Linux Application Usage and FAQ
This is a FAQ for the most commonly used applications that we provide on the CIMS Linux Systems. If you have a question that isn't answered here or on another page please feel free to contact cslinux at cs.nyu.edu or comments at cims.nyu.edu.
Linux
- How to setup printing from the CIMS network?
- How do I print text files?
- How do I print HTML files from my browser?
- How do I print PDF / PS files?
- What is my networking hostname?
- What is my hardware(MAC) address?
- What is my IP address?
- How do I launch an xterm from a remote server?
Software Listing
Troubleshooting
More Information Listing
- What is RedHat Enterprise Linux?
- How do I login?
- [Optional] Select what desktop to use from the Sessions button.
- Enter your Username [Hit Enter]
- Enter your Password [Hit Enter]
- How do I logout?
Select Actions->Logout from your Desktop's panel. For immediate response (can cause loss of data) you can use the X server kill command <CTRL>+<ALT>+<BACKSPACE>.
- What is a desktop?
Linux comes with a graphical window system called X windows. In order for X windows to be more usable, we offer the use of two common desktops to help integrate program functionality into X windows. GNOME and KDE are the two most common desktops on the Linux operating system. - How to use GNOME / KDE
- How do I find programs?
Most programs are listed under the Applications menu on your desktop's panel. However to find where applications really reside can be a bit more tricky. Try running the whereis {command_name} or which {command_name} command from a Terminal. These commands will tell you more information about where files are located and what application is located where. Also you should note that most applications a user may need will be located in /usr/bin/. - How do I set my preferred applications for specific file types?
- How can I set preferences?
You can select all your preferences from your desktop's panel by clicking on Applications->Preferences and then selecting the preference you want. - How do I mount my cdrom?
- How do I burn/write a cdrom/dvd?
- What are the small squares that show small application boxes (workspaces)?
X windows has a feature called workspaces that allow you to have multiple independent workspace open at any given time. This is very helpful in keeping lots of applications open at once. You can switch between these with <CTRL>+<ALT>+<LEFT/RIGHT ARROW> (Changeable in Preferences) at any time. This allows you to have a browser on one work space, an email client on another, programming tools on another, and notes on another all without cluttering your desktop while making it easy to get to them all. - Where did my program go?
If you loose a program, try switching workspaces or <ALT>+<TAB> through a list of programs on that workspace. - What is a Terminal / Console?
A terminal is program that give you shell access to the computer. This allows for direct keyboard interaction and is often more efficient for running commands or doing other tasks. You can run the terminal or console by selecting it from your Applications->System Tools->Terminal, or right clicking on the desktop and selecting it.
- How do I find programs?
- How do I set my default session?
You may find it tedious to have to specify your session type every time you log into your computer. By editing your .xsession file, you can specify an environment (i.e. Gnome or KDE) to open by default. You can make sure your .xsession file is executable by entering
chmod +x .xsession
in a Terminal window. Every line in the file should be commented out except for the line which lists the environment you would like to set as default. Sample .xsession files are listed below.
Sample KDE .xession file
Sample Gnome .xsession file
You can select your preferred programs for web browsing, mail, text editing, and command terminal by clicking Main Menu-> Preferences-> More Preferences-> Preferred Applications. Under each appropriate tab is where you select your preferred application.
Setting your preferred programs as default for other file types, however, will have to be set on a case by case basis once for each type of file (i.e. once for .ps files, once for .pdf filese, once for .doc, etc.). Right-click on the file icon and click Properties. Click the Open with tab and select the application you would like to use for all files of that file type, then click Close. Now every file of that type will opened with the program you have specified.
You can add custom fonts to your machine. Create a directory in your home directory called .fonts, and put any fonts you wish to add in that directory. Then open a Terminal window and execute the following command:
fc-cache PATH
- where
PATH
- is the the path to the font you wish to add.
- How to setup printing from the CIMS network?
- How do I print text files?
- How do I print PDF / PS files?
- What is my networking hostname?
Use hostname command to get your hostname. - What is my hardware(MAC) address?
Use ifconfig command to get your hardware address. Look under the eth0 group: HWaddr is your MAC address. (Note: ifconfig may not be in your path, in that case try /sbin/ifconfig). - What is my IP address?
