Layman Linux

Now that the Indian rupee has got its official symbol, there is an itch to use it in our online communities, documents & under other applications. While it will take time for the rupee symbol to appear on our keyboards, we can begin to use it on your computer by simply installing the font. The font is developed by Foradian Technologies is free to download at their blog. Here are step by step instructions to use this font in Linux.

Under Fedora:

1) Download the font from Foradian Technologies blog.

2) Copy the font to /usr/share/fonts/default/TrueType/ directory.

3) Issue the command “fc-cache”(without quotes) to use font under all applications.

4) To insert the font in your document, type grave ascent(`) key, the one above tab key. You should have the new rupee symbol in your document.

Under Ubuntu:

1) Download the font from Foradian Technologies blog.

2) Double click on the font file & click on “Install Font” button on bottom left of the font viewer.

3) To insert the font in your document, type grave ascent(`) key, the one above tab key. You should have the new rupee symbol in your document.

Under Debian:

1) Download the font from Foradian Technologies blog.

2) Open a terminal & enter the following commands with root privileges/root user,

mkdir /usr/share/fonts/ttf

cp Rupee_Foradian.ttf /usr/share/fonts/ttf

apt-get install ttmkfdir

cd /usr/share/fonts/ttf

ttmkfdir > fonts.scale

mkfontdir

cd /usr/share/fonts/ttf/

chmod 644 /usr/share/fonts/ttf/Rupee_Foradian.ttf

3) To insert the font in your document, type grave ascent(`) key, the one above tab key. You should have the new rupee symbol in your document.

That’s it. Enjoy the new Indian Rupee font.

Who doesn’t loves statistics? Ever wanted to know how many users use GNU/LINUX? How many use a particular distro? Below are two sites which keep a track of Linux users. One can get his machine registered to get into the official Linux universe. Furthermore you can even use the badge to showcase in forum signature or on your website.

Linux Counter

Ubuntu Counter

If you know counters for other linux distros, mention them in comments so that I can merge them in the main post.

Screenshots are vital when reviewing an application or giving visual assistance to those problems whose solution is difficult to jot down in words. For starters, when you press the ‘Prt Scr’ i.e. ‘Print Screen’ button the computer will automatically print what is currently being displayed on the screen & prompt you to save it as an file. The Screenshot application found under GNOME provides further options to finetune screenshot capturing as per your needs. While this will work fine when you’re running under a GUI but what would you do if you want to take screenshot when you are in a shell? The print screen button on your keyboard won’t work in at the command prompt. In such a case you’ll need to use the following command.

$ import -window root /home/LaymanLinux/Pictures/screenshot.png

The above command will save the screenshot of the current screen without any delay into the ‘Pictures” directory of user ‘LaymanLinux’ with the file name as ‘screenshot.png’. The file saving location need not be necessarily pictures directory & you can give any location in your home directory. Do remember to change the name of the output screenshot file to avoid conflicts.

You can even issue the command with a delay;

$ delay 20; import -window root /home/LaymanLinux/Pictures/screenshot2.png

The above command will take screenshot after 20 seconds and save it to the location entered by the user.

For further application of the import command, you can refer this page.

One of the reasons why people don’t shift to Linux platform is Gaming. Being having a large user-base, game titles are primarily programmed for Windows. Linux versions are available but only for handful of titles. WINE project has made it possible to play windows games on Linux but not without some anomalies. Due to such scenario, gaming under Linux has been limited. The Linux community has been aware of these problems infesting Linux adoption & have been encouraging developers to develop games for Linux.

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Most often its not the case that you have only one application open at a particular time on your computer. With hardware becoming cheaper & faster, multi-tasking has become a norm. Its a common sight today to have a media-player, web browser, chat client & an image editor all running in realtime on one’s desktop. Though the computers can handle such multi-tasking the user’s productivity most often than not gets crippled. Blame it on to the cluttered desktop for the decrease in productivity. Half of the user’s time is wasted in finding the right application window. Grouping similar windows is handy but still not too much either. However, most of the user’s are unaware of the feature called ‘Workspaces’ in Linux Desktop Environments. Almost all desktop environment offer this feature enabled by default. It is set to 2 or 4 workspaces by default but can be altered to provide many more.

The logic behind workspaces is to shift the applications across multiple virtual desktops. A virtual desktop is identical to your default desktop. With Workspaces, you can divide the open applications across different desktops(virtual). For e.g. You can group all Internet programs like Browser, Chat Clients, Torrent Clients, FTP Clients etc on Workspace 1, Media Players & Image Editors on Workspace 2 & so on. Applications can be shifted from current workspace to other workspace in many ways but the simplest is to right click on the panel where the running applications are listed, right clicking on them & then selecting “Move to another workspace” under GNOME.

You can switch between different workspace by clicking on the tiny boxes(Workspace Applet) which appears at bottom right on panel in GNOME or next to K Menu in an KDE environment. Alternately, press “CTRL+TAB+Right arrow” to shift to right workspace or “CTRL+TAB+Left arrow” to shift to left of the current workspace. Workspace behaviour can be altered by right clicking on the workspace applet on GNOME panel & selecting “Preferences” from the sub-menu. The options there are self explanatory & so I leave it for you to explore & set as per your preference. There you have, an organised & clutter free desktop to work on with improved productivity.