

Bodhi Linux 5.1

The Complete Guide for Beginners

By Roger Carter

Copyright 2020 Roger Carter

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Notes

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# Table of Contents

1 Getting Started

1.1 What this chapter covers

1.2 Bodhi is a Linux distribution

1.3 Why choose Bodhi Linux?

1.4 Moksha - the Bodhi desktop

1.5 Sources of help

1.6 Which Bodhi distro release should you choose?

1.7 Download and burn the Bodhi ISO image

1.8 Run Bodhi on your computer

1.9 Install Bodhi Linux

1.10 Update your system

2 Bodhi Basics

2.1 What this chapter covers

2.2 The Moksha menu system

2.3 Quick Launcher

2.4 More ways to open an application

2.5 The Bodhi Appcenter

2.6 Moksha desktop themes

2.7 Application themes and icon themes

2.8 Changing the wallpaper

2.9 Changes for the visually impaired

2.10 What's next?

2.11 The file manager: PCManFM

2.12 PCManFM preferences

2.13 Hidden files

2.14 Filesystem Root

2.15 Searching for files with PCManFM

2.16 Set default applications

2.17 Terminology

2.18 Using Terminology: install Xarchiver

2.19 Using Terminology: disable the touchpad

3 Beef up your Bodhi

3.1 What this chapter covers

3.2 Download options

3.3 Install extra fonts, codecs, and utilities

3.4 Web browsers

3.5 Google apps on Chromium

3.6 Email clients

3.7 Cloud storage

3.8 An Office suite

3.9 PDF Readers

3.10 Note-taking and organizing software

3.11 Media players

3.12 Media recorders

3.13 Get-iplayer for BBC downloads

3.14 Sound Converter

3.15 Photo viewers and editors

3.16 Other applications

4 Streamline your desktop

4.1 What this chapter covers

4.2 The exercise desktop

4.3 The Settings Panel

4.4 The shelf

4.5 Customize the shelf

4.6 Customize the iBar

4.7 A second shelf

4.8 The Tasks gadget (taskbar)

4.9 Add more gadgets

4.10 Desktop gadgets

4.11 Removing and relocating gadgets

4.12 Virtual desktops

4.13 A shelf for your second desktop

4.14 Application icons

4.15 The Favorites menu

4.16 Combining elements from different themes

4.17 Reposition the clock

4.18 Endless possibilities

5 Desktop shortcuts and more

5.1 What this chapter covers

5.2 Key bindings

5.3 Edge bindings

5.4 Personal Application Launchers

5.5 Window borders

5.6 Changing the desktop colors

5.7 Changing the desktop fonts

5.8 Profiles

5.9 Start again!

Appendix: The default key bindings

6 Further topics

6.1 What this chapter covers

6.2 Connecting a projector or monitor

6.3 Launching files from the desktop

6.4 Opening folders from the desktop

6.5 Set the keyboard language

6.6 Aliases

6.7 Administrative privileges

6.8 Running PCManFM as Root

6.9 Turn off passwords for sudo

6.10 Copy your system with Bodhibuilder

6.11 And finally...

## 1.1 What this chapter covers

In this chapter we'll introduce Bodhi and install it on your computer. We cover the following topics:

1. An explanation of what Bodhi is and why you should choose it.

2. The various Bodhi releases and how to download and write them to a USB memory stick or optical drive.

3. How to run and install Bodhi on your computer, and how to update it.

If you have already installed Bodhi Linux on your computer, just read down to Section 1.5 below and then go directly to Chapter 2.

## 1.2 Bodhi is a Linux distribution

Bodhi (rhymes with Jodie) is just one of many Linux distributions, or distros. Without getting too technical, a distro is a computer operating system made up of three software layers:

\- The essential Linux kernel that is the interface between the applications running on your computer and the physical hardware.

\- A package management layer (such as Ubuntu, used by Bodhi) that manages the installation and configuration of programs and applications.

\- a desktop environment (DE) layer that sits on top of these and which provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to rest of the system - i.e. the windows, icons, menus etc that appear on your screen. Popular desktops include KDE, LXDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, and a number of others. The one used by Bodhi is a version of Enlightenment called 'Moksha'.

So Bodhi = Linux + Ubuntu + Moksha.

A distro will be distributed online as an ISO, i.e. a software image that can be written to an optical disc (CD or DVD) or to a USB memory stick and which can then be run on a computer. It will include some essential applications such as a file manager and web browser and it may also include other applications such as office software, a media player, photo editor, games, and so on.

Ubuntu-based distros are the most popular. They all share the same Ubuntu software store or repository in which you will find the thousands of programs and applications available on Linux. Some of these are the same as those used on Windows systems, but some Windows applications are not available on Linux, and, conversely, some Linux applications are not available on Windows.

## 1.3 Why choose Bodhi Linux?

There are many excellent Linux distros out there, so why choose Bodhi? Its fans will give several reasons, including the fact that it's a fast, light-weight distribution, able to run well on older less-powerful machines, it's not encumbered with unnecessary packages, it's elegant and good-looking, and it's based on Ubuntu and uses the Ubuntu software repository. All this is true of a number of distros; what sets Bodhi apart from the rest of the pack is its amazing flexibility - you can configure it to work and look exactly the way you want.

For example, I don't like using those tiny buttons at the top right of a window to close, maximize, or minimize it. No problem: you can easily arrange things so that, for example, you can close the window by clicking the top right corner of the screen, maximize it by clicking the top of the screen, and minimize it by clicking the bottom of the screen. And having done away with the need for those tiny buttons, you can then remove the title bar of the window altogether to give you more space for the stuff you're actually working on.

This is just one of many examples of the way you can customize Bodhi so that it works the way you want it. This book will show you many more!

Bodhi's remarkable flexibility comes at a cost, however: it has more of a learning curve than other less configurable systems. For example, several Linux distributions try to copy the look and feel of Microsoft Windows as closely as they can, and, like Windows, there isn't much customization that you can do. It means that people migrating from Windows to Linux often find them easier to use. Zorin (also based on Ubuntu) is one example of such a distro. But if you are willing to invest in a bit of learning (by for instance working through this book), Bodhi will repay you handsomely.

## 1.4 Moksha - the Bodhi desktop

As I've said, Bodhi is essentially Ubuntu plus the Enlightenment desktop. It's not the latest version of Enlightenment, but the older version 17, called E17. It may seem strange to use an old version, and in fact a few years ago Bodhi moved from E17 to a later version (E19). The problem was firstly that the new version proved to be less stable than the old with a number of glitches, and secondly that some of the much-loved features of E17 had been stripped out of this later version. For example, E19 removed the ability to mix features from one theme with those from another, which had given users unparalled flexibility in personalizing their desktop.

So Bodhi reverted to E17, added some modifications and improvements of its own, and renamed it Moksha.

## 1.5 Sources of help

Besides this book, you can get help on using Bodhi from its wiki at https://www.bodhilinux.com/w/wiki/. Also, make sure you join its friendly forum at https://bodhilinux.boards.net/, where you can ask any question you like about Bodhi.

For help on Linux or Ubuntu or on specific applications, search the internet. There seems to be help on every question that you could ever ask - the trick is to phrase your question correctly, and if necessary to include "ubuntu" or "linux" in the search phrase.

## 1.6 Which Bodhi distro release should you choose?

You will find an explanation of the various Bodhi releases at http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/selecting-the-correct-iso-image/.

Your choices are firstly between the 32-bit and 64-bit releases. Modern computers are 64-bit, and they will run either of these releases. But if you have an old 32-bit computer you will have to use the 32-bit Legacy release. For example I have a very old 32-bit Dell laptop that was originally bought with Windows XP installed. It's not my main computer, but it runs the 32-bit version of Bodhi very well (it has 2 Gbytes of RAM, more than enough for Bodhi), but unfortunately some applications that I would like to install on it are only available in 64-bit versions, and some (notably the office software I use) no longer supply updates for their 32-bit versions.

So although a 64-bit computer will run the 32-bit version of Bodhi perfectly well, it's best to choose one of the 64-bit releases to give yourself the widest choice of applications. All computers less than 10 years old will be 64-bit, but if you want to check yours to make sure:

\- If you have a Windows computer hold down the Windows key and tap the Pause key, and a panel displaying information about your system will appear, including whether the processor is 32 or 64 bit. Alternatively go to Control Panel > System and Security > System to see this panel.

\- If you have a Linux computer, enter the command lscpu in a terminal to display this information.

Assuming your computer will take a 64-bit release, you have three choices:

\- The Standard release, i.e. the bare essentials - Bodhi Linux plus minimal additional software (file manager, web browser, terminal emulator, Leafpad text editor, plus one or two others). I prefer this release as I can add to it my own particular choice of office software, media players, etc.

\- The AppPack release, which is the Standard release plus a whole raft of additional applications (office software, video editor, photo editor, etc etc). This may be a good choice for someone who is new to Linux as it includes everything that you might reasonably need, giving you an immediately usable system. However, you may find yourself uninstalling applications you don't want and replacing them with your preferred alternatives. Also, this book assumes that you will not use this AppPack release, instead it will guide you through the process of choosing and adding the applications you want to a Standard-release Bodhi system.

\- The Hardware Enablement (Hwe) release, which is the same as the Standard release except that it enables automatic updates of the Linux kernel to keep pace with the latest hardware advances. If yours is a new computer with up-to-date hardware (rather than one which is several years old), this would be a good choice.

## 1.7 Download and burn the Bodhi ISO image

When you are ready, download your chosen release. If you intend working through this book, I would urge you to choose the Standard release (or else the Hwe release if you have a state-of-the-art new computer). The Bodhi download page is here: https://www.bodhilinux.com/download/.

After the ISO is downloaded (normally into your Downloads folder) you can if you wish check its integrity using the MD5 link (the instructions are available from the download page). Frankly, I've never bothered with this - perhaps I've been lucky, but I've never had a problem.

Next you must write the ISO image to a USB memory stick or else to a recordable optical disc (DVD) to use as the boot device for your computer. If your computer has an optical disc drive, then the recordable DVD is an easy option. You can use one of the free optical disc burners to write the ISO image to the DVD: Windows comes with a disc burner, or in the case of Linux use something e.g. Xfburn or Brasero. Choose the Burn Image option.

It's best, though, to use a USB stick, as that runs much faster than a DVD, and of course it doesn't require an optical disc drive.

If you are on a Windows computer, I suggest you download and use a free application called Rufus to write the image. When you run Rufus, a window opens in which you select the ISO image (it should be in your Downloads folder) and select the USB drive that you wish to write it to. There's no need to change any of the default Rufus settings apart from the final one on the second screen: when it asks you whether you want the ISO file copy option or the DD option, make sure you choose the DD option.

If you are on a Linux computer, then you can use the Startup Desk Creator app to write the image to a USB stick. This app is called usb-creator-gtk, and if you are using Ubuntu or a variant of it such as Bodhi, then you can get it via Synaptic or else by entering sudo apt install usb-creator-gtk in a terminal. Like Rufus, Startup Desk Creator is very easy to use. After installing it, you will find it added to your menu system, or you can run it from the terminal by entering usb-creator-gtk.

However, most Linux users prefer to use the dd (data duplicator) command in a terminal to write the ISO image to a USB stick. The instructions for this can be found by following the link at the Bodhi download page. Here is a brief summary:

Assuming your USB stick, when you you've plugged it in, is identified by your system as sdb (your hard drive will normally be sda), and assuming the Bodhi ISO is in your Downloads folder, then, in the case of the standard 64-bit download, the terminal command to write the ISO to the USB stick will be:

sudo dd if=~/Downloads/bodhi-5.1.0-64.iso of=/dev/sdb

(The '~' stands for '/home/yourusername'; on many keyboards this symbol may be found at the top left below Esc, on others it may be to the left of the Enter key. Versions other than the standard 64-bit ISO will have different filenames to that shown above - check yours.)

Before issuing this command, it's ESSENTIAL that you check that the USB stick is indeed identified by your computer as sdb. To do so, enter sudo parted -l in a terminal. The output will show your hard disk at the top (as Disk /dev/sda) and should show your USB disk further down (as Disk /dev/sdb) - you can check that this is your USB stick as it will show its size in Gbytes. You may find it helpful to run this command both before and after plugging in your USB stick and comparing the outputs.

Don't worry if nothing seems to be happening after issuing this command - it will take your computer several minutes to burn the ISO to the USB stick.

## 1.8 Run Bodhi on your computer

Having burned your Bodhi ISO to an optical disc or USB memory stick, you can now use it to boot up the target computer. First insert the disc or USB stick into the computer, then restart it or switch on. As the computer starts tap the F12 key once or twice to enter its boot menu. (If F12 doesn't bring up the boot menu on your computer, you will have to switch off and start again and try a different key. Some computers use F9, and others use the Esc key. Your computer may flash up a message when it starts up telling you which key it is, but you may need eyes like a hawk to see it! If necessary check your computer's documentation.)

At the boot menu choose the appropriate option, either the CD/DVD drive option or the USB drive option (use the down arrow key to navigate to the option, then press Enter). Another menu will appear, where you should choose the first option, "Try Bodhi Linux without installing".

Assuming there have been no problems with your download or with the burning process, Bodhi 5.1 will load and run on your computer. This should be quite fast if loading from a USB stick, but it may take a minute or more if loading from an optical disc. Eventually you should see the Bodhi Linux Welcome Page on your screen, and across the bottom of the screen a 'shelf' with various icons (file manager, terminal, power button, etc). The only icons that need concern you at the moment are the Install Bodhi Linux icon towards the left of the shelf, and the Wifi icon towards the right.

The dark rather sombre appearance of this out-of-the-box Bodhi desktop is not to everyone's taste. It's created by the out-of-the-box theme (the MokshaArcGreen theme), which is just one of many possible themes. You will be installing other themes shortly, some of them very colorful, and you can pick one to suit your own tastes. You can even mix features from one theme with those from others to create your own bespoke theme.

You can peruse, on the screen, the Bodhi Linux QuickStart Guide now if you wish, and you can try out some of the icons on the shelf. Or you may prefer to wait until after you've installed Bodhi on your computer's hard drive.

## 1.9 Install Bodhi Linux

With Bodhi now running on your computer, you can now install Bodhi it. You can if you wish install it alongside the operating system that's already on your computer (which might be Windows), in which case you will have a dual-boot computer (you choose which system you want each time the switch on). Alternatively, you can replace the existing installation so that Bodhi takes over the whole hard disc and the previous operating system is wiped. You make this choice during the preparatory stages of the installation, before any changes are made.

Before you start I suggest you log onto your wifi so that any additional files will be downloaded during the installation process. You will find the wifi icon is at the left-hand end of the group of icons at the right of the shelf. Click it, choose your wifi from the list that appears, and enter its passcode. (See the QuickStart Guide if you need more information.)

