 
Step-by-Step Guide to Bodhi Linux 4

By Roger Carter

Copyright 2016 Roger Carter

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Preface

1 Introduction

1.1 About Bodhi Linux

1.2 Which Bodhi version should you choose

1.3 Installing Bodhi Linux

2 First steps with Bodhi

2.1 The Bodhi menu system

2.2 Run "Everything"

2.3 Connect to your router

2.4 Update your system

2.5 The Bodhi AppCenter

2.6 Moksha desktop themes

2.7 Fonts

2.8 Introducing PCManFM

2.9 Single-click or double-click?

2.10 Hidden files

2.11 Terminology

3 Turbocharge your desktop

3.1 Shelves and gadgets

3.2 Change the contents of the shelf and iBar

3.3 Change the shelf and iBar settings

3.4 More gadgets

3.5 A second shelf with a launch tracker

3.6 The Tasks gadget (Taskbar)

3.7 The Engage dock

3.8 The Settings Panel

3.9 Key bindings

3.10 Edge bindings

3.11 Borderless windows

3.12 The default key bindings

4 Beef up your system

4.1 Download options

4.2 A Web browser: Firefox

4.3 An email client: Thunderbird

4.4 An Office suite: WPS

4.5 Printer support

4.6 Media players

4.7 Osmoma Audio Recorder

4.8 Photo and Drawing applications

4.9 Imagination

4.10 Get-iPlayer

4.11 Dropbox

4.12 Other apps

5 More power to your desktop

5.1 The Favorites menu

5.2 Application launchers

5.3 Startup applications and startup commands

5.4 Virtual desktops

5.5 Different shelves for different desktops

5.6 Desktop themes

5.7 Combining elements from different themes

5.8 Application themes and icons

5.9 Wallpapers

5.10 Colours

5.11 Yet more dialog boxes

5.12 Profiles§

5.13 Start again: the Default profile

6 Tune up and backup your system

6.1 Becoming superuser

6.2 Clean your system: BleachBit

6.3 Backup your system: Bodhibuilder

6.4 Unetbootin

6.5 Running Bodhi from a USB drive

6.6 Using Terminology to get things done

6.7 Conclusion

This book follows the same plan as my original _Step-by-Step Guide to Bodhi Linux 2_ , which itself had grown out of tutorial notes I had prepared for a University of the Third Age (U3A) computer group here in the UK. Although that book was a rushed job with many shortcomings (I wrote over the last three weeks of 2013 and published it on New Year's Day 2014), it has proved surprisingly popular, with over 10,000 downloads to date (December 2016). This edition is a complete rewrite for Bodhi Linux version 4.0, this time produced in less of a rush!

Like Bodhi itself, this ebook is given away free of charge. If you find the book helpful, and if you like and continue to use Bodhi Linux, I would urge you to support Bodhi financially to help cover its ongoing development and maintenance costs: visit the Bodhi Linux website at http://www.bodhilinux.com/ and click on the Support tab.

I should emphasize that this is not an official Bodhi Linux publication, and any errors are entirely my own.

Roger Carter

# 1 Introduction

In this first short chapter you'll learn a few basic facts about Bodhi Linux, and you'll install it on your computer.

## 1.1 About Bodhi Linux

Bodhi (rhymes with Jodie) is built on top of the latest Ubuntu version of the Linux operating system (Ubuntu 16.04), providing it with a particularly elegant desktop or user interface called _Moksha._ Besides its desktop, Bodhi also adds to the Ubuntu software repositories its own repositories, which host custom bodhi-related packages as well as specific applications requested by Bodhi users.

Why run Bodhi rather than standard Ubuntu - which is, after all, the most popular Linux distribution? The great thing about Bodhi is that it is fast, it will run on almost any computer, even old ones that you can pick up for almost nothing, and it is exceptionally good-looking. It is also highly customizable, probably more so than any other distribution. (A major criticism of the latest versions of Enlightenment - E18 to E20 - is that they are not so capable in this regard as E17.) The problem with being so customizable is that you face a bit of a learning curve to get to grips with what's on offer, but hopefully this book will smooth the way.

And I should add that, in contrast to Windows, everything you'll likely need is free, and you don't need anti-virus software!

**Note:** I will not provide a glossary of terms used in this book. If you want to find out the meaning of words you don't understand, such as 'software repository', look them up on the Internet, if necessary including _linux_ or _ubuntu_ in your search phrase.

## 1.2 Which Bodhi version should you choose?

You will be downloading and installing Bodhi Linux in Section 1.3 below. If you go to the Bodhi download page (at http://www.bodhilinux.com/download/) you will see that there are versions for 64-bit, 32-bit, and legacy (i.e. Non-PAE) computers. As a rough guide, computers designed for Windows Vista and later are generally 64-bit, those designed for Windows XP and earlier are generally 32-bit, and pre-Windows XP computers are generally (32-bit) non-PAE, i.e. 'legacy'. The legacy version of Bodhi Linux will run on all machines, the 32-bit version will run on all PAE machines, and 64-bit version will only run on newer machines. If your computer has 4 or more Gbytes of RAM (memory), then it is definitely worth installing the 64-bit version, and if it is a newer machine with UEFI firmware (i.e. built for Windows 8 or Windows 10) then it requires 64-bit Bodhi. (It implies on the Bodhi website that WPS Office is not well-supported on 64-bit systems, but I am writing this using WPS Writer running on 64-bit Bodhi, and I haven't noticed an problems.)

The 32-bit and 64-bit versions come in two flavours, Standard and AppPack, the difference being that the later includes in the download a number of applications, including Synaptic, LibreOffice, VLC, OpenShot Video Editor, and a number of others. Some of these you will definitely want, such as Synaptic and VLC, but others you won't want. Personally, I prefer to download the Standard versions then download just the packages I want from Bodhi's AppCenter (e.g. WPS Office rather than LibreOffice), but the choice is yours. Note that the Standard version ISO will fit onto a recordable CD, whereas the AppPack version ISO must be written to a DVD or USB stick.

**Note:** If you are running Linux and you want to know whether your computer is 64-bit, 32-bit, or Legacy (i.e. non-PAE), then open a terminal and enter the Linux command _grep flags /proc/cpuinfo._ The output will be a number of flags (groups of characters), which give information about the cpu (central processing unit). If one of those flags is _lm_ (meaning 'long mode'), then your computer is 64-bit. If one of the flags is _pae_ (meaning 'physical address extension'), then it is not a legacy machine. So if the output for your computer has the _pae_ flag but not the _lm_ flag, it is a 32-bit machine.

## 1.3 Installing Bodhi Linux

What you download is an ISO file (i.e. an optical disk image), which can be written to either a recordable CD (or DVD) or to a USB flash drive, and which you can then use to install Bodhi on your computer. The official recommendation is that you use a USB drive, and the instructions for doing this on a Linux computer are in the Bodhi wiki at  http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/installation-instructions/. In the case of a Windows computer, you will need to download LiLi (Linux Live USB Creator) from http://www.linuxliveusb.com/§. A guide to using LiLi is at the same site, or you could use an independent guide such as at  http://www.maketecheasier.com/how-to-create-your-own-usb-linux-distro-with-lili/§.

However, if your computer has a CD/DVD drive, you will probably find it easier to write the ISO file to a blank recordable (or rewritable) CD or DVD and install from that. To do so:

1. Go to the Bodhi Linux download page (http://www.bodhilinux.com/download/) where you will find the download links. Refer to the last section if you are not sure which download is right for you.

2. Click on the appropriate download link, and after a few seconds your download will start. It will be a .iso file, small enough to fit on a CD in the case of the Standard version, or to a DVD in the case of the AppPack version.

3. You will have noticed that alongside the download link is one labelled 'MD5'. This leads to a _md5sum_ download that enables you to check that there are no errors in your downloaded ISO image. I have to confess that I've never used this option, but in the rare event of such an error a great deal of confusion can result, especially for new users. If you want to check for errors on a Windows computer, there are some free Windows utilities you can use with md5sum downloads - search the Web for 'md5sum on Windows'. To check on a Linux computer, see the instructions at  http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/installation-instructions/.

4. Now burn your ISO file to a CD or DVD. In the case of a Windows computer, you can use Windows' own CD burner, in the case of a Linux computer you can use e.g. Brasero or Xfburn. Select the appropriate burning option, which will be something like 'Burn an ISO image'. After a few minutes your CD or DVD will be ready.

5. Now to test the disk. Boot up the computer on which you wish to install Bodhi, and as it fires up hold down the F12 key until the boot menu opens. Insert the CD into the optical drive and choose the menu option to boot from this. (If F12 doesn't take you to the boot menu, check your computer's manual for the key to use - some computers use F9. Also, a list of the keys you can use at startup should be displayed at the foot of the screen when the computer fires up.)

**Note:** If you have any external storage devices plugged into your computer, such as USB sticks or SD cards, remove these first, before booting up. The reason is that these may cause problems when you come to install Bodhi on your hard disk. (If you have written the ISO image to a USB stick instead of a CD or DVD, you should of course insert that before booting up and leave it plugged in throughout the installation process.)

6. The disk start-up menu should then appear. It is possible (but very unlikely) that errors crept in when you burnt the disk in Step 4, and you can check for this by choosing the 'Check distro' option on this menu. Otherwise choose the top (default) option to boot the live system. The Bodhi splash screen will show for quite a while (loading from a CD is slow), but eventually the Moksha desktop will appear, with the QuickStart Guide open (as shown in the figure below.

If after a couple of minutes nothing happens, and the disc has stopped spinning, it means that all is not well. It may be because you are trying to run the 64-bit version of Bodhi on a 32-bit machine. But if your computer is old (i.e. pre-Windows XP), the chances are it's a non-PAE (legacy) machine, in which case you will have to download the legacy version of Bodhi. If, after you've done this, Bodhi still won't run, it means that Linux has encountered some hardware incompatibility. A common problem on old laptops is to do with ACPI, and to counter this you will have to turn ACPI off: when the disc start-up menu appears (step 6), press the Tab key to show the start-up options, and at the end of this list add the command _acpi=off_. You should also of course check the md5sum (Step 3 above) and carry out the distro check (Step 6 above).

7. The desktop will show a 'shelf' (or panel) at the bottom of the screen, with icons at the left and the right, including an icon to install Bodhi (third icon from the left - see the figure).

8. It's a good idea to connect to wifi at this point, though this is not essential: you can install Bodhi without an Internet connection. The instructions for connecting wirelessly are in the Quick Start Guide that has automatically opened on your desktop - simply click the Network Manager gadget on the shelf (it's the icon at the left of the bottom-right group of icons), choose your network from the list, and enter your passphrase. (If you have a wired connection to your router, that will have been automatically activated.) Note that anything you do at this point, including entering your wifi passphrase, will not stored - you will have to start again after installing Bodhi on your hard disk. If the computer doesn't connect at the first attempt (as sometimes happens), click the icon a second time and enter the passphrase again.

9. When you are ready to install Bodhi Linux on your computer, click the Install Bodhi icon (towards the right of the shelf). The installation process is very straightforward:  
\- Click Continue at the first Welcome screen (if necessary first select your language).  
\- At the next screen click the tick box to the left of Download Updates and the box to the left of Install third-party software. (These two boxes were invisible on my system, but they are there.) Click Continue.

10. After a minute or two the Installation Type dialog box will appear. Here you can choose either to install Bodhi alongside your current operating system to create a dual-boot computer, or to erase the current operating system and allow Bodhi to use the whole of your hard disk. If you choose the former, the next dialog box allows you to select the amount of disk space to allocate to each operating system. Click Install Now. Ignore the LVM option unless you really know what this is and what it involves. (As before, the tick boxes to the left of these options were invisible on my system, but they are there.) Click Continue.

11. At the next dialog box click your location on the map, then Continue. Then, at the Keyboard Layout dialog box you can probably accept the default offering. Click Continue to proceed to the final dialog box.

12. Here you are asked to enter your name, and a name for your computer (you can ignore the name suggested by the software and put in anything you like), and you have to choose a password. Unless security is an issue for you (as it might be in a workplace setting), I suggest you choose a password that's easy to type. Tick 'Log in automatically' (unless you are in a workplace setting), then Continue.

13. You can now take a tea break, as there will be a delay of 10 or 15 minutes while Bodhi unpacks and installs all its files. When it's done, you are invited to click Restart to reboot the system from the hard disk. Do so.

14. After a few seconds the CD will be ejected. Press Enter to continue and the computer will reboot and Bodhi Linux will fire up from your hard disk.

15. As this is a brand new installation, you will need to login, and then you will need to enter your wifi details again once Bodhi has loaded and the desktop appears. Note that the network icon may not appear on this first boot. If this happens, simply reboot.

You should see the QuickStart Guide filling your desktop, as in the earlier figure. If it is not there, click the Midori icon at the left of the the shelf to open it.

# 2 First steps with Bodhi

In this chapter you'll carry out some basic tasks in Bodhi Linux, including using the menu system, doing a small amount of customization, and installing a few things from the AppCenter. You'll also be using PCManFM for some file management tasks. Finally you'll learn how to enter Linux commands using Terminology (the terminal installed on your system).

## 2.1 The Bodhi menu system

The Bodhi Main menu, and two of its submenus, are available at the click of the mouse - i.e. a click on ANY empty spot on the desktop.

\- Left-click for the Main menu (or press the Menu key, which on many keyboards is located at the right of the spacebar, or click the Start gadget at the far left of the shelf). This menu gives access to the applications installed on your system and to the many Moksha settings.

\- Right-click for the Favorites menu (or press Alt+Menu, i.e. hold down the Alt key while pressing the Menu key). This will only show if you have set it up with your favourite applications - see Section 5.1.

\- Middle-click (scroll wheel click) for the Windows menu (or press Ctrl+Menu). This lists all open and minimized windows. You can also use Alt+Tab to switch between windows.

It is the Main menu (and the shelf) that you'll be using in this chapter to access what's on your system. By moving the mouse over the main menu items you get to submenus, and mousing over these leads to further submenus (see the figure). These submenus may sometimes disappear off the right of the screen, and when this happens simply move the mouse pointer to the right edge of the screen and the menus will shift to the left.

The shelf at the bottom of your desktop houses a number of gadgets, many of which are shortcuts to menu options. For example, clicking the System gadget at the far right of the shelf is equivalent to opening _Main menu > System_ (i.e. choosing System from the Main menu) - it opens a menu offering Power Off, Suspend, and other system options. So use this to power off your computer.

