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My Customization Guide to the KDE Plasma 5 Desktop

Written by Gwen

KDE Application Launcher IconUpon first installing any operating system, my first priority is always to customize the graphical interface so that it best suits my needs, ultimately saving myself a great deal of accumulated time.

The KDE Plasma 5 desktop was no exception. Although I found it to be exceptional in its own right, I made several changes for comfort and familiarity.

This guide will walk you through the changes that I made, step-by-step, so that you can make similar changes to suit your own needs in the desktop environment.

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Linux, ,

An Introduction to the Kate Text Editor

Written by Gwen

Kate Text Editor MascotOk, I admit it; I don’t actually spend all of my time in the command line. All-in-all, I spend very little time in the command line.

I’m working on that! Every new bit that I learn makes it easier — and many times faster — to get things done from the command line.

In the meantime, I use multiple applications in the GUI for my everyday tasks, such as text editing.

For normal ever-day GUI text editing on Linux, I use Kate.

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Software

An Introduction to the Atom Text Editor

Written by Gwen

Atom Text Editor LogoThis week I was introduced to a new text editor. While it is not a command line text editor, or even a Linux-only text editor, it does fit pretty well into the current line-of-thought.

Atom is a GitHub project described as a “hackable text editor for the 21st century”. It is designed to be deeply customizable, but still approachable, using the default configuration. Atom can be run on OS X, Windows, and Linux.

For anyone who does not already know, GitHub is a web-based repository hosting service for Git, which is a version-control and management software for source code. Github is used primarily to host open-source software projects. It’s a popular social network for developers, programmers, and even end-users.

Atom provides support for over 25 web/programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, Python, Perl, MySQL, C, Ruby, and Java, to name a few.

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Vi/Vim Editor Cheat Sheet (Free Download)

Written by Gwen

Vi Vim Editor Cheat Sheet PreviewToday’s topic is a continuation of last week’s lesson on the Vi/Vim editors.

Mailing list subscribers will receive a free copy of the Vi/Vim Editor Cheat Sheet. To receive this, and other (past/future) exclusive content, you can subscribe.

The command possibilities available in Vi are seemingly endless; as such, they are not all covered in this cheat sheet.

What this cheat sheet does cover, are all of the basic commands for navigating Vi and modifying, searching, replacing, exiting, etc.

Remember, Vi is case-sensitive; any letter that you type can mean two completely different things, depending on its case.

I like to use this cheat sheet as a quick reference, as I have not yet managed to memorize all of these commands.

I hope that you find it as useful as I do.

Linux, , ,

How to Use the Linux Vi Editor (And Vim, Too!)

Written by Gwen

Vim Command Line EditorThe Vi editor is a programmer’s text editor. The VIM editor is a “Vi IMproved” editor.

In short, the Vim editor is an improved version of the Vi editor, with additional features.

On many distributions of Linux, the Vi editor defaults to the Vim editor; their function is primarily the same.

The good news, is that you do not have to be a programmer — or have any programming knowledge/aspirations — to use the Vi/Vim editors. They’re just editors. Specifically, they’re command line text editors.

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Linux,

An Introduction to Linux Command Line Text Editors

Written by Gwen

Linux Command Line TerminalWe already know what a command line is.

A command line text editor is a text editor that runs directly from the command line, and does not require a graphical user interface, or even a separate window.

Command line text editors only edit plain text files.

The most common examples of command line text editors are Ed, Pico, Nano, Emacs and Vi.

Each editor presents is own set of challenges and rewards; it is not necessary to choose a favorite, but it is a good idea to be briefly introduced to each one.

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7 Process Control Commands for Linux

Written by Gwen
1 Comment

Linux Commands for Jobs & ProcessesTo begin, let’s discuss processes.

We all know that a process is a series of actions, or steps, taken in order to achieve a particular end.

With that thought in mind, it should be easy to see that a computer process is a task, or a set of instructions, that is processed by a computer’s processor.

In Windows, processing happens in the background, and is rarely interactive with the average user.

In Linux, you, the average user, have the opportunity to see and control all kinds of processes.

Let’s go cause some havoc!

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Linux

How to Find Out Linux Kernel & Distribution Details + System Uptime

Written by Gwen

Uptime ClockIf you’re running Linux, chances are that you know what distribution you’re running, as well as the version of that distribution, and all those other pertinent details that can come in handy.

In fact, you probably have it memorized down to the very last three decimal points of the version, and also know what date it was last updated.

What’s that? You don’t?!

Often-times, for those of us who just do not memorize such details, we need a quick way to look them up.

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Linux