Having logged on to your wifi, click the Install Bodhi Linux icon - it's in the group of icons clustered at the left of the shelf.

The installation process is very straightforward:

1. Click _Continue_ at the first Welcome screen (if necessary select your language first).

2. At the next screen make sure both the boxes are ticked, i.e. the tick box to the left of Download Updates and the box to the left of Install third-party software. Click _Continue_.

3. 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.) Ignore the other options and click _Install Now_. At the next screen accept "write the changes to disks" and click _Continue_.

4. At the next dialog box check your location on the map, then click _Continue_ to proceed to the final dialog box.

5. 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, though if you are a Dropbox user I suggest you use the name that is registered for your computer by Dropbox). You also 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_.

6. 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, and your new Bodhi installation should run.

NOTE: As this is a brand new installation, the wifi icon may not appear on the shelf at this first boot. If this happens, simply reboot. You can now click it to log onto your wifi.

You should see the Bodhi's Welcome Page filling your desktop. If it is not there and you want to see it, click the Web icon towards the left of the the shelf. The Welcome Page contains the instructions needed to update your system, also described below.

## 1.10 Update your system

Your final task is to make sure your system is fully up-to-date with the latest versions of all its files and programs. The Welcome Page tells you how, and it involves entering a terminal command. I will have more to say about these commands later on.

1. Open Terminology (this the Bodhi terminal) - click on its icon, which you will find towards the left of the shelf.

2. Type into it the command sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade. (You will see this command on the Bodhi Welcome Page, and you can if you wish copy-and-paste it from there. The Terminology paste key is Shift+Ctrl+V.) You will be asked to enter your computer password, and then the update will take place. The process will probably take several minutes.

(You should update your system every few weeks using this command. There's no need to memorize it - as you'll learn later, you can create a simple alias for it that's much easier to remember and type in.)

# 2 Bodhi Basics

## 2.1 What this chapter covers

With Bodhi Linux now installed on your computer, we can in this chapter begin our journey of discovery:

1. Run applications using the menu system and Quick Launcher.

2. Install programs and applications from the Bodhi AppCenter.

3. Do some basic customization of the desktop appearance (changing the theme and wallpaper).

4. Increase the size of fonts and other desktop elements to help the visually impaired.

5. Configure and use the PCManFM file manager.

6. Set default applications with PCManFM

7. Use Terminology, Bodhi's terminal emulator.

## 2.2 The Moksha menu system

Every part of the Bodhi desktop (Moksha) is uniquely well-designed. This includes its menu system. Click on ANY empty area of the desktop and up pops the Main menu. If there aren't any empty areas because the desktop is filled with application windows, then you'll have to revert to the standard method used by all desktop environments: click the Menu icon at the extreme left of the shelf, or else press the Menu key on your keyboard (usually to the right of the space bar). Fortunately it's possible, as you'll learn, to arrange the shelf so that it always leaves some free desktop space. It's even possible, with a little customization, to open the Main menu with a mouse click even when the entire desktop, including the shelves, are hidden beneath a fullscreen window (see Section 5.3).

Besides the Main menu, Moksha provides a Favorites menu which you can populate with your favorite applications so that they are immediately to hand. You can access the Favorites menu by right-clicking on any empty space on the desktop (or alternatively by pressing Alt+Menu, i.e. hold down the Alt key and press the Menu key). Since you haven't yet chosen any favorite applications, pressing this key won't currently do anything.

Opening the Main menu will lead you to a number of submenus. To view these move the mouse over the various Main menu items, then mouse over these to reach a further submenu layer. These submenus may sometimes disappear off the right of the screen, and if this happens simply move the mouse pointer to the right edge of the screen and the menus will shift to the left.

So to see what applications are installed on your new Bodhi system, open the Main menu, mouse over Applications, then mouse over each of the Application menu items in turn.

Obviously to open one of these applications, you simply click on its name. For example, to open the Leafpad text editor, go to the Accessories submenu and click on 'Leafpad'. In this book I'll write such a menu choice like this:

Main menu > Applications > Accessories > Leafpad

## 2.3 Quick Launcher

Although the Moksha menu system is quick and easy to use, there is an even easier way to run applications, or indeed to access any other facility of the Moksha desktop system: the Quick Launcher. It is also called "Everything", because that's exactly what this launcher is able to do - run everything.

You can access Quick Launcher from the Main menu (it's the third option down), but the easiest way is by a simple key press:

Win+Space

I.e. hold down the Windows key on your keyboard and tap the spacebar.

The Launcher window pops up, and all you need do is type the first two or three letters of the required application or other Moksha facility. Type lea for example, and the Leafpad icon will be highlighted in Quick Launcher, and you can then press Enter to open it.

Quick Launcher is an intelligent system, meaning it learns from your previous choices and prioritizes these in its hit list.

## 2.4 More ways to open an application

I'll cover the shelf in detail later on, but it's worth noting here that this offers the easiest way of all to open applications you often use. Your shelf is already populated with a few icons for the applications you're going to need to use early on - you'll see them clustered at the left.

So the Moksha desktop provides you with several ways to open an application:

\- by navigating to it from the Main menu

\- by selecting it from the Favorites menu (if you have previously added it to this menu)

\- by typing the first two or three letters of its name in the Quick Launcher

\- by clicking its icon on the shelf (if you have previously added its icon).

A further way to open programs and files is to place their icons on the desktop. In the case of Moksha this is not the best way to open applications, but it is useful if you wish to quickly and easily open files, e.g. photos or videos for a presentation. I'll deal with this in Chapter 6 (Sections 6.3 and 6.4).

## 2.5 The Bodhi Appcenter

Having installed and updated your Bodhi system, the Bodhi Appcenter is your first port of call. This holds a carefully selected range of applications and other additions to your system, including web browsers, email clients, office software, multimedia software, games, system tools, themes, and more. There are very many more available in main Ubuntu software repository, but the Appcenter is a good place to start.

We'll begin by downloading and installing some Moksha themes so that you can customize the appearance of your desktop.

To get to the Appcenter, use any of the methods outlined above, namely:

\- click the Bodhi Appcenter icon on the shelf - this is quickest and easiest method.

\- press Win+Space to open the Quick Launcher, type app, then press Enter

\- navigate to the Appcenter in the menu system: Main menu > Applications > System Tools > Bodhi Appcenter \- this is the most cumbersome method.

Whichever method you use, the Appcenter should open in your web browser. You will see that it offers many categories of software, and we will be exploring many of these shortly, but for now let's choose some themes.

## 2.6 Moksha desktop themes

At the Appcenter main page, click on Themes - Moksha. A list of possible themes appears, and if you click on each one in turn you will see a small picture of what they look like. The Seven theme, for example, will give you a desktop that looks like Windows 7.

You can install as many themes as you like and then try out each one for yourself. To properly explore what's on offer I suggest you download the whole lot in a single operation by selecting Bodhi Theme Pack. Click the Install button, enter your computer password when asked, and the themes will install.

To see the list of themes on your computer, press Win+Space to run Quick Launcher and enter theme. The Theme Selector dialog box will appear - see the figure. (Alternatively go to Main menu > Settings > Theme.)

You can now try out these themes by selecting each in turn and clicking Apply. Notice that the MokshaJapan theme replaces the normal Close/Maximize/Minimize buttons at the right of the window title bar with Japanese characters, and note too that the MokshaSunshine theme places those buttons at the left of the title bar instead of the right.

(However, if you would like to use one of these themes but would prefer conventional title bar buttons, it's easy to replace the title bar with that from a different theme. I'll explain how later.)

I should also point out that the Moksha Theme Pack may not contain all the available themes, and if you can't find one that particularly appeals its worth checking the list of themes available in the Appcenter.

The theme I particularly like is the MokshaForum theme, and I use this in the figures in this book. I suggest that if you wish to closely follow the customization steps described in Chapter 4 that you choose this theme too (it's easy to change to another theme later on). I also like the MokshaCrema theme (not in the Theme Pack at the time of writing, but available from the Appcenter), and I've modified the Forum theme on my computer with a couple of elements from this, and I'll be describing the procedure in Chapter 4. In preparation for this you might like to download the MokshaCrema theme too.

## 2.7 Application themes and icon themes

Your choice of Moksha theme affects the apperance of every element of your desktop, including the application windows (i.e. the appearance of the scroll bars, title bar, etc) and also the icons. Moksha is very flexible, though, and you can make other choices for these.

To do so, open the Application Theme Settings dialog box (type appli into Quick Launcher, or else go to Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel > Look > Application Theme). The Application Theme Setting dialog box opens. I don't suggest you change the GTK Application theme, but if you wish to see what other themes look like untick the Match Moksha theme if possible tickbox and make a selection. To revert to the original theme, simply retick this tickbox.

You may well want to change the icon theme, however. To do so, click the Icons tab at the top of the dialog box to reveal the list of icon themes stored on your system. To change the theme, untick the Match Moksha theme tickbox (but make sure the other two tickboxes are ticked), and make your choice. I like to use the Humanity icon theme with the MokshaForum desktop theme, so I always go for that. Click OK when you've made your choice.

## 2.8 Changing the wallpaper

Each desktop theme comes with its own wallpaper, and you can replace the Bodhi Background wallpaper that ships with your system with this. But if you wish to follow closely the customization steps later in this book I suggest you don't make this change at this point, but do so when I deal with virtual desktops (in Chapter 4), giving each its own wallpaper.

But if you do wish to make this change at this point, enter wallp in Quick Launcher to open the Wallpaper Settings dialog box (or go to Main menu > Settings > Wallpaper), then tick the Use Theme Wallpaper tickbox and click OK. You can of course use any photo or other picture as a wallpaper, or, as you'll learn later, you can use the wallpaper from a different theme.

To use a picture of your own as the wallpaper, select Personal at the top left of the Wallpaper Settings dialog box, then Picture, select the picture, then Apply.

## 2.9 Changes for the visually impaired

It's possible to increase the size of individual desktop elements, including fonts, or to make global increases by changing the scaling of the desktop. This section deals with this, and can be bypassed if you are not visually impaired. (The instructions for changing the font sizes are repeated at the appropriate point in Chapter 5.) Note that instructions for connecting a laptop to a large monitor are given at the start of Chapter 6, and instructions for adding the Backlight gadget to easily adjust the screen brightness are given in Chapter 4.

To make a global size change to your desktop affecting many desktop elements, apply a different scaling:

1. Enter sca into Quick Launcher. The Scale Settings dialog box opens, and you'll see that the current (default) scaling is 1.2.

2. Select 1.5 and click Apply. Many elements are increased in size, including the shelf and the font sizes in menus. To try other scaling factors, open the Scale Settings box again and make other selections.

Note that this does not rescale applications, only desktop elements. Many applications do allow some rescaling - check their zoom options for this.

Rescaling the desktop does not alter size of the mouse pointer. To increase this:

1. Enter mous into Quick Launcher. The Mouse Settings dialog box opens.

2. Increase the size of the pointer by dragging slider, then clicking Apply. When it's the size you want, click Close.

You can also change the style of the pointer to make it easier to see, by applying to it a different theme. The instructions for this are given in Chapter 4, Section 4.16. (Themes to try for the pointer are MokshaKL4K, MokshaJapan, and MokshaBling.)

If you want to change the fonts of individual desktop elements you can do so at the Font Settings dialog box (shown in the figure). Open this by entering fonts into Quick Launcher (or else go to Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel > Look > Fonts). Any of the changes made in this dialog box are easily reversed, as I'll explain.

To change the global font used by every desktop element, tick Enable Custom Font Classes at the top left of this dialog box and choose a font and a size. If you would prefer a serif font, for example, try DejaVu Serif. Click Apply. To reverse this change, untick Enable Custom Font Classes and click Apply.

You are more likely to want to change the font used on just one or two desktop elements rather than making a global change. To do this click Advanced to reach the advanced section of the Font Settings dialog box (shown in the figure). Let's try changing the font used by Menu Items:

1. Highlight Menu Item in the left column  
2. Click Enable Font Class towards the bottom left  
3. Highlight Ubuntu in the middle column  
4. Highlight Bold in the Style section at the right  
5. Highlight 13 pixels (or more) in the Size section at the right  
6. Click Apply.

To see the effect of this change, display the Main menu and notice the appearance of the menu items. To reverse the change, untick Enable Font Class and click Apply.

You can change the font used by other desktop elements in a similar way.

## 2.10 What's next?

We'll leave off further customization to Chapter 4, where we'll reconfigure the shelf and its contents, introduce virtual desktops, set up key bindings and edge meetings, and much much more. Before we do this, we will in the next chapter beef up your system by adding to it the applications you need to handle your email, internet use, office tasks, photos, videos, music, etc. We'll close this chapter by covering a few more Bodhi essentials, including using the file manager (PCManFM) and the terminal (Terminology).

## 2.11 The file manager: PCManFM

There are many file managers out there, the most well-known being Windows Explorer used on Windows systems. PCManFM is the one supplied with Bodhi Linux, and it's my personal favorite. To run it, click on its icon located towards the left of the shelf (or else type pc into Quick Launcher).

As the figure shows, the PCManFM has two panes:

\- The left pane displays either 'Places' or alternatively the Directory Tree. 'Places' is probably the best choice; you can add to these places bookmarks of your own, i.e. favorite folders that you want immediate access to. (Open the Bookmarks menu to set these. As you can see from the figure, I have added my Dropbox folder to Places.)  
\- The right pane displays the files in the currently-selected folder. When you click (or double-click) on a file, it will open in the appropriate application.

PCManFM also offers a dual pane mode, allowing you see the contents of two folders side by side, allowing you to easily drag files from one to the other. To switch to dual pane mode, press F3 or else open the Edit menu and choose this option.

The best way to get to grips with PCManFM is to play with it for a while and explore its various menu choices (I'll cover one of these, Find Files on the Tools menu, shortly).

Like other applications, PCManFM offers a helpful context menu. Right-click on a folder, file, or empty space in PCManFM to display its context menu, listing relevant menu choices, such as deleting, copying, moving files or folders, or creating a new folder.

## 2.12 PCManFM preferences

To get the best out of PCManFM you should make some changes to its preferences. In this section I'll detail those I recommend you try.

To change PCManFM's preferences, go to Edit > Preferences. The Preferences dialog box will appear, shown in the figure. Several preferences screens are available, listed at the left - General, Display, Layout, etc. We'll take each of these in turn. Mostly I make just one or two changes at each screen.

Note that a change to the PCManFM display may not be immediately visible - you may have to close PCManFM and open it again.