Use ifconfig command to get your IP address. Look under the eth0 group: inet addr is your MAC address. (Note: ifconfig may not be in your path, in that case try /sbin/ifconfig). - How do I launch an xterm from a remote server?
- To enable X11 packet forwarding, specify the -X flag to ssh.
- To test X windows system packet forwarding run '/usr/openwin/bin/xlogo'. If the xlogo is displayed on your local machines xwindows display, then it is working.
- Firefox
- What are "Extensions"?
Extensions are additional functionality that can be added into Firefox on a per user basis. This means that your Firefox only has a limited set of functionality at first, but that depending on your needs, you can extend Firefox to do more. Extensions offer extended options for ad-blocking, navigation toolbars and display, video file viewing and more. More information is available directly from Firefox's Extensions Site. - Can I use "Extensions"?
You bet! Just take a look at Firefox's Extensions Site.To install an extension:
To install an extension, select Tools from the Firefox main toolbar and then select Extensions. In the Extensions window that pops up, click the Get More Extensions link to open Firefox's listing of available extensions by category. Navigate the site to search for extensions that seem useful to you, click the extension's name (in bold characters) and scroll down until you see the green box reading Install now. Once it stops downloading, click Install now. The extension will be available when you restart Firefox.
- How do I select a preferred application to open files with?
When you try to open or download a file from within Firefox, you may want to open it with a different program. Most programs are located in /usr/bin/ . You can select the program you want to use by Selecting "Open with Other", then Select Filesystem from the left pane, and then for example usr->bin->acroread from the right pane for Adobe Acrobat Reader. You will have to know what application you want to use to open a program with though. A list of available applications is provided on the Linux Software Support Page. Also note that, the changes will only take effect permanently when the program is exited cleanly (so if you make extensive changes to your firefox environment, you should probably exit to save the changes). Some commonly used programs are PDF Viewers, Media Players, Office. These types of documents should be opened by their respective application. - Firefox eats a lot of resources, what can I do?
Restarting Firefox is the easiest way to help it recover resources, however reducing the number of Extensions you use can sometimes increase performance, as well as clearing your browser's cache from time to time may help.
- What are "Extensions"?
- Other Web Browsers
In addition to Mozilla's Firefox, we provide Mozilla's SeaMonkey and also several text-based browsers like lynx, links, and elinks. These are quite often handy if you don't have a graphical login because you're logged in remotely.- How do I install Adblock for SeaMonkey?
To install Adblock, an extension that allows you to block pop-up ads and website banners, visit Mozilla's Adblock download site, and click on the Dev.Builds link. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the Adblock 0.5 d3 nightly 42link, and confirm by clicking Install in the window that opens. Another window will open reporting that the extension failed to install--this is normal. Click OK, and continue until the window reads "Success."
You can block pop-ups or banners by right-clicking them and selecting "Block Images from this Server." To block AdobeFlash Player banners, select Tools from the browsers main toolbar, and under the Adblock listing, select "Overlay Flash."
- How do I install Adblock for SeaMonkey?
- CIMS mail setup
- CIMS Webmail Access
- Evolution
- Other Clients
- ThunderBird - Mozilla
- pine - text based
- mailx - text based mailer
Other popular email clients are available as well, some include:
- GnomePDF (gpdf)
- KPDF (kpdf)
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (acroread) See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- Other Readers
Other popular pdf viewers are available as well, some include:- Xpdf (xpdf) See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- Gnome GhostView (ggv) See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- KGhostView (kghostview) See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- Open Office Suite
We use Open Office as our office sweet. Open office contains a presentation program (ooimpress), a spreadsheet program (oocalc), a document writer (oowriter), a formula writer (oomath) all included in the office sweet (oofice). Open Office uses the widely accepted and documented XML open document format and has marginal support for Microsoft document formats. Open Office can also save documents as PDF files by selecting File->Export PDF from an open document.
- Gnome GhostView (ggv)See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- KGhostView (kghostview)See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- Adobe Acrobat Reader (acroread)See also: Some Important Printing Notes
- Open Office Suite
We use Open Office as our office sweet. Open office contains a presentation program (ooimpress), a spreadsheet program (oocalc), a document writer (oowriter), a formula writer (oomath) all included in the office sweet (oofice). Open Office uses the widely accepted and documented XML open document format and has marginal support for Microsoft document formats. Open Office can also save documents as PDF files by selecting File->Export PDF from an open document. - To print in Landscape
Select Format from the Application menu in an OpenOffice program, click on Page, and then the Page tab. There should be two buttons designating which orientation you would prefer, landscape or portrait.
