General Q&A about Linux and Unix-like operating systems
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My DE has a bunch of programs in the start/applications menu. How can I add my own in there? For example, say I found a terminal command foo --bar --baz that does something I want. But I don't want...
How do I install and run Windows applications downloaded from a website? Windows applications do not run natively on Linux, but can be run using Wine. When downloading these applications from a we...
Occasionally I ask how to do some configuration, and people tell me to do stuff like edit some config file in an XYZ directory. But if I configure everything this way, it will turn into a mess, and...
How do I find the exact code of a key on my keyboard?
On a modern Linux system, what happens if you attempt to hibernate when your swap is smaller than your RAM? For example, say RAM is 16 GB and swap is 8 GB.
Arch switched to Python 3.12 which broke offlineimap. I want to use Python 3.12 as the default on my system, but just offlineimap should run with an alternative Python 3.11 environment. Is it possi...
How to list tags of a container in container registry using CLI tools? Kinda like you would browse them visually in dockerhub.
When I create a new Maildir account in Kmail, pointing to /foo/bar, I expect it to create directories like: /foo/bar/cur /foo/bar/new /foo/bar/tmp /foo/bar/some-folder/cur /foo/bar/some-folder...
When I run Kmail on i3, and then close it, it appears to continue running some stuff in the background. For example, I periodically get notifications about new mail from dunst, even though I have c...
I have created a set of profiles in OpenRGB that set the RGB lights on the fans and LED strips inside my desktop case. This works as expected, however, the activation of a profile does not persist ...
In PopOS's standard System Monitor application, how do I see the GPU usage? I can see the CPU, RAM, disk and network usage, and graphs for them, but GPU usage is listed nowhere. It's available in M...
How do I read computer temperatures from my desktop in PopOS? Is there a terminal command, DE extension or GUI application that I can use for the purpose? The UEFI reports CPU, CPU case and motherb...
How can I auto-enable FN-toggling for the first N FN keys? F7-F12 on my keyboard are used for audio control, while, many games that I play, use the lower FN keys. Therefore, I'd like to relieve mys...
I've been distro hopping for years now. I love Fedora and Tumbleweed, but everything I've tried beyond Ubuntu is slow and jumpy, and even Ubuntu lags behind Windows 7, 10, and 11. Are the NVIDIA dr...
How do I control my computer's fan speeds, including the case fans, and the CPU pump and fan speed? Moving from Windows on an Acer laptop, I am used to Acer's PredatorSense application which lets ...
How to calculate the SHA1 digest of a file in a shell?
Every time I open EA Games from within Lutris, the desktop's UI/screen scaling is reset from 150% to 100%. This is in PopOS running with a 4K resolution on a 4K screen. The resolution is not change...
Can I restrict myself from certain actions when I SSH in from outside a certain IP range? For instance no sudo? Maybe with ~/.ssh/authorized_keys having a from="!1.2.3.4/26" option with some kind ...
The systemd manual gives a list of path where systemd looks for unit files. However, I want to isolate my units in a path of my own choosing. Is it possible to configure systemd to add some path t...
It is often taught that in Unix/Linux text files should end with newline characters. The reason given (orally) to me by various sources was that "some commands (such as wc) assume or require a newl...
Trying to understand what exactly <!nocheck> does next to a package in build-depends (for example, Perl). Debian Wiki says: Terms can be negated by using an exclamation mark as a prefix ...
What factors should I consider when choosing a Linux distribution? In particular, how does my level of skill or familiarity with Linux influence this decision? For example, are there distributions...
I have a setup with two Raspberry PIs, a CM3 module with only a USB connection to the outside, and the Pi4 with a lot of connectors. I set up things such that CM3 functions as USB Gadget, and once...
How to apply a logical not to a shell command, e.g. in a Bash script? So if the command exited with 0 (success) I would like it to be changed to a non-zero value, and if it exited with a non-zero ...
Suppose I have a list of files on standard input. These may be the output of find, cat filelist.txt or something else. How can I run a command on each file in turn?
I'd like to hide/dismiss/remove all the notifications that applications like Signal have created. I know I can create notifications with, for example, notify-send -t 10000 "🤖 Here goes my message"...
Surely there exists a command to print out the system's mother board model? Opening up the chassis is not an option.
The local port range on my Arch Linux installation is 32768-60999 according to cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_local_port_range Wikipedia states that this range is "used by many Linux kernels" and th...
How to convert a json file to yaml? Technically json is already valid yaml, but I'm talking about the characteristic easy-to-read yaml formatting with indentation and minimal quotes.
Is it practical to use libostree for user files? Or is it too specialized for tracking an entire OS? I am not familiar with libostree, but sounds like it's "Git for filesystem trees". Seems like t...
I have a systemd unit that does some stuff on the internet. Sometimes this gets fired at startup. I want to make sure it's delayed until the computer is connected to the internet. In my notes I fo...
Will the overall unit status be failed if either ExecStop or ExecStopPost fail? I would expect it to be so, but the documentation isn't very explicit about it.
My primary drive is partitioned basically like so (only roughly to scale): / /home junk v v v |xx###############...
How to get the number of lines in a file? I.e. for a file like this: Line one Line 2 Final line I would like to do something like this: $ count-lines /path/to/the/file/above 3
I'm using the Gnome System Monitor in Linux Mint. Whenever I attempt to "End" or "Kill" a process, I am given this warning via a modal dialog (emphasis mine): Killing a process may destroy data,...
I want to switch hard drives. How do I migrate my root FS from the drive it's on, to the new one, so that everything is exactly as it is?
How to show a list of files belonging to a package with pacman?
How can I get notifications to dunst when systemd units fail?
Do any of the cron implementations allow you to manually trigger cron jobs (stuff in your crontab) right now, in the exact same manner as they would have when triggered on their usual schedule, exc...
How to get the (index) digest of a remote container image with skopeo? So this would be your normal container image in a container registry. E.g. in docker.io
When I create the initramfs, I sometimes see messages like: ==> WARNING: Possibly missing firmware for module: 'xhci_pci' I get many for different modules. What do they mean? Should I in...
Sometimes I share Unix commands online, and people chastise me for "useless use of cat" (UUOC) or "cat abuse". My cat is quite comfy and doing very well, thank you. What are they talking about?
Motivating example: my Mint 20.3 distribution offers long-term support until April 2025, which matches the "standard support" offered for the upstream Ubuntu (20.04 "Jammy Jellyfish"). However, the...
In gpg(1), one normally adds recipients of an encrypted message with --recipient. Those recipients will be able to decrypt the message, and their key ID will appear unencrypted, so anyone will kno...
How can I remap buttons on my mouse, especially for more exotic ones like MMO mice?
On my current setup (running Linux Mint 20.3 Cinnamon), I have an administrative user and several ordinary users. I intend for all of these users to be in the same group, which happens to have the ...
Suppose I want to get random numbers from /dev/random with basic CLI tools. Is there a way to do it, that's easier to type and read than python -c 'import random; print(100 + 200*random.random())'?...
I've been learning some Linux and I finally feel like I can find my way around the command line. But now I hear people say there are other, "non-POSIX" kinds of shell, with different semantics. Wha...
Of course every language has some kind of random library... But can you generate custom random strings with just basic CLI tools? For example, we have /dev/random which provides a stream of random...
How to pretty print XML in a shell? I have command-line tool which outputs XML in a single line, totally unreadable. I would like something to pipe this into, to turn it into human readable XML wi...