The main options on the menu are as follows.

**Applications:** this gives you access to all the main applications installed on your computer.

**Places:** this runs the PCManFM file manager. I will cover PCManFM later in this chapter.

**Quick Launcher:** this runs 'Everything', where you can type in the first few letters of whatever it is you want to run, then press Enter. I discuss 'Everything' in the next section.

**Settings:** This leads to the many customization possibilities offered by Bodhi. We'll be exploring some of this in Chapter 3 and Chapter 5.

The other Main menu options are **Screenshot** (to take a picture of what's on the computer screen), **About Operating System** (where you can e.g. reset Moksha), and **System** (where you can e.g. turn off the computer or put it to sleep).

You can if you wish close the Quick Start Guide that is filling your desktop. To open it again, go to _Main menu > About Operating System > Help_.

## 2.2 Run "Everything"

As you will discover as you work through this book, Bodhi Linux is hugely customizable, and this results in a rather forbidding maze of menus, settings, and dialog boxes. "Everything" allows you to completely bypass this maze and go directly to the dialog box you want, simply by typing the first few letters of the dialog box's name into Everything. And that includes running applications as well as opening dialog boxes.

As indicated above, you can run Everything directly from the Main menu, but since you need to type at the keyboard to use it, you will probably prefer to run it by means of its hotkey: _Win+Space_ (i.e. hold down the Windows key and press the spacebar), or _Alt_ + _Esc_ (i.e. hold down the Alt key and press Esc). Note that the Win key is normally to the left of the spacebar.

You will get plenty of practice with Everything in this chapter and the next, beginning in Section 2.4 below. As you will discover there, after running Everything and typing in the first few letters of the application or dialog box, you double-click its icon or press Enter to open it.

**Note:** An alternative way to launch an application or dialog box in Everything is to right-click the icon instead of double-clicking or to press Ctrl+Enter instead of Enter. Doing so will leave Everything open for further use.

## 2.3 Connect to your router

If you haven't done so already, do this now. As explained earlier, simply click the Network Manager icon on the shelf (the first of the right-most set of icons), select your network from the list that appears, and enter the passphrase.

You'll obviously want to check that you really are connected to the Internet. Midori (the installed web browser) should already be open on your screen, so enter a search phrase (e.g. _Bodhi Linux_ ) in its search box. A list of hits should appear. (The icon to click to open Midori is towards the left of the shelf.

## 2.4 Update your system

Your next job is to update your system. In the past this has meant opening a terminal and entering a couple of Linux commands, one to update the package index stored on your system (so that it is synchronized with the online software repository), the second to upgrade any out-of-date packages stored on your system to the latest versions. With Bodhi version 4 these tasks are performed by the eepDater utility, which you can either run from the menu system ( _Main menu > Applications > System Tools > System Updater_) or, preferably, by running Everything:

1. Press Win+Space (or Alt+Esc) to run Everything.

2. Type the first few letters of either _System_ or _Updater._

3. Double-click the System Updater icon (or use the right-arrow key to highlight it and press Enter).

A dialog box opens where you should enter your password to run eepDater. It will begin by updating your package index, then it will list the packages that need updating. Click _Select All_ , then _Apply_ , then wait a few minutes while the updates are installed. Close the eepDater window when it's finished.

## 2.5 The Bodhi AppCenter

If you have installed the Standard version of Bodhi you will certainly want to head to the AppCenter early on to add to the minimal amount of application software that comes with your system. You will probably want office software to meet your word processing and spreadsheet needs, as well as an email client, a media player, and much more besides. I will be outlining some of the possibilities in Chapter 4.

If you have installed the AppPack version of Bodhi you will already have much more stuff on your system, including LibreOffice, the Chromium web browser, VLC, and more, in which case there is less need for you to look ahead to Chapter 4. (Personally, I prefer to install the Standard version and add to it my own choice of applications.)

The place to go to add software applications to your system is the AppCenter. You can get there via the menu system ( _Main menu > Applications > System Tools > Bodhi AppCenter_), but its easier to run Everything and type in the first few letters of _appcenter_. Double-click the AppCenter icon or press Enter, and the AppCenter web page will appear in Midori. Here you will find a selection of recommended packages categorized under a number of headings - Office Software, Image Editing, Email Clients, and so on.

If you have installed the Standard version of Bodhi, I suggest you head off to the AppCenter now and install whatever you consider essential at this stage of your installation. This might include an email client such as Thunderbird and an alternative web browser such as Firefox. If you want Office software such as word processing then WPS Office is a good choice (though LibreOffice is favored by many). You might want to look ahead now to Chapter 4 for more information on installing these and other possible applications.

Leaving aside these applications for the moment, I strongly suggest that you download some Moksha themes in preparation for the next section. You can get an idea of what each theme looks like from the images in the Themes section of this web page. You can if you wish install all the themes listed, but most likely you'll pick just a few. If you want something colourful I recommend the Forum theme and Sunshine.

You'll notice that one or two of the themes (e.g. Moonlight) position the window control buttons (Maximize, Minimize, Close) at the top left of windows instead of the top right. If you like the look of this theme but prefer the buttons at the right, then it's an easy change to make, as you'll discover later (in Section 5.7) when we cover how to mix elements from different themes. (In this case by assigning to the Moonlight theme the border from another theme such as Moksha Green.)

## 2.6 Moksha desktop themes

These control the appearance of your desktop and its various components, including shelves, menus, icons, and dialog boxes. The themes listed at the AppCenter are guaranteed to work perfectly with your Moksha desktop, but there are dozens more Enlightenment themes that mostly work - meaning that most of their components are compatible with Moksha, but a few are not. They can be worth exploring, for you can if you wish mix some of their compatible components with a Moksha theme to create a new theme of your own, or replace replace an incompatible with one from a Moksha theme.

For example, I have installed the Forum theme, but I have taken the clock, the theme wallpaper, and the login splash screen from a very old Enlightenment theme called A-crema. I also, when I want a change, use the A-crema theme and then replaced its incompatible component (widgets) with that component from the Sunshine theme and the shelf from the Forum theme - in effect creating a compatible version of A-crema. I mention this now to illustrate the remarkable flexibility of the Enlightenment desktop on which Moksha is built. For details of how this is done see Sections 5.6 and 5.7.

### Changing the desktop theme

Once you have downloaded some themes from the AppCenter (see Section 2.5 above), they will appear in the list of themes that appear when you go to _Main menu > Settings > Theme_. Also in that list are the default theme which is already installed, and an alternative green version called MokshaGreen. To apply a new theme simply click on its tick box in the _Settings > Theme_ submenu. The appearance of your shelf and the menus will be transformed.

If you wish to have the desktop wallpaper match this new theme, go to _Main menu > Settings > Wallpaper_, or type the first letters of _wallpaper_ into Everything. The Wallpaper Settings dialog box will appear, where you should click on Use Theme Wallpaper and then click OK.

### Applying a matching application theme

If you decide to go with this theme, you should also apply a matching application theme (i.e. a theme which sets the appearance of windows within which applications run, determining such things as the appearance of scroll bars and the title bar.) This isn't essential, it simply gives everything a more unified appearance.

To do this, type the first two or three letters of _application_ into Everything and double-click the icon (or right-arrow to the icon and press Enter). The Application Theme Settings dialog box will open, allowing you to select the Application theme which matches your choice of desktop (Moksha) theme. For example, if you have chosen the Forum desktop theme, you should choose the BodhiForum theme here.

While at this dialog box you can also if you wish change the icon set used on the shelf and in the menus. We will, however, be covering icons later when I deal with these matters in greater depth in Chapter 5 (Section 5.8).

### Applying a matching elementary theme

You should also change to underlying theme used by Elementary (the software base on which Enlightenment is built). Run Everything, type in the first few letters of _elementary config_ , and press Enter. At the dialog box that appears, click the Theme tab and choose the theme that matches your choice of Moksha theme. For example, if you have chosen the Forum theme, you will choose forum-elm here. Click Use Theme.

That's quite a lot to change in order to create a unified appearance to all the elements of your desktop, but none of these changes are essential, and it's very easy, as you will discover later in Section 5.11, to save the whole lot as a _profile_ which you can return to at any time if you decide to set up your desktop quite differently with other themes and customizations.

## 2.7 Fonts

Another change you may like to make is to the font used by Moksha. If your eyes are not that good, you could make the default font bigger, or just change a few things. If you have installed the Forum theme, for example, you might just wish to change the font used in the title bar and the menu system.

1. Go to the Font Settings dialog box (by typing _fonts_ into Everything). The Font Settings dialog box shown in the figure below appears.

2. If you wish to change the default font used by Moksha you can do so here, by ticking Enable Custom Font Classes then choosing a font and a size and clicking Apply. It's easy to restore the original settings - simply untick Enable Custom Font Classes then click Apply. Most people won't want to make a global change like this, so let's instead just change the fonts used in the menu system and the title bar.

3. Click Advanced, and the General Settings section of the dialog box appears.

4. Click Menu item in the Font Classes column, then Enable Font Class at the foot of this column (see the figure below).

5. Choose Ubuntu in the Font column, then Bold in the Style column, then scroll down to 12 or 13 pixels in the size column and click that.

6. Click Apply, then click anywhere on the desktop to see how your menu looks. Try other choices at the dialog box if the results are not suitable for your eyes or your screen.

To change the font used in the title bar of windows:

1. At this same General Settings part of the Font Settings dialog box, click Title Bar in the Font Classes column, then Enable Font Class at the foot of the column, then choose Ubuntu in the Font column, Bold in the Style column, and either 13 or 14 pixels in the Size column.

2. Click Apply, and observe how the font used in the title bar of the dialog box changes. Again, feel free try a different font and size. Close the dialog box when you've finished.

**Note:** To restore the default settings for any of the above, untick Enable Font Class.

You will be making many more changes to the appearance of your desktop in Chapter 3. First, though I want to introduce you to the file manager and the terminal.

## 2.8 Introducing PCManFM

PCManFM is the file manager that's installed on your system. It doesn't appear as a menu item or on the shelf but you can launch it via 'Places' or by typing the first few letters of _pcmanfm_ into Everything. (Later on, you'll meet the Places gadget which will also launch PCManFM.)

The easiest way to run PCManFM is, however, to add its icon to the iBar on your shelf at the foot of the screen. Then, you simply click on the icon to run it. I'll be discussing shelves and iBars in detail shortly (in Chapter 3), but here's how to add the icon:

1. Run PCManFM by one of the methods suggested above.

2. Right-click on the title bar of its window to open the context menu, then move the mouse over _PCManFM > Add to iBar > default_ and click _default_.

3. PCManFM's icon should appear in the iBar at the left of the shelf, alongside the Midori icon. Now close PCManFM then run it again by clicking on its icon in the iBar.

**Note:** It is possible that this method of adding PCManFM to the iBar does not work for you. Unlike other applications on your system, PCManFM does not have an how 'Places'. In Chapter 5 (Section 5.2) you will learn how to create a launcher for it, and then you will be able to add it to the iBar just like any other application.

If you've never used PCManFM before, it's worth spending a few moments exploring its features, some of which are described below.

### Side pane

This is at the left of the PCManFM window, and shows either Places (the default) or the directory tree. If you insert a USB drive, it will appear under Places. And if you bookmark a folder that you frequently use, then that will appear here too, instantly accessible. For example, I have bookmarked my Dropbox folder where I store all the documents I'm working on (such as this book) as well as files that I wish to be held securely in the 'cloud'. (Dropbox is a cloud service that's discussed in Chapter 4.)

**Note:** To eject a USB drive, right-click on it in the side pane and, from the context menu that appears, choose Eject.

### Preferences (Edit menu)

You should explore PCManFM's many preferences (go to _Edit > Preferencies_); some that you might wish to look at now are:

\- In the General section of the Preferences dialog box, you may wish to set the Default View Mode to Compact View.

\- In the Layout section of this dialog box you should tick 'Filesystem root' (under 'Show in Places'). This will give you quick access to the Linux root filesystem from the side pane.

\- Also in the Layout section, if you wish to connect with other computers on your network you should tick 'Network'. Note, though, that if you are running the standard version of Bodhi (rather than the AppPack version) you will need to install the _bodhi-filesharing_ package to support networking. To do so, use Everything to open Terminology (the terminal supplied with Bodhi), then enter the command _sudo apt-get install bodhi-filesharing_. You will be asked to enter your password, and then the package will be downloaded and installed.

\- In the Advanced section click the arrow at the right of 'Archiver integration' and choose one of the archivers listed there (for handling compressed files). You will need to install whichever archiver you choose - see Section 2.11 at the end of this chapter, which describes how to install Xarchiver.

### Dual pane mode (View menu, or press F3)

This allows you to see different places side-by-side in the PCManFM window. For example, you could display a folder in your Home directory in one pane and a USB stick in the other. This makes it easy to copy files or folders from one to the other by simply dragging them across with the mouse.

### Open folder in terminal (Tools menu, or press F4)

You will find this useful later on when you want to run terminal commands in a particular folder. Related to this is 'Run a command in current folder', also in the Tools menu.

### Find files (Tools menu)

This allows you to search for files by name, file type, properties, or content in any directory or in the entire file system. It understands the usual set of wildcard characters (e.g. '*' for any group of characters). It's easiest to go to the folder where you want to search first (e.g. the root filesystem, or the Home folder) and then run _Tools > Find Files_.

**Note:** 'Directory' and 'folder' mean the same thing.

### Remove files or send them to Trash (Edit menu)

The first of these options removes files permanently, the second allows you to recover them if you change your mind later: click on Trash Can (Rubbish Bin) under Places in the side pane to do this. The context menu (which opens when you right-click a file or folder) shows only the second of these options.

### The Desktop folder

In previous versions of Bodhi, any files that you placed here could be made to show up as icons on your desktop. This was thanks to the built-in Enlightenment File Manager, which is no longer packaged with Bodhi. (The command _pcmanfm \--desktop_ will make items in your Desktop folder display as desktop icons, but this blanks out the rest of the screen, including the shelf, so it's frankly not much use.) Personally, I never bothered with the desktop icons created by the Enlightenment File Manager as I could place an iBar containing stuff I wanted on the desktop, but more on that later.

### The context menu

As with any application, right-clicking on an item or an empty space in PCManFM will bring up a context menu, listing relevant menu choices. For example, iIf you right-click on an empty space in a pane, one of the options in the context menu will be to create a new folder (within the folder showing in that pane).

