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How To: Disable The Caps Lock Key

Today’s article is one that I used to scratch my own itch because I really like to disable the caps lock key. Of all the keys on the keyboard, that’s the only one that makes me want to disable it. The rest of the keys are fine, but I have no use for a caps lock key.

NOTE: This is probably not going to work if you use Wayland. I don’t know, I haven’t tested it. If you’re wanting to test it so that you can write paragraphs about how wrong I am, please do. I’m a little curious! I need to learn more about Wayland.

Sure, we could use the destructive (or at least awkward) method and physically rip the key off the keyboard. Some fancy keyboards have easily removed caps, meaning you can just remove them with a little caps-puller tool. Pretty much every time I’ve needed to remove keys, it has been a permanently destructive process, but I know it can be done.

By the way… This is why I’m a wasteful jerk sometimes and I just chuck that keyboard in the trash when I’m done with it. To be fair, I wear the letters off a cheap keyboard. Where my thumb hits the space bar it wears down the plastic from repeated use. I’m not a ‘hard typer’, I’m a prolific typer. So, here we are…

Those of you with a keen memory may recall this article:

Disable The Caps Lock Key In Linux Mint

That was fine for Mint (Cinnamon)… It’s not a universal thing. I meant to write a more universal thing, so I guess this counts as that…

Disable The Caps Lock Key:

You’re gonna want a terminal window open for this. So, press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open. Tada!

Now, the tool we’ll be using is called ‘xmodmap’. See that ‘x’ in there? Yeah, that’s what (along with the description) makes me unsure if this is going to work for Wayland users. If you’re using a major distro, especially one using X, you’ve got this tool installed by default.

When xmodmap is not installed, the package name should be ‘x11-xserver-utils’ in Ubuntu and it’s fairly safe for other distros to assume the appropriate package will show up if you search your repositories for it. If you need to install it, say with a distro that uses apt (and you shouldn’t), then the incantation would look like this:

sudo apt install x11-xserver-utils

1	sudo apt install x11-xserver-utils

Got it? Is it installed? You can check if it’s installed with this command:

xmodmap -version

1	xmodmap -version

Now that you know you have xmodmap installed, you can just use the following command to disable the caps lock key:

xmodmap -e "remove lock = Caps_Lock"

1	xmodmap -e "remove lock = Caps_Lock"

Should you change your mind, which you shouldn’t because caps lock is evil and gets in the way of perfectly good typing technique, then you can undo this. Try this command, it should work:

xmodmap -e "add lock = Caps_Lock"

1	xmodmap -e "add lock = Caps_Lock"

That right there should get rid of your caps lock key’s functionality. You should be able to press the key and have exactly nothing happen, which is a good thing.

Closure:

Yes, I know the Internet Wisdom© insists that “caps lock is cruise control for cool” but just don’t… No… Just don’t do that. Really, don’t do that!

Try as I might, I can’t think of a legitimate (for me) reason to use caps lock. I never use it on purpose. If I need a few capital letters, the regular shift key works just fine. I have two hands, after all.

So, if you’re like me and don’t want to be cool (and have fewer hassles) go right ahead and disable that caps lock key. I sometimes press it by accident while typing and not looking. It just makes a mess of things. While I type like a demon on fire, I don’t hold my hands in the correct position and don’t use the right fingers for the right keys. I press that ****ing caps lock key way too often, so disabling it makes my life easier.

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How To: Prevent A File From Being Deleted*

Today, we have another simple article, where we discuss how to prevent a file from being deleted. It’s not quite true and I’ll explain in a moment, but for the most part, it makes it so you can’t remove a file by accident or the like. So, if you want to prevent a file from being deleted* read on.

Now, let me be more clear. I’m a bit sorry for the cheesy headline, but there’s a reasonable character limit. I included an asterisk just to make sure. A user with root permissions (eg a user with sudo privileges) can still delete the file – but it takes an extra step to do so. They have to know and work at it to delete the file.

The tool we’re going to use is called chattr. While it looks like ‘chatter’ and I want to type ‘chatter’ every time I use it, it is a tool that you use to change a file’s attributes. It’s a handy tool but we’ll only be examining one specific use for chatter. If you’re curious, the man page defines chatter as:

chattr – change file attributes on a Linux file system

If you’re using a mainstream distro, you shouldn’t need to install chattr. You should find it already installed. Some of the more lightweight distros may not include it by default, but you can verify that it’s installed by running the following in your terminal:

which chattr

1	which chattr

If you do find that chattr isn’t installed, go ahead and install it. It’s in your default repos. I’m sure of it!

Prevent A File From Being Deleted:

You guessed it. You’ll need an open terminal for this one. That’s easy, just press CTRL + ALT + T and your default terminal should open. See? Pretty easy!

Now, I’m going to show you how to use chattr to set an immutable bit. It’s not difficult and just uses the +i flag. Let’s start with creating a file:

touch foo.txt

1	touch foo.txt

With the file created, let’s set the immutable bit with chattr:

sudo chattr +i foo.txt

1	sudo chattr +i foo.txt

Now, let’s try to remove it with the rm command:

rm foo.txt

1	rm foo.txt

No luck? Well, let’s grab a hammer. We’ll try to