General

I always tick Open files with a single click, and I set auto-selection delay to 0. This replaces double-clicking to open files and folders with single clicking, which I find quicker and easier. So how can I then highlight a file or folder without opening it, e.g. to make a multiple selection? By holding down the Ctrl key while clicking. This is now second nature to me, I've been using the single-click method for so long.

Also tick Don't ask options on launch of executable file. Otherwise you will encounter a dialog box when you try to launch an application from PCManFM.

Display

I always change the size of big icons to 36x36 and the size of small icons to 16x16.

I usually tick Show icons of hidden files shadowed (I deal with hidden files below).

Layout

I always add Filesystem Root to what's shown in Places.

Advanced

In the Archiver integration box choose Xarchiver (you'll be adding Xarchiver to your system shortly).

## 2.13 Hidden files

There are a number of hidden folders and files in your Home folder. These are used by your system to store data such as your settings (like those you've worked on for PCManFM above, theme settings, and many more). You don't normally need to access these files, which is why they are hidden.

To unhide these files, press Ctrl+H on your keyboard (i.e. hold down Ctrl and tap H). The figure shows what now appears in my Home folder in PCManFM. In contrast to normal folders and files, hidden folders have names that all begin with a period.

You will be accessing these on several occasions as you work through this book. For the moment, I'll draw your attention to just one: the folder named .e. This will store all the configuraton changes you will be making to your Moksha desktop \- changes to the theme, the shelf, desktop gadgets, key and edge bindings, and many others. It means, for instance, that if you install Bodhi on a second computer, you can apply all your customizations to it by simply copying this hidden .e folder to it.

Normlly, though, you will not want to see these hidden files. To hide them, simply press Ctrl+H again.

## 2.14 Filesystem Root

If you made the changes to PCManFM's layout suggested in Section 2.12 above ('PCManFM preferences), you will see that Filesystem Root has been added to the Places pane. This stores all the system files used by Bodhi Linux, as well as all the application and other software that's on your system or that you will be installing.

For example, the files for all the themes that you installed earlier in this chapter are here. To see these files, click on Filesystem Root in the Places pane and navigate to usr/share/enlightenment/data/themes.

To see the file which is the desktop wallpaper that shipped with your system, go to /usr/share/enlightenment/data/backgrounds.

As you navigate your way through filesystem root you will wonder how it's possible for anyone to get their head round the mind-bogglingly hugeness and complexity of it all. You will be relieved to know that you rarely need to venture there!

## 2.15 Searching for files with PCManFM

If you're like me, with loads of files you've created over many years in multiple folders, you may not immediately be able to lay your hands on one you want. This is when PCManFM's excellent File Files facility (on the Tools menu) comes in useful.

Before opening Find Files, navigate to the place you wish to search. This will typically be your Home folder, but it may be a USB memory stick or, if you wish to search the entire file system on your computer, Filesystem Root.

Go to Tools > Find Files, and the Search Files dialog box shown in the figure opens, with the folder you've navigated to shown in the 'Places to search'. As you can see, you can add to this other places to search.

Now enter the name of the file or folder you are trying to locate, if necessary using the wildcard * to indicate any string of letters. So, for example, to search for all files or folders containing the word "bodhi" somewhere in the name, you would enter *bodhi* as the search string, as shown in the figure. You can also search for files containing specific content (words or phrases), you can restrict your search to specific folders, and you can restrict the search to specific file types: the various tabs at the top of this dialog box will take you to these options.

After typing in your search string, click Find to carry out the search. A "Search Results" tab will open, and after a short while the search hits will start to be listed in it. To investigate a hit, right-click it to display the context menu, and from this menu you can open the file or, in the case of a folder, show its contents in a new tab. To investigate other hits, return to the Search Results tab.

## 2.16 Set default applications

When you click on a file in PCManFM, it will open in its default application. For example, if you click on a text file it will open in Leafpad, the default text editor. However, you may have installed another application which you prefer to use for files of that type, in which case you will want to set that as the default. To do this:

1. Right-click on the file whose default app you wish to change, and from the context menu select Open With...

2. The Choose Application dialog box opens, with the application categories listed. Click the arrow at the left of the appropriate category to list the apps in that category and highlight the one you wish to use.

3. Click the tickbox to the left of Set selected application as default action for this file type then click OK. PCManFM will now always open files of that type in your chosen application.

Note that Moksha has its own Default Applications dialog box (reached by entering def into Quick Launcher), where the default web browser, email client, file manager, and terminal can be set. You can also, at its General tab, set the default apps for a vast number of file types. It is unlikely that you will need to use this dialog box.

## 2.17 Terminology

This is Bodhi's 'terminal emulator' or 'console', names that are hangovers from the old days before graphical desktops, mice, and trackpads arrived on the scene. Then, all interactions with the computer were via lines of text on the screen and a keyboard. Nowadays a terminal seems somewhat antiquated, but it can be the best or even only way to carry out an operation.

You used Terminology at the end of the last chapter to update your system - by entering the rather long command sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade. You should do this update on a fairly regular basis, e.g. at least once a month; fortunately, as you'll learn later, it's easy to replace a long command like this with a much shorter 'alias'.

Since you will occasionally be using Terminology to enter commands, it's worth carrying out a small amount of customization of it to make this job a little pleasanter. To do so:

1. Open Terminology (by clicking its icon towards the left of the shelf or by entering ter into Quick Launcher).

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

3. Choose a theme that you like - my choice is the Mustang theme.

4. Notice that you can if you wish change the font. Note also some of the other Settings options, including the (hot) keys - e.g. the paste key is Shift+Ctrl+V, useful when you need to paste a command from elsewhere into Terminology.

5. When you've finished, close Settings by clicking on a blank area of the Terminology window.

## 2.18 Using Terminology: install Xarchiver

We won't normally be using Terminology to install applications on your computer, but to show how it's done we'll use it now to install Xarchiver, a program which will allow you to handle compressed (zip) files. (You selected this as PCManFM's archiver when we modified its preferences earlier.)

First update your system by entering into Terminology the command

sudo apt update.

Then enter the command

_sudo apt install xarchiver_.

Terminology will check the online repository, ask if you want to continue, then when you enter 'y' will download and install Xarchiver.

Now, when you right-click on a zip file in PCManFM, Xarchiver will appear in the context menu ready for you to run it.

## 2.19 Using Terminology: disable the 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 you can easily turn the touchpad on or off (we'll see later how to do this).

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 the TouchpadOff command to the _startupcommands_ file in the hidden folder _.e/e/applications/startup_.

To do this:

1. Open PCManFM. If hidden files are turned off, press Ctrl+H to turn them on.

2. Navigate to _.e/e/applications/startup_.

3. Right-click startupcommands and select Leafpad (the text editor) from the context menu.

4. The file opens in Leafpad - as you can see it doesn't as yet contain any commands.

5. Type into it the command _synclient TouchpadOff=1_

6. Open Leafpad's File menu and press Save.

7. Close Leafpad.

This command will take effect when you restart your computer.

## 3.1 What this chapter covers

In this chapter you'll add to our system the applications needed for your online and offline computer life. If you installed the Bodhi AppPack release rather than one of the Standard release, you can skip some sections. We return to the task of customizing the desktop in the next chapter.

The chapter begins by outlining the various options for downloading and installing programs, and then leads you through the various utilities and applications you might wish to install:

1. Fonts, codecs, printer drivers, and other utilities that you might need.

2. A full-featured web browser, an email client, and a cloud storage app.

3. An office suite and other office software.

4. A range of multimedia and other applications

All these applications are free.

## 3.2 Download options

Almost all the applications you'll want to add to your system are stored in the online package repository. This is the main Ubuntu repository plus some additional packages that are specific to Bodhi (such as the various Moksha themes that we downloaded in the last chapter).

There are several ways to download and install applications:

1. The Bodhi AppCenter. This has the great advantage that everything is handed to you on a plate: top-rated applications from the repository are all neatly categorized, and all you have to do is choose the ones you want. You can be assured that they have been carefully selected, so that whichever you choose will be good. However, the AppCenter only has a tiny fraction of the many thousands of applications that are available. You can access the AppCenter by typing appc into Quick Launcher, though you can also reach it from Main menu (go to Applications > System Tools) or by clicking its icon on the shelf.

2. The terminal. If you know the name of the application you're looking for, this is a good way to install it. Enter into Terminology the command sudo apt install followed by the name. Terminology will access the package repository, find and download the application, and install it on your system. You installed Xarchiver using this method at the end of the last chapter.

3. The Synaptic package manager. This is the graphical way to access the package repository, and you will be using it shortly. It's shown in the figure below.

4. gDebi and deb packages. Some software packages are not in the repository, but are instead archived elsewhere on the Internet as .deb (Debian) files. You can download a .deb package and then install it using gDebi: PCManFM will then offer to run gDebi if you right-click on the downloaded .deb file (which you should find in your Downloads folder). Alternatively, a web browser such as Firefox or Chromium 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. gDebi does not ship with the standard Bodhi release, so you need to install it from the AppCenter - you will find it under System Tools.

5. Personal Package Archives (PPAs). Some software is not available in the official Ubuntu repository but can be found instead in these unofficial repositories, which are often the software developers' repositories. Packages in these repositories are always kept up-to-date. Note, though, that the Bodhi developers warn that some of the files that you download from such repositories may conflict with other files on your system, which can cause problems. I will, however, be recommending a PPA download later in this chapter - I've never had any problems with it.

6. Appimages. Some applications are distributed as appimages, meaning they are not installed in the usual way but instead contain everything necessary to run independently of your operating system. This makes things a little more complicated for the user as the application is not integrated into the desktop menu system. I'll describe the installation of an appimage later in this chapter (Section 3.10 on Clipto Pro) and tell you in Chapter 5 how to integrate it into your desktop system (Section 5.4).

7. Snap packages. These are similar to appimages in that the package includes all the dependencies required to run the application. However, Snap packages are integrated into your system and so the application will appear in the menu system in the usual way. I include a Snap package in the suggested apps in this chapter. Note that the snapd program needed to use Snap packages is installed on your system.

Now let's install the software you need...

## 3.3 Install extra fonts, codecs, and utilities

Ubuntu-restricted-extras

Our first job is to install extra fonts (such as Times Roman and Arial), codecs (which you may need when playing some multimedia files), and utilities that are not shipped as standard with distros (often because of licensing arrangements). The package containing most of these is called ubuntu-restricted-extras.

1. Run Synaptic (by typing syn into Quick Launcher) and enter your password when asked. The Synaptic window opens (see the figure).

2. Click the Search icon in the toolbar, then enter the package name (ubuntu-restricted-extras) into the Search box.

3. The package will be found and listed. Tick the tickbox at its left, then click the Apply icon in the toolbar.

4. The Apply Changes dialog box opens - click Apply.

5. The package will be downloaded and installed on your system.

6. Close Synaptic.

These extras will take effect when reboot your system. To see the extra fonts, for example, reboot and open the Font Settings dialog box (type font into Quick Launcher).

Printer support

If you have a printer you will want to install the drivers needed to make it work properly with your computer. For this you need to installl the application called Printer Support (or Cups) available from the System Tools section of the AppCenter. To set it up for your printer:

1. Connect your printer to your computer, preferably directly using a USB port rather than wirelessly, and switch it on.

2. Enter pri into Quick Launcher and to run the program ('Printers'). The printers dialog box opens.

3. Click Add, and the Select Devices dialog box opens. Your printer be listed there.

4. Select your printer, click Forward, and the program will search for your printer's drivers.

If the search fails, go to the printer manufacturer's website and check if they supply the necessary drivers for Linux (Ubuntu). If they do, follow the download instructions and run the printer support program again.

Optical disk support

If you have an optical disc drive on your computer, you will need to install utilities to allow you to play commercial DVDs. The package you want is called libdvd-pkg. Although you can get this via Synaptic, it's best and easiest in this case to use the Terminal:

1. Open Terminology and enter _sudo apt install libdvd-pkg_. Terminology will locate the package in the repository and then download and install it. This may take several minutes, as the package contains a number of programs.

2. After the installation finishes you will need press Enter a couple of times at the dialog boxes that appear, and then enter the command _sudo dpkg-reconfigure libdvd-pkg_ _._

_3._ _Terminology_ _will_ _now_ _inst_ _all_ _further_ _software_ _needed_ _to play commercial DVDs._

_It remains to install a suitable media player such as VLC or SMPlayer, and the rest of this chapter is devoted to installing these and the other applications you need to build a fully-functioning system. We'll begin with the applications needed for your online life: a full-featured web browser, an email client, and cloud storage._

## 3.4 Web browsers

_The web browser supplied with your system (Epiphany) is lightweight and fast, and if you have an old computer with perhaps only 1 Gb of RAM you should probably stick with this or a lightweight alternative. Most people, however, prefer a more heavy-weight and capable browser such as_ _Firefox_ _or_ _Chromium_ _. Both are available from the AppCenter._

_Chromium is the open-source (public domain) version of Chrome, the browser supplied by Google for Windows systems (as an alternative to Microsoft Edge, which is in fact based on Chrome). Unlike Chrome, Chromium does not track you, and if you avoid using the Google search engine (which also tracks you) and instead use the DuckDuckGo search engine then you can search the web without your search data being stored, monetized, and used to bombard you with 'relevant' adverts. It's also possible with both Chromium and Firefox to install the_ _Adblock Plus_ _extension to block adverts. (You can get it from_ https://adblockplus.org/ _.)_

_Because I use Google's email system (Gmail) as well as other Google apps such as its calendar, it makes sense for me to use Chromium rather than Firefox. (Chromium is in fact far more than just a web browser, it provides a complete online software environment - see the next section.) But both Chromium and Firefox have similar browser capabilities, including the ability to synchronize your bookmarks and search history across all your devices._

To install either Chromium or Firefox, go to the Web Browser section of the AppCenter.

If you want help using Chromium of Firefox, there are plenty of online tutorials. In the case of Chromium search for chrome tutorial \- one tutorial is here: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/chrome/. A similar tutorial for Firefox is here: https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/firefox/.

If you have a Google account, you should sign into Chromium. Click the icon with a picture towards the right of the toolbar, click Turn on sync..., enter your email address and password when asked, then Turn on sync. This will synchronize Chromium on your computer with Chrome or Chromium on any other devices that you've signed into.

Also, you may wish to change the search engine to DuckDuckGo, and at the same time set it up to make a small donation to help fund Bodhi. The instructions for doing this for both Chromium and Firefox are given at http://www.bodhilinux.com/w/adding-bodhis-duckduckgo-search/. To get to the Search Engine section of Chromium, click the icon at the extreme right of the toolbar at choose Settings, then choose Search Engine from the list at the left.