## 2.9 Single-click or double-click?

The standard way of using the left mouse button is to _select_ a folder or file with a single click, and _open_ it with a double click. It has always been possible to change this so that you can open a file or folder with a single click, but this has presented problems if you want to select a file without opening it. PCManFM resolves this with its auto-selection feature, which allows you to select a file by hovering the mouse over it for a short while without clicking it; you can then select multiple further files by holding down Ctrl while clicking on them in the usual way. Alternatively, you can turn auto-select off and select a file either by middle-clicking it (i.e. pressing the scroll wheel of mouse), or by holding down Ctrl and left-clicking. Both methods work with folders as well as files.

You already run items on your shelf with a single click. One advantage of switching PCManFM to single-click mode is that you then have a consistent mouse interface, opening or running all files and icons, whether on a shelf or in the file manager, with a single click.

To try this:

1. Open _Edit menu > Preferences_. The Preferences dialog box opens.

2. At the General tab, at the top, tick 'Open files with single click'.

3. If you wish to try the auto-selection method, I suggest you increase the auto-selection delay to the maximum possible (2 seconds), then reduce it as you become accustomed to this way of working.

4. Click Close, then test out this change by selecting items (by mousing over them, and making further multiple selections with Ctrl+click), and opening items with a single click.

5. Return to the Preferences dialog box, and this time set the auto-selection delay to zero. Now you can select a folder or file with Ctrl + left-click, and further multiple selections in the same way.

## 2.10 Hidden files

Just as most of the stuff in the universe is invisible dark matter, so most of the directories and files in your Home folder are hidden. To see them, click on Home Folder in the PCManFM side pane, then press Ctrl+H (or choose _View > Show Hidden_ from the menu). You will see that there are quite a few hidden folders there - there will be many more when you've finished installing the various applications that you'll need.

Notice that these hidden folders are all prefixed with a '.'. One important hidden folder is .local. Amongst its subfolders is Trash, where files that you sent to the Trash Can are stored. (PCManFM will create this folder when you first delete a file by moving it to Trash.) To see these files, navigate to _.local/share/Trash_ ; alternatively, click on 'files', or click on Trash Can in the Places side-pane.

These folders exist in your Home directory rather than elsewhere on your system because their contents have nothing to do with any system files that are needed to run Bodhi Linux or your applications, rather they are used to store preferences and other data peculiar to you; and they are hidden because there is normally no need for you to be able to see or access them. So turn off viewing hidden files and folders now by pressing Ctrl+H again.

## 2.11 Terminology

Nowadays you are kept at arms length from the operating system of your computer by a graphical user interface (GUI), which in our case is the Moksha desktop and the various graphical utilities that run in it. Unless you are a software developer, you will rarely need to type commands at a 'terminal' or 'console', names that are hangovers from pre-windows/mouse days when all interactions with the computer were via the keyboard.

With Bodhi version 4 it becomes possible to dispense with the command line entirely. However, this is not very desirable, as some tasks are more easily accomplished by issuing terminal commands rather than by means of a graphical utility, and some things can only be done via the terminal. Indeed, one of the applications described in Chapter 4 can only be installed and used via the terminal.

The Bodhi Linux terminal is called Terminology, and you will find in the System Tools submenu. Open it now (by entering the first few letters of its name into Everything, or by _Main menu > Applications > System Tools > Terminology_).

Before proceeding further, you may wish to customize Terminology to suit your preferences:

1. Right-click on a blank area of the Terminology window to open the context menu, and choose _Settings > Theme_.

2. Choose a theme that you like - I find that the Mustang theme works best, but the only theme that makes the Settings menus easy to read is Solarized-light. Hopefully this defect will be corrected in a future release!

3. You might also wish to alter the font ( _Settings > Font_).

**Note:** I will not be giving any explanation of the terminal commands used below and elsewhere in this book. If you want to know more, simply search the Web for 'linux <command>'. So to find out what the _synclient_ command below does, search for 'linux synclient'.

### Installing Xarchiver

This is one of the programs that allows you to easily extract zip (compressed) files from within PCManFM. (Others are listed in PCManFM's Preferences in _Advanced Section > Archiver integration_. To install Xarchiver in Terminology, first update your system by entering the command

sudo apt-get update

and then enter the command

_sudo apt-get install xarchiver_.

Now, when you right-click on a ZIP file in PCManFM, Xarchiver will appear in the context menu.

### Disabling your laptop's touchpad

If you use a mouse with your laptop, you will probably want to disable the laptop's touchpad. You can download a graphical utility to do this, but it's much simpler to enter a terminal command. You can even 'bind' such a command to a keypress, so that, for example, you can turn off the touchpad by pressing Win+0 (i.e. holding down the Win key and pressing 0, and turn it back on again by pressing Win+1. (I'll be explaining how to set this up in the next chapter.)

To disable the touchpad, enter the following command into Terminology:

synclient TouchpadOff=1

Check that this has worked (by attempting to move the cursor with the touchpad), then turn it back on again:

synclient TouchpadOff=0

These commands must be typed in exactly as shown, with uppercase T and O, lowercase elsewhere.

If you want the touchpad turned off automatically when you start the computer, you should add this command to the _startupcommands_ file in the hidden folder _.e/e/applications/startup_. You will find instructions for doing this in Section 4.12 where I discuss opening an aRandR screen layout file at startup.

Note: The Internet has plenty of advice on using the terminal - search for 'using Linux terminal'. One site is  Beginner Geek: How to start using the Linux terminal.

#  3 Turbocharge your desktop

By the end of this chapter you will have gained some appreciation of the full flexibility and speed of the Enlightenment desktop system on which Moksha is based, for you will have configured it to run applications and modify settings with just a click or two of the mouse. You will even have speeded up and simplified the way you use the mouse to handle windows. The fiddle of accurately settling the mouse pointer on those tiny buttons at the right of the title bar will be a thing of the past!

**Hint:** You will be opening a number of windows and dialog boxes as you work through this and subsequent chapters. If one of these extends off the top of the screen so that you can't see the title bar, hold down the Alt key while dragging the window with the mouse to bring the title bar into view.

## 3.1 Shelves and gadgets

The purpose of the shelf at the bottom of your screen is to house gadgets. These might include the iBar gadget from which applications such as the Midori web browser can be launched, and the taskbar gadget to track launched applications (so that you can easily bring them into view if they are hidden or minimized).

These two gadgets are located at the left of your shelf, along with the Start gadget (which when clicked displays the Main menu). At the right of the shelf you will see the Systray gadget (which currently shows the network icon), the Pulse Mixer (audio) gadget, the Clipboard gadget, the Virtual Desktops gadget, the Clock, the System gadget (to shut down, suspend, or log out), and finally, if you have a laptop, the Battery gadget.

In addition to the shelf, the Moksha desktop can display the _Engage_ dock. This is a fancy kind of shelf which is able, like the shelf, to track applications as well as launching them, and to house gadgets. It is possible in theory to dispense with the shelf entirely and just use Engage, or you could have both, splitting the various functions between them.

Engage has some nice effects, and for some Bodhi users it is a must-have addition. If you want to give it a spin, I include a section on installing and using it later in this chapter, but I concentrate in this book on using the shelf and the iBar. The shelf is in fact more configurable than Engage:

\- Unlike Engage, which can only be positioned at the centre of a screen edge, a shelf can positioned at the centre, left, or right (or, in case of a side edge, at the top or bottom).  
\- Also unlike Engage, a shelf can be set so that it is not overlapped by windows, making it always visible (unless an application is fullscreen).  
\- You can have different shelves on different virtual desktops, whereas the same instance of Engage appears on all desktops.

## 3.2 Change the contents of the shelf and iBar

Let's start by changing the contents of the shelf and the iBar.

1. Right-click on the empty central portion of the shelf, and from the context menu choose _Contents_.

2. The Shelf Contents dialog box opens, listing the available gadgets. (There are more gadgets than these, and you will discover shortly how to load them.) You may want to make this dialog box bigger by dragging on its top or bottom borders.

**Hint:** You can vertically maximize dialog boxes such as this by pressing Shift+F10.

3. Make sure the following three gadgets are selected: Settings, Everything Starter, and iBar. To select a gadget, highlight it and click Add Gadget. (The Settings gadget will take you to the Settings Panel, discussed in Section 3.6 below, the Everything Starter will run Everything, and the iBar will house application launchers.)

4. Deselect any other selected gadgets by highlighting them and clicking Remove Gadget. (You will be adding these gadgets to a second shelf you'll be creating shortly, or to the desktop.)

5. You will be left with just three gadgets on your shelf. These include the iBar, currently housing the Midori icon and PCManFM. Close the Shelf Contents dialog box.

**Note:** You can easily add more gadgets to your shelf later by right-clicking the shelf again and choosing Shelf > Contents from the context menu.

6. As you will have gathered, the iBar gadget is a container for application launchers. Right-click on the iBar (it's still at the left of the shelf), and from the context menu choose _iBar > Contents_.

7. The iBar Applications dialog box opens, listing the available applications installed on your system. Again you might want to press Shift+F10 to maximize it vertically.

8. If you have added some applications from the AppCenter to your system (I suggested in Section 2.5 that you might want to add e.g. Firefox and an email client), then you might want to add these to your iBar now. If not, you can add them later. You might also (temporarily) add the Bodhi AppCenter icon, in preparation for further visits to the AppCenter!

9. Click on the Order tab (at the top of the dialog box), and reorder the list to whatever you wish.

10. Click OK. Your iBar should now contain icons for these applications.

**Tip:** You can add any application to an iBar by opening the application, right-clicking its title bar for the context menu, and choosing the top option (application name) then 'Add to iBar' then the iBar name.

**Note:** The System gadget is no longer on the shelf, so to switch off your computer you will either have to press the computer's power button or use the menu system ( _Main menu > System > Power Off_). We will be adding this gadget to a second shelf shortly.

## 3.3 Change the shelf and iBar settings

Let's now change the position and appearance of the shelf and iBar:

1. Right-click on the blank central portion of the shelf again and choose _Settings_ from the context menu. The Shelf Settings dialog box opens.

2. At the Stacking tab, make sure that Below Windows is selected. This ensures that the shelf will not be visible should you wish to run an application fullscreen.

3. Click on Position, and at this tab choose the second option at the left (i.e. the one showing the shelf positioned along the left edge of the desktop, at the top).

4. At the size tab, set this to 40 pixels, and make sure that Shrink to Content Width is selected.

5. Click OK.

The icons on your shelf are now located down the left edge of the screen, clustered at the top. Why have I put the shelf here? Because locating shelves at the left rather than along the bottom makes best use of desktop real-estate on modern wide-screen computer displays. If you have an older laptop with a 4x3 screen you would do better to place your shelf along the top or bottom.

Further adjustments you can make are:

1. To change the order of the gadgets on the shelf, right-click anywhere on the shelf and select Begin Moving Gadgets from the context menu. You can now drag gadgets to the desired position. When you've done, right-click again and choose Stop Moving Gadgets. I like to put the iBar at tthe top.

2. To change the appearance of the iBar, right-click it choose _iBar > Look > Plain_.

## 3.4 More gadgets

We need to digress at this point to discover how we might add more gadgets to those already available. Not all modules and gadgets that are supplied with Bodhi are loaded at startup: this is to keep your system as lightweight as possible.

To see what is and isn't loaded, take a look at the Module Settings dialog box ( _Main menu > Settings > Modules_ or type _modu_ into Everything). At this dialog box the available modules are grouped into a number of categories (Utilities, System, etc), and those that are loaded are highlighted. Some that you may want to load, if they are not loaded by default, are:

- **Backlight** (in the Utilities category). If you have problems with your screen brightness, you should load the Backlight module, and then add the Backlight gadget to a shelf (or to the desktop - see below).

\- **Cpufreq** (System category). This tells you how fast your CPU is running (this varies according to the load); note that this gadget does not work on all computers.

\- **Temperature** (System category). This checks the core temperature of your computer.

\- **Places** (Files category). This is particularly useful, as it gives visible information on your connected storage devices (e.g. hard disk and plugged-in usb sticks), and shows their contents in PCManFM when you click their icons.

There's no need to clutter up your shelf with these gadgets. You can add them to the desktop instead; indeed, the Places gadget is designed for the desktop rather than the shelf.

1. Go to _Main menu > Settings > Gadgets_ (or type _gad_ into Everything); the Desktop Gadgets dialog box opens. At the Layers tab highlight Background and click Configure Layer. A further dialog box appears, listing the available gadgets.

2. Add gadgets to the desktop (or remove them) from this dialog box. I suggest you add the Places gadget, the Clock and perhaps the Battery.

3. A gadget that you add here will appear on the desktop in a crosshatched box. You can reposition the gadget by dragging this box to the new location, and you can resize it by dragging a side of the box. In the case of the Places gadget, I suggest you drag its bottom border to allow plenty of space for storage devices such as USB stick to show up here when you plug them in. When you've finished, right-click the box. In the case of the clock you can set it to digital or analog as well as other options by right-clicking it for the context menu and choosing _Clock > Settings_. Right-click a desktop gadget for its context menu, where you can adjust its settings or move/reize it further.

4. When you've finshed adding gadgets, close the Desktop Gadgets dialog box.

**Note:** You can easily move a gadget from a shelf to the desktop by right-clicking the gadget then choosing 'Move to' from its context menu. This context menu also includes an option to remove the gadget from the shelf.

**Note:** One of the gadgets you might add to your desktop could be another iBar. This would be a convenient way to add application icons to your desktop. A later section (in Chapter 5) explains how you would customize such an iBar (basically you would assign another source to it).

## 3.5 A second shelf with a launch tracker.

We removed several gadgets from our original shelf, including the taskbar to track launched applications. Let's now create a second shelf to house some of those gadgets:

1. Go to _Main menu > Settings > Shelves_ (or type _she_ into Everything), and at the Shelf Settings dialog box that appears click Add. The Add New Shelf dialog box opens.

2. Give your new shelf a meaningful name. Since we are going to use it partly to track launches, you might call it 'Tracker'.

3. The Shelf Contents dialog box opens, allowing you to add gadgets to it. Add the following three gadgets: the Tasks gadget (i.e. Taskbar, to track launches), the System gadget (to shut down the computer), and the Systray gadget (a notification area showing information about e.g. your network). You might also want to add the Cpufreq gadget as well.

