A system that lacks enough physical memory (RAM) will run significantly slower, as processes are moved between the RAM and swap. If a Linux system begins running slow, one of the first troubleshooting tasks is to free up physical memory. There are multiple tools available to monitor the memory usage on a Linux system, including … Read more
If you have been a long-time Ubuntu user, you have probably noticed the changes in Nautilus File manager relating to the ability to sort files by their extensions. The fact is the sort by “Type” feature in Nautilus has been revamped and simplified to the point that it is almost useless. Don’t understand what I … Read more
Audio on Linux is pretty complex. Everything interacts with the Pulse Audio Sound Server. Many different audio devices and programs all communicate with your speaker system from there. Everything is nice and usually sounds great – at least for the most part. If you’re an audiophile as well as a Linux user, you might have … Read more
Smartphones have not only given us the ability to stay connected 24/7, they have also given us the privilege to quickly take more and more pictures. While it’s good to have every precious moment captured, it becomes really difficult to manage so many images over time. What exactly you require is a good photo manager … Read more
SMART (an acronym for the Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is found in modern hard drives, and it enables a drive to detect and report on various conditions that may indicate impending failure. Smartmontools is a free software package, available for multiple platforms, that can utilizes the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of a hard drive to enquire … Read more
Modern hard drives are an amazing thing. They’re super fast, quiet and have more storage than we know what to do with. Since these drives are so big, people are starting to store more and more important bits of data onto them. Having only one hard drive holding all of your personal documents, pictures, videos … Read more
If you have a non-Gnome desktop environment (like XFCE, LXDE, etc.) and open up a Gnome 3.x application (like Gedit, etc.) you might notice that the titlebar for that application looks different. This is because the Gnome project has started using something known as client-side decorations. This is a very divisive topic, a heated debate … Read more
Have you ever recorded a vocal track in Audacity only to notice that your recording has a ton of white noise in it? For those who are not aware, white noise is a type of noise that can drown out the main voices. It’s a common problem. Most consumer-grade microphones that are available have terrible … Read more
Have you ever recorded a video clip and then wondered “How do I turn this entire thing into individual images?” If so, this guide is probably what you’re looking for. You see, there’s a tool out there called FFMPEG. It is a video tool and can be used for a multitude of things. This includes … Read more
Is your Linux system running slow? Want to know what processes are hogging cpu time and/or memory in realtime? Are you just plain curious about how the Linux kernel schedules tasks behind the scenes? Then you need “top,” which is a real-time process monitor command that helps monitor the running processes in a Linux system … Read more