## 3.5 Google apps on Chromium

Chromium is much more than just a browser, it provides access to many Chrome applications such as its calendar, photo editor, online office suite (Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides), and more. This is the basis of the popular chromebook computers: in essence, they just run Chrome plus its various apps.

Up to a few years ago it was possible for any computer running Chromium or Chrome to download these apps from the Chrome Web Store. This meant in effect that running Chromium was like using a chromebook, with icons for these apps populating the Chromium start page. I took advantage of this at the time and downloaded a number of apps that were relevant to me; now, whenever I install Chromium on a new system and synchronize with my Google account, all these apps appear on the new system, to give me a chromebook-like interface whenever I run Chromium.

Google has now restricted access to its Web Store to non-chromebook users, so that although you can get themes and extensions from it you can no longer download apps. You can still run some of these apps within Chromium, but instead of being able to easily get them from the Store you have to access them via a search engine, though you can of course bookmark them so that they appear in your Bookmarks bar. For example, you can access Google Calender at https://calendar.google.com, Google Photos (formerly Picasa) at https://photos.google.com, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides at https://docs.google.com, and Google Drive at https://drive.google.com.

These apps are worth trying, and they have the big advantage that they are synchronized with the corresponding Google apps on Android smartphones and tablets. For example, my calendar which runs under Chromium on my Bodhi system is synchronized with Google Calendar on my smartphone.

## 3.6 Email clients

Most people find it easier to handle their email locally on their computer using an email client rather than dealing with it remotely (online) using a web browser. The client will download your incoming emails and send your outgoing emails, and offer you many facilities such as easy creation of mailing lists.

A popular email client is Thunderbird, and you can download this (or an alternative client called Claws Mail) from the AppCenter (in the Email Client section).

Thunderbird needs to be configured to handle your email account, but this is very straightforward. You will find instructions on the internet by searching for Thunderbird tutorial \- one is at https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/email/mozilla-thunderbird/.

You can also customize Thunderbird's appearance:

1. Open the View menu and choose Layout. At the Layout submenu I suggest you choose Vertical View, and make sure Folder Pane and Message Pane are ticked, but not Folder Pane Columns.

2. The middle pane, which lists your emails, has many columns - Subject, Attachments, Thread, Read, Date, etc. That's fine if you have a large screen, but I prefer to reduce this to just three: Subject, From, and Date in the case of my inbox, and Subject, Recipient, Date in the case of my Sent mail. I set the Date in descending order, so that the latest emails are at the top.

Note that Thunderbird stores all your emails, mailing lists, settings etc in a single hidden folder in your Home directory: .thunderbird. This means that you can easily transfer everything to another computer - simply install Thunderbird on the other computer then copy the .thunderbird folder across to it. Then, when you open Thunderbird, it will run exactly as on the first computer.

## 3.7 Cloud storage

Everyone should make use of cloud (online) storage for important files (documents, photos, etc) as well as to synchronize files that you wish to share across devices. Microsoft provides OneDrive cloud storage for Windows computers, but unfortunately you can't conveniently use this under Linux. There are, however, several free alternatives, Dropbox being a popular choice. It runs on almost all systems (Windows, Linux, Apple, Android), but the free version limits you to 2 Gbytes of storage and to three computers. If you have a Google email account (Gmail), Google Drive is also free, and this gives you 15 Gbytes of storage and you can use it on as many devices as you like.

Like Microsoft OneDrive, Dropbox will synchronize a folder on your computer with your online storage, so that when you change a file on one the corresponding file on the other is automatically updated. Dropbox will set up this synchronization for you when you install it.

Google Drive is more problematic in this regard. It requires a third-party client program to perform the synchronization, and Google is very fussy about accepting such clients. A client program called Open Drive worked very well on older versions of Bodhi Linux (up to v.5.0) but not with newer versions. If you want to synchronize your Google Drive with a folder in Bodhi 5.1, you could try VGrive, which is available for Ubuntu systems such as Bodhi as a 'Flatpack' application (which means you must install the Flatpack application environment first). To do this, go to https://flathub.org/apps/details/com.github.bcedu.vgrive.

A simple though less convenient alternative is to access your Google Drive online (at https://drive.google.com), where you can view, upload, or download files.

I find Dropbox the most convenient option. Here's how to download and install it:

1. Open Synaptic (enter syn in Quick Launcher), search for dropbox, then choose nautilis-dropbox and click Apply.

2. When Dropbox has finished installing, run it (enter dro in Quick Launcher), click OK in the dialog box that opens. Dropbox will download and install additional files and create the Dropbox folder in your Home directory.

3. The Setup dialog will appear where you can sign in to Dropbox if you already have an account, or create a new Dropbox account. When all this is done the Dropbox icon should appear in Systray towards the right of the shelf, and if you already have a Dropbox account the files in it should be downloading to your new Dropbox folder.

4. Your final job is to integrate Dropbox with PCManFM. Install the file _libfile-mimeinfo-perl_ using Synaptic, then open Terminology and enter the command _mimeopen -d ~/Documents_ (it doesn't have to be Documents, any folder in your Home directory will do). Choose the first option: 1 PCManFM.

5. Right-click the Dropbox icon (towards the right of the shelf). The Open Dropbox Folder option now should work correctly with PCManFM. You should not need to change anything in the Preferences option.

6. You can if you wish add the Dropbox folder to your bookmarks in PCManFM: right-click on the folder name, and from the context menu choose Add to Bookmarks. This option is also available on the Bookmarks menu.

If you want Dropbox to run automatically when you start up your computer, you need to add it to your startup applications:

1. Enter start into Quick Launcher to open the Startup Applications dialog box.

2. At the Applications tab, highlight Dropbox, click Add, then OK.

## 3.8 An Office suite

Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) only runs on Windows systems, but there are some excellent alternatives for Linux, offering the full range of capabilities including e.g. mailmerge. The most popular is Libre Office, which you can get from the AppCenter (and which is supplied with the Bodhi AppPack release). However, I prefer WPS Office (formerly Kingsoft Office), which is very similar to Microsoft Office and which I've been using for many years (I'm using it to write this ebook). It has been widely adopted worldwide (it boasts more than 600 million global users), and it's available for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, as well as Linux. But you won't find it in the AppCenter nor in the Ubuntu repository, the reason being I think because it is produced in China (the 'W' stands for Wuhan).

Another alternative is Google's online office suite (Docs, Sheets, and Slides) available at https://docs.google.com (click the menu icon at the left to switch to Sheets or Slides). Because this is an online suite it automatically synchronizes your documents across all your devices. Also, it comes with an array of optional add-ons that enable you to carry out a range of tasks, including mailmerge and printing address labels. Although Google's online suite is satisfactory for the occasional user, for frequent users it lacks the capabilities and convenience of heavy-weight offline apps such as WPS Office and Libre Office.

Note that whichever Office program you use, you should consider turning off the Ubuntu middle-click paste feature to avoid messing up your document with unwanted insertions when you scroll through it with the mouse scroll wheel. See below for more on this.

To get WPS Office:

1. Go to https://linux.wps.com/, click Download, and choose the Deb package. The download will take several seconds.

2. Open your Downloads folder in PCManFM, right-click the wps-office deb files, and choose GDebi Package Installer from the context menu.

3. The GDebi window will open, and after a little while a description of WPS will appear and you can click Install.

4. Enter your password when asked, and the package will install, This may take a minute or two.

5. When it's installed, close the GDebi window.

To run WPS Office:

1. Enter wps in Quick Launcher, tick the License Agreement tick box and click Confirm, and the main WPS Document window will open.

2. Click New Document, choose either word processing (Document), spreadsheet (Excel), or presentation, then click the Empty Document icon. You will be presented with an editing window much like that of Microsoft Office.

Note the WPS Settings button at the top right of the initial Document window. This allows you to change a few options such as the background color.

Note also the Task Window, which you can open while editing a document and which shows among other things style and formatting options. You can open this from the ribbon at the top of the WPS window - you'll find it under 'View'.

Turn off middle-clicking

A word of warning if you intend writing long documents in any Ubuntu word processing program. Ubuntu has programmed your mouse so that clicking the middle button will paste anything in the clipboard into your document. This can be extremely annoying if you're scrolling through a document by winding the middle button, as pressing it too hard while winding may litter your document with unwanted clipboard pastings.

To turn off this middle-click 'feature', remap the middle-click button by adding the following command to the startupcommands file stored in your Home folder at .e/e/applications/startup:

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

(You learned how to add a startup command to this file at the end of the last chapter in Section 2.19) The command will take effect next time you start your computer.

Note that middle-clicking while still work in PCManFM.

## 3.9 PDF Readers

Although WPS Office will read PDF files, it's better to install a dedicated program for this. A nice lightweight reader is Evince, which you can get from the AppCenter.

## 3.10 Note-taking and organizing software

I find this software invaluable for organizing and keeping track of the notes I make on a variety of topics. Using a computer or smartphone for this is so much better than using bits of paper or a notebook. ClipTo Pro is a favorite of mine, I have it on all my devices (including my smartphone), and since it stores my notes online (as well as locally) they are automatically synchronized across every device.

You have a choice of several note-taking applications, but I suggest you try Clipto Pro as it is easy to use, it allows a simple tagging of notes so that you can easily filter them by whatever tags you choose to apply, and it allows you to attach files (such as photos) to notes. (If you want to transfer a photo from your smartphone to your computer, one way is to attach it to a ClipTo Pro note.) It also offers a unique synchronized copy-and-paste facility, so you can copy some text on one device and paste it onto another (you need to turn this on in Settings) and then if necessary create a note from it.

Although ClipTo Pro can be downloaded for mobile devices from the relevant app store, in the case of Linux systems you won't find it in the repository. It is instead supplied as an appimage. Also, you can run it online via a web browser.

To get and run the ClipTo Pro appimage:

1. Go to https://clipto.pro/ and click on Download for Linux. The appimage will be downloaded to your Downloads folder.

2. Open PCManFM, navigate to your Downloads folder, and right-click on the ClipTo appimage file to open the context menu.

3. Click on Properties to open the File Properties dialog box, click on the Permissions tab, then change Execute from Nobody to one of the other options. If installing Clipto on a home computer, you can change it to Anyone.

4. You can now run Clipto Pro by opening it from the Downloads folder. (Unless you ticked Don't ask options on launch of executable file in PCManFM's preferences, you will encounter a dialog box asking you to confirm that you wish to run it.) The first time you use Clipto Pro you will have to create an account (or sign in if you already have an account).

Later on (in Section 5.4) I'll show you how to integrate the ClipTo Pro appimage into the Bodhi menu system, so that you can run it in the normal way (either from the menus, or via Quick Launcher, or from an icon on the shelf).

CherryTree

This is another popular note-taking application. It doesn't tag notes like ClipTo Pro, but instead organizes them hierarchically under headings and subheadings (called 'nodes'). The notes are stored locally on your computer, and to synchronize them across devices you need to use Dropbox (or an equivalent) and store the notes in your Dropbox folder. CherryTree runs on Linux and Windows systems, but not on mobile devices.

CherryTree is very useful if you are creating notes for a large project (such as writing a book or a report), as you can organize your notes under your embryonic chapter headings and section subheadings. You can also if you wish encrypt and password-protect your notes.

You can get CherryTree via Synaptic from the repository. When you run it, you will see that it offers you lots of formatting and other options on its menu system. A change I always make is to Preferences on the Edit menu:

\- At the Text and Code tab I set the Line Wrapping Indentation to 0.

\- At the Rich Text tab, under Theme, I choose the first Light Background option, and under Miscellaneous I turn off Highlight Current Line.

## 3.11 Media players

VLC is probably the most popular media player, full-featured and able to play all kinds of video or audio files as well as optical discs. It offers many facilities, including setting up playlists, handling streaming videos, and converting a video file from one file type to another. Another excellent media player is SMPlayer. I have both on my system, as I sometimes find that a video file plays better on one than on the other. You can download both of these from the AppCenter, in the Multimedia section.

Both VLC and SMplayer are good for playing music and other audio files, though you may prefer a dedicated audio player such as Clementine (from the Multimedia section of the AppCenter) for this.

## 3.12 Media recorders

SimpleScreenRecorder is an excellent app for recording any video (including the sound) that's playing on your computer - files, DVDs, streaming videos, anything. It can record the full screen or just a part of the screen, and you can start and stop the recording using a hot key. It offers a number of recording options, including recording as an MP4 file. You can get SimpleScreenRecorder via Synaptic from the repository.

Osmoma Audio Recorder is a great app for recording anything that's playing through your computer's speakers, and it can also record from a microphone plugged into your computer. It can record in many different file types, including MP3, and it offers a number of timer and other recording options.

You can't get Osmoma from the Ubuntu repository, instead you will have to add the Osmoma PPA repository and then install it from there (see the note on PPAs in Section 3.2). To do so, open Terminology and enter the following sequence of commands (these are taken from the Osmoma site at https://launchpad.net/~audio-recorder/+archive/ubuntu/ppa):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:audio-recorder/ppa

sudo apt -y update

sudo apt install \--reinstall audio-recorder

Note that Osmoma is named 'Audio Recorder' on your system. To run it, enter aud into Quick Launcher. The Audio Recorder window opens, where you should click the arrows to the left of the Timer and the Audio settings sections to see the various options. If you wish to record as an MP3 file, choose this in the Format box.

## 3.13 Get-iplayer for BBC downloads

Get-iplayer allows you to download BBC TV programmes as ordinary MP4 files, or radio programmes as M4a files, for playing later on any device. This is a command-line program, meaning it must be run from Terminology. It comes as a Snap package, which you can download and install by entering in Terminology the command:

snap install get-iplayer

Because get-iplayer is a command-line program, it will not appear in your menu system.

To see the (large) list of get-iplayer commands, open Terminology and enter

get-iplayer -h

The main commands are :

get-iplayer "search term" to list TV programmes that match the search term;  
get-iplayer --type=radio "search term" to list radio programmes that match the search term.

The output gives the programme ID of the programmes found. Choose the programme you want from the list, and then download it with command:

get-iplayer --get PID (where PID is the number).

Download several programmes at the same time like this:

get-iplayer PID1 PID2 PID3I

Note that the programmes will be downloaded into the folder in which you opened Terminology. So before you open it, navigate to the desired folder in PCManFM and then choose Tools > Open Current Folder in Terminal.

## 3.14 Sound Converter

This allows you to convert audio files from one format to another, e.g. the MPa files downloaded by Get-iplayer to MP3. You can download this program from the repository - search for soundconverter in Synaptic. It will be installed into the Sound & Video section of your menu system.

Sound converter is very easy to use. Click the Add button to navigate through your folders and add the sound files you wish to convert to its window, then click Preferences to choose the required output file format, then click the Convert button to convert the files.

In Preferences you can choose whether to keep the original files, or else to delete them after conversion.