The easiest way to add a several items in such a dialog box is to select them all (by holding down Ctrl while selecting) and then click Add.

4. Close the Shelf Contents dialog box, then at the Shelf Settings dialog box make sure your new shelf is highlighted and choose Settings.

5. The Shelf Settings dialog box opens, and at the various tabs make the following settings: Stacking - Below windows; Position - left edge of the screen at the bottom (see the figure); Size - 40 pixels and make sure Shrink to Content Width is selected.

6. Click OK to apply these, then close the Shelf Settings dialog box. Check the shelf is as you want it (left edge, bottom). You will probably want to rearrange the order of the gadgets, with, I suggest, the Tasks gadget at the top and the System gadget at the bottom: right-click on the shelf and choose Begin Moving Gadgets, move the gadgets with the mouse, then right-click again to Stop Moving.

If you want to return to the Shelf Settings dialog box to change any of these settings, or perhaps to change the colour of a shelf, then right-click on the shelf and choose _Settings_ (or _Tracker > Settings_ in the case of your second shelf - assuming you named that 'Tracker'). If you want to change the colour choose Alternate here, or try Invisible. Note that the shelf containing the Systray gadget must **not** be set to Invisible.

Now you have two shelves at the left of the screen, one at the top and the other at the bottom. The desktop space between those two shelves will remain clear, even when a window is maximized, so that you can click on that whenever you wish to open the menu system.

## 3.6 The Tasks gadget (Taskbar)

This gadget, which we have just placed on the second shelf, tracks launches, i.e. displays icons for any applications and dialog boxes that are running. If an application or dialog box is minimized, then its icon in Tasks will be greyed out. You can bring any running application or dialog box into focus (i.e. place it on top of other open windows) by clicking its icon in Tasks. Also, you can minimize an application or dialog box by clicking its icon in Tasks, or close it by right-clicking its icon in Tasks and choosing _Close_ from the context menu.

You might like to try this now by running some applications and dialog boxes, minimizing some of them (by clicking their icons in the taskbar), then clicking these icons again to bring them back into view, and right-clicking their icons to close them.

To optimize the appearance of these taskbar icons you need to adjust Tasks' settings:

1. Open an application - any application will do, so that its icon shows in the taskbar. Right-click on this icon and from the context menu choose _Tasks > Tasks > Settings_.

2. The Tasks Configuration dialog box opens (see below), and here you can adjust the height and the width of its icons. For a vertically-oriented shelf (such as our Tracker shelf) only the height can be adjusted here, and I find a good setting to be 42 px. Leave the other settings unchanged.

## 3.7 The Engage dock

Engage is an alternative way of launching and tracking applications and gadgets, and it's definitely worth a try. To do so, head off to the AppCenter (by typing _app_ into Everything), where you should select _Moksha Modules > Launcher Dock - Engage_, and then install it.

To activate Engage go to _Main menu > Settings > Modules_ (or type the first few letters of _modules_ into Everything), then, at the Module Settings dialog box, highlight Engage (in the Utilities section), click on Load then Close. The Engage dock will appear at the bottom of the screen, overlapping the central portion of the shelf. Like the shelf, it will contain some icons to launch applications, and a section to track applications that are already open.

To configure Engage, right-click on any of the Launch icons (at the left of the dock, not the Tracker icons at the right) and choose Configure Bar. The Engage Configuration dialog box opens, and here you can set the position and size of the dock as well as the applications housed in its launch section. You can also add gadgets to Engage - click on the Bar Items tab, then add Gadcon, then, with Gadcon highlighted, click Configure and choose from the list of gadgets that appears. You should include an iBar if you want to use it to launch applications.

Note in particular the Auto Hide section of Engage's configuration options. I find it best to set this to 'Hide when Window overlaps'. That way Engage is visible except when an application window overlaps it, in which case it disappears - to reappear if you move the mouse to the screen edge where it is hiding. You may also prefer to turn the zoom effect off (by setting the zoom factor to 1).

After trying Engage, you may like it so much that you decide to ditch shelves entirely and use it instead. Wait, though, until you have completed Chapter 5 of this book, where you will discover just how configurable shelves are! Personally, I prefer not to use Engage.

## 3.8 The Settings Panel

As you've worked through this book you've met some of the many dialog boxes that make up the Enlightenment/Moksha desktop system. You've accessed them either via the menu system or by typing the first few letters of their name into Everything. Another way of accessing them is via the Settings Panel.

You can reach the Settings Panel by clicking the Settings gadget on your first shelf, or from _Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel_. Do so now, then maximize the Settings Panel window.

Across the top are the main categories - and there are plenty of these, probably more than will fit the width of your screen - and most of these have multiple subheadings. I suggest you explore some of these now to gain an appreciation of the vast amount of customization that's possible with the Enlightenment/Moksha desktop. You will exploring many (though certainly not all) of these as you work through this book.

**Hint:** The Settings Panel has more headings or tabs displayed across the tab bar than will fit into the window - this is indicated by the clickable arrows at the left and right of the tab bar. This is true of a number of other dialog boxes as well. If you hover the mouse over the tab bar and rotate its scroll wheel, you will scroll the bar and bring the remaining headings into the view.

## 3.9 Key bindings

These specify the actions that occur when you press a key combination. A large number of default key bindings have already been set up for you, one example being Win+Space (and Alt+Esc) to run Everything. These bindings are specified in the Key Bindings Settings dialog box, shown in the figure below - I've highlighted Shift+F10, which can be used to maximize a window vertically. This binding is very useful for dialog boxes, which often (like this one) have a large number of items.

For a list of default key bindings, see the Bodhi Linux Wiki (at http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/wiki/)) where you should search for "key bindings"). I have reproduced this list at the end of this chapter.

To set up some key bindings of your own:

1. Run Everything, then type in the first few letters of _key bindings_ and press Enter to open the dialog box.

2. Press Shift+F10 to maximize the dialog box vertically.

3. Scroll down the left pane of the dialog box: you will see that many Alt, Alt+Shift, Ctrl+Alt, and Ctrl+Shift combinations have been set up, so we need to avoid these when setting up combinations of our own. We also need to avoid Ctrl \+ another key, as these combinations are often used by applications. Win key combinations are safe, so we'll restrict ourselves to these - only a few have been set by default, i.e. Win+Space, Win+Up arrow (to maximize), Win+Left arrow (to maximize left), and Win+Right (to maximize right).

4. We'll start by setting up Win+P (i.e. hold down the Win key and press p) as the presentation mode toggle (to turn screen blanking off or on). To set up up this binding:

a. Click Add (at the foot of the Key Bindings pane) then press Win+P.

b. Scroll about one half of the way down the right-hand Action pane to reach the 'Moksha: Mode section', and highlight 'Presentation Mode Toggle' .

c. Click Apply at the foot of the dialog box.

5. Press Win+P to test your binding. A message box should appear at the top right of the screen to confirm you are now in presentation mode. Press Win+P again to exit this mode.

6. If you use a mouse, you might like to set up a key binding to disable your laptop's touchpad. I suggest you use Win+0 (zero). Again click Add, then press Win+0, and this case you should select the Command action (in the 'Launch' section, almost half-way down the Action pane). Then, in the Action Parameters box (at the foot of the Action pane) delete the contents (it shows the syntax for a sample command) and insert instead  
_synclient TouchpadOff=1  
_ then click Apply.

7. Set up Win+1 similarly, to turn the touchpad back on. The command in this case is  
_synclient TouchpadOff=0_

8. If you don't have volume control keys on your keyboard but would like some, set up Win+Up (i.e. the Win key with the up-arrow key) to 'Increase Volume' and Win+Down to 'Decrease Volume'. (Note that the first of these settings will override the default settings for Win+Up with is maximize the window. We will be setting up an edge binding shortly to perform this actions.) You will find these actions in the Pulse Mixer section, a little over half-way down the Action pane.

9. Another key binding I have set up is Win+B to toggle borderless state (almost at the bottom of the Action pane, in the Window : State section). This is useful if you want to give the maximum amount of screen space to a window's contents (see Section 3.11 below).

10. When you've finished, click Close to exit.

As you continue using Bodhi, other key bindings will occur to you. For example, I have set Win+W to taking a window shot, which makes it really easy to produce the pictures used in this book.

**Note:** Some Win key combination bindings will not work with fullscreen windows.

## 3.10 Edge bindings

Edge bindings specify what happens when you click on different parts of the screen edge (top, bottom, left, right, or a corner - eight possible bindings in total). You have the same (large) choice of actions here that you met in the Key Bindings Settings dialog box, but I suggest that for these bindings you restrict yourself to actions that are to do with manipulating windows.

We'll start by setting up bindings to make it easier to close, maximize, and minimize windows. Zipping the pointer to a screen edge or corner is much easier than trying to land on one of those tiny title-bar buttons. It's also invaluable if you like to run certain applications in borderless windows to maximize the screen space available to them, thereby removing the title bar and these buttons. I find myself using these edge bindings all the time.

**Note:** I'll be saying more about borderless windows in the next section.

The rightmost title-bar button is the Close button, so let's bind the Close action to clicking the top right corner of the screen:

1. Run Everything, type the first three letters of _edge bindings_ , then press Enter to open the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box.

2. Click Add, and you are taken to the Edge Bindings Sequence dialog box. We're going to create a binding for the top right corner of the screen, so click the brown box at this corner.

3. Tick the Clickable Edge option (see the figure), then click Apply.

4. Now, in the right-hand Action pane, scroll about two thirds of the way through the list of actions to the Window:Actions section and highlight the Close action.

5. Click Apply. Now, to close the currently-focussed window, you can click the top-right corner of the screen. Try it now to close the Edge Settings dialog box.

Let's now bind the Maximize action to the top edge of the screen, and the Minimize action to the bottom edge:

1. Re-open the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box (by entering _edg_ into Everything).

2. Click Add, and then, at the Edge Bindings sequence dialog box, click the top edge of the screen. Make sure the Clickable Edge box is ticked, then Apply.

3. In the Action pane scroll down to the Window:State section (towards the bottom of the Action pane), highlight Maximize, then click Apply. Test this binding by clicking the top edge of the screen: the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box should maximize. Click the top edge of the screen again to restore it.

4. Now click Add again, click the bottom edge of the screen and Apply, then highlight Iconic Mode Toggle (in the same Window:State section of the Action pane), and Apply. Test this binding by clicking the bottom edge of the screen now: the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box will be minimized. You can restore it by clicking its icon in the taskbar; alternatively, middle-click (with the mouse scroll wheel) anywhere on the desktop for the Windows menu (or press Ctrl+Menu) and select it from the list; or use Alt+Tab to restore it.

**Note:** If you use the Engage dock, and it's positioned at the bottom of the screen, you may prefer to use the bottom-left corner as the minimize edge binding.

The next bindings will prove useful when we deal with virtual desktops in Chapter 5. They are to do with switching desktops:

\- Right Edge: Flip Desktop Linearly (near the top of the Action pane, in the Desktop section). You need to set the parameters for this action (in the 'Action Params' box): enter '1' here, which specifies flipping right to the next desktop. I find this binding, and the next, invaluable.

\- Left Edge: Flip Desktop Linearly. In this case enter '-1' in the Action Params box, which specifies flipping left.

I suggest you bind the bottom right edge to Show The Desktop (near the top of the Action pane) - this will minimize all open windows; a second click here will restore them. And bind the top left edge to Maximize Vertically (in the Window : State section towards the bottom of the Action pane).

That leaves the bottom left edge. As you become familiar with Bodhi Linux, a useful binding will no doubt occur to you. I've bound it to 'To Next Desktop' (in the Window : Moving section towards the bottom of the Action pane: this moves the focussed window to the next desktop.

**Note:** Some edge bindings will not work with fullscreen windows.

## 3.11 Borderless windows

I like to run certain applications in borderless windows to maximize the amount of space available to them. One example is my web browser, another is the word processor I'm using to write this book. The title-bar is one of the borders, and dispensing with this removes the maximize/minimize/close buttons too. That means either using the edge bindings suggested above to perform the close/maximize/minimize actions of those buttons, or else using the taskbar (as described in Section 3.6).

To set an application's window to borderless:

1. Open the application then right-click on the title bar for the window context menu.

2. From this menu choose _Window > Border > Select Border Style > Borderless_, then click 'Remember this border', then click OK.

3. The title bar and the other borders will disappear. To restore them, press Ctrl+Alt+W to open the window context menu, then choose _Window > Border > Select Border Style > Default._

You might also wish to set up a key binding to toggle between border and borderless states (see Section 3.9).

## 3.12 The default key bindings

The following are the key bindings that have been set up already on your system. You can reassign any of these at the Key Bindings dialog box.

