Ubuntu How Do I: A Linux Q&A

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User Questions

Q: Get system info such as processor speed etc

A: Goto "Ubuntu Software Center" and install: hardinfo (System Profiler and Benchmark) "System Monitor" on some systems has a tab that says "System" before the Processes, Resources, and File System tab. On my system there was no System tab so I had to install hardinfo.

Q: How to check for bad sectors on system from GUI

A: Goto "Disks" which is the program name you type into the Ubuntu search. Just type "disks." Once the Disks utility opens you should select your hard drive from the left pane. In the upper right corner of the interface is a gear icon that says "More actions" click that and choose SMART Data & Self-Tests (a feature available for any modern S.M.A.R.T. enabled IDE/SATA drive). This works with a drive having that technology and Ubuntu having it enabled. The "Overall Assessment will denote the number of bad sectors. Click "Start Self-test" to refresh. An Extended test may take about 10 minutes for a drive around 80-120gb.

To more thoroughly check for bad sectors and even mark them as bad you can drop to console. You can perfrom a read-only test while the fs is mounted. 

$ sudo badblocks -v /dev/sda1

To mark the bad blocks so that Ubuntu doesnt use them...

write the location of the bad sectors into a file. 

$ sudo badblocks /dev/sda > /home/user/badblocks

Feed the file into the FSCK command to mark these bad sectors as "unusable" sectors. 

$ sudo fsck -l badblocks /dev/sda

Q: How to easily mount windows network shares on demand

A: An easy way to to go to Muon (add software) and install Smb4K. It is a versatile network discovery utility.

Q: Change desktop screen resolution in KDE Plasma 5?

A: Goto KMenu -> Settings -> System Settings and under "Hardware" choose "Display and Monitor" select "Display Configuration" which is an icon on the left. In the right pane, which looks very plain you will see a box labeled VGA with 3 small icons: back arrows, a star, and a box with green arrows pointing inwards. Click that third icon with the green arrows.

Q: How do I print to a PDF document from something like Libra Office?

Option 0: LibreOffice specific

A: LibreOffice has an option to Export to PDF built in. This solution is specific to this software. 

File -> Export PDF

Option 1: cups-pdf

A: Simply install and activate cups-pdf service. Here are the commands: 

sudo apt-get install cups-pdf

Now when you choose to print from software you will see a PDF option. A PDF of the printed page will then be available under your home directory, in a sub-directory named PDF. /home/user/PDF

On a typical installation it is common for cups-pdf to already be installed. This creates a virtual PDF printer. To select cups-pdf as the default printer go to System Settings -> Hardware -> Printers

Option 2: kdeprint

A: You can substitute kprinter for lpr. This opens the KDE-print dialog, which includes an option to produce PDF. Works on Unity, Gnome, or KDE. In version 3.4.3 of KDE-print there is a printer drop down which allows selection of the printer to use. Select the printer labeled "Print to File (PDF)."

Option 3: print to Postscript and convert with ps2pdf

A: Choose to print to a file from the "Postscript/default" printer. Once the ps file is created, you can run ps2pdf to convert the Postscript file to PDF format.

Related

External Resources

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