## 3.15 Photo viewers and editors

These allow you to view your photos, create slideshows, and edit your photos, and some will also allow you to organize and categorize your photos. There is a wide choice of such applications, ranging from the very basic Ephoto that'supplied with your system to the ultra-powerful GIMP (the open source equivalent of Photoshop). As with all applications, those offering just a few basic facilities are easy to learn and use, the more powerful ones are more difficult with a big learning curve.

A nice easy photo viewer with some basic editing functions such as cropping is Mirage, which you can get from the AppCenter (in the Image Viewer section). If you are an occasional rather than serious photographer this will probably have sufficient functionality.

More heavyweight photo editing applications, including GIMP, can also be found in the Image Editing section of the AppCenter. The list does not include, however, my favorite: XnViewMP. This has a similar look and feel to other popular photo apps, including the FastStone Image Viewer which runs on Windows systems. Adobe Lightroom is another favorite with excellent editing features for touching up photos, but this is not available for Linux. However, you can run Lightroom from the Web at https://lightroom.adobe.com; you need an Adobe account, but that's free.

You can download XnViewMP from https://www.xnview.com/en/xnviewmp/. The download buttons are at the bottom of this web page - choose one of the Linux DEB options (either 64-bit or 32-bit). Install the Deb file as described earlier, by clicking on it in PCManFM (you will find it in your Downloads folder).

I will not describe here how to set up and use XnViewMP as I have already written an introduction to it: Search for xnviewmp for beginners, or go to https://www.xnview.com/download/XnViewMP%20for%20Beginners.pdf.

A great product for creating animated slideshows with music is Imagination, also available from the AppCenter (Multimedia Production section). You can save your slideshow as a video file (.flv) or you can write it to a recordable DVD. To find out more about Imagination and how to use it, go to  https://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/make-dvd-slideshows-linux-imagination/.

## 3.16 Other applications

There are of course many more categories of software than the few I've mentioned here. The best place to explore these is the Bodhi AppCenter. Additional applications that I normally install include Xfburn (to burn optical discs), gParted (partition manager), and Calibre (to manage ebooks). If you want a drawing program similar MS Paint, try Pinta. If you are into video production OpenShot is a good choice, but you need a fast, modern computer to run this well.

# 4 Streamline your desktop

## 4.1 What this chapter covers

In this chapter and the next we deal with the main business of the book: customizing your desktop to give you the best possible computer experience. Thanks to the Moksha desktop (and the Enlightenment system on which it is based), Bodhi's customization options are unparalleled, and if you know what you're doing you can create what is arguably the most capable and efficient desktop available on any system, as well as one that's exceptionally good-looking.

We cover the following topics:

1. The Settings Panel, where all the many settings possibilities are categorized and listed.

2. Customize the position and appearance of the shelf, and organizing its contents (including the iBar which holds application icons).

3. Add gadgets to the shelf and the desktop.

4. Set up the Favorites menu.

5. Organize virtual desktops.

6. Amalgamate elements from other themes with your chosen theme.

If you are on a laptop computer, you may find it easier to use a mouse rather than a trackpad when working through the suggested customization steps in this chapter and the next.

## 4.2 The exercise desktop

The amount of customization and personallization that can be achieved in Bodhi is remarkable, and one user might create a desktop with a quite different look and feel to that created by another. In this chapter and the next I will be taking you on a journey to create a very specific desktop, i.e. the one I find works best for me. It's highly unlikely that you would want to make all the same choices, but I'm asking you to play along and create, as an exercise, the desktop described here.

At the end of the next chapter, where I introduce desktop profiles, I'll get you to save this exercise desktop you've created as a named profile, and then, using the knowledge you've gained, to create a desktop that's entirely your own. That may involve simply tweaking aspects of the exercise desktop, but if you want to fully master the power of Bodhi it's best to start again (i.e. return your desktop to its original state by applying the default profile). There are more possibilities than those covered in this book, and if you have the time it's worth digging deeper into the options available in the dialog boxes covered in this chapter and the next, as well as exploring other dialog boxes that I don't mention and which you can find in the Settings Panel (see below).

The only customization we've done so far in this book is to apply a desktop theme in Chapter 2 and perhaps modify a font or two. So you should still have the original shelf, stretched across the foot of the screen. It doesn't matter which desktop theme you've applied, but you may find it helpful to put your desktop in the same state as mine by applying the MokshaForum theme, as then the figures of the various dialog boxes which illustrate this book will match what you'll be seeing on your screen. (To make this change, go to the Theme Selector dialog box - enter the into Quick Launcher - as described in Section 2.6)

Perhaps, though, you've played around with your desktop and made other changes. In this case it might be a good idea at this point to restore it to its original state by applying the default profile in the Profile Selector dialog box. (For more details see Section 5.8. Note that you can save all your current desktop settings as a named profile at this dialog box, so you can if you wish restore them later.) If you do revert to the default profile, you should then apply the MokshaForum theme, and leave the wallpaper as the original Bodhi Background wallpaper.

You're now good to go. Enjoy the journey!

## 4.3 The Settings Panel

To discover the vast range of configuration possibilities that your desktop offers, visit the Settings Panel, where everything is categorized under thirteen menus - Look, Apps, Screen, Input, Windows, Menu, and more.

To open the Settings Panel, go to Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel. Then maximize the Settings Panel window to see all the menus listed across the top. Click on some of these to see the range of possibilities: they allow you to tweak every tiny detail of your desktop.

Take the Quick Launcher dialog box, for example, which you've used many times as you've worked through this book. You can customize many aspects of its appearance and behaviour by by clicking on Launcher to open the Launcher menu then clicking on Everything Configuration ('Everything' was the original name of Quick Launcher). A dialog box opens with several tabs providing you with a large number of customization options (most of them outside the scope of this book). In this instance I don't suggest you change anything, but it illustrates the large amount of customization that's possible.

We won't be using the Settings Panel to access the various dialog boxes needed to make the configuration changes described in this chapter, instead we'll use quicker methods: either right-clicking desktop objects and selecting from the context menu, or using Quick Launcher.

## 4.4 The shelf

Let's start by replacing the single shelf across the bottom of your screen with two shelves placed along the left-hand edge. (Later on we'll be creating a third shelf located in a second 'virtual desktop'.) The reasons for these changes will soon become clear.

The purpose of the shelf is to house gadgets. These include the iBar gadget at the left of your shelf (which currently holds the icons used to launch the web browser, the terminal, and the file manager), and Tasks gadget alongside it which tracks and helps you manage any launched applications. Clicking one of the iBar gadgets will launch the associated application, clicking on an icon in the Tasks gadget will minimize/display the associated application.

Other gadgets on your shelf include the Start gadget at the extreme left (which opens the Main menu), and towards the right of the shelf is the Systray gadget which holds icons for services that are running such as Wifi and Dropbox, and the Mixer gadget plus a number of others.

## 4.5 Customize the shelf

Let's start by removing all of these gadgets from the shelf apart from the iBar (we'll be adding most of them to other shelves shortly).

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

2. To reveal more gadgets, expand this dialog box vertically by pressing Shift+F10.

3. Remove every gadget that's shown as present on the shelf (apart from the iBar): highlight each gadget in turn and click Remove Gadget. Click Close when you've finished.

Now let's reconfigure the shelf, including repositioning it at the left of screen, at the top. The reason for placing it here rather than the foot of the screen is that this makes better use of your screen real estate: your screen is much wider than it is high, leaving you spare space at the left (or right) edge for the shelf.

1. Right-click on an empty part of the shelf and from the context menu choose Settings. The Shelf Settings dialog box opens with the Stacking tab visible.

2. At the Stacking tab, make sure that either Above Everything or Below Windows is selected. I prefer Above Everything, which means that the shelf will always be visible above any non-maximized windows, even if they impinge on the shelf. Whichever you choose, maximized windows will never overlap your shelf, and full-screen windows will always overlap it to fill the screen.

2. Open the Position tab, and select the option to locate the shelf on the left edge of the screen, at the top (the second option down on the left).

3. Open the Size tab, and change the size to 40 pixels. Select also Shrink to Content Width.

4. Click the arrow to the right of the tab options until you reach the Desktop tab. Here you should select Show on specified Desktops and choose 0-0 (that's the current desktop - we'll be setting up a shelf on Desktop 1-0 when we come to the section on virtual desktops). Click OK.

You should now have a small shelf, located at the left of the screen at the top, housing just the iBar with its launch icons.

Let's rename this shelf to reflect its purpose:

1. Right-click on the empty border of the shelf (avoiding the iBar gadget), and from the context menu choose Rename. (If you right-click the iBar instead of the shelf, choose shelf from its context menu then Rename.) The Rename Shelf dialog box opens.

2. Enter Launcher as the name, and click OK.

## 4.6 Customize the iBar

Let's now remove some apps showing in the iBar and add others. (We will be creating a second iBar shortly which will hold the apps removed here.)

1. Right-click on the iBar and from the context menu choose Contents. The iBar Applications dialog box opens.

2. Press Shift+F10 to expand this dialog box vertically (or drag on its top or bottom borders).

3. Remove every selected application apart from PCManFM (i.e. Bodhi AppCenter, Terminology, and Web) by highlighting them and clicking Remove. (If you've decided to stick with Epiphany, the web browser supplied with Bodhi, rather than use another, don't remove Web.)

4. Now add to the iBar a few of the applications that you use most often. I've added Chromium, Thunderbird, WPS 2019, and CherryTree. (Shortly I'll be adding to a second iBar applications such as Synaptic and Terminology that are more to do with my computer house-keeping rather than the things I actually want to use the computer for.)

5. Click on the Order tab in this dialog box and arrange your chosen apps in a suitable order. Click OK.

You can customize your iBar further:

1. To change its appearance, right-click on it and choose iBar > Look > Plain.

2. To change other settings, right-click on it and choose iBar > Settings. The iBar Settings dialog box opens.

3. One change you should make here is to rename the iBar (currently 'default'). Click Add, and enter another name, such as Main Apps, then click OK.

4. Back at the iBar Settings dialog box, you may wish to turn off Show icon label, (to stop names of the apps appearing when you mouse over their icons). Make sure that the bottom three options are ticked: Icon focus flash, lock icon move, and track launch. Click OK to close the iBar Settings dialog box.

## 4.7 A second shelf

Although we can launch applications from our new shelf, we can no longer track them after they are launched, meaning icons for launched apps no longer appear on the shelf allowing us to easily switch between them. This is because we have removed the Tasks gadget, so now we are going to create a second shelf to hold it. We will also add some other missing gadgets to this shelf, such as the System gadget to switch off or reboot the computer.

To create a second shelf:

1. Go to Main menu > Settings > Shelves. The Shelf Settings dialog box opens with your first Launcher shelf listed.

2. Click Add, and the Add New Shelf dialog box opens, where you can give your new shelf a name. Since its main purpose is to track launched applications, I suggest you call it Tracker. Click OK.

3. The Shelf Contents dialog box opens, listing gadgets you can add to your new shelf. Scroll down to the bottom of the list, and add the following three gadgets: System, Systray, Tasks. (Highlight each in turn and click Add.) Click Close to finish and return to the Shelf Settings dialog box.

4. You will see your new shelf on your desktop below your first shelf, populated with the three chosen gadgets - including the taskbar (i.e. the Tasks gadget) showing the icon for the Shelf Settings dialog box. You can click this icon to minimize/restore the dialog box - try it!

5. Make sure your new Tracker shelf is highlighted in this dialog box and click Settings. The Shelf Settings dialog box opens.

6. Click Position, and at this tab change the position to the bottom of the left border. You can also if you like change the appearance of this shelf: at the tab choose Alternate. (Do NOT choose Invisible \- the Systray gadget will not work on invisible shelves. If you want to try Invisible, do so on your Launcher shelf.). Click OK. Your shelf should now appear on the left edge at the bottom, with lots of empty space between it and your first shelf.

7. Unlike our Launcher shelf, we want this shelf to appear on all desktops, so don't make any changes at the Desktop tab.

8. Close the Shelf Settings dialog box.

9. Regarding Systray, I suggest you set its Look to Plain. (Right-click on an edge of Systray for its context menu for this option.)

Note that you now longer have a Start gadget on a shelf - you may previously have used this to open the Main menu. This gadget is no longer necessary as there should always be plenty of space between your two shelves which can be clicked to open the menu, and you can also use the Menu key to the right of the spacebar to open it. (Later on we'll set up something even better: click the bottom left corner of the screen, where the Start gadget is normally located, to open the Main menu.)

## 4.8 The Tasks gadget (taskbar)

As I've said already, you can customize every tiny detail of your desktop, including, in this section, the Tasks gadget:

1. If you can't see a taskbar on your Tracker shelf, launch an application to activate it. Then right-click the gadget and from the context menu choose Tasks > Tasks > Settings. The Tasks Configuration dialog box opens.

2. Change Item height to around 40 (it should be about the same as the shelf width. The Item width is irrelevant for this gadget in a vertical shelf.

3. I prefer to tick the Show windows from all desktops tickbox, though you may find it better to leave it unticked (the poiint of this will become clear later on when we cover virtual desktops).

4. Click OK to make these changes and close the dialog box.

An easy way to minimize or restore an open application is to click its icon in the taskbar.

Note that the icon for the focussed application, i.e. the one which you are currently using, is highlighted in the taskbar; other application icons are greyed out.

## 4.9 Add more gadgets

The shelf contents dialog box shows only those gadgets that are currently loaded onto your system. More gadgets are available, stored as modules in your filesystem. We'll start by loading the CPU Frequency module, which shows how hard your computer is working moment by moment. If you are using a laptop you will probably also want to load the Battery module, which shows the amount of charge in your battery.

1. Enter modu into Quick Launcher or else go to Main menu > settings > Modules (remember you can click on any spot of the desktop to open the Main menu). The Module Settings dialog box opens.

2. Open the System tab, then highlight CPUfreq and click Load.

3. If you have a laptop, highlight Battery and click Load, then Close the dialog box. (We'll place the Battery gadget on the desktop shortly.)

4. You might also wish to load the Backlight module, which will allow you to adjust the screen brightness. (We'll place its gadget on a shelf shortly.)

Now add the CPUfreq gadget to the Tracker shelf:

1. Right-click on the Tracker shelf, avoiding the Tasks gadget and Systray - aim for the shelf border or the System icon.

2. From the context menu go to Tracker > Contents. The Shelf Contents dialog box opens.

3. Add CPUfreq, and Close. CPUfreq should appear on your shelf.

4. You will probably want to move this gadget to a different position on the shelf, so right-click on it and from the context menu choose Begin Moving Gadgets.