### Single key

Menu - Show Main Menu  
Print - Take Screenshot  
Execute - Show Everything Launcher  
XF86Sleep - Suspend  
XF86Start - Show All Applications Menu  
XF86Standby - Suspend  
XF86Suspend - Suspend  
XF86PowerOff - Power Off  
XF86AudioMute - Mute Volume  
XF86Hibernate - Hibernate  
XF86LightBulb - Backlight Controls  
XF86PowerDown - Hibernate  
XF86MonBrightnessUp - Backlight Adjust +0.1  
XF86AudioLowerVolume - Decrease Volume  
XF86AudioRaiseVolume - Increase Volume  
XF86BrightnessAdjust - Backlight Controls  
XF86MonBrightnessDown - Backlight Adjust -0.1

### Shift

Shift F10 - Maximize Vertically

### Control

Ctrl F10 - Maximize Horizontally  
Ctrl Menu - Show Clients (i.e. Windows) Menu

### Alt

Alt F1 - Switch to Desktop 0  
Alt F2 - Switch to Desktop 1  
Alt F3 - Switch to Desktop 2  
Alt F4 - Switch to Desktop 3  
Alt F5 - Switch to Desktop 4  
Alt F6 - Switch to Desktop 5  
Alt F7 - Switch to Desktop 6  
Alt F8 - Switch to Desktop 7  
Alt F9 - Switch to Desktop 8  
Alt F10 - Switch to Desktop 9  
Alt F11 - Switch to Desktop 10  
Alt F12 - Switch to Desktop 11  
Alt Tab - Next Window  
Alt Menu - Show Favorites Menu  
Alt Esc - Run Everything

### Win

Win Space - Run Everything  
Win Up - Maximize  
Win Left - Maximize Left  
Win Right - Maximize Right

### Ctrl + Shift

Ctrl Shift F1 - Send Mouse to Screen 0  
Ctrl Shift F2 - Send Mouse to Screen 1  
Ctrl Shift F3 - Send Mouse to Screen 2  
Ctrl Shift F4 - Send Mouse to Screen 3

### Alt + Shift

Alt Shift Up - Flip Desktop Up  
Alt Shift Tab - Previous Window  
Alt Shift Down - Flip Desktop Down  
Alt Shift Left - Flip Desktop Left  
Alt Shift Right - Flip Desktop Right

### Ctrl + Alt

Ctrl Alt A - Show Favorites Menu  
Ctrl Alt D - Show Desktop  
Ctrl Alt F - Fullscreen Mode Toggle  
Ctrl Alt I - Iconic Mode Toggle  
Ctrl Alt K - Kill  
Ctrl Alt L - Lock  
Ctrl Alt M - Show Main Menu  
Ctrl Alt N - Maximize  
Ctrl Alt R - Shade Up Mode Toggle  
Ctrl Alt S - Sticky Mode Toggle  
Ctrl Alt W - Window Menu (brings up menu to max/min etc.)  
Ctrl Alt X - Close (like Alt F4 in windows)  
Ctrl Alt Up - Raise Window  
Ctrl Alt End - Restart Enlightenment/Moksha  
Ctrl Alt Down - Lower Window  
Ctrl Alt Left - Flip Desktop Linearly Left  
Ctrl Alt Right - Flip Desktop Linearly Right  
Ctrl Alt Delete - Log Out  
Ctrl Alt Insert - Terminology (Command line interface)

#

By the end of this chapter you will have installed a range of standard applications on your Bodhi system, including office applications, media applications, photo software, media players, and some utilities. If you are new to Linux, the problem will be which should you choose out of the many competing applications? It's often a matter of balancing multiplicity of features against ease of use. A keen photographer, for instance, will want much more complex photo software then someone who takes the occasional snap. If you are never going to use all those features, why make life complicated? This chapter features a small selection of software packages that you might like to try; it's easy enough to uninstall those that you don't want and try others.

## 4.1 Download options

The various ways to download applications are as follows.

### The Bodhi Linux AppCenter

The AppCenter (accessed by _Main menu > Applications > System Tools > Bodhi AppCenter_ or by typing _app_ into Everything or by clicking the AppCenter icon if you've added it to your iBar) features a great selection of good software, all of which will run without problems on Bodhi Linux. I introduced the AppCenter in Chapter 2.

### Synaptic package manager

The AppCenter can only feature a tiny fraction of the 35,000 or so programs that are available in the software repository, and to access the rest you need the Synaptic package manager. Unless you have installed the AppPack version of Bodhi, Synaptic will not be on your system. In which case you should head to the AppCenter and get it (you'll find it in the System Tools section). Once installed, you can run it by typing _pack_ into Everything or use the menu system, though I like to add the Synaptic icon to one of my iBars and run it from there.

When you open Synaptic, you will see that there is a toolbar at the top with a Search button. Click on this to open the Find dialog box where you can type in part of the name of the package you want. When you've located the package, click the tick box at its left, choose Mark for Installation from the menu that appears, then click Apply in the toolbar.

**Hint:** If you know the name of the package, you can install it more quickly from the terminal (Terminology): open Terminology and enter _sudo apt-get install <package name>_. You will be asked for your password and then the package will be downloaded from the repository and installed. (Before using the apt-get install command you should first update your list of available packages by entering the command _sudo apt-get update_.)

**Note:** At the time of writing Skype is not available in the software repository for Bodhi. (It is in the repositories of earlier versions.) To install it you have to enable the Canonical repository. Instructions for doing this and installing Skype are at  http://tipsonubuntu.com/2015/03/24/install-skype-4-3-in-ubuntu-15-04/. This is beyond the scope of this book and so I have not included Skype in this chapter.

### Deb packages

Some software packages are not in the repository, but are instead archived as .deb (Debian) files. You can download a .deb package and then install it using gDebi: PCManFM will offer to do this if you right-click on the .deb package (it should have been downloaded to your Downloads folder). Alternatively, a web browser such as Firefox will offer to run gDebi for you when you download the package. gDebi may take a minute or two to do its installation job, but the process is very straightforward.

### Personal Package Archives (PPAs)

These are non-official third-party repositories, often software developers' repositories, which may contain more up-to-date versions of software than is available in the official repository. Bodhi Linux does not recommend that you use such unofficial repositories, and you do so at your own risk: some files downloaded from them may conflict with what's already on your system. (If, despite the risk, you do wish to make use of a PPA, you must have _software-properties-common_ installed on your system - this is in fact provided on Bodhi 4, but was not on earlier releases.)

If a package you want is not available in the official repository or as a .deb file, or if it is out-of-date, your best option is to put in a request for it to be added/updated. You can do this at the  Software Requests§ section of the Bodhi Linux Forum.

## 4.2 A Web browser: Firefox

The Web browser that comes as standard with Bodhi is Midori, and it's lightweight and fast, ideal if you have slow internet speeds. But if your system will take it, you may prefer a more heavyweight (but feature-rich) browser such as Firefox or the Chromium browser included in the AppPack version of Bodhi. If you do install another browser, don't remove Midori from your system, as it's ideal for downloading packages from the Bodhi AppCenter.

I like to use Firefox as my browser. It has a synchronize feature, which means all my bookmarks and add-ins are synchronized across all the devices on which I have Firefox (including my wife's Windows computer), and it is supported by many useful add-ons, including a good video downloader. But like all the applications featured in this chapter, this is a personal choice. The great thing about Linux is that it's easy and safe to try out such choices and perhaps discard them - it won't cost you anything apart from your time.

You can install Firefox from the AppCenter (in the Web Browsers section.)

After installing Firefox you will probably want to add it to your iBar. The easiest way to do this is to run Firefox, right-click the title bar and from the context menu choose _Firefox > Add to iBar > default_.

You may also want to customize it by setting your preferences and getting some add-ons. You can do this, as well as much else, by clicking its menu button at the right of the toolbar (i.e. the button with the three horizontal lines). Here you can click on

\- **Sync** if you have Firefox on other devices and wish to share bookmarks etc.

\- **Add-ons** if you wish to add some of the many available Add-ons (I like Flash Video Downloader and Adblock Plus).

\- **Preferences** to e.g. set your home page.

\- **Customize** to e.g. add the zoom gadget to the toolbar.

A few minutes spent exploring some of the many Firefox options is time well spent.

You may also wish to set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine (unlike Google, this does not track your every move). At the same time you can set it up to make a small donation to help pay for Bodhi Linux. To do this:

1. Click the Menu button towards the top right of the Firefox window and click on Add-ons. The Add-ons Manager window opens. Click on 'Get Add-ons', then, at the foot of the Get Add-ons window, click on 'See more add-ons'.

2. In the 'Search for add-ons' box towards the top right enter _add to search bar_. A list of hits appears, the first of which is 'Add to Search Bar 2.9'. Click on this, then click on Add to Firefox. Click Install in the dialog box that opens, then click Restart Now. When Firefox reopens you should find Add to Search Bar is present in the Extension section of the Add-ons Manager.

3. Now navigate to https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%s&t=bodhi. Right-click in the search box at the top of this web page (alongside the picture of the duck) and choose 'Add to search bar' from the context menu. The dialog box shown below appears, where you can change the name if you wish (e.g. to 'Bodhi at DuckDuckGo'), then click OK.

4. Click the magnifying glass at the left of Firefox's Search box (to the right of the address bar) and choose 'Change Search Settings'. The Firefox Preferences dialog box opens.

5. Click the small arrow at the right of the 'Default Search Engine' box and select 'Bodhi at DuckDuckGo from the list.

6. Click Close and then restart Firefox. Your search engine should have changed to (Bodhi at) DuckDuckGo.

## 4.3 An email client: Thunderbird

If you want to handle your email with software on your computer (rather than accessing it via a Web browser), then you need an email client such as Thunderbird (which, like Firefox, is a Mozilla product). You can download it from the Bodhi AppCenter, and you can if you wish add it to your iBar in the usual way (i.e. right-click on its title bar and choose _Thunderbird > Add to iBar_ from the context menu).

Thunderbird will of course need to be configured for your particular email account, but this is very straightforward:

1. First, read the note below - perhaps you don't need to do anything. If that note doesn't apply, then run Thunderbird, and at the 'Welcome to Thunderbird' opening dialog box choose 'Skip this and use my existing email'.

2. At the Mail Account Setup dialog box enter your email address and password. Click Continue, and it will look up you account hopefully connect you to it.

3. Check that everything works by sending an email to yourself.

**Note:** Thunderbird stores all its settings as well as emails and address books in a hidden folder in your Home directory called _.thunderbird_. If you already have Thunderbird on another (Linux) computer, you can copy _.thunderbird_ with its contents from that computer onto this new installation. Then, when Thunderbird opens, it will load all settings etc from that folder, so you won't have to set up or import anything.

## 4.4 An Office suite: WPS

Microsoft products, including Microsoft Office, do not run under Linux. A popular free alternative is Libre Office, but my favorite is WPS Office. This is very similar to MS Office with some nice additional touches, such as a choice of menu systems, either the ribbon system used on Office 2007 and later or the traditional 'classic' style used in earlier versions.

WPS Office comprises WPS Writer (a Word look-alike - I'm using this to write this book), WPS Spreadsheets (like Excel), and WPS Presentation (similar to PowerPoint), and it is available for both Windows and Linux. The Linux version, unfortunately, lacks a mailmerge capability.

You can download WPS Office in the usual way from the Bodhi AppCenter. Once installed, you will find its three products (Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentation) at _Main menu > Applications > Office_. Alternatively you can run them from the Everything launcher, or you can add one or more to your iBar.

If you decide to try WPS Writer, here are some options you might set:

1. If, like me, you can't stand the ribbon-style menu interface, switch the User Interface to 'Classics' (click the T-shirt icon towards the right of the title bar for the Change Interface Style dialog box). Restart Writer to effect this change.

2. To maximize the amount of screen space available for your documents, you might like to:

\- Turn off the Status Bar (from the View menu).  
\- Turn off the Drawing Toolbar ( _View > Toolbars_).  
\- Reposition the Standard Toolbar so that it is at the left edge of the Writer window: grab the handle (row of dots) at the left of the toolbar and drag it to the new location with the mouse.  
\- Set the Writer window to borderless (right-click the title bar, then from the context menu choose _Window > Border > Select Border Style > Borderless_, and tick Remember this Border. To restore the default border, press Ctrl+Alt+w to return to the window context menu.)

**Note:** The borderless state means that the Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons are not available, in which case you will need the edge bindings described in Section 3.10 to perform these tasks.

3. You can also if you wish choose a different colour theme at the Change Interface Style dialog box (click the T-shirt icon at the end of the Standard Toolbar for this).

The figure below shows what the Writer window looks like if you make the above changes, with the Task Window open at the right.

**Warning:** If you accidentally press the scroll wheel of the mouse (i.e. middle-click) while scrolling through a document, it will paste the contents of the clipboard's register into the document. (Middle-click pasting is a "feature" of Ubuntu, and is useful in some situations, but in this case it can seriously mess up your document.) To temporarily disable middle-clicking, open Terminology and enter the command:  
_xmodmap -e "pointer = 1 25 3 4 5 6 7 8 9"_  
More details, including how to make this command persist across reboots, are in Chapter 6 at the end of this book.

## 4.5 Printer Support

The printer support package for Bodhi Linux is available at the AppCenter (under System Tools). After installing it, you will need to configure it to work with your printer.

1. Make sure your printer is connected either directly to your computer or to the network, and that it is switched on. I suggest that for this configuration exercise you connect it directly to the computer by cable, normally to a USB port.

2. Go to _Main menu > Applications > Preferences > Printers_ or else enter the first few letters of 'printers' into the Everything launcher. The Printers dialog box opens, shown below.

3. Click the Add button in this dialog box; the Select Devices dialog box opens. If your printer is connected directly to your computer, it should be listed here, and then you simply select it, click Forward, and Cups will search for and install the printer's drivers. You are then given the option to describe the printer by a shorter name, and to print a test page.

4. If your printer is connected to another computer on the network, then you should choose Find Network Printer from the dialog box, and after a short while, and with a bit of luck, your printer's name should appear, and you can proceed as in Step 3.

If you have no success in spite of directly connecting your printer to the computer (perhaps because you have an older printer that's not listed at Step 3 above), then go to the manufacturer's website and see if they provide the necessary printer drivers for Linux (Ubuntu). If so, follow the instructions there to download and install the drivers. Once this is done, your printer should appear in the above dialog box and all should be well.

## 4.6 Media players

VLC is the standard application for playing media files, especially video files. It can play many different file types and is able to convert from one file type to another, should you wish to do this. If you wish to play commercial DVDs, you will need to download and run the installer for the DVD-Video playing library. You can get this via Synaptic, but it's easier to open the terminal (Terminology) and enter:

sudo apt-get install libdvd-pkg

The download and installation may take several minutes, as the library contains a number of packages. After the installation finishes you will need press enter a couple of times at the dialog boxes that appear then enter the command

_sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg_

If you only want playback and don't need VLC's additional features such as file conversion, you will likely prefer SMPlayer. This is a graphical frontend to MPlayer with a host of excellent features, such as remembering the settings of all the files you play, including resuming play at your exit point.

Both VLC and SMPlayer are good for playing music and other audio files, though you may prefer a dedicated audio player such as Audacious or Clementine for this. You will find VLC, SMplayer, and Clementine in the AppCenter, in the Multimedia section.

**Note:** The current version of SMPlayer occasionally has problems synchronizing video and audio when playing some HD movie files.

## 4.7 Osmoma Audio Recorder

This allows you to record anything that's played through the speakers of your computer, including radio programmes. You won't find this application in AppCenter or Synaptic, instead you will have to install it from a .deb file, which you will find at  https://launchpad.net/~osmoma/+archive/ubuntu/audio-recorder/+packages. At the time of writing the latest version was 'Vivid', (i.e. the version for Ubuntu 15.04), but this works on the later Ubuntu 16.04 on which Bodhi is built. So go for this, and then the 386 deb file (if you have a 32-bit computer) or the amd64 deb file (if you have a 64-bit computer). Firefox will offer to install this file using gDebi, which you should accept.

