Reboot From The Terminal

The weather has had a bit of an impact on my internet connection, so this is just going to be a quick article about how you reboot from the terminal. I want to schedule this as soon as possible, so it’ll be a fairly low-effort article. This should not take long!

There are times when you may want to know how to reboot from the terminal. Then, there are times when you can’t access a GUI, and using the terminal is the cleanest method of rebooting your computer. Knowing how to reboot from the terminal might be a skill worth having. I’ll show you a couple of quick and easy ways to do this.

As the title says, this is going to take place in the terminal. You can usually just press CTRL + ALT + T to open your default terminal. You could otherwise reboot with REISUB.

So, with your terminal open…

Reboot With systemd:

The first command we’ll use to reboot your computer. We’ll be using systemd. This will only work if you’re using a distro with systemd.

Reboot With shutdown:

It should be fairly obvious that the shutdown command can be used to reboot your computer. This is one of the generic utilities, so you won’t need to install anything.

(Check the man page because there are a lot of options available.)

Reboot With reboot:

Finally, we’ll use the reboot command to reboot your computer. This might be the easiest to remember and you shouldn’t need to install anything new. You need the following command:

In some distros, you can drop the ‘now’ and the command will still reboot your computer immediately. 

Closure:

So, there you have it. You have a new article and it should even be published on time. It’s not a long article. The subject is easy enough. You’ll never know when you need to reboot from the terminal, and now you do.

Ah well…

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Change Between CLI and GUI Mode

If you use Linux you’re probably familiar with the CLI (Command Line Interface) and a GUI (Graphical User Interface, but you can also change between CLI and GUI mode. With a simple terminal command, you can change between CLI and GUI mode at will.

Now, this isn’t talking about switching to a TTY. That’s another option and you can switch between them just as easily, perhaps even easier. I think I’ll touch on TTY first.

TTY:

TTY stands for Teletype with origins back when teletype terminals were how you interacted with a computer. There’s still some use for TTY, typically when the GUI has issues responding (at least at my house).

If you want to visit the TTY, read all these directions.

Let’s enter tty3. Press CTRL + ALT + F3.

Congratulations, you’re in tty mode. You can log in and run commands. The output of such will appear on your screen.

Now you’re stuck. This is why you read the directions first.

Most often, you can press CTRL + ALT + F7 to return to the desktop.

If that doesn’t work, press CTRL + ALT + and keep pressing over and over again until you return to a graphical environment. As this is not standardized, you may need to press various combinations of the CTRL + ALTFunction Keys or even the back arrow button. No, I do not know why this isn’t standardized.

That’s all well and good, but we’ll be showing you how to change between CLI and GUI mode with init and changing your runlevel.

Runlevel:

You’ll need an open terminal for this. You can usually press CTRL + ALT + T to open your default terminal.

With your terminal open, you can check your current runlevel. To do that, you just run runlevel in the terminal. If you do so, you’ll likely find out that your runlevel is 5, which is where it should be as my readers are generally GUI desktop users. It looks like this:

If the output is a 3, you’re in CLI mode.

Change Between CLI And GUI Mode:

By keeping that terminal open AND reading the directions before acting on this information, we can start switching between CLI and GUI modes. You want to read all the directions so that you don’t get stuck so that you’re able to find your way back to the GUI mode.

Very simply, 3 is CLI and 5 is GUI. Got it?

If you’re in a CLI mode (and a GUI is available) you can switch to the GUI mode with the following command:

If you’re in a GUI mode and you want to switch to a CLI mode, the command is just as simple. You just need to change the value, like so:

That’s all you need to know if you want to change between CLI and GUI mode. It’s not very complicated, though you should make sure you know how to return to the previous mode so that you’re not stuck and need to reboot your computer to return to your more comfortable GUI mode.

Well, that’s a short article!

Ha, just kidding!

Change Between CLI And GUI Mode (With systemd):

Most users can be assumed to be using systemd at this point. If you’re not sure if you’re using systemd, you can run the following command:

If you’re using systemd, the output should look like this:

Now, you can use systemd to change between CLI and GUI mode. To ensure you can return to a GUI mode after running this command, you should probably read the entire directions for doing this with systemd.

If you’re in CLI mode and you wish to switch to a GUI mode (again, assuming such is available – which it may not be on servers), the command is quite simple. Just run:

If you’re in GUI mode and you want to switch to CLI mode, the command is quite similar. That command looks like this:

See that? There’s a way to change between CLI and GUI mode with systemd and it’s quite an easy task. These commands are easy enough to remember, though you could always add them to your handy notes so that you have these commands available when you can’t recall them off the top of your head.