5. Drag the gadgets you wish to move with your mouse or trackpad. I suggest you drag the System icon to the bottom of the shelf, immediately below CPUfreq.

6. When you've finished, right-click again and choose Stop Moving Gadgets from the context menu.

## 4.10 Desktop gadgets

You can also place gadgets on the desktop instead of a shelf. Let's place the Clock and the Places gadget here, and also the Battery gadget if you loaded its module in the last section.:

1. Enter gad into Quick Launcher (or go to Main Menu > Settings > Gadgets). The Desktop Gadgets dialog box opens.

2. Highlight Background then click Configure Layer.

3. From the list of gadgets add Clock, Places and Battery, then Close.

4. These gadgets are added to the desktop, within draggable borders. Use these borders to move and resize the gadgets, then right-click on the gadget to remove the borders. (To reveal the draggable borders again, right-click the gadget and from the context menu choose Begin move/resize.)

If you don't like the color and look of the clock or any of the other desktop gadgets, don't worry. As you'll learn shortly, you can change their appearance by applying other desktop themes to them.

## 4.11 Removing and relocating gadgets

If you wish to remove a gadget from a shelf, or to relocate it to another shelf or to the desktop, or do the same thing with a desktop gadget:

\- Right-click on the gadget, and at the context menu mouse over the gadget's name choose Move to then select the destination. Alternatively choose Remove.

## 4.12 Virtual desktops

You have available to you not one but two (virtual) desktops, and more can be added if you wish. To switch (flip) between your desktops, press Ctrl+Alt+Right or Ctrl+Alt+Left \- that's Ctrl+Alt together with the right or left arrow keys. Alternatively you can press Alt+F1 to switch to the first (default) desktop and Alt+F2 to switch to the second, or you can flip between them by holding down Alt and winding the mouse scroll wheel. (We'll be setting up a slicker method using the mouse in the next chapter.) The two desktops are at the moment identical, except your Launcher shelf appears only on your default desktop, not on the second desktop - assuming you set up that shelf as suggested earlier in this chapter. If you open an application, it will appear in the current desktop, not the other one.

To configure virtual desktops:

1. Enter vir into Quick Launcher to open the Virtual Desktop Settings dialog box.

2. Should you wish to add extra desktops (I don't suggest you do, at least not at the moment), then you can add them vertically or horizontally. I suggest that you if you wish to add one or two additional desktops that you do so horizontally, as this makes it easier to flip between them using the edge bindings method described in the next chapter.

3. To customize an individual desktop, click on it in this dialog box. The Desk Settings dialog box opens.

4. You can see here that the first default desktop is labelled 0-0, the second desktop to the right of it is labelled 1-0. You can if you wish give your desktops more meaningful names in this dialog box.

5. You can also here apply different wallpapers to different desktops, as the figure shows that I have done. You'll be doing this shortly.

6. Another setting you can apply at the Virtual Desktop Settings dialog box is to the animations that accompany flipping desktops. At the Flip Animation tab choose Pane then click Apply, then flip desktops to see the effect.

6. Close these dialog boxes.

Most people will find two desktops sufficient. You can have different shelves housing different iBars and other gadgets on each desktop, and I find it convenient to have my main application launcher shelf on the default desktop (0-0) and an 'Admin' shelf on my second desktop (1-0) dedicated to computer house-keeping tasks. For example, I launch the terminal from here and the Synaptic package manager, as well as gadgets to open the Sound Mixer and the Settings Panel.

I also find a second desktop invaluable if I'm giving a presentation. I can have a slide show running full-screen on one desktop, and windows illustrating points I am making open in the other, and I can instantly flip from one to the other by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Right.

## 4.13 A shelf for your second desktop

Make sure you are on your second virtual desktop (labelled 1-0), by pressing Alt+F2. If you've worked through the instructions in this chapter, it should have your Tracker shelf at the foot of the left screen edge, but no shelf at the top. Let's now create this top shelf, and populate it with gadgets appropriate to the shelf's function - which in my case is to support computer house-keeping.

1. Enter she into Quick Launcher. The Self Settings dialog box for desktop 1-0 opens, listing just the Tracker shelf.

2. Click Add, and at the next dialog box give your shelf a name. I've called mine 'Admin'. Click OK.

3. The Shelf Contents dialog box opens, where you can select the gadgets you want on your shelf. I've chosen Backlight, iBar, and Mixer. Click Close. Your new shelf will appear at the left centre of your screen, and the iBar will contain the icons from the default iBar on your first shelf on the default desktop 0-0. We will rectify this shortly.

4. You will be returned to the Shelf Settings dialog box, where your new Admin shelf will be listed. Click on it, and choose Settings.

5. At the next Shelf Settings dialog box, at the Position tab, choose the left edge, top option (the second down on the left).

6. You shouldn't need to change the settings in the other tabs, as they should all be the same as those that you selected for you first shelf, apart from the final Desktop tab. Here, you should change the settings to Show on specified Desktops and choose your second desktop, i.e. 1-0. Click OK when you've finished, and Close the Shelf Settings dialog box.

Let's now populate the new iBar with icons to launch apps that assist computer house-keeping:

1. Right-click on the iBar, and from the context menu choose iBar > Settings. The iBar Settings dialog box opens.

2. Click Add, and enter a name for your new iBar source. I've called mine 'House-keeping'. Click OK.

3. Highlight House-keeping (or whatever name you've chosen) in the iBar Settings box and set the various options here: you may wish to turn off Show icon label, (to stop names of the apps appearing when you mouse over their icons), but make sure that the bottom three options are ticked: Icon focus flash, lock icon move, and track launch.

4. Click Contents to open the iBar Applications dialog box, and press Shift+F10 to expand it vertically.

5. If, like me, you want your new iBar to support computer house-keeping, remove all of the existing applications apart from PCManFM, and select instead the following: aRandR (for when you connect a monitor or projector to your computer - see Section 6.2), Bodhi AppCenter, Synaptic Packet Manager, and Terminology.

6. Click on the Order tab, and adjust the order you wish them to appear in your iBar. Click OK, then back at the iBar Settings dialog box click OK again to implement your choices. You may find that Synaptic doesn't have an associated icon - we'll rectify this shortly.

7. Now adjust the order of the gadgets on your new shelf to suit your preferences. Right-click on a gadget, and from the context menu choose Begin moving gadgets. Rearrange them by dragging with the mouse, then right-click again and choose Stop moving gadgets.

## 4.14 Application icons

You can change the icon associated with any application, or you can add an icon to an application that's missing one, as may be the case with Synaptic - the icon that's normally associated with it is being used by the Bodhi AppCenter app. So let's start off by modfying the AppCenter icon:

1. Right-click on this icon in your new iBar, and from the context menu choose Icon Bodhi AppCenter > Properties. The Desktop Entry Editor dialog box opens.

2. Open the Icon tab, then click on the box showing the icon. A long list of alternative icons appears, and you can choose something suitable from this, such as Gnome-mime-application. However, if you know the name of the icon you want, you can simply enter this in the icon name field below the box. The icon name for Epiphany (the browser used to access the AppCenter) is org.gnome.Epiphany, so enter this and the Epiphany icon should appear. Click OK to finish.

Now repeat this process to give Synaptic its missing icon:

1. Right-click the empty space on your iBar that should be occupied by the Synaptic icon, and again navigate to the Icon tab of Desktop Entry Editor.

2. Click on the icon box, and now scroll down the list of icons that appears and choose one that's the same as that previously used by the AppCenter app. The icon called drackstats will do. (To save searching, simply type this in the icon name field.) Click OK to finish.

## 4.15 The Favorites menu

Having placed our most frequently-used applications on shelves, where they are instantly at hand for launching, we now need to set up the Favorites menu to hold other favorite but less-often used applications:

1. Enter fav into Quick Launcher. The Favorite Applications dialog box opens. Press Shift+F10 to extend it vertically.

2. Add the applications you wish to include in this menu. I've chosen Audio Recorder, Leafpad, SMPlayer, SimpleScreenRecorder, VLC Media Player, SMPlayer, XnViewMP.

3. Click on the Order tab to rearrange the order on this menu, then click OK.

To open Favorites, right-click on any empty spot on your desktop. (The area below your top shelf should always be available for clicking.)

If you open your Main menu you'll see that Favorite Applications has been added to it. However, if you always open Favorites by right-clicking on the desktop, this addition unnecessarily clutters up your menu. To rectify this, enter menu into Quick Launcher to open the Menu Settings dialog box, and untick Favorites.

## 4.16 Combining elements from different themes

If you've downloaded several themes from the AppCenter, you can replace elements in your main theme with those from other themes. What we'll do here is change the theme applied to the mouse pointer to make it easier to see, replace our clockface with that from another theme, and we'll borrow a wallpaper from that theme.

1. Enter them into Quick Launcher (or go to Main menu > Settings > Theme). The Theme Selector dialog box opens.

2. Click Advanced, and the Advanced section of this dialog box opens where you can select elements from other themes. You can choose different themes for different elements.

3. Let's start with the mouse pointer. In the left-hand Theme Categories panel, scroll down to pointer and highlight it, then highlight MokshaKL4L in the Themes panel, then click Assign at the foot of the Theme Categories panel.

4. You could continue assigning themes to different elements, but if you want to see the effect of this one change on the pointer you should click Apply. To undo this assignment, highlight pointer and click Clear.

5. Return to the Advanced section of the dialog box, where we'll assign the MokshaCrema theme to the clock and the wallpaper. Highlight MokshaCrema in the Themes panel, and, in the left-hand Theme Categories panel, select background and click Assign, then select module/clock and click Assign. Then click Apply, and back at the Basic section click Close. The appearance of your clock gadget will have completely changed.

6. It's a good idea to restart Moksha after carrying out this operation, otherwise the next set of instructions, to apply the MokshaCrema theme wallpaper, may not work. To do this, go Main menu > About Operating System > Moksha Restart or press Ctrl+Alt+End.

Let's now apply the MokshaCrema theme wallpaper:

1. Make sure you are on your first (default) desktop (0-0). Enter wall into Quick Launcher or else go to Main menu > Settings > Wallpaper. The Wallpaper Settings dialog box opens.

2. Tick Use Theme Wallpaper then click Apply. The MokshaTheme wallpaper will be applied to both your desktops.

3. It will be helpful to have different wallpapers on different desktops, so let's restore the original Bodhi Background wallpaper to our first desktop (0-0). Click Advanced at the Wallpaper Settings dialog box, and in the Advanced section uncheck Use Theme Wallpaper (so that only System is checked), highlight Bodhi_Background, and tick This Desktop \- see the figure. Then click OK.

4. Check that you now have the Bodhi Background wallpaper on desktop 0-0, and the MokshaCrema theme wallpaper on desktop 1-0. If not, press Ctrl+Alt+End to restart Moksha and carry out the above steps again. Note in particular the entries at Step 3.

## 4.17 Reposition the clock

Finally, move and resize the clock so that your desktop 0-0 looks as in the figure below, with the clock integrated into the wallpaper design:

1. Right-click the clock and choose Begin move/resize from the context menu. Move the clock to the required position and drag its borders until it exactly covers the wallpaper element as shown in the pcture of my desktop below.

2. Right-click the clock when you've finished. Note that Appearance (in the context menu) should be Plain.

## 4.18 Endless possibilities

I've only described the main customization possibilities in the topics covered in this chapter. Most of the dialog boxes you've met offer more options than can be dealt with here, and these are only a small fraction of total number of dialog boxes that are available. You will be meeting more in the next chapter, but although I cover what I consider to be the main essentials of desktop customization, there is plenty left for you to explore for yourself. Every option can be reached through the Settings Panel.

# 5 Desktop shortcuts and more

## 5.1 What this chapter covers

This chapter completes the task of customizing your Moksha desktop. It shows you how to:

1. Set up hotkey shortcuts, called key bindings, to carry out operations and run commands with a simple key press.

2. Set up clickable shortcuts, called edge bindings, to carry out operations by clicking an edge or corner of the screen.

3. Set up application launchers to integrate programs such as appimages into the desktop menu system.

4. Customize window borders.

5. Customize the fonts and colors of desktop elements.

6. Use desktop profiles.

## 5.2 Key bindings

These bind an action to a key combination, so that pressing the key performs the action. You've met several of these shortcuts already - here are those used in this book and which I think are the most useful:

Shift F10 \- Maximize Vertically  
Win Space - Run Everything  
Ctrl Alt F \- Fullscreen Mode Toggle  
Ctrl Alt W \- Window Menu  
Ctrl Alt End \- Restart Moksha

I've appended a full list the key bindings provided with your system at the end of this chapter.

In this section you'll be setting up your own key bindings. Do you use your computer for presentations? Then you'll want to easily switch between presentation mode and screen blanking by means of simple key press. And how about a key binding which runs a command to correctly match your computer video output to the projector? Or, if you lack volume control keys on your keyboard, key bindings to easily turn the sound up or down?

You need to choose the key combinations (hotkeys) for your bindings carefully, as many are used already by your system or your applications. Combinations using the Ctrl and Alt keys in particular are heavily used - for example, Ctrl+C for copying, and Ctrl+V for pasting - so it's safest to avoid these. I suggest sticking to the Win key for your hotkeys (avoiding Win+Space as that's used open Quick Launcher).

Let's set up a few key bindings:

1. Enter key into Quick Launcher. The Key Bindings Settings dialog box opens. The left Key Bindings pane shows the large number of hotkeys that are already set up, and right Action pane shows the large number of possible actions, categorized under various headings.

2. Scroll down the Key Bindings pane to the Win key combinations, and you'll see just a few have already been set up. We'll now add some more of our own.

3. Let's add Win+P to switch between screen blanking and presentation mode. Click Add, then in response to the prompt press Win+P, then scroll about half-way down the Action pane to the Moksha: Mode category and highlight Presentation Mode Toggle, then click Apply.

4. Win+Up (i.e. Win and the up-arrow key) is currently used to maximize windows, but in the next section we'll instead create an edge binding for this action, so we can reuse this key binding to turn the volume up, and also Win+Down to turn the volume down. Click Add, press Win+Up, then scroll to the Mixer section of the Action pane (about half-way down) and highlight Increase Volume, then click Apply. Add the Win+Down binding in a similar way to decrease volume.

5. Another binding I find useful is to toggle a window's borderless state (I'll be discussing this later in the chapter). I use Win+B as the hotkey, and this action is towards the bottom of the Action pane in the Window : State section.

6. I sometimes find it helpful to move an open window to another (virtual) desktop. This is especially so if doing a presentation, and you wish to switch easily between open apps. For this I bind Win+> (i.e. Win and the full-stop/> key) to To Next Desktop in the Window : Moving section towards the bottom of the Action pane, and Win+< (i.e. Win and the comma/< key) to To Previous Desktop.