To test Audio Recorder, run it (either from Everything or Main menu > Applications > Sound & Video), and its window will open (see the figure). Then:

1. In the Format field, select your desired recording format (e.g. MP3).

2. Play some audio content through your computer and press the Start Recording button. An audio visualization bar should appear to the right of the Recording button, showing that the audio is being recorded.

3. Press Stop Recording, and the recorded file will be saved in your Audio folder. (This folder will be automatically created at this point, if it wasn't already present in your Home directory.)

4. Test the recording by playing it in e.g. VLC or SMPlayer.

Note that if you mute the speakers (using e.g. the Mute option on the Pulse Mixer gadget), there will be no sound for Audio Recorder to record. To record something without having to listen to it, cut the speakers by insert a headphone jack into the computer's headphone socket.

Note also the range of commands that you can use in the Timer section of Audio Recorder. The # symbols comment out commands, so delete the # preceding any command you want to activate (and modify the timings in that command as necessary).

You can normally ignore the Add button at the right of the File field. You should only tick this if you want to append your recording to the previously-recorded file.

**Note:** Under Additional settings, you may wish to turn off 'Auto-start at login'.

## 4.8 Photo and Drawing applications

Ephoto is installed on your system; this is a lightweight photo application able to do all your basic photo tasks, including basic editing and running a slide show. For more editing options, as well as photo management capabilities, you might try Shotwell, or for something comparable to Photoshop there's GIMP. At the other end of the scale is Mirage which is really easy to use but gives you the basics - ideal for the occasional user.

For a drawing package that's similar to Microsoft Paint you might try Pinta.

All of these are available via Synaptic, and some are in the Image Editing section of AppCenter.

## 4.9 Imagination

If you want to create a photo slide show with music, then this is for you. Not only is Imagination easy to use, it offers a wide range of slide transition and other effects. And you can easily adjust the slide show duration to match the length of the music. You can put your show on a DVD or save it to a .flv (Flash Video) file, which you can then play in VLC or SMPlayer. I've had to produce numerous photo slide shows for an over-50s social group, and I wouldn't be without this application.

Imagination can be installed from the AppCenter (in the Multimedia Production section). Once installed, you will find it at Main menu > Applications > Sound & Video. It is shown in the figure below, with the Slideshow menu open.

You can carry out essential operations from the Slideshow menu (or from the toolbar):

\- **New** to start a new slideshow. At the dialog box that opens you can set the video format (DVD, FLV, etc) and the video (display) size.

\- **Save** to save your slideshow as an Imagination project (.IMG file).

\- **Import Pictures** to import slides into your show.

\- **Import Music** to import an accompanying audio track.

\- **Preview** to run through your show.

\- **Export** to save your show in the video format selected earlier.

The right-hand pane (see the figure above) allows you to set the slide duration, either for individual slides or globally (by selecting all the slides), as well as the transition type. The Music tab shows details of the selected music, including the duration.

## 4.10 Get-iPlayer

If you want to download material from the BBC iPlayer in MP4 format (for TV programmes) or MP3 format (for radio programmes), so that you can play them without restriction on any device that supports those formats, then Get-iPlayer is a must. This is a command-line program, meaning that to use it you have to enter commands in Terminology, but don't be put off by this as the commands are quite simple.

You can download Get-iPlayer from the repository using Synaptic, but at the time of writing this is an old version which does not work. To get the latest version as well as future updates, you must download it from a PPA. This is at your own risk, as explained in Section 4.1.

To download the latest version Get-iPlayer, enter the following sequence of commands into Terminology:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:jon-hedgerows/get-iplayer  
sudo apt-get update  
sudo apt-get install get-iplayer

To use Get-iPlayer to download a TV programme:

1. Use PCManFM to navigate to the folder where you want the programme to be stored, then press F4 to open Terminology in that folder.

2. Enter _get-iplayer "programme name"_ into Terminology. You can use either an underscore or a hyphen between 'get' and 'iplayer', and you must obviously replace _programme name_ with the name of the programme you're seeking, within the quotes. If, for example, you type _railway_ here, a list of all programmes with 'railway' in the name will appear.

**Note** : In Chapter 6 I'll explain how you can shorten terminal commands like these, so that instead of entering _get-iplayer_ you can instead enter simply _get_.

3. Each of the hits will be numbered. If, say, the one you want is numbered 456, you should now enter _get-iplayer --get 456_. (That's two dashes before the 'get'). Get-iPlayer will proceed to download programme 456 into the folder you opened in Step 1. Depending on the duration of the programme, this will take quite a while.

4. Once the download has finished, you can play the programme (which will be in MP4 format) with e.g. VLC. (SMPlayer sometimes has problems synchronizing sound and vision on these programmes.)

Radio programmes can be downloaded in a similar way, the only difference being that at Step 2 you should enter _get-iplayer --type=radio "programme name"_ .

Options such as '--get' and '--type' that you can add to a command are called arguments or switches. There are many arguments that you can use with Get-iPlayer, and for fuller instructions than are possible here you should search the web for 'get-iplayer instructions'.

Note the '--help' argument: this will list all the arguments that are available for a command together with a brief explanation of each. So to list all the arguments that you can use with Get-iPlayer, enter _get-iplayer --help_.

## 4.11 Dropbox

Dropbox allows you to store important files in the 'Cloud' i.e. a secure location on the Internet, both for security and to be able to share those files with other people or to synchronise your work across different machines. These can be Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android. I always store documents I'm working on - such as this book - in a folder on Dropbox, so that my work is not only secure but available on any device that I happen to be using.

You can install Dropbox from Synaptic - it appears as _nautilus-dropbox_ in the Synaptic list. Once installed, you can run Dropbox from Everything or from _Main menu > Applications > Internet_, though the first time you do so some additional files not included in the initial download will be installed (click OK in the Dropbox Installation dialog box to do this). Once this is done, Dropbox will run and the Setup dialog box will appear where you can sign if you already have a Dropbox account or else sign up for a new account. Then click on Open my Dropbox folder. Note that the Dropbox icon will appear in Systray - right-click this for the Dropbox context menu, where you can e.g. set Preferences.

The top option on the Dropbox context menu is Open Dropbox Folder (on your hard disk). For this to work properly you need to integrate Dropbox with PCManFM. To do this:

1. Install the file _libfile-mimeinfo-perl_ (either via Synaptic or by using the _sudo apt-get install_ command in Terminology).

2. In Terminology enter the command _mimeopen -d ~/Documents_ (it doesn't have to be Documents, any folder in your Home directory will do). Choose _Other_ in the dialog that opens, then enter _pcmanfm_ as the command.

3. Dropbox will now use PCManFM to display its folder - check this by right-clicking its icon in Systray and choosing 'Open Dropbox folder'.

## 4.12 Other apps

There are many other applications you will want to install, and some possibilities are listed below. Apart from Rainlendar, they are all available in the repository, and can be installed via Synaptic or by using the _apt-get install_ command in a terminal. Many of them can also be downloaded from the AppCenter.

### Leafpad

ePad is the text editor supplied with your Bodhi Linux installation. It has a number of features, including tabs and line numbers (invaluable if you write programs), but if you want a simpler editor with a clean interface then Leafpad is a popular choice. You can get it via Synaptic, and once installed it will appear in the Accessories section of the menu system, and it will appear in PCManFM's context menu when you right-click a text file.

### Rainlendar

This is a calendar/diary, and to get it go to www.rainlendar.net > Download > Rainlendar Lite (for Ubuntu) - this is a .deb file that Firefox will open in gDebi. To run it, go to the Office section of the menu system or use the Everything launcher.

To configure Rainlendar, right-click on the calendar then choose Options. I suggest the following: under General untick Show events on tray; under Advanced, untick Show tray icon, untick Show all desktops. If you don't want to display a todo list, right-click on the calendar then choose Windows then untick Todo List.

Rainlendar is best run at startup, by adding it to Startup Applications. You can also synchronize it across your various machines by locating its files in your Dropbox folder (you can make this setting in Options).

### CherryTree

This is a feature-rich hierarchical notes application which, if security is important, allows you to encrypt your notes files. It runs under Windows as well as Linux, so if you store your notes files in Dropbox you can access them from other machines.

### Evince

This will read documents in PDF and other formats, and you can find it in the PDF Readers section of the AppCenter.

### aRandR

If you want to connect your computer to a projector to give a presentation, or perhaps to a TV or external monitor, you will need to use aRandR, which is a graphical front-end to xrandr, and which is installed by default on your Bodhi system. You will find it in the Preferences section of the menu system.

To use aRandR, connect your computer to the projector or monitor and switch everything on, then run aRandR, open its Outputs menu, and match the resolution of your computer (LDVS1) with that of the projector (probably VGA1), then click Apply.

If everything's working correctly you can if you wish save those settings as a layout file (it will stored in the hidden .screenlayout folder in your home directory). You can then apply those settings again in the future by opening that file in aRandR and then applying it.

If you have a computer setup with an external display that requires you to run aRandR each time you switch on, you can run your saved layout file automatically at start up. All you have to do is add the command to run it to the file called _startupcommands_ which is in the _.e/e/applications/startup_ folder in your Home directory. Here's how to do this:

1. First create and save your layout file in aRandR. You might have named it 'maxres', in which it will appear as _maxres.sh_ in the .screenlayout folder.

2. Open ePad, click Open, click Toggle Hidden, then navigate to the hidden folder . _e/e/applications/startup_

3. Open _startupcommands._ There are probably currently no commands in this file.

3. Type in the command  
_sh ~/.screenlayout/maxres.sh  
_ (There is a space after the first _sh_.)

4. Save the file and exit.

Now, when you start up the computer, this layout file will be automatically executed.

### Brasero or XFBurn

Brasero is the standard Linux application for burning CDs and DVDs, XFBurn has a nice easy interface. You can get them from the AppCenter.

### Calibre

If you are into eBooks, you will almost certainly want Calibre (available via Synaptic). It will organize your ebook library and interface with your eBook reader or tablet.

### Gparted

Gparted is a partition editor for creating, resizing, deleting, moving, and copying partitions, either on your hard disk or on a USB drive. It can also reformat a drive, offering FAT32, NTFS, ext3 and 4, and many others. It is available at the AppCenter, in the System Tools section.

# 5 More power to your desktop

In this chapter we cover a variety of topics, including how to further organize your desktop and its launchers, how to use virtual desktops, and how to make the most of desktop themes. Then you'll practise what you've learned in Chapter 3 and here by creating a new desktop profile.

## 5.1 The Favorites menu

Applications that you access very frequently (such as your web browser) you'll want to run with a single click, i.e. from the iBar on your shelf. So you may wish to add to your iBar one or two of the applications you installed in the last chapter. To save cluttering up the shelf, however, other favourite applications can be conveniently run from the Favorites menu, which you can display by right-clicking any empty spot on the desktop.

To set up the Favorites menu:

1. Enter _fav_ into Everything (or click on the Settings gadget on the shelf then _Apps > Favorite Applications_). The Favorite Applications dialog box opens.

2. Add your choices of favourites here (though don't duplicate what's in your iBar) - remember you can make a multiple selection by holding down Ctrl while clicking. Then put your choices in order (at the Order tab).

3. Click OK when you've finished, then right-click on any empty spot on the desktop to display your Favorites menu.

**Tip:** Another way to add an application to Favorites is to open it, right-click its title bar, and choose the top option (application name) then 'Add to Favorites menu'.

**Note:** You can also access the Favorites menu from the Main menu (it is the top option). If you only use the right-click on the desktop to open Favorites, you may wish to declutter your Main menu by removing this option. To do so, go to the Menu Settings dialog box, untick Favorites, and click OK.

## 5.2 Application launchers

These are central to the Moksha window management system. They control, among other things, which menu lists an application, and how that application runs. Application launchers are also known as desktop configuration files, and they have the extension .desktop.

When you install an application, such as Firefox, its application launcher will be installed in the _/usr/share/applications_ folder. If you wish you can open PCManFM and navigate to that folder now to see a list of all the launchers installed on your system. (Go to _Main menu > Places > Filesystem_, then navigate to _/usr/share/applications_.) If you do so, you will see that there is no application launcher for PCManFM, which means that it does not appear in any menus - instead, it is run via Places in the Main menu.)

You can also create personal application launchers. For example, if you were unable to add PCManFM to the iBar by the method described in Chapter 2 (Section 2.8) you might want to have an application launcher for PCManFM so that you can add it, or you might wish to modify an existing application launcher. Personal application launchers are stored in your Home directory, in the hidden folder _.local/share/applications_ , and launchers in this folder take precedence over those stored in _/usr/share/applications_. If you were successful in adding PCManFM's icon to your iBar in Chapter 2, you will find that a personal application launcher for it was automatically created in _/usr/share/applications_.

If you don't find a launcher for PCManFM there, here's how to add one:

1. Enter _pers_ into Everything. The Personal Application Launchers dialog box opens.

2. Click Add, and the Desktop Entry Editor opens. As shown in the figure, at the Basic section enter _PCManFM File Manager_ as the name, and _pcmanfm_ as the application.

3. Click on the Icon tab and enter the name of the icon, in this case _system-file-manager_. The icon shown in the figure will magically appear. (If you want something different, simply click on that icon and choose from the list that appears.)

4. Click on the General tab and enter _System_ in the Categories field. Do so will at PCManFM to the System Tools section of the menu system.

5. Click on the Options tab and make sure that the first two items in this section are unticked but that Show in Menus is ticked.

6. Click OK. Your application launcher will be saved in the hidden _.local/share applications_ directory in your Home folder.

7. Open PCManFM (from _Main menu > Applications > System Tools_) and navigate to this folder (press Ctrl+H to show hidden folders). You should see your new launcher listed there.

If you experienced problems adding the PCManFM to your iBar in Chapter 2, you will have no problems now. Since PCManFM now appears in menus, you can add it to your iBar or your Favorites menu in the usual way - in the former case be right-clicking on the iBar and choosing _iBar > Contents_ from the context menu.

**Note:** To add icons to personal application launchers (as at Step 3 above), there are various names you can type at the the Icon tab to make the corresponding icons appear, including _computer_ , _image_ , and _clock._ To see a list of many more possible icons (with their names), click on the icon that has appeared. There are in fact a number of different icon sets you can choose from, and you can see them all by navigating to _/usr/share/icons_.

