Screen resolution

self explanatory. It's in the Display section of the Settings Manager.

The look during Alt+Tabbing

it's in Window Manager Tweaks > Compositor, specifically the Show windows

preview in place of icons when cycling.. I think this should be disabled,

because it's fucking ugly.

Font family and size

Appearance > Fonts.

Desktop icons

Desktop > Icons. I recommend deleting them all, to see the wallpaper in all

its glory.

Terminal colors

Lime on black, hacker style ^_^

Changing the look of specific icons - You can do that too. Right click on

an application on the panel, Edit Launcher and click on its icon. By using the

"Image files" option and combing through the folders in /usr/share/icons/,

you can use icons from many different themes at the same time, or even your

own custom ones.

If you want to create a new panel, right click an existing one and navigate to

Panel > Panel Preferences, then click the + button. There you can choose its

properties such as size or whether it will hide itself when the cursor is away.

You can use it, for example, to display the currently active applications at the

top while you hover over there. Okay, that's about as much as you can do with

pure Xfce. The final result might look something like this: Showing my full Linux desktop There are some other tools

for more heavy ricing that I might describe someday; for now though, let's move

on to functionality.

Set up everyday software

Web Browser

If you're like me, you will be spending much of your computer time browsing the

Internet. So why not prepare it for this - as we will see - gargantuan task now?

First of all - the browser choice. Refer to my other article - How to choose a browser for your daily use? -

for advice on this topic. Time to harden it with addons (if it supports them -

but if you read the linked article, you will hopefully see how essential they

are). Essential privacy (and other) addons. Now let's set up our

search engines. Pale Moon will detect most of them when visited and you can add

them then. To test it out, go to <https://metager.de>, press the small black

arrow near the search bar, and then "Add Metager". Now you can select it from

the dropdown list and it will become the default in the search bar. Another way

to add them is finding a plugin from <https://mycroftproject.com/> for the

website you want to search through. After you've added all the ones you want,

use the Manage Search Engines menu (black arrow again) to set keyboard shortcuts

for them. This will allow you to use any search engine in the address bar by

typing their shortcut (e.g ddg for DuckDuckGo) followed by the query - very

convenient. If you've settled on a Chrome-based browser, it will detect

whenever you use a search engine, and automatically add it to the settings

menu. Go there and click "Manage search engines". There, you will have a list of

all the ones you've ever used - so if you searched for something with

SlakFinder, you can now set a keyword for it. Click on the three dots to the

right of it, Edit, and put "sf" as the keyword. Now you can perform a SlakFinder

search by typing sf your-search-term in the address bar. Pretty convenient,

huh? Now do the same for StartPage (keyword sp) and DuckDuckGo (keyword ddg),

as well as any others you want. Note: you should also configure a VPN and / or

Tor for your web browsing. Refer to How and why to VPNize your entire traffic and Darknet setup in Slackware-based distros.

Text Editor / IDE

If you are a developer, Geany is a great, lean tool to use and installed by

default in Salix. What I like to do here is first to create some projects

using the Project > New option. With this, you will be able to switch through

different projects with three clicks and have all their files loaded. Very

useful if you - for example - both develop a website and create software. The

nice thing about this is that you can search and replace a string in all

loaded files (Ctrl+H -> Replace all in session). Makes it much more convenient

to do mass modifications. Another feature I like to use is templates - if

you are going to be creating documents that look the same just with different

content, templates are invaluable. Create a skeleton of your file with all the

content removed and put it in /usr/share/geany/templates/files/. Then,

anytime you want to make a new document you can do that in 3 clicks with File ->

New with template and then choose the template. Very convenient! Macros are

another thing you should really try to learn (Tools -> Edit macros) - these

allow you to make more complex modifications to a document, but they can be kind

of hard to use. Though with a little bit of effort they can automate lots of

tedious work. Another thing to take note of are the navigation keyboard

shortcuts (move to next word, delete current line, etc) which again streamline

the development. UPDATE April 2025: newest Geany seems to have removed the

underscore as a "word boundary" (basically any character that "stops" jumping

between words with CTRL+left / right arrow). This was unacceptable to me as my

images are all named like "my awesome image.png" and sometimes it's really

necessary for me to quickly change the "awesome" to "horrible" or something

like that. So I set out on the journey to figure this out and I did. Go to

Tools - Configuration files -> filetypes.common and find this

section:

#~ [settings]

#~ # which characters should be skipped when moving (or included when

deleting) to word boundaries

#~ should always include space and tab (s )

#~ whitespace_chars=s !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^|}~

#~ wordchars=_abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789

First, uncomment the first line, which enables the entire config section. Then,

uncomment the whitespace and wordchars lines. As you can see, the last line

contains the underscore, meaning it's going to be considered a "letter" by

geany, and won't stop the "fast travel". Delete it. Then add an underscore to

the previous line, which defines the characters that actually do stop the

"fast travel". I like adding it to the end of the line. The final section will

look like this:

[settings]

#~ # which characters should be skipped when moving (or included when

deleting) to word boundaries

#~ # should always include space and tab (s )

whitespace chars=s !"#$%&'()*+,-./:;<=>?@[]^|}~

wordchars=abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789

After that, go to Tools and click Reload configuration. Everything

should work properly after that.

File manager

Another one you'll be spending some time on. This guide will assume you are

using SpaceFM, since it is simply the most powerful one. What can it do?

Create custom commands - see

here.

Set up key shortcuts - for like everything. Right click any item and then

Key Shortcut.

Create bookmarks - Navigate to a folder you want to add, then click

Bookmarks -> New Bookmark. Right click the bookmark that has appeared to set

its icon or key shortcut.