7. Because I use a mouse, I find it convenient to set up key bindings to turn my touchpad on and off. I use Win+0 to disable the touchpad and Win+1 to enable it. In the former case choose Command (in the Launch section of the Action pane, almost half-way down), and type the following command in the Action Parameters field to disable the touchpad:  
_synclient TouchpadOff=1  
_ The command to enable the touchpad (which I bind to Win+1) is:  
_synclient TouchpadOff=_ 0

8. When you've finished with this dialog box, press Close.

As you continue to use Bodhi, you will realize there are further key bindings you could set up to ease your life. I will be suggesting a couple more later on in this chapter in the sections on connecting projectors/monitors and keyboards.

## 5.3 Edge bindings

Out of all the great features of the Moksha desktop, these are perhaps the greatest. Carefully-chosen edge bindings can make your computer life so much easier and slicker. They are called 'edge' bindings because it's the screen edge that you click to run them, and there are eight different edge zones - the four sides and the four corners - so allowing up to eight different actions. The bindings described below seem to me to be logical choices and crying out to be made, and I make use of them all the time:

\- Click on the bottom right corner to show the desktop (corresponding to the Show Desktop icon on the bottom right of conventional desktops, including Windows).  
\- Click on the bottom left corner to open the Main menu (corresponding to the Start icon at the bottom left of conventional desktops). This will allow you to access the menu system even when all the desktop is occupied e.g. by a fullscreen window.  
\- Click on the top right corner, top edge, and bottom edge to close, maximize, and minimize a window, so eliminating the need to use those fiddly buttons at the right of the window title bar.  
\- Click on the left or right edges to flip to the previous or next (virtual) desktop.

Let's start by getting rid of the need to click on those tricky little close, maximize, and minimize buttons on the title bar:

1. Enter edg into Quick Launcher to open the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box. It is similar to the Key Bindings dialog box, with the left pane showing bindings (currently empty) and the right pane listing possible actions - the same actions that appeared in the Key Bindings 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. You are returned to the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box. Here, in the right-hand Action pane, scroll about two thirds of the way down the list to the Window:Actions section, highlight _Close_ , and click Apply.

5. Now repeat this sequence of steps for the top edge. Click Add, click on the top edge at the Edge Bindings Sequence dialog box, make sure Clickable Edge is ticked, select Maximize from the Window:State section of the Action pane (towards the bottom), then click Apply.

6. Repeat this sequence again for the bottom edge, this time highlighting Iconic Mode Toggle in the Window:State section of the Action pane.

7. With the dialog box still open, test out these bindings on it. Click on the top edge of the screen, and the dialog box should maximize; click again on the top edge, and the dialog box should be restored; click on the bottom edge of the screen, and the dialog box should be minimized; click on its icon in the taskbar to restore it; click on the top-right corner of the screen, and the dialog box should close.

Note that if there are several windows open on your desktop, these bindings will operate only on the one which is currently focussed, i.e. the active window. The focussed window displays its title (in the title bar) in bold type, the titles of unfocussed windows are greyed out.

Open the Edge Bindings Settings dialog box again, and set up the following bindings:

\- Right Edge: _Flip Desktop_ Right (near the top of the Action pane, in the Desktop section).

\- Left Edge: _Flip Desktop L_ eft (in the Desktop section). Note that since we currently have only two desktops, flipping left and flipping right will have the same effect, i.e. will flip to the one other desktop.

\- Bottom Right Corner: _Show The Desktop_ (in the Desktop section) - this will minimize all open windows; a second click here will restore them.

\- Bottom Left Corner: Show Main Menu (in the Menu section towards the middle of the Action pane).

This leaves just the top left corner. Choose whatever binding you like for this, but the one I prefer, and which fits with the other choices, is:

\- Top Left Corner: Show Favorites Menu (n the Menu section towards the middle of the Action pane).

Note that if you connect a projector or monitor to your computer, the right edge bindings won't work unless you restart Moksha (by pressing Ctrl+Alt+End).

## 5.4 Personal Application Launchers

When you install an application on your system, an 'application launcher' is automatically created which controls, among other things, its position in the menu system and how it should be run. Application launchers are also known as 'desktop configuration files', and they have the extension .desktop.

Some apps, however, are packaged independently of your desktop system and are not installed in the usual way. One example is ClipTo Pro, downloaded in Chapter 3. It is packaged as an apppack containing everything it needs to run independently of your system. To integrate this into your desktop you need to create for it a 'personal application launcher'.

You could create this launcher using a text editor such as Leafpad, but it's much easier to use the Desktop Entry Editor.

1. Enter pers into Quick Launcher (or open the Settings Panel and go to Apps > Personal Application Launchers). The Personal Application Launchers dialog box opens.

2. We need to add a launcher, so click Add. The Desktop Entry Editor dialog box opens.

3. At the Basic tab, enter the name of the program and, in the Application field, navigate to the ClipTo Pro appimage file and select it (see the figure)

4. You can if you wish add an icon at the Icon tab. To do so, you need to click on the icon box and navigate in your Root directory to usr/share/icons and select from there. However, if you know the name of the icon you want, it's much easier to type that in the icon name field. In this case type in kedit.

5. At the General tab enter Office in the Categories field, and then at the Options tab make sure that Show in Menus is selected. Click OK when you've done.

ClipTo Pro will now appear in your menu system. You can add it if you wish to your Favorites menu, and you can also run it by entering clip into Quick Launcher.

Note that personal application launchers are stored in the hidden .local/share/applications folder in your Home directory. If you open this folder in PCManFM you will see this latest addition there - it's called ClipTo Pro, and its filename is ClipTo_Pro.desktop. It's a plain text file, and you can read its contents by opening it in Leafpad.

## 5.5 Window borders

I always run some applications maximized because I want to devote the greatest amount of my limited laptop screen to them. (If you are using a large monitor, then this won't be an issue for you.) These applications include my web browser (Chromium) and my email client (Thunderbird). To increase the space available to them still further I also make their windows borderless, so removing the border including the title bar. The fact that this does away with the window control buttons (to close, maximize, and minimize) doesn't matter, as I use edge bindings for those actions.

To remove an application's window border, open the application, then:

1. Press Ctrl+Alt+W to open the window context menu (or right-click on the title bar), then Window > Border > Select Border Style. The Window Border Selection dialog box opens.

2. Highlight borderless, tick Remember this Border, then click OK.

The border has gone. To return to this dialog box to amend your choice, you can access the context menu again by pressing Ctrl+Alt+W.

You can also toggle screen borders (turn them off and on) by using the Win+B key binding set up in Section 5.2 above.

Displaying an application fullscreen (by using the Ctrl+Alt+F fullscreen toggle) will also remove its borders. This can sometimes by the best way to run a media application (e.g. when showing a slideshow or video), but it means that your shelves are no longer visible (though you can still access the Main menu and Favorites menu using the edge bindings set up earlier). Many applications provide their own ways to run fullscreen, often by pressing F11. In the case of the VLC and SMPlayer video players, press F to run fullscreen.

## 5.6 Changing the desktop colors

In Chapter 2 you made major changes to the look of your desktop by applying themes, and in Chapter 4 you learned how to customize this further by adding elements from other themes. Here we cover how you can change the color of individual elements of the desktop to make its color scheme truly your own.

You make these changes at the Colors dialog box (enter colors into Quick Launcher). As you can see, there are dozens of desktop elements that you can recolor. I suggest you start by recoloring the text of menu items:

1. Highlight Menu Item and click Custom colors. The current color appears in the Object box.

2. Click on that box, and the Color Selector dialog box opens.

3. By clicking on different colored areas of this box find the color you want for the element, then click Select, then click Apply.

4. In a similar way apply a custom color to Menu Title Active.

5. To see the effect of these changes open the Main menu and navigate through it.

6. To cancel these changes highlight the element again and untick Custom colors.

You can change the color of, and possibly then cancel, as many elements as you like.

## 5.7 Changing the desktop fonts

Finally, you can change the fonts used in the menus, title bars, buttons, etc of your desktop. I gave instructions for this in Chapter 2 (Section 2.9), to assist those whose eyesight is not so good, but here they are again:

1. Enter fonts into Quick Launcher (or else go to Main menu > Settings > Settings Panel > Look > Fonts). The Font Settings dialog box opens.

2. To change the global font used by every desktop element, tick Enable Custom Font Classes at the top left and choose a font and a size. If you would prefer a serif font, for example, try DejaVu Serif. Click Apply. To reverse this change, untick Enable Custom Font Classes and click Apply.

3. To change the font used by individual desktop elements, click Advanced to reach the advanced section of the Font Settings dialog box (see the figure).

4. Try changing the font used by Menu Items.

\- Highlight Menu Item in the left column  
\- Click Enable Font Class towards the bottom left  
\- Highlight e.g. Arial or Ubuntu in the middle column  
\- Highlight Bold in the Style section at the right  
\- Highlight 13 pixels in the Size section at the right  
\- Click Apply.

5. To see the effect of this change, display the Main menu and notice the appearance of the menu items. To reverse the change, untick Enable Font Class and click Apply.

You can change the font used by other desktop elements in a similar way.

## 5.8 Profiles

Profiles store the customizations you've applied to your desktop - your choice of theme, the shelves you've set up, your key and edge bindings, even details like wallpapers, fonts, and colors.

A new installation uses a profile called 'Bodhi Linux', and that profile is still active. All the customizations you've made to your desktop as you've worked through this book have been built on top of that profile. What we need to do now is to save all those customizations into a new profile:

1. Enter prof in Quick Launcher. The Profile Selector dialog box opens.

2. Save the current state of your desktop in a new profile: click Add, type a name into the Add New dialog box, and click OK. The new profile is created, storing all your customizations.

3. Back at the Profile Selector dialog box highlight Bodhi Linux and click Apply. Your desktop is returned to its original state, and all the customizations you've made are gone.

4. Open the Profile Selector dialog box again, highlight your new profile, and click Apply'. Your customized desktop is restored, and any further customizations that you make will be stored in the new profile.

A profile's settings are stored in its folder in .e/e/conf in your Home directory. To apply a profile to another computer running Bodhi 5.1, simply copy its folder to the same location on that computer, then apply it by opening the Profile Selector dialog box on that computer. Note that you should have previously installed on that computer any themes and icon sets used by the profile.

## 5.9 Start again!

You now have a good idea what's possible with Bodhi Linux, and you've followed the steps needed to achieve your aims. It's very unlikely that the specific customizations suggested in this book entirely match your needs, so why not start again with your own choice of theme, shelves, bindings, and more? Or perhaps you are happy with much of it but just wish to make a few changes.

You could also create several profiles for different users. For example, besides your normal profile you could create a second profile for a visually impaired person with large fonts and a large mouse cursor and different scaling.

But whatever you do, please at this point add a further profile, with a different name, at the Profile Selector dialog box, to store your current settings, but don't apply that profile. Hold it in reserve in case in the future you wish to return your desktop to the state it's in now!

## Appendix: 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 M \- Maximize Vertically  
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 - Show Quick Launcher  
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 F10 - Maximize Horizontally  
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 C- Show History  
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 T - Always On Top 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 Space - Show Quick Launcher  
Ctrl Alt Delete \- Log Out  
Ctrl Alt Insert \- Terminology (Command line interface)

# 6 Further topics

## 6.1 What this chapter covers

In this final chapter we move on from desktop customization to other topics. Here you will learn how to:

1. Connect your computer to a projector or monitor.

2. Place files for quick launching on the desktop.

3. Place folder launchers on the desktop

4. Change the keyboard configuration (e.g. I'm using a laptop that has a US keyboard built in, but I've attached a UK keyboard).

5. Use aliases to shortcut terminal commands.

6. Become 'Root' (or 'Superuser').

7. Launch PCManFM as Root.

8. Turn off the requirement to enter your password when using sudo commands.

9. Copy (backup) your system with Bodhibuilder.

## 6.2 Connecting a projector or monitor

There are five key things to remember when connecting your computer to a projector or monitor:

1. Connect everything up before switching on. Use the HDMI ports if you can, rather than the older VGA connections. (Most modern laptops don't even have VGA ports.)

2. Switch on the projector or monitor first, then the computer.

3. Restart Moksha (by pressing Ctrl+Alt+End) after the computer boots up, otherwise your right-hand edge and corner bindings won't work.

4. If necessary, use ARandR to configure the video output settings of your computer.

In this section I'll cover ARandR, including how to use it to create scripts that can be run when connecting. It's possible that you don't need to use ARandR because the output to the monitor is exactly as you'd like it, but I find I usually have to make adjustments.

Because I often use ARandR, I have its icon available in the iBar on my second 'Admin' shelf; however, it can be easily run by entering ara into Quick Launcher. The figure shows how it looks after connecting my laptop to my projector.

It shows my screen (LVDS-1) alongside the projector screen (HDMI-1), meaning that my first desktop (0-0) is showing on my laptop, and my second desktop (1-0) is showing on the projector screen. The different sizes mean they are at different resolutions (the maximum possible in each case).

I don't want my presentation displaying like this Instead I want to 'clone' the screens, so that what's showing on the projector is exactly the same as what's on my computer screen. To achieve this, I have to first match the resolution of projector to computer, and then I have send the same desktop to both:

1. To match resolutions, go to Outputs > LVDS-1 > Resolution (i.e. open the Outputs menu etc) and note the highest resolution of your computer (at the top of the list). In my case it's 1366x768.

2. Now go to Outputs > HDMI-1 > Resolution and see if there is a resolution in the list of possible projector resolutions that matches this. In my case there is, so I select 1366x768. If there isn't a match, return to the LVDS-1 list and check if the second hiighest resolution matches a possible projector resolution, and continue until you find a match. The two outputs now have the same resolution, and should be showing the same size in ARandR.

3. Now 'clone' the two outputs: drag the HDMI-1 box on top of the LDVS-1 box so that they are superimposed.

4. Click the Apply icon at the left of the toolbar (or go to Layout > Apply) to effect this change. The display on the computer and the projector should now be as you want it.

You can save this screen layout as a script in a file that can be automatically applied later:

1. Click the Save icon (second from right on the toolbar) or go to Layout > Save As, then enter a suitable name for the file. In my case I'm calling it Epson-clone as I'm using an Epson projector.

2. The file is stored in the hidden folder .local/share/screenlayout in your Home directory, with the extension .sh (indicating that it is a shell script file). To apply it the next time you connect to this projector or monitor: run ARandR, click the middle Open Folder icon on the toolbar (or go to Layout > Open), select the file, then click Apply.

