Ubuntu For Free

One of the best tips I can give on using the command line to your advantage is to grab a hold of the “alias” command. You’re going to be typing a lot of commands, and with Ubuntu, through the bash shell’s glorious “alias” command, they’ll be fewer and shorter.

The alias command allows a shell user to provide their own set of alternate commands for commonly keyed instructions.

The default install of bash includes a few basic aliases, some different modifications of a regular listing of files. Try “ll” for example. While it’s not a command included in Ubuntu and no binary exists for it, the command still provides a more verbose listing of the files. That’s because bash has already defined that alias for you (unless you’ve removed it).

I use the command to make it easy to start and stop my mail server.

alias fymail='vmware-cmd /home/vmware_machines/fymail/fymail.vmx'

Afterwards,

I can use

fymail start

or

fymail suspend

It may take a little practice and some experimenting, but they save me a lot of time and keystrokes.

You’ll want them to load in your startup of course, so I suggest using

gksu gedit ~/.bashrc

to save your alias commands for future sessions.

In Ubuntu, it sometimes happens where a program locks up, and using the X or close button just doesn’t do anything. I frequently encounter this when k3b has a crashed burn. I’ve seen a few ways of closing it, but nothing as convenient as the close button. Several have suggested going to terminal and typing a command or three to close it. I think that’s just too much to ask, as I didn’t have to do that in DOS or Windows.

Fortunately, I found a shortcut that *is* as convenient as the close button. You can add a “Force Quit” button to your panel, by right clicking on the panel and choosing “Add to Panel“. You’ll see an icon that looks like a cracked screen. Drag it to where you want it on your panel, and you can use it when that pesky program just won’t go away.