Sunday, September 3, 2017
Tuning Rebecca Linux Mint 17 1 Cinnamon Part 1
Tuning Rebecca Linux Mint 17 1 Cinnamon Part 1
Rebecca is here! No not that beautiful blonde - but the beautiful Linux Mint 17.1 with the beautiful Cinnamon desktop. This article is all about tuning Rebecca so she is perfect to use - at least to me!
So you have installed Rebecca (aka Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon) and you are now staring at the desktop (see figure below) and wondering what next?. Well, wonder no more as I take you on a journey on making Rebecca more beautiful!
As you can see from the desktop shown above, you are greeted by the Welcome Screen right smack in the middle. As the name suggest, it welcomes and thanks you for choosing Linux Mint and also displays a number of icons (13 in all, if you counted!) of items that you are free to click upon in order to explore. For your information, all but 4 items (User Guide, Restore Data, Software Manager and Chat Room) will open the web browser (Firefox by default) and displays the contents for that item. The other 4 items are:
- User Guide - a window similar to the one shown below will open displaying the contents of a users guide to Linux Mint.
- Chat Room - a window similar to the one shown below will open - in fact, this will launch HexChat, an IRC application pre-configured to log into the Linux Mint chat room on IRC. Note that it is extremely difficult to log into the channel - just click on the close button (the x on the top right hand corner of the application window) if you are not successful in connecting to the channel.
- Restore Data - you will be prompted to enter your password (this item requires admins privileges) and then a window similar to the one shown below will open. This is the Backup Tool from which you can perform backup and restore of data.
- Software Manager - you will also be prompted to enter your password (this item requires admins privileges) and then a window similar to the one shown below will open. This is the Software Manager window from which you can select software for installing on your PC.
Updating Linux Mint
We start off by checking for updates to Linux Mint - this is normally indicated by the Update icon in the panel (lower right hand side of the screen). If there are any updates (which is normal for a newly installed Linux Mint) the the indicator will have an lower case i in it as shown in the figure below. If you hover the mouse pointer over this icon the text A new version of the update manager is available will be shown.
Click on the icon, and the Update Manager will start with all the upgradable items shown (see figure below).
Since there is only one item (mintupdate), you can start the update process by clicking on the Install Updates button. Another window will pop up (see figure below), asking for confirmation to install additional package(s). Click on OK to confirm.
Since updating the system requires admins privileges, you will be asked to authenticate by entering your password (see figure below). Do so and then press the Authenticate button.
The update will start to download as shown on the figure below.
Once the update is downloaded, it is installed and the Update Manager will display more updates as shown in the figure below.
Before the update process is started, I normally set a preference to select and trust all security updates - this is an optional choice. Usually you will only see updates from level 1-3 (which are considered to be safe), but you can make an exception for level 4 and 5 security updates as I have done here. This can be done (as I have) by clicking on Edit and selecting Preferences. A window similar to the one shown below will appear. Then I place a check mark on on the Always select and trust security updates and click on the Apply button.
As usual, you need to enter your password to authenticate.
Enter your password and then press the Authenticate button. The downloading of all the package files will begin.
Once all the files have been downloaded, the installation process will begin.
When all the updates have been installed, Update Manager will then appear again, this time with a blank window (if you have set the preferences just like me), indicating that all updates have been successfully installed.
You can close Update Manager now. Notice that the lower case i in the update icon on the panel has changed to a green check mark - indicating that the system is up-to-date.
Note how useful is the update notification in the panel area - they tell you whether there are any updates that are available for the system at any time. However, you may want to check for updates manually on occasion. This can be easily done by clicking Menu - Preference - Update Manager (see figure below).
Thats it - you now have a fully updated Linux Mint system - Rebecca would be pleased!
Changing the Desktop Background
The next thing that I normally do is to change the desktop background from the awful looking (sorry, Clem) default Linux Mint desktop. This can be easily accomplished by right-clicking on a blank area of the desktop. A window similar to the one shown below will pop up.
Select Change Desktop Background from the window and another window will pop up (see figure below). This window is part of the System Settings and from this window, it is possible to select a more suitable (and beautiful) desktop background - and also, make the background images change automatically and other cool stuff. Feel free to explore all the options. Dont forget to close the Backgrounds window when done.
My personal preference for a desktop background is The Trail from, what else, Rebeccas choice of images. My final desktop looks like this:
Rebecca is looking more and more beautiful!
Setting up WiFi
Normally, my Internet connection is via an Ethernet network connection. Occasionally, I use a WiFi dongle with my PC to connect to another Internet network connection. I will show you how to set up this connection using the Network icon on the panel. If you hover the mouse pointer over the network icon, the text Connected to the wired network is shown (see figure below).
Click on this icon, and a menu will pop up as shown in the figure below.
If your WiFi dongle works (and is recognized by the PC), you will see both the Wired and Wireless items as shown in the figure. Then click on the wireless item you want to connect to, and a window will pop up (see figure below) asking you for the authentication password. Enter it and press the Connect button (which will be enabled if you enter the correct password - else it will remain greyed out).