An alternative screen layout is to display the computer output on the projector/monitor screen only, and not on the computer screen - perhaps because you want to display the maximum possible resolution on the projector or monitor, or because you want your computer screen to be blanked out as you're not using it. To achieve this:

1. Open ARandR and make the following changes at the Outputs menu:  
\- LVDS-1 - untick Active  
\- HDMI-1 - tick Primary and set Resolution to the highest possible.

2. Click the Apply icon.

3. If you wish to reuse this screen layout, save it with a suitable name. In my case I've called it Epson-maxres.

If you are setting up a screen layout for a monitor that's to be permanently connected to your computer, then you will want to run this screen layout script automatically run each time you start the computer. To do so, add it to the startupcommands file (in the hidden .e/e/applications/startup folder in your Home directory). ARandR will do the job for you - simply click the 'Save to Moksha Startup' icon at the right of the toolbar. If you subsequently wish to remove this startup command, then you will need to edit this file.

I only occasionally connect a projector to my computer, and I use key bindings to run these commands. I've bound the Epson-maxres command to Win+F1, and the Epson-clone command to Win+F2. I covered running commands with key bindings in Section 5.2 (Step 7), and the command I entered in the Action Params box for Win+F1 is:  
sh ~/.local/share/screenlayout/Epson-maxres.sh  
(sh is the command to execute shell scripts).

My command for Win+F2 is similar, with Epson-clone.sh as the filename.

## 6.3 Launching files from the desktop

Many desktop environments, notably Windows, allow you to place icons on the desktop which you can double-click to launch the corresponding program or file. Moksha has so many neat ways of launching applications that to use desktop icons for this is both unnecessary and a bit cumbersome, but they are useful to quickly open files such as documents, photos, and videos, especialy for a presentation. Placing folders that you need to access quickly and easily on the desktop is particularly useful, and I deal with this in the next section.

To set up this facility:

1. Load the Desktop Icons module - to do this enter modu into Quick Launcher, go to the Files tab, and select Desktop icons.

2. Copy any files that you wish to quickly and easily open (photos, videos, documents, presentations, etc) to the Desktop folder in your Home directory. Icons for these will then appear on the desktop, ready for instant opening.

Note that the Desktop Icons module does not make use of PCManFM to open files but has its own internal file manager, called Fileman, and any customizations you might have set up in PCManFM (such as single-clicking instead of double-clicking, or setting default applications) will not apply. To make these settings in Fileman:

1. Right-click on any one of the icons for the context menu and choose Options > File Manager Settings. The Fileman Settings dialog box opens.

2. This has several tabs. The View tab allows you to customize the size of the icons and how they are displayed, the Sorting tab allows you to set their order, and the Behavior tab allows you to set e.g. single-clicking. When you've entered your required settings click OK.

3. The first time you open a file of a particular type, e.g. a JPG or MP4 file, you will be asked to select the application to run it. From then on all files of that type on the desktop will automatically open in that application. Or you can use the icon's context menu to set its application - choose Open with... and select the application.

To run an application from the desktop, you must copy its launcher (.desktop file) into the Desktop folder, either from .local/share/applications in the case of a personal application launcher, or from /usr/share/applications in the case of a standard application launcher. The application's icon will then appear on the desktop, ready to be clicked in the usual way.

Note that there are several application launchers in /usr/share/applications that don't appear in the menu system, and the easiest way to launch these is to copy their launchers into the Desktop folder. If you want to use the Python programming language for example, copy one of the Python launchers.

## 6.4 Opening folders from the desktop

If you have folders that you need to open often, or folders that you need to access quickly and easily, perhaps for a presentation, then it's helpful to be able to open them by clicking a desktop icon. This is especially true if those folders are several levels down in your folder hierarchy.

To set this up for a folder, you need to place a launcher for it on the desktop:

1. Navigate to the required folder in PCManFM, and copy the pathname of the folder as it appears in PCManFM's toolbar. For example, I have a folder called Photography within my Computer Group folder in my Dropbox folder, and I need to access this quite often, including for presentations. So I've copied (using Ctrl+C) its pathname /home/roger/Dropbox/Computer Group/Photography.

2. Open the Personal Applications Launcher dialog box (by entering pers into Quick Launcher) and click Add to create a new launcher. The Desktop Entry Editor opens.

3. At the Basic section enter an appropriate name for your launcher (Photography in my case) then in the Application field enter pcmanfm 'the pathname'. So in my case I've entered pcmanfm '/home/roger/Dropbox/Computer Group/Photography'. Note that the quote marks are necessary because I have a space in the pathname, they can be omitted otherwise.

4. Click on the Icon tab, and here you should enter folder in the Icon name field The folder icon should appear in the box.

5. Go the Options tab, and here you should untick the Show in Menus option. Click OK to save the launcher (as a .desktop file) and then Close to exit the dialog box.

6. The final job is to move the launcher to the Desktop folder. Press Ctrl+H to show hidden folders in PCManFM, and navigate to .local/share/applications (in your Home directory). Locate your new launcher, right-click on it and choose Cut from the context menu, then navigate to your Desktop folder, right-click again, and Paste the launcher.

7. Your launcher should now appear on your desktop, and if you click it you will open the folder in PCManFM.

## 6.5 Set the keyboard language

You will only need to do this if you have plugged in a keyboard for a language or region that is not the same as the one you set when you installed Bodhi on your computer. (In my case my laptop has a US keyboard but I often use it with a UK keyboard plugged in, so I need to switch between the two.)

1. Enter modu into Quick Launcher to open the Module Settings dialog box. Select keyboard from the Utilities section and click Load then Close.

2. Add the keyboard gadget to one of your shelves or to the desktop. I have added it to my Admin shelf on my second virtual desktop (1-0): right-click on the shelf, select Admin > Contents from the context menu, highlight Keyboard in the Shell Contents dialog box, then click Add Gadget then Close. The gadget is added to the shelf.

3. Right-click on the keyboard gadget, and from the context menu choose Keyboard > Settings. The Keyboard Settings dialog box opens.

4. Click Add, and the Add New Configuration dialog box opens, where you can add a new keyboard layout. Scroll through the list and highlight the one you want, then click OK.

5. Back at the Keyboard Settings dialog box you can add more keyboards if you wish. I have two keyboards selected, English (UK) and English (US).

6. Make sure your primary keyboard is at the top of the list. If it isn't, highlight it and click Up. Close the dialog box when you've finished.

The keyboard gadget will display a flag indicating your current keyboard configuration. If you wish to switch to another of your chosen keyboards, click on it and select the alternative from the list.

You will probably need to reorder your gadgets on this shelf.

## 6.6 Aliases

These allow you to replace long-winded terminal commands with shorter and easier to remember alternatives. In this section you'll replace the sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade command, which you should regularly use to keep your system up-to-date, with the simple command upgrade.

(When you create an alias such as this, you need to check that the word you have chosen isn't already used. To do so, open Terminology and enter the word. If Terminology responds with 'Command not found', you're good to go.)

Aliases are stored in your Home directory, in the hidden file .bashrc. You will need to open this file in Leafpad to edit it:

1. Open PCManFM (in your Home directory) and if necessary press Crl+H to see the hidden files.

2. Click on .bashrc. It will open in Leafpad. Maximize the Leafpad window.

3. Scroll down towards the bottom of the file, where you will see other aliases that have been set up. Here you should add, on a new line, the following:  
alias upgrade='sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade -y'  
(exactly as written here, with the single quote marks and the spaces).

You can if you wish add another line above it with the explanatory remark:  

# Alias to update and upgrade my system.

4. Save the file (in Leafpad's file menu).

5. To test that this works, restart Moksha (press Ctrl+Alt+End), then open Terminology and enter upgrade. Your computer should perform the update and the dist-upgrade operations.

6. If you downloaded get-iplayer (Section 3.13) you would probably like to use an alias with it to save yourself a bit of typing. Here are a couple of aliases I use:  
alias get='get-iplayer'  
alias getradio='get-iplayer --type=radio'

If you are creating several aliases, you can put them in a personal alias file rather than adding them to .bashrc. Open Leafpad, type in your aliases, then save the document in your Home directory with the filename .bash_aliases.

These aliases will take affect when you next start your computer.

## 6.7 Administrative privileges

The 'sudo' command you've used above makes you, temporarily, a superuser (su) with administrative privileges, meaning that the command that follows sudo is allowed to modify your root filesystem. This can be very dangerous if you issue a destructive command, e.g. to delete files or folders in your root filesystem, hence the requirement to enter your password. Also, your administrative privileges end as soon as the command has been executed.

If you wish to use a graphical application (i.e. one that runs on the desktop) with administrative privileges, then you must use esudo, which is Moksha's graphical superuser command. (Other desktops use gksudo, but either version will work.) One example of a graphical application requiring administrative privileges is Synaptic, and you can run this directly from Terminology by entering the command esudo synaptic or gksudo synaptic.

You can also run PCManFM with administrative privileges, by entering esudo pcmanfm in Terminology. You are then free to navigate through your root filesystem and, if you're careless, wreak havoc by changing or deleting files and folders. We'll explore running PCManFM this way in the next section.

You can also switch Terminology to superuser mode, meaning that it is now in a state that will allow you to make changes in your root filesystem. To become superuser with these privileges, enter the command  
sudo su  
Terminology's prompt changes from a $ to a #, and the user changes to root \- another name for superuser.

To exit being root in Terminology, enter exit.

## 6.8 Running PCManFM as Root

When you run PCManFM as Root, by entering esudo pcmanfm in Terminology, you are in fact running a different instance of PCManFM (see the figure). This has PCManFM's default preferences, not those you set up in Chapter 2, and it has a red icon at the left of its toolbar, warning you to take care.

If you intend sometimes to use PCManFM as Root, the first thing you should do is modify its preferences (at Edit > Preferences) - you might like to revisit Section 2.12 in Chapter 2 to do this. In particular you should make sure that Filesystem Root is ticked at the Layout tab.

Since I do occasionally use PCManFM as Root, I have created for it a personal application launcher so that I can easily run it from the menu system. To do this:

1. Enter pers into Quick Launcher to open the Personal Applications Launcher dialog box.

2. Click Add to open the Desktop Entry Editor, where you should make the following entries in the Basic section (see the figure):  
Name: PCManFM as Root  
Application: esudo pcmanfm

3. At the Icon tab, type folder as the icon name - the PCManFM icon should appear in the box.

4. At the General tab, in Categories enter System.

5. At the Options tab, check that Show in Menus is ticked.

6. Click Apply, then check that PCManFM as Root appears in the menus (go to Main menu > Applications > System).

7. Check that PCManFM as Root runs correctly. If not, check your entries in the diaog box. If all is well, close the dialog box.

## 6.9 Turn off passwords for sudo

You can turn off the requirement to type in your password when entering a sudo command in Terminology (but not, though, when using the graphical esudo command). Obviously you should only do this in the case of a home computer, not one that you're using in a workplace or other public environment.

To do this you have to edit the /etc/sudoers file in your root filesystem, as follows:

1. Open PCManFM as Root. If you haven't created the launcher described in the last section to do this, then open Terminology and enter esudo pcmanfm.

2. Navigate to etc in Filesystem Root, and locate sudoers (towards the end of the long list of folders and files).

3. Right-click on sudoers and select Leafpad from the context menu. This text file opens in Leafpad. Maximize its window.

4. Towards the bottom of the document insert the following two lines, replacing yourusername with, obviously, your username. (To check your username, open Terminology and you will see it at the top left, before the '@' symbol.)

# Turn off requirement for password

yourusername ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

Note the three spaces in this command: there is a space between username and ALL, a space after (ALL), and a space towards the end before ALL.

5. Save your changes (File > Save), then close Leafpad and close PCManFM as Root.

This change will take effect when you next turn on your computer.

## 6.10 Copy your system with Bodhibuilder

Bodhibuilder comes pre-installed on your system, and it allows you to copy your system to an ISO (like the Bodhi 5.1 ISO you downloaded at the start of this book) which can then be burnt to a USB stick or to a recordable DVD to create a live system. Bodhibuilder has two main modes (see the figure below):

\- Backup mode, which creates a copy of your entire system, including all your desktop customizations, though you can if you wish exclude from it specific folders and files from your Home directory.

\- Distribution mode, which creates a copy of your system but without your desktop customizations, personal settings, or any other personal information, including login information.

(There are two other modes, called Dist cdfs and Dist iso, but these are more advanced options allowing you to modify e.g. the isolinux portion of the output after the copy has been made.)

If you use Distribution mode to create the ISO, which you then use to install the system on another computer, you can add to that installation your desktop customizations (by copying the hidden .e folder from your Home directory to it). You can also add to it your application customizations by copying your hidden .local folder to it.

To use Bodhibuilder to create a copy of your system:

1. If you want to backup the entire system, you should first remove from it any unnecessary files - empty the Trash, delete temporary files, clear your browsing history, and so on. A program called Bleachbit (in the repository, available via Synaptic) will do this for you.

2. Bodhibuilder does not appear in the menus, and to run it you should open PCManFM, navigate to /usr/share/applications (in Filesystem Root) and click on its desktop file bodhibuilder. Alternatively you can copy this desktop file to your Destktop folder so that it appears on your desktop (if you have loaded the Desktop Icons module as described in Section 6.3) and run it from there.

3. The first thing Bodhibuilder asks you to do is to close all open applications, so do this.

4. Click Clear to remove the temporary files that were created if you previously used Bodhibuilder.

5. If you are going to make a backup of your entire system, click on the Settings tab if you wish to exclude specific files or folders. For example, if you use the Thunderbird email client, you should exclude /home/username/.thunderbird, (where 'username' is your username), and if you wish to exclude folders such as Dropbox, Pictures and Videos then enter these as well. Separate each entry by a space, e.g. /home/username/Dropbox /home/username/Pictures /home/username/Videos.

6. At the Actions tab click Backup if you wish to include all your personal data and customizations in the copy, or Dist if you wish to exclude these.

7. Bodhibuilder will now begin the task of creating an ISO image of your system, a process that will take several hours.

8. When it's finished, you will find the ISO file in the /home/bodhibuilder folder. (To navigate to this from your Home directory in PCManFM, click the up-arrow in the toolbar to the left of the Home icon.)

You can now burn this file to a USB stick or recordable DVD, using the method described in Section 1.7 in Chapter 1. A USB stick is best (in any case, your ISO will almost certainly be too big to fit on a DVD). The easiest way to do this is to use the Startup Disk Creator app (called usb-creator-gtk) or you can use the dd command in Terminology. Full details are in Section 1.7.

## 6.11 And finally...

If you have found this free ebook helpful, and if you are enjoying using Bodhi Linux, please consider donating to Bodhi. This is not to pay the developers, who give of their time freely, but to help with other costs such as hosting the forum (so that it remains ad-free) and hosting the Bodhi website.

The Donate page is at https://www.bodhilinux.com/donate/.