Set global mount options for devices - right click on a device, then

Settings -> Mount Options. If you want to do that for a specific device, use

the Re/Mount option. Some useful ones are rw and sync especially for MP3

players (without sync, the files don't seem to be saved to the player at all,

even if you sync manually).

Modify the toolbar - right click it to see all the options. Can add

bookmarks, commands, applications, move stuff around, remove buttons already

there, etc.

Lots and lots of others! SpaceFM's power is truly galactical - I don't

even know half of it. Explore!

Life savers / enhancers

Terminal aliases

Let's face it - it can get tedious to type the same long terminal commands all

the time. Aliases to the rescue! In your home directory, create a file named

.bash_aliases - yes, with the dot - and put this line there: alias

sli="sudo slapt-get install". Since you will most likely be using slapt-get

quite a bit, this will bind it to the shortcut sli. And you can do that for

any command just by putting an alias in a new line. Keep in mind you have to log

out to have the shortcuts be applied.

Hardinfo

Just a program that shows you all the hardware you have - something that should

really be there by default, but somehow isn't. Available in the default repos.

Data recovery

It is inevitable that you will lose some of your data sooner or later - whether

through power, hardware, or system failure; accidentally (or on purpose - and

then regretting it) deleting it, or through an overzealous BSD installer eating

your old partitions. Easy to say back it up! - and you should - but a backup

can get eaten by a dog, too. There are two tools available for data recovery -

extundelete and PhotoRec. Now, the former only goes after the files still

present in your filesystem - even then, I've always had problems actually

getting it to do anything; the latter, on the other hand, goes straight to the

underlying data. It will recover anything that can be - so let's learn how to

use it.

Let's say you've had some hacking ^_^ ebooks stored on a pendrive - but you've

decided to use it for something else - and now you'd like to bring them back.

Type sudo photorec in the terminal and choose the relevant drive. Now press

the right arrow twice to enter File Options. Press S to disable all the file

types, then scroll down to pdf, press Space and Enter to go back to the main

menu. Forget about specific partitions - it might have been repartitioned a

thousand times since the data loss - so use the No partition - Whole disk

option. Again, filesystem doesn't matter if we're looking through the whole

disk, so just select ext3, move the cursor back to Search, and press Enter. Last

thing you have to do is choose where the recovered files will be dumped. You

can create a new folder "Recovery" inside /home if you want to. Before we start,

I should warn you that the dumped files can take quite a lot of space - even

all of it - so watch out. Okay, let's press C, and the process can begin.

Right away PhotoRec will begin dumping a bunch of files (if it found anything) -

and you can explore them real-time. The recovery can take quite long, so be

patient. Now remember - PhotoRec goes after the underlying data - so you can

find some partial or corrupted files - and the filenames are ignored since they

are stored in the filesystem. You might be surprised at what PhotoRec finds -

I've seen system-related stuff from like five installations ago, or old pictures

I've used for shitposting on chans that I forgot have even existed. To make it

easier to find the file you want, sort them by size so the useless <1KB ones

will be shown first. If it was a text file, you can also type the command grep

rnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw '/home/YourUsername/Recovery' -e 'TextToBeFound', which will search forrnw 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files containing a particular string inside the Recovery folder. Okay, that's

about it for our brief PhotoRec guide (it can do more - search the 'net; the

basics are sufficient though). Hook up some old drives and happy hunting!

Deploying your system elsewhere

Moved to a separate article

Using ddcutil to control your monitor

Since it's annoying to get up and press those unwieldy buttons anytime you want

to change color settings or such. First of all, enable the option DDC/CI in

your monitor settings if it has that; not all monitors support this standard

and laptops apparently don't. If yours doesn't, unfortunately none of this will

work. Now install packages ddcutil and i2c-tools if they are not there

already; then type sudo modprobe i2c-dev into the terminal. The command sudo

ddcutil detect should then show you some information about your monitor. Type

sudo ddcutil getvcp KNOWN and you'll get a long output which contains lines such

as this:

VCP code 0x30 (Vertical Position (Phase) ): current value = 50, max value =

100

VCP code 0x20 (Horizontal Position (Phase) ): current value = 50, max value

= 100

VCP code 0x12 (Contrast ): current value = 75, max value = 100

Note the parts starting with 0x - those are the codes for the values you want to

edit. So - if you want to change the Contrast - you'll need the 0x12 code

number. Now type:

sudo ddcutil setvcp 0x12 70

This changes the contrast to 70. Of course, the code can be changed to any

feature that is supported by your monitor (many won't be and will still require

the buttons). Changing the video input source to HDMI:

sudo ddcutil setvcp 0x60 3

This can be used to e.g enable playing with a Nintendo Switch in docked mode

through one command, instead of pressing a bunch of annoying buttons (hell, I

know most of the currently produced monitors have the horrible flat ones). Of

course, the codes for your device will be different. By the way, if you intend

to use this more often, you might want to add the i2c-dev module to

/etc/rc.d/rc.modules.local so that it is loaded on boot.

Other things to keep in mind

ALWAYS keep around an USB drive with a Linux Live iso on it! This will be

essential if you render your current installation unbootable; even if you

don't manage to recover it, you will be able copy the files you need, and

reinstall. Even better - use the instructions from this article and keep THAT USB drive

around.

To make a command not steal the whole terminal window, add the & character

after it (for example, gparted& or gslapt&). If you've already run a command

without it, press Ctrl+Z in that terminal window and take note of the number

in parentheses that appeared. Then, type bg that number, for example bg 3,

which will send the command to the background. You can bring it back to

terminal with fg 3.

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