## 5.3 Startup applications and startup commands

You may want some applications to run automatically when you start up your computer, so that they are effortlessly and immediately available. One example is the Rainlender calendar (Section 4.13), which is best run in this way, another is Dropbox. To set startup applications:

1. Enter _startup_ into Everything. (Or Main menu > Settings > All > Apps > Startup Applications, or click the Settings gadget.) The Startup Applications dialog box appears.

2. Click the Applications tab to show the application launchers on your system, including any personal application launchers you might have set up. Highlight any you wish to run at startup and add them.

3. Click OK when you've finished.

You can also have Bodhi execute commands automatically on startup. These might include the command to disable your touchpad (if you use a mouse with your laptop) or the command to run a screen layout file if your laptop is permanently hooked up to an external monitor. (These commands are discussed in Sections 2.11 and 4.12). To have the computer execute a command at startup you need to add it to the _startupcommands file_ in the _.e/e/applications/startup_ folder in your Home directory. For more on this see my notes on aRandR in Section 4.12 at the end of this chapter.

You will of course have to restart your computer to test these settings.

## 5.4 Virtual desktops

You have available to you not one but two (virtual) desktops, and more can be added if you wish. At the moment these desktops are identical, with the same shelves, iBars, and wallpapers, but this can be changed, so that you could, for example, have one desktop where your office applications are grouped, and another for your media, games, and other leisure applications. Or you could have one desktop set up for the way you want to work, and another set up for your partner.

In my case, I like to have this guide that I'm writing on my main desktop, and all the Moksha settings and dialog boxes that I'm writing about on another. And the left-edge and right-edge bindings I suggested you set up in Chapter 3 make it quick and easy to switch from one to the other. (If you did not set up these bindings, I suggest you do so now. The details are in Section 3.10. However, the Ctrl+Alt+Left/Right Arrow key bindings achieve the same thing.)

I also find a second desktop invaluable if I'm giving a presentation. I can have e.g. a slide show on one desktop, and windows illustrating points I am making open in the other, and I can instantly flip from one to the other.

My second desktop has different shelves. I find having a virtual desktop dedicated to computer housekeeping tasks has made my computing experience much more satisfactory, and you might like to try this for yourself. The instructions for this are in the next sections.

1. Enter _vir_ into Everything. The Virtual Desktops Settings dialog box appears, shown in the screenshot below. Here you can see your two desktops portrayed side-by-side; you can increase or decrease this number, and you can stack them vertically as well as horizontally, by dragging the sliders.

2. The desktop on the left is your main desktop, and this is named 0-0, the one on the right is named 1-0. If you increase the number of desktops, so they will be named in a similar way.

3. Click on the second (right) desktop in the Virtual Desktops Settings dialog box. The Desk Settings dialog box for this desktop appears. Here you can if you wish change the name from 1-0 to something more meaningful. If you click Set, the Wallpaper Settings dialog box appears, where you can set a different wallpaper, e.g. by using Firefox to download one - I will deal with this later in this chapter. Click OK when you've done then OK again.

You can switch between virtual desktops by any of the following methods:

\- If you set up the edge bindings suggested in Section 3.12 you can switch between them simply by clicking either the left or right edges of the screen. This is the slickest method, especially if you have only two or three virtual desktops. (In the case of only two desktops, these left-edge and right-edge bindings have identical effects; if you increase the number to three or more, these bindings will cycle through them in opposite directions.

\- Ctrl+Alt+Left and Ctrl+Alt+Right will do the same thing.

\- Alt+F1 will go to the first desktop, Alt+F2 to the second, Alt+F3 to the third (if this exists), and so on.

\- If you have a mouse with a scroll wheel, hold down Alt while turning the wheel.

\- You can add the Pager gadget to a shelf and use this to switch between desktops. If you do decide to use this gadget, I suggest you add it to the lower 'Tracker' shelf.

## 5.5 Different shelves for different desktops

Let's suppose you want the top shelf on your second desktop to be devoted to computer housekeeping. If this is the case, you can start off by removing any gadgets devoted to this from your existing shelf. If you followed my suggestions in Chapter 3 this means removing the Settings gadget - simply right-click on it and choose _Settings > Remove_ from the context menu.

To create a different shelf on your second desktop you first need to modify the settings of the existing shelf so that it only shows on the first desktop:

1. Right-click anywhere on your (top left) shelf, and from the context menu choose _Shelf > Settings_.

2. At the Shelf Settings dialog box keep clicking the right arrow (top right) until you reach the Desktop tab. Select 'Show on specified Desktops' then highlight the first desktop, as shown in the Figure. Click OK.

3. Go to the second desktop and check that the shelf no longer appears there.

This second desktop is to be dedicated to computer housekeeping and related gadgets and tasks, so bear this in mind as you set up a new shelf on it.

1. Go to the Shelves Settings dialog box (via Everything, or _Main menu > Settings > Shelves)_. This lists any shelves already on the second desktop. On my computer it lists only Tracker.

2. Click Add, then at the New Shelf dialog box give your new shelf a name (e.g. 'Housekeeping' or 'Admin') or keep the default name. Click OK.

3. The Shelf Contents dialog box opens, where you should add some gadgets to your shelf. Important gadgets are: iBar, Settings (for the Settings Panel), and System Updates (for eepDater). Others that you might like to add are Everything Starter, Pulse Mixer, and Clipboard. (Remember more gadgets may be available than are shown here - go to Main menu > Settings > Modules to see them.) When you've finished click Close to return to the Shelf Settings dialog box.

4. Highlight your new shelf in this dialog box and click Settings, then at the dialog box set it Below Windows and its Position as Left, Top, (i.e. the same position as the original shelf), Style to whatever you wish, and, at the Desktop tab, Show on specified Desktops, namely 1-0. Click OK, then close the Shelf Settings dialog box.

5. The iBar on your new shelf is currently a duplicate of your original iBar, and you need to change this. Right-click on it then choose iBar > Settings from the context menu. The iBar Settings dialog box appears.

6. Here you should click Add (to add a new source). Give your source an appropriate name (e.g. 'Housekeeping' or 'Admin'), then click OK.

7. Now to change the iBar contents. With your new iBar name highlighted at the above dialog box, click Setup, then at the iBar Applications dialog box you should remove ALL the selected applications apart from PCManFM and Bodhi AppCenter (if they are selected). Now add PCManFM, Terminology, System Updater, aRandR (if you often need to use this), and Synaptic. Click the Order tab if you wish to change the order of the application icons, then click OK when you've finished. Finally make sure that Track Launch is unticked at the iBar Settings dialog box, and click OK here too.

8. Now right-click on the shelf and choose Begin Moving Gadgets to change the order of your gadgets. Right-click again when you've finished and choose Stop Moving gadgets.

**Note:** If Synaptic is missing its icon, you can add it by running Synaptic, right-clicking the title bar and choosing Synaptic > Edit Icon, then at the Icon tab of the Desktop Entry Editor enter _gnome-package_ for the icon to appear, then click OK.

9. Return to your default virtual desktop (Desktop 0-0), where you may wish to revisit the contents of your shelf and its iBar to remove items such as the Settings gadget which are now on your Admin shelf.

The shelf on the bottom left of the screen, which contains the Taskbar and the System gadget shows on both desktops, which is exactly what we want. Note that the Taskbar should show windows running on the open desktop, not _all_ desktops. If you wish to change this setting, right-click the Taskbar and from the context menu choose _Tasks > Tasks > Settings_ and make the appropriate entries in the Tasks Configuration dialog box.

**Note:** If you wish to change the contents of your second (Admin) iBar, you must return to the iBar settings dialog box, highlight the iBar's name, and choose Setup.

## 5.6 Desktop themes

We covered the basics of themes in Chapter 2. As explained there, Moksha is based on Enlightenment E17, and E17/Moksha themes control the appearance of your desktop and its various elements. The AppCenter lists a number of themes that you can download, and these have been tweaked to work well with Bodhi 4.

Many more themes are available on the Web, notably at http://e17-stuff.org/. Note that this website has E19 and E20 themes as well as E17, so make sure you choose only E17. Be aware that, unlike the themes in the AppCenter, you may encounter issues with some of these themes. However, as explained in the next section, you can incorporate elements from those themes into a well-behaved Moksha theme to create a new personalized theme of your own.

When you install themes from the AppCenter they will appear in the System section of this dialog box. When you download themes from other sources you will have to import them into this dialog box (using the Import button), and they will then appear in the Personal section. Themes in the Personal section are stored in the _.e/e/themes_ folder in your Home directory, whereas those in the System section are stored in the _/usr/share/elementary/themes_ folder.

If you wish to try a theme from the E17-Stuff website, click on your choice, then at the next screen click on the Files tab and follow the download links. The file should be downloaded to your Downloads folder. Navigate to this folder with PCManFM, and if the file is a ZIP you will need to right-click it and choose Extract Here from the context menu. The result will be an Edje (.edj) file.

You can now import this .edj file at the Theme Selector dialog box, where you can then select and apply it. The figure below shows the 'Radiance ... with a Lot of Colors' theme from the E17-Stuff website imported into this dialog box.

**Note:** Any fonts you apply (in the Font Settings dialog box) and any colors you apply (in the Colors dialog box - see Section 5.10 below) will not be affected by changing themes.

## 5.7 Combining elements from different themes

With E17/Moksha it is possible to mix elements of different themes. For example, the A-crema theme shown in the figure above is a very old theme which pre-dates E17 and which does not work properly with some dialog boxes due to its incompatible 'widgets' element. By assigning to it the widgets element from a compatible theme it can be made to work. For example, a theme I like and sometimes use is A-crema with widgets assigned to it from the Moksha Sunshine theme and the shelf, dialog, and Everything module from the Moksha Forum theme.

To mix elements in this way, click Advanced at the Theme Selector dialog box (see the figure above) to reach the dialog box shown below. (This facility has been removed from later versions of Enlightenment - one reason why so many people prefer E17.)

Here you can choose elements from the large list at the left and assign specific themes to those elements from the themes listed in the central pane. For example, my base theme is Forum-Moksha downloaded from the AppCenter, and I have assigned to it the background and clock from the A-crema theme (because I prefer A-crema's theme wallpaper and clock to those supplied with Forum). I could if I wished add to this mixture by assigning elements from other themes.

Note: You can change the position of the window control buttons (i.e. the minimize/maximize/close buttons) by assigning to your theme another border. For example, if these buttons are currently at the right of the title bar you can shift them to the left by assigning the border from e.g. the Moonlight theme, and if they are at the left you can shift them to the right by assigning the border from e.g. the Moksha Green theme.

## 5.8 Application themes and icons

Application themes (also called GTK themes) control the appearance of windows within which applications run. This means things like the colour and look of scroll bars and application menus. For the most pleasing effect, your application theme should match the desktop theme you chose in the last section (e.g. their colours should not clash). As you learned in Chapter 2, instructions for doing this with Moksha themes are on the Bodhi AppCenter.

The application themes installed on your system can be seen in the Application Theme Settings dialog box (enter _appl_ in Everything to reach this), and a few more available in the repository (enter _gtk theme_ in Synaptic's Search box). You can apply any of these application themes, but not all will look good with your chosen desktop theme. Those which work best with Moksha themes have the same name.

The Application Theme dialog box on my system is shown below. It looks a little different to the screenshots earlier in this book as I have now switched to the A-crema desktop theme, as discussed above. There are also more application themes listed in it than are on your system, as I have downloaded some via Synaptic.

Its worth exploring the Icons tab in this dialog box: it allows you to change the icon theme used on your desktop (i.e. on shelves etc). The icon theme I like to use is not installed as standard in Bodhi 4. It is called Humanity, and you can get it via Synaptic (type _icon theme_ into the Search box to find it). To try a different icon set, select it at the above dialog box and click Apply.

**Note:** The icons used by these icon themes can be found at _/usr/share/icons_.

## 5.9 Wallpapers

Virtual desktops all start out with the same wallpaper, namely the default theme wallpaper. You can of course choose any picture for your wallpaper, and you can have different wallpapers for different desktops. There are lots of Bodhi-themed wallpapers available, but they can be hard to find. A number are produced by Vaidotas, and they can be found at  http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php?/topic/3506-wallpapers-for-bodhi-by-vaidotas/

When you have downloaded a wallpaper, you can apply it as follows:

1. Run Everything and enter _wall_ to open the Wallpaper Settings dialog box, untick Use Theme Wallpaper, then click Picture..., navigate to your wallpaper and select it.

2. The Import Settings dialog box opens, where you should make sure that Fill is highlighted (as shown in the figure) and click OK. You are returned to the Wallpaper Settings dialog box.

3. Click Advanced, and here you can decide whether to place this wallpaper on All Desktops or just This Desktop. When you've made your choice, click OK.

## 5.10 Colours

The Colors dialog box (reached by typing _col_ into Everything) allows you to tweak the colours of the different elements of your chosen theme - title bars, shelves, menu items, and so on.

To change the colour of an item in the list in this dialog box (see the Figure):

1 Highlight it, then tick 'Custom colors', then click the attribute you wish to change (usually 'Object'). The Color Selector dialog box opens.

2. Here you can select a new colour - click Select, then Apply. Note that 'Alpha' sets the degree of opacity - you will need to experiment with this.

3. To test the change, open the menu system or an application, as appropriate.

**Note:** To restore the default colour, simply untick the Custom Colors box for that item.

## 5.11 Yet more dialog boxes

This almost completes our exploration of the Moksha/Enlightenment desktop and its many dialog boxes. There are many more tweaks you could make, but to include them all would make this book far too long and unwieldy: you have in fact visited only about a quarter of them of the available dialog boxes.

To see more, open the Settings Panel (either by clicking its icon on the shelf or going to _Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel_), maximizing it, and opening the various tabs to explore the many options.

For example, under the menus tab you will find a single option, Menu Settings, which leads to the Menu Settings dialog box. Here you can declutter your Main menu by unticking the Favorites item - it's easier to open the Favorites menu by simply right-clicking on the desktop than opening the Main menu.

This is just one of the many further desktop tweaks that are awaiting your discovery!

## 5.12 Profiles

_Profiles_ store the customizations you've applied to your desktop. These include the shelves you've set up, any key or edge bindings, and your choice of theme, along with things like any fonts or colors you've applied, the number of virtual desktops, and your choice of wallpapers. They do not store the contents of your shelves and your Favorites menu.

