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KDE Shortcut Keys

Most people know shortcuts in Windows but neglect to find out shortcuts in KDE when they make the switch to Linux. So, if you have a shortcut in KDE that isn’t covered here…please comment it so that others can benefit from your knowledge! PS: Some of these might not work with your version of KDE…just test them out and see if they do!

Alt-F2
Brings up a “Run Command” prompt

Alt-Print and Cntrl-Print
Take a screenshot. You have to paste it from your clipboard

Alt-Esc or Control-Esc
Shows the KDE session manager, from which you can switch to a specific application or log out of KDE.

Ctrl-F[1..8]
Switch to a specific desktop.

Alt-Tab or Alt-Shift-Tab
Cycle through your windows.

Ctrl-Tab or Ctrl-Shift-Tab
Cycle through your desktops.

Alt-F4
Close the current active window.

Ctrl-Alt-Esc
Window destroyer (every window you click on will be destroyed).

Alt-F3
For your Window Menu

Ctrl-Alt-Backspace
This exits KDE but doesn’t save your settings or work.

Ctrl-Alt-Numpad +
Cycles to the next screen resolution available.

Ctrl-Alt-Numpad –
Cycles to the previous screen resolution available.

Hope these help you out…please post any you might have that are helpful and I’ll add them to the list with credits. Thanks again for reading.

The 10 Minute Linux Firewall

If you’re like me…you still have to run some form of Windows for daily operations at your house or office. While most of the time there are helpful hardware additions at work such as a firewall/avtivirus…at home, you’ll find a more simple router/firewall and antivirus solution that doesn’t protect as well. While this is better than nothing, it also doesn’t have the power that a Linux firewall does…nor does it have the ability to patch itself when a vulnerability is discovered.

Did you know that most router/firewalls that you can buy at the store come with a set of default passwords that work on ALL MODELS? Yours could be open to hacking right now. To lock down your network, you can take an old computer, install Linux, and use it as a firewall with your own custom rules and regulations…plus it’s great to show off to the ladies Wink 😉 lol.

I wrote a tutorial on how to do this at http://daniweb.com. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in (very easy to follow directions) then check out this link: http://daniweb.com/tutorials/tutorial14094.html.

Or continue reading the article in full below…

The 10 Minute Linux Firewall

At the forefront of almost every single System Administrators mind is security. Redmond has been catching a lot of flack lately about not being as secure as they could be. As some of you have noticed, there has been a market swing in the use of Mozilla and Firefox as webbrowsers, creating a small nick into the 90% marketshare that Redmond owns with IE. Some IT Specialists are also seeing the same swing in the Server market.

So what does this have to do with Firewalls? Well, just like switching webrowsers or servers away from M$, a Linux firewall means added security AND possibly even increased browsing speed. Today, I’ll discuss the easiest way to get up and running with the 5 minute Linux firewall.

First things first. I’m not going to go into detail on many distros…I’m going with one that I know work…and that I know work FAST…and that would be something a ‘Windows’ person could install and configure in a matter of minutes. In my mind, the easiest distro is Smoothwall.

Continue reading “The 10 Minute Linux Firewall”

Alternative Screenshot Methods

Are you trying to take screenshots in Linux but don’t want to use KSnapshot or the built in Gnome Screenshot Utility? There are quite a few ways you can take screenshots in Linux. The thing is, most of them are unknown. It’s almost like the ability to take a screenshot is the best kept secret in Linux. So if taking screenshots is something you need to do on the fly or from a shell, or in a GUI that doesn’t have the utilities you need…read on.

XWD & XV

For X Window desktops such as GNOME and KDE, the command xwd -out filename.xwd lets you click a window to make an XWD image of it. Adding the -frame option will capture the entire window manager as opposed to just the open application. The popular utility xv also does screen captures so check that out as well. Use xwd and xv in the following ways:

%> xwd -root -out myimage.xwd

%> xv -grabdelay 2 myimage.jpg

IMAGEMAGICK

If you have imagemagick installed, you can use it to capture your screen as well. This is done by executing a simple command via shell:

%> import -window root wholescreen.jpg
(to grab the entire screen) or:

%> import window.jpeg

(and then click a window you want captured)

If you’re not sure whether you have ImageMagick installed, type any of the above commands just to see if they respond, or type in “man import” for help/instructions on usage.

SCREENSHOT ‘MOVIE’

There is also a really great tutorial on how to make a bash script take a ‘screenshot movie’; that is, multi-screenshots of every single window you open up.

THE GIMP

The GIMP can also be used to grab screenshots. Go to File >> Acquire >> Screenshot

FBGRAB

Another really great utility is fbgrab which can be used to capture the Linux framebuffer and convert it to a PNG image. This is handy for shell screenshots. This package is in the testing branch of Debian.

SCROT

This little utility allows you to do lots of things you wouldn’t even think of doing with screenshots such as autogenerating filenames and other things like taking screenshots of multiple displays and gluing them together. Find out how to use scrot here.

Conclusion

Screenshots don’t have to be a hassle. The use of many different utilities can simplify and streamline the process. Now you can capture various screens and show them off to all your friends…or capture various screens and hide them from your friends so they don’t know what a big Linux geek you are 😉

Do you have another method for screenshots? Visit the forum and post your method so that others can benefit. Not a member? Register here.

Extend Laptop Battery Life

Found a great tip when doing some reading…

When running linux on a laptop, it’s a good idea to mount hard drive partitions with the -noatime option. This prevents extra writes to the hard drive every time a file is read. Add the noatime option to the entry in /etc/fstab.

Example (from /etc/fstab)
LABEL=/ / ext3 defaults,noatime 1 1

By default, access information on a file is updated every time that file is accessed, including just being read. It’s very rare that you’ll need this feature, and disabling it can result in a lot less disk-writing, which translates into an increase in performance and battery life.

Photo Albums in one shell command!

Managing photo albums with programs or flat files can be time consuming and tedious. However, there is an alternative. Through the use of Imagemagick and album, two fantastic programs, you can build your own photoalbum and even design your own skins utilizing CSS (cascading style sheets). I gave this tutorial a try and I had a sharp looking photo gallery in a matter of minutes. The great thing for me is that it was all command line so I didn’t have to have an Xsession to have it build an album on my server. I just SFTP in, drop the photos, open up a telnet session, executed the command, and viola! A sharp and clean photo album in the directory I executed the code.

Give it a try and you’ll agree…this software is very nice and very handy in case you need to add a photo album to your site.

Tutorial: http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/5681/2/

Imagemagick: http://www.imagemagick.org/

Album: http://marginalhacks.com/Hacks/album/

Host your own webserver for free

A while back, I wrote a tutorial for people who wanted to host their own webserver and webpage…and how they can do it for free. The original site of this tutorial was my favorite ‘for free’ tech help forum, http://daniweb.com

Not a bad thing to know if you want to host a gallery or fileserver for relatives or friends…or even if you want to have a blog to ‘talk shop’ to others 😉

The most important thing to note is that you can even host a page with dialup…something that I know all to well (go 28.8kbps!). While this tutorial isn’t detailed…you can post your questions in the thread here at Linuxblog Forums and I’ll do my best to help you set your webserver up. Without further banter…please continue on to the tutorial…

Edit: The forum has been taken down.