Automount internal drives
According to Only Ubuntu, to enable auto-mounting of internal drives on bootup, edit the file /etc/hal/fdi/policy/preferences.fdi and change the line to this: From now on, internal drives should appear on your Desktop.
Why Linux?
I use Linux because it’s like owning a chainsaw compared to owning a pen knife. Not always necessary, but so much more fun. — arjayes of UbuntuForums
Rip DVD track
To rip a DVD track to a file, you need the transcode package and the encoders you’re going to use. To rip a single track as ogg, use the command This would rip audio only (video goes to null) chapter 5, track 15 to the file Nasty.ogg. This one rips to a mp3 file. The… Read More: Rip DVD track »
Evolution/ClamAV integration
To scan incoming mails for viruses, create to following script somewhere in your system: Now setup Evolution’s Incoming mail filters to pipe mails through your newly created script. If the return value is not zero, a virus was detected and you might want to move the mail to Trash or a special folder.
SyslogD for LAN
To let the syslogd also receive messages from your local network, edit the file /etc/default/syslogd and modify the last line so that it looks like this: Restart the sysklogd and watch your /var/log/messages.
NetBIOS/WINS support
To enable lookup of WINS-names in Ubuntu, edit the file /etc/nsswitch.conf and find the line: Append wins to the end of the line so that it looks like this: From now on you can also use NetBIOS names to address PCs in your LAN.
Updating X11 Fontcache
After adding some fonts to the /usr/share/fonts directories, you have to re-login to see the added fonts. To update the fontcache without a log-cycle, use the following command:
MC Startup Delay
If Midnight Commander needs several seconds to startup, check the interfaces line in your smb.conf. According to this page, the built-in Samba code of mc is outdated and doesn’t recognize device names like eth0 or lo as the newer smbclient does. So it tries to resolve those into IPs which takes ages until they time… Read More: MC Startup Delay »
Wake-on-LAN
Preparing to go asleep To make Linux not shut down the network interface upon halt, edit the file /etc/init.d/halt, find the line with the halt command and remove the parameter -i if there. This parameter does ifdown on all networking interfaces. As the manpage for halt states, this is unneccessary for newer kernels – also… Read More: Wake-on-LAN »
Dual-headed X11
per user The native screen-size detection doesn’t work for dual-head installations. To let X11 handle both screens as one large display, find the section Screen in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf and add the following lines: This is for two 1280×1024 displays side-by-side (1280+1280 = 2560). Now you can use xrandr to set displays. Shows all available displays.… Read More: Dual-headed X11 »