A new installation uses a profile called 'Bodhi Linux'. Unless you've since applied a different profile, any tweaks you've made to your desktop are stored in that. If you wish to save the current state of your customizations, perhaps because you think you might want to return your desktop to that state at a later date, or because you want to copy all those customizations to a Bodhi system running on another computer, you can do so at the Profile Selector dialog box (type _prof_ into Everything). Click 'Add' at this dialog box, and enter a name of your choice.

Note though that you will still be using the 'Bodhi Linux' profile, NOT your newly-added one, and any further customizations that you make will be stored in 'Bodhi Linux'. If you want to use instead your newly-added profile, you must highlight it at this dialog box and click 'Apply'. It will then be the active profile, storing any subsequent customizations.

In the dialog box below you will see listed the Crema profile I use if I wish to switch quickly from my usual desktop (based on the Moksha Forum theme) to one based on the A-crema theme. It's nice to have a change, and switching profiles makes this really easy!

Note: Each profile has its own folder in the hidden folder .e/e/config in your home directory. (To see hidden folders, press Ctrl+H in PCManFM.) To apply a profile to another computer running Bodhi 4, simply copy its folder to the same location on that computer, then open the Profile Selector dialog box on that system and apply it. Note that you should first have installed the theme(s) used by that profile on that computer. To copy all your desktop settings, including e.g. iBars, then you should copy the entire _.e/e_ folder.

In the next section you are going to make some radical changes to your profile that you may not want to keep. How then can you easily return to your profile as it is now? The answer is to save what you have now as a new profile under a different name, and then return to that newly-named profile. Let's save your profile now:

1. Go to the Profile Selector dialog box shown in the figure above (type _prof_ into Everything).

2. Click Add, then enter a name for your profile. Your own name will do.

3. Click OK. Your profile with all its customizations will be stored under that new name.

Note that you are NOT using this newly-added profile. The 'Bodhi Linux' profile is still selected at the Profile Selector dialog box, and any further changes to your settings that you now make will be stored in that. It also means that if you want to make changes to your newly-added profile, you must first select it at this dialog box.

Here's an exercise that gives a practical demonstration of the power of profiles:

1. Highlight the Default profile at this dialog box and click Apply. Your desktop will be reset to the condition it was in when you first installed Bodhi, with all of your tweaks and settings gone.

2. Now return to the Profile Selector dialog box (by typing _prof_ into Everything) and apply your previous profile. Everything is restored to the way it was.

## 5.13 Start again: the Default profile

I've been using the profile described in this chapter and in Chapter 3, with its particular arrangement of shelves, iBars, virtual desktops, edge bindings, etc, for a long time now, and it suits my needs very well. But that's not to say it can't be improved. If you have other ideas and other preferences, why not start again and create your own profile?

The Default profile will restore your desktop to the state it was in when you first installed Bodhi Linux, i.e. with the shelf at the top of the screen with the original default selection of gadgets (though it will keep the contents of your iBar as well as your Favorites menu). You can use this profile to start again:

1. Open the Profile Selector dialog box and choose the Default profile, as in the exercise above. The original default desktop will be restored.

2. Go to the Theme Selector dialog box to choose the Moksha desktop theme that most appeals to you, if necessary visiting the AppCenter to download more themes.

3. Apply the appropriate application theme and Elementary theme, as detailed in the Themes section of the AppCenter and in Section 2.6 earlier in this book. If you wish, grab a different wallpaper, e.g. from the Web.

4. Now customize the shelf. You may want a different selection of gadgets on it, and you may want it in a different position. You may want to move the clock to the desktop and change its appearance. You may also want to create a second shelf to hold the taskbar and other gadgets.

5. Change fonts as necessary to make e.g. the menus easier to read, and create edge bindings and key bindings to make life easier.

6. When you have finished perfecting your masterpiece, save your new Profile under a new name (at the Profile Selector dialog box).

7. Remember that at any time you can return to your original saved profile at this dialog box. You might wish to do so now, to compare it to your new masterpiece.

# 6 Tune up and backup your system

The topics covered in this chapter include using Bleachbit to identify and remove files that are no longer needed, becoming 'supersuser' or 'root' in order to make changes to your root filesystem, how to backup your system, and how to replicate it on a USB flash drive or another computer. We end with some terminal tweaks to make life easier.

## 6.1 Becoming Superuser

This means running Terminology or PCManFM with root or super-user privileges, giving you the power to use it to make changes to your root filesystem. This is a dangerous thing to do, as a mistake can seriously mess up your system, but I've had to sometimes do this. One example was to create the _icons_ folder in the _/usr/local/share_ directory - this folder is demanded by the system if you wish to change an application's icon.

To run Terminology as superuser, open it in the usual way, then enter _sudo su_. You are asked to enter your password, and then the _$_ symbol at the prompt is changed to #, indicating that you now have root privileges.

If you now enter _pcmanfm_ , PCManFM will run in superuser mode, and this is indicated by the red exclamation mark at the left of the toolbar. You can now use to edit (and possibly create havoc in) your root filesystem.

If you are an experienced user, you could create a personal application launcher to run PCManFM as root from the menu system. Follow the instructions in Section 5.2 to create a launcher for PCManFM, but in the Application field in the Basic section of the Desktop Entry Editor type _esudo pcmanfm_ , and in the Name field enter _PCManFM as Root._ The other entries should be as shown in Section 5.2..

## 6.2 Clean your system: BleachBit

Once in a while (e.g. every month) you should clean your system of unwanted files. This can be done using an application called BleachBit (the equivalent of CCleaner in Windows). Bleachbit is not on your system, so install it now via Synaptic.

When you have done this, two items will have been added to Main menu > Applications > System Tools:

\- 'BleachBit', which cleans user files (i.e. those in your Home folder)  
\- 'BleachBit (as root)', which cleans system files (i.e. those in the Root folder).

1. Run BleachBit. Its window opens, together with its Preferences dialog box. You can close this dialog box (though you may wish to check out the Languages tab first).

2. The various categories of file to clean are listed at the left of the Bleachbit window (see the figure). Select them all except the following:

\- The Deep Scan options (these are slow)  
\- Passwords (in the Firefox and Thunderbird sections)  
\- Free disk space, Localizations, and Memory in the System section (the first two are slow, and Memory is experimental).

3. Click Preview, and a (long) list of files to be deleted appears.

4. Click Clean, and in moments the job is done.

Now run 'Bleachbit as Root' in the same way.

## 6.3 Backup your system: Bodhibuilder

You should of course keep backups of important documents, photos, and other personal files on an external storage device or on Dropbox. PCManFM, with its twin panes, makes this backup task easy.

Backing up your entire system is another matter, however, and the way to do this is to use an application called Bodhibuilder. Bodhibuilder offers several options: the first is to create a complete backup (including the file system, all the programs you've installed, all the documents, photos etc that you've stored in your Home directory, all your desktop customizations, and your personal data such as your login credentials); the second option is to create a distribution of your system, which means the filesystem and all the installed programs but without your documents and photos or personal data.

I find the second option to be the most useful. It allows me to install a working system on another computer or to run it as a live system on a USB stick, and I can easily add my desktop customizations to that system by copying the contents of the _.e/e_ folder in my Home directory (which holds the profiles containing my customizations) to _.e/e_ on that other computer see Section 5.12 which deals with profiles). The simple act of copying that folder to the second computer will customize it with all the shelves, iBars, key bindings, edge bindings etc from the first computer. And I can easily backup my document files by copying the Documents, Pictures, and other folders in my Home directory to an external drive.

(Before backing up your system with Bodhibuilder, you might first run Bleachbit and Bleachbit as Root to remove unnecessary files. You could also include the 'Free disk space' option to make the image as compact as possible, though this may take a very long time to execute, as it involves shuffling the files around on the hard disk.)

Bodhibuilder is on your system. The instructions for using it are as follows:

1. Run Bodhibuilder by typing its first few letters into Everything, and follow its instrctions to close all open applications.

2. At the Bodhibuilder dialog box (shown below) click the Settings tab. Here you can enter any files or directories you wish to exclude from your image, separating each entry with a space. For example, if you wish to exclude your Pictures and Videos folders, you would enter  
_/home/username/Pictures /home/username/Videos  
_ (replacing _username_ with your username).

3. Click the Actions tab, and click Backup if you wish to include personal data and customizations, or Dist to exclude these. Bodhibuilder will then set to work creating an ISO image of your system, a process that will take a long time (at least an hour), depending on the size of your installed system and the performance of your PC. While this is going on your computer should not be used for any other tasks.

The resulting ISO file will be located in the /home/bodhibuilder folder. To navigate to this from your Home folder in PCManFM, click the up-arrow in the toolbar.

You can now install this image on a recordable DVD using a burner such as Xfburn or Brasero, which you can then use to reinstall your system in the event of a disaster. A better option might be to install it on a USB flash drive (see the next section), as that can hold a much bigger image than a DVD, and you can change or add to the files stored on the image.

Whichever you use, the installation procedure is the same, and is described in Section 6.5 below.

## 6.4 Unetbootin

To install your ISO image on a USB stick you need an application called Unetbootin, and you can get this via Synaptic. Once installed, it will appear in the System Tools section of the menu system.

1. Before running Unetbootin, you should insert the USB stick in the computer, and you should mount it - probably it will mount automatically, but if you are unsure open PCManFM and click on its icon in the side pane. (Note that USB sticks are formatted with the FAT32 filesystem, and the stick you use must not have been reformatted to anything else.)

2. Run Unetbootin, and at its dialog box (shown in the figure) select the DiskImage option (bottom left). Then browse to the ISO image you saved in the last section (at home/bodhibuilder/bodhibuilder). The Browse button is at the right.

3. If you think you'll want to add files later to the system-on-a-stick that you're about to create, then you must allocate space for this. The amount is limited by the capacity of your USB stick, though the largest number you can enter in the 'Space used to preserve files across reboots' field is 9999 Mb.

4. Click OK, and an image of your system will be installed on the USB drive, a process that will take several minutes.

## 6.5 Running Bodhi from a USB drive

The copy of your system that you've installed on the USB stick can be run on any computer that will boot from a USB drive. To try this on your computer:

1. Power down.

2. Insert the USB stick in a USB port.

3. Switch on, and while the computer starts up hold down the F12 key until a boot menu appears. (This assumes your computer uses the F12 key for this purpose - if not, a list of keys that you can use at startup should appear on the screen when the computer fires up.)

4. One of the options should be to boot from the USB drive. If that option is not present, then you can't boot from that drive. In that case you will bave to write your ISO image to a DVD and boot from that.

**Hint:** You can check whether your computer has this boot option prior to creating an installable USB stick by carrying out the above steps with _any_ USB stick inserted in a USB port.

5. If the USB option is present, select it, then accept the default choice at the next menu. The computer will run your copied Bodhi system, and after a few moments your desktop will appear. The first time you use a USB installation some of the icons may be missing from the shelf - simply restart Moksha (Ctrl+Alt+End) to correct this.

6. You are now able to use your USB system just as if you were running it from the hard disk. You can also use it to access the files on the computer's hard disk.

7. You can also, if you wish, use this USB stick to install your Bodhi system on the computer's hard drive. You might want to do this if the system on the hard drive of your computer has become corrupted, or if you want to install the system on another computer. To do this, run _Install Release_ (type the first few letters of this into Everything, or go to _Main menu > Applications > Preferences_).

8. When you've finished testing your system-on-a-stick, close it down in the usual way.

## 6.6 Using Terminology to get things done

Although Bodhi 4 makes typing obscure commands into the terminal amost a thing of the past for the average user, Terminology can be very handy sometimes, and so I'm concluding this chapter with a couple of tips.

### Aliases

_Aliases_ allow you to replace long-winded commands with much shorter words of your own choosing. For example, if you use Get-iPlayer, life would be easier if you could enter _get_ instead of _get-iplayer_ each time you type one of its commands.

Before setting up an alias you should first check that your proposed word isn't an existing command. Do so by entering it in Terminology; if the response is 'command not found', you're good to go.

Aliases are stored in the (hidden) .bashrc file in your Home folder. To create some aliases of your own:

1. Run PCManFM, check that you are in your Home folder and viewing hidden files (if necessary press Ctrl+H to see them). Scroll down to .bashrc and click (or double-click) it to open it in your default text editor (e.g. ePad).

2. Expand (or maximize) the text editor's window and scroll down almost to the bottom of this file, and after the section headed '# some more ls aliases' insert the following:

# My aliases  
alias get='get-player'  
alias remove='sudo apt-get autoremove'

(The '#' at the start of the first line marks that line as a comment that will be ignored by the system. The 'remove' alias gives you an easier command to remove files that have been installed but are no longer needed on your system.)

3. Click Save. These changes will take effect when you reboot.

When you've rebooted, test the 'remove' alias by opening Terminology and entering _remove_.

**Note:** To see a list of all aliased commands, enter _alias_ into the terminal.

### Disable middle-clicking

This will only be of interest to you if you do a fair amount of word processing and if the scroll wheel of your mouse readily performs an accidental middle-click while scrolling - the problem being that this inserts the contents of the clipboard register into your document at the point where you clicked. (This is a feature of Ubuntu, not of other distros.)

Perhaps the simplest solution is to get another mouse, but you can't tell how susceptible a mouse is to accidental middle-clicking except by testing it. Another solution is to disable middle-clicking by remapping Button 2 of the mouse; this can be done using _x11-xserver-utils_ , which is already be on your system.

To temporarily disable middle-clicking, open Terminology and enter the command:

xmodmap - e "pointer = 1 25 3 4 5 6 7 8 9"

To have this persist across reboots, you will need edit/create the hidden file .Xmodmap in your Home directory:

1. Open PCManFM, make sure you are in your Home directory, and go to _Tools > Run a command._

2. In the dialog box that appears enter epad (or leafpad) to run your text editor.

3. Type the following line in ePad:  
_pointer = 1 25 3 4 5 6 7 8 9_

4. Save the file, giving it the name _.Xmodmap_ \- note the '.' at the start of this name.)

.Xmodmap with its _pointer_ command will be run when you reboot the computer, disabling middle-clicking.

**Note:** You can still use middle-clicking in PCManFM, as that program ignores this command.

## 6.7 Conclusion

We've reached the end of this guide. You will have realized that there's much more to Bodhi and the Moksha desktop than can be covered here, and as for Linux itself I've barely scratched the surface. Probably the best way to find out more about Linux is to search the web, including in your search phrase _ubuntu_ and sometimes _linux_. There are many guides available there. And as for Bodhi and Moksha, your main source of help will be the Bodhi website, especially the Wiki and the Forum.