If you have successfully connected to the wifi network, a notification will appear briefly on your desktop. If you click on the network icon, the active wifi connection will have a dot to the left of its name (see figure below).
I normally switch off the wired connection at this point by clicking on the switch to the right of the Wired item. If successful, another notification will appear briefly on the desktop and the menu will look something like the figure below.
Notice also that the network icon has changed as shown in the figure. This is an indication that your Internet connection is now via WiFi.
Adjust Audio Volume
I usually adjust the audio volume to a higher level using the sound icon found in the panel. Because of my loudspeakers input level, I adjust the level to about 85% as shown in the figure below.
The level is set by dragging the knob using the mouse to the required level. To test out the level, click on the Sound Setting item - a window similar to the one shown below will open.
Click on the Test Sound button and another window will open (see figure below) - click on the Test buttons for the left or right channels in order to test the sound levels.
Click on the Close button when done. You will beck at the Sound setting window - click on the Input tab. Here you can set the input microphone device and levels. Since I have a Logitech Webcam model C250 with a built-in microphone, I set that as my input device and the input level for this is as shown in the figure.
The Sound settings window was then closed.
Setting Up A Terminal
Simply put, a terminal (or console) is a place from where you execute a Linux command line. It is useful as it allows you to execute esoteric commands otherwise not available as GUI applications. As a programmer, I particularly find it useful - your mileage may vary here.
If you spend a lot of time in the terminal, then setting it up properly is a must - the process is fairly simple and is as follows. Click on the Terminal icon in the panel (see figure below) and it will launch.
Then right-click on a blank area of the terminal and the menu will appear as shown. Select Profile and Profile Preference as shown in the figure below.
A window labelled Editing Profile "Default" will appear as shown below.
I prefer a terminal using a larger font size (12 points) and the physical size of the terminal to display 110 characters in 34 rows. So I set the profile as shown in the figure below.
To set the profile and close the window, the Close button was clicked. The terminal was then closed (via a Ctrl-D key sequence) and re-opened using the terminal launcher. The final terminal looks like the one showed below.
Installing Software From A Terminal
Rebecca (aka Linux Mint) gives you 3 main methods of installing sofware; namely, the new Software Manager, the old and trusty Synaptic Packet Manager and lastly, for the geek (or nerd - take your pick) in you, the Terminals command line. This section shows you how to install software from a command line in a terminal.
Launch a terminal, and type the following command and press the Enter key:
sudo apt-get install mc
This command will execute the apt-get - the APT package handling utility for command line, and will install mc - a terminal-based file manager. First it will prompt you for your password - the sudo command allows you to execute commands at the admins level. Enter your password and press the Enter key. It will then check the system and if the package exists, it will prompt you to continue or cancel. Press the Enter key to say Yes. It will then start to download the package and, when finished, will start to install it. If successful, you will the see the prompt again without any error messages. The screen display below illustrate the whole process.
While the terminal is open, you can now start the mc software. Enter mc (followed by the Enter key) and the screen shown below will appear.
In case you are wondering why I use this file manager instead of the GUI file manger (Nemo), there are some things that this file manager can do that Nemo cannot. In any case, I am an old-school Linux user and mc happens to be one of my favourite command line file manager.
While mc is open, you can explore it to your hearts content - when you have finished playing around with it, close it by pressing the F10 (or click on the Quit button at the right-hand bottom) and the pressing the Enter key to confirm you really want to quit mc.
To close a terminal, you can either type the exit command or press the Ctrl-D key sequence.
Installing Hardware
I have a fair bit of hardware, like printers, scanners, etc., that I want to use with Rebecca. This section is all about installing them - your choices of hardware may differ from mine so view this section as a guide for hardware installation in general.
a) Installing Printers
Most modern printers (lasers and inkjets) uses USB connections, so its just a matter of connecting them to Rebecca, switching them on, and then using System Settings to add the printer(s). The System Settings can be started from clicking on Menu and selecting the icon as shown in the figure below.
The System Settings window will open (see figure below). The Appearance and Preference items will be displayed. If you scroll down, the Hardware and Administration items will be shown (see figure below).
We need to use the Printers (under Hardware) item for adding printer(s) - so click on that and a new window will pop up (see figure below).
Click on Add - the New Printer window will appear (see below). Note that Enter URL is selected by default - however, since we are NOT using a networked printer, and that the printer we have connected to Rebecca has been detected (an HP Laserjet Professional P1102, in my case here) has already been detected.
So we click on the correct printer (HP Laserjet Professional P1102) as shown in the figure below.
Click on the Forward button. The drivers for the printer will be searched for, and if found, it will be installed and the screen will change to one similar to the one shown below.
You can make any changes here (I shortened the short printer name to HPLJ-Pro-P1102) and then click the Apply button. Another window will pop up (see below) asking you whether you want to print a test page. I suggest yo
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