Note: Both setting the landscape option on your print dialog and/or selecting File from the Application menu and clicking on Properties for your printer to select the orientation will NOT work. - To scale data onto X number of pages
Select Format from the Application menu in an OpenOffice program, click on Page, and then the Sheet tab. There should be a button under Scale which allows you to fit the printout on a number of pages.
- Nautilus
-
How do I set my preferred application for specific file types?
Right Click (left click for you southpaws that swap your buttons) on a file inside of your File Browser, then select properties, this should bring up a new window with file information for that file. Now, select the "Open With" tab. Here you can select an application to associate with files of the same type.
-
- Konqueror
- Data CD-ROMs
- On UNIX systems you have to mount CD-ROMs before using them. If your computer doesn't automount a cd once you've inserted it, you can mount it by starting your file browser ("Applications->File Browser" from your desktop's panel), then selecting the "Computer" icon inside of the file browser, and finally double clicking the cd device's icon.
- or
- From the command line, run mount /media/cdrecorder or mount /media/cdrom whichever your device is called.
- DVDs
- On UNIX systems you have to mount DVDs before being able to read them. If your computer doesn't automount a DVD once you've inserted it, you can mount it by starting your file browser ("Applications->File Browser" from your desktop's panel), then selecting the "Computer" icon inside of the file browser, and finally double clicking the cd/dvd device's icon.
- or
- From the command line, run mount /media/cdrecorder1 or mount /media/cdrecorder or mount /media/dvd whichever your device is called.
- Audio
- How do I play an audio CD?
Most of the Dell PCs provided in the labs and offices only support Digital audio extraction instead of analog mode. This means that some extra configuration is sometimes necessary to get audio CDs to play at first.- xine - The easiest solution although possibly the least preferable from an audio player perspective is to use the widely flexible xine program, as it should automatically detect and try to setup audio using digital extraction. Using xine to play an audio CD is as easy as selecting "CD" from the Control Panel and set the volume appropriately to hear it.
- xmms -- Xmms is a easy and efficient audio system, but may require you to configure your CD player before it will work. This can be done by right clicking on xmms's title bar and selecting Options->Preferences, next select "CD Audio Player [libcdaudio.so]" and click "Configure". Input the following,
- Device: /dev/cdrom
- Directory: /media/cdrecorder
- Play Mode: Digital audio extraction
- click "Ok"
- rhythmbox - Rhythmbox is designed to help maintain large audio libraries. For it, all you have to do is import the CD into your library using the builtin tools. This however will require you to wait for it to rip the CD to your hard disk.
- Note: Due to the hardware and software limitations of many systems the standard CD-player applications may not work.
- How do I rip an audio CD?
GNOME's Sound Juicer is probably the way to go here. Unless you're skilled with command line cdparanoia. - How do I burn/write an audio/data CDROM/DVD?
K3B or Nautilus's CD Creator are good tools for this. For further instructions see, this short howto on detecting setting up and burning CDs/DVDs. - How do I play mp3s, oggs, etc
rhythmbox and xmms are both good audio library systems.
- How do I play an audio CD?
- Video
To play videos and movies (MPEGs, AVIs, MOVs, or other types of video) try using gmplayer or xine, if neither of those can play the type of codec, then try xanim. Due to the proprietary nature of codecs, some codecs may not be supported. - USB Cameras
You should be able to access a USB camera by plugging it into a USB port and then using the Photo Tool Application ("Applications->Graphics->Photo Tool" from your desktop's panel). - USB Flash Sticks
Once you insert a Flash Memory stick into the USB connector, Linux should automount this device under your computer folder. You can get here by opening your file browser from the panel by Selecting "Applications->File Browser" and then Selecting "Computer" from the Toolbar.
Software Listing
Troubleshooting
- My document didn't print?!
- How does printing work?
- Why isn't CD writing working?
- Why can't I listen to an audio CD?
- Why doesn't my media player play this video?
Try using a different media player, such as gmplayer, xine, xanim. If none of them work then that codec may not be support. Due to the proprietary nature of codecs, some codecs may not work.