If you still use a desktop computer for getting most work done, then you also care about hardware peripherals like mouse and keyboard. But some people, such as myself, grow out of mouse and need a trackball.
Continue reading “Trackball config: Kensington Expert Mouse”
Termux emulates a Linux terminal on Android. After installing Termux on your smartphone, run packages install coreutils to launch the Linux terminal experience. It does not require rooting.
Continue reading “w3m and touchscreen”
As much as I love i3 window manager, I am getting more frustrated as I get to know it better. The issues with window focus are piling up.
Continue reading “Still looking for the perfect desktop: Focus”
Qtile is not too easy out of the box. Here are just some notes of things I need but I could not see in it or could not figure out (in the space of one hour that I had time for for Qtile), based on comparison with i3wm.
Continue reading “Qtile versus i3wm: Still looking for the perfect desktop”
Something I have been looking for very long. Finally I was instructed.
Continue reading “i3wm: Close all windows on a workspace”
GNU wget is an unavoidably common command-line download tool. With the -r flag, wget will basically spindle around the entire internet and download it to your computer. Moreover, without extra parameters given, it will preserve the folder structures it finds on the source locations, so that you stand no chance of finding anything on your computer. If you are like me and you want to download things at a specific location in the source server to a specific folder at your destination, just the files, not the folders, then here is an example how to reduce wget’s quirky behaviour.
The best command to review most recent commands:
fc -lr
The above command lists the latest commands in reverse order. It doesn’t list many. To see the entire list, type:
fc -l 1 | less
Simple fc without any arguments picks the latest command in the history, opens it up in your preset command-line editor, and then launches it when the editor closes. There is no stopping the launching, as far as I know, except by emptying the editor and closing it.
To launch an editor according to my liking and with arguments I don’t ordinarily use in that editor, I use:
fc -e "nano -k -U"
Additionally, there’s a way to re-launch commands by means of fc. For this, do first fc -lr to get some commands with their respective history numbers and memorise the number you want to re-launch. Then:
fc -ls #
where # is the number. This re-launches without editor (the argument -s does that). More info:
man fc
man + cmd usually gives the most in-depth answer when seeking information about a command. Most Linux commands have man pages. Some don’t.
In case of missing man pages, the given command may provide information about itself by one of the following:
cmd --help
cmd -help
cmd -h
Substitute cmd for the command you want to know about.
Additionally, there are special commands on Linux whose function is to provide information about other commands. Some of them are:
type cmd
whatis cmd
whereis cmd
TZ='America/Chicago' date --date='TZ="Europe/Berlin" 2100'
This command will output the answer to the question: When it’s 2100 (9:00 p.m.) in Berlin, then what’s the time in Chicago?
To find the timezones you need, use tzselect.
Aspell is a command-line spellchecker, useful for Nano and Mutt for example. The only problem is get it actually to work.
Aspell works out of the box if your system locale is English and you want to spell check only the same language. This is not mostly the case. My system locale is different, but I want to spell check English.
Aspell’s behaviour can be modified by adding command line options, but this is useless, because normally Aspell is invoked from another program, such as Nano or Mutt. Aspell’s behaviour can be modified also by tweaking a config file, which would be useful, if the instructions on how to do it were not utterly confusing.
The config files mentioned on man aspell are not in the indicated locations, not in my system at least. The way to get access to the content of configuration options is to do
aspell dump config > .aspell.conf
This creates the file .aspell.conf whose settings Aspell will follow, when set correctly. Initially the content is entirely commented out and this is a good thing, because nothing in there is usable. You can try uncommenting some lines, but you will see that these are not workable settings when you invoke Aspell.
If your system locale is other than the spellcheck language that you need (which is the case for pretty much everybody outside the English-speaking world), you will need to first install an English dictionary in addition to Aspell itself. The name of the package to install may be aspell-en or aspell-uk. Both are English, but the latter is British.
After the necessary dictionaries have been installed, open the .aspell.conf file. Add the lines,
lang en master en
This makes Aspell workable for a start. Other settings may be useful too, but they are beyond my scope.