There are times when a GUI is better than a CLI. There are times when a CLI is better than a GUI. Then, for example, there are times when a full screen of text is better than just using a terminal. If you’re processing a lot in the terminal, using a full-screen CLI isn’t necessarily a bad idea. You’d certainly not be alone in doing so.

Closure:

I expected to split this into two different articles, but I decided to add the bit about systemd to this article as it was simply too short without it. I’ve been trying to ensure my articles are 800+ words, more often than not, and folks seem to appreciate the longer articles with more information.

This site has been and always will be, a work in progress. I learn and grow as I write these articles. This is reflected by the changes I make along the way. I’m sure that I’ll continue to grow for as long as I write these articles. I’m equally sure that things will change as time passes.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

Open ‘WebP’ Images In Linux Mint

Today’s article shouldn’t be all that complicated, as we’re just going to touch on how to open WebP images in Linux Mint. I am not sure how many people this will help, but it seems like a good idea for an article. It’s also something I’ve recently dealt with, so it’s fresh in my memory. So, if you want to open WebP images in Linux Mint, read on!

Why Linux Mint? Well, because I know it works in Linux Mint. I just happened to be using one of my Linux Mint systems when I encountered this problem. I’m positive this works in other distros, but I’ve only tested this with Linux Mint.

The Story:

I wrote an article about how to disable window grouping in Lubuntu. A lovely friend pinged me to a question on AskUbuntu that involved this subject, suggesting that I answer it. I decided to answer the question.

Being lazy, I wanted to answer the question using the same screenshot I’d used in the article. I did the rational thing and downloaded the file from the linked page. 

The image had a border around it and I wanted to remove that border. I went to open the file with the WebP extension in my image viewer only to learn that there was no native support. When I opened the file, it showed the image in a new browser tab.

I could open the file in XnView and be done with it, but that wasn’t good enough. I wanted to be able to open the file natively, in my default image viewer. Alas, time was of the essence and I put that task aside so that I could answer the question. Later, I’d return to the problem and find a solution.

For reference, this is what it looked like when I tried to open a WebP file with the default image viewer:

there's no webp support
As you can see, that’s hardly a productive image.

It would happily show the image in the browser I had open because the WebP format is meant for the internet. That’s hardly useful and opening a browser to view an image just seemed like a step too far.

If you don’t know what WebP files are, you see and deal with them constantly – even if you don’t know, you can read the Wikipedia article about WebP files. They’re image files that are optimized for web use.

I wanted to find a way to open WebP images natively in Linux, specifically Linux Mint. My quest sent me down several false trails and I eventually found a solution that worked. This article shares that with you…

Open WebP Images In Linux Mint:

That’s right, there is a solution. To do this, which is open WebP images, we will need to have an open terminal. It’s okay, you only need it for a few commands. So open your terminal emulator. In many cases, you can just press CTRL + ALT + T.

With the first command, we’re going to add a repository:

Follow the directions and add the repository. Then you need to update the list of available software, like so:

Finally, install the following software with this command:

You don’t need to do anything else. That’s it. That is all you need to do. When you next open a WebP image in Linux Mint, you should be able to do so just fine with your default image viewer.

It should look something like this:

when you've completed these steps, you should be able to view WebP images in your default image viewer
See that image? That right there smells like success! It’s a WebP image!

If you click on that image, you can see that it’s a WebP image by looking at the title bar. The application should look familiar. It should look exactly like the default image viewer included with Linux Mint.

And now you know…

Closure:

That’s all there is to it. Linux is great like that. Sure, it took a bit of digging but there was a solution to my problem. Once I knew the correct solution, it was easy to implement. If you want to open WebP images in Linux Mint, you can do exactly that – without all that much effort. If you dream and work hard enough, someone else will have already done all the work and you can just use their software to accomplish your goals!

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How To Tell If You’re Using Wayland Or X11

Today’s article will be an interesting one, for at least a subset of readers, as we learn how to tell if you’re using Wayland or X11. The command isn’t all that difficult and is just a single command that should work with everything, but the topic might confuse some of you.

Frankly, if you ask this question to the majority of users, you’re probably going to find out that they’re still using X11. The move to Wayland has been a process, that started back in 2008. The goal is to replace X and provide a much better set of protocols.

That’s what Wayland is… It’s a set of protocols dealing with how things are displayed on your monitor. X is also a set of protocols for the display server – and it dates back to 1984. Without X (or something else), we’d have been staring at nothing but terminal outputs this entire time, so it is kind of a big deal.

That doesn’t mean the current X implementation is that old on your device, it just means that it has been the default for a long time. The upstart, that is Wayland, is meant to take care of a variety of flaws – including potential security flaws. That’d be a subject way too deep to get into today.

Currently, some distros are confident with Wayland and release distros that default to Wayland. Some offer it as an option, without it being the default. The GNOME and KDE desktop environments are currently the closest to being ‘Wayland-ready’. It’s a slow process!

So, you might not know if you’re using Wayland or X11 and this article tells you how to check just that.

Are You Using Wayland Or X11:

This article requires an open terminal, like many other articles on this site. If you don’t know how to open the terminal, you can do so with your keyboard – just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

With your terminal open, just run the following command: (It should work in any distro, regardless of which display server you’re running.)

The output should look a lot like this:

Unless you’re using Wayland. In that case, it’d look something like this:

If the output says x11,  you’re not using Wayland. If it says Wayland, you’re using Wayland. I probably didn’t need to specify this, but I did. This way, you can be completely sure if you’re using Wayland or x11.

Closure:

See? There’s a fun command you can play around with. If you’re not sure if you’re using Wayland or X11, this command will get you sorted quickly and easily. There are all sorts of great things you can do with an open terminal and a little bit of knowledge.

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Let’s Make An Animated GIF (With ImageMagick)

Today’s article is just for fun, where we learn how to make an animated gif in the terminal – with ImageMagick. It’s just for fun and not something you’ll likely need unless you’re some sort of content creator. (We don’t know any of those, do we?) Anyhow, let’s go ahead and make an animated .gif in the terminal.

Today, we’ll be using ‘ImageMagick’. As far as I know, imagemagick has one of the longest and most complicated man pages. It’s huge and a capable tool in the right hands. ImageMagick has all sorts of capabilities but a new user isn’t likely to use them because of the complexity involved.

And, ImageMagick is complex… In fact, it defines itself as:

ImageMagick – is a free software suite for the creation, modification and display of bitmap images.

That’s an accurate description, I think… Except, well, it does a whole lot more than that. We’ll be using the .gif format, while the man page description only mentions bitmap. So, there’s a lot to the application.

Thus, without further ado, we make an animated gif in the terminal…

How To Make An Animated GIF:

The ImageMagick application is terminal-based. So, you’re going to need an open terminal. If you want, you can just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open.

If you don’t have ImageMagick installed, you’ll need to install it. If you’re using a mainstream distro, it’s possibly installed already. Otherwise, it’ll certainly be in your default repositories as it’s a pretty major tool. For example, an apt user would just use a command like this (adjust for your package manager):

With your terminal now open and imagemagick properly installed, let’s just see how long that man page is:

See? I wasn’t kidding!

Now, here’s what you need to make an animated gif:

  1. A dedicated folder, perhaps in your ~/Pictures directory.
  2. A few images of the same format, we’ll use .jpg in our example.
  3. A terminal opened in the above-mentioned dedicated folder.

The first thing to learn is that this command is going to take those images and turn them into an animated file with the .gif extension. It is going to organize them alphanumerically. So, you should rename the  .jpg files in the order you wish to see them (assuming the order matters to you).

All set? Have you done all those things? Are you 100% prepared? Good!

The command we’re looking for would be:

Alright, so the ‘delay 1000’ is how long each image will be shown – in hundredths of a second. The ‘-loop 0’ tells it to loop infinitely, or you can pick your own number of times. The ‘*.jpg’ means use all the .jpg files in that directory. The ‘file_name’ is the name of the file you want to have as your output.

See? Pretty simple. An example command might be something like:

Let the command run, and it is a pretty speedy process unless you have a whole lot of images, and you’ll get an animated gif as a result. As these tend to have smaller file sizes, it’s sometimes a better option than sharing a larger video file. It depends on your circumstances, I suppose.

NOTE: This article has been edited to correct the time delay, the delay between changing images. Thanks @wizardfromoz!

Closure:

There you have it. You have an article that tells you how to make an animated gif with ImageMagick. The ImageMagick application has a ton of options, making it daunting for a new Linux user. So, this is just a tiny bite. This is just one of many ways to use ImageMagick. Instead of learning the whole application at once, you can do so in chunks – learning only what you need.

Thanks for reading! If you want to help, or if the site has helped you, you can donate, register to help, write an article, or buy inexpensive hosting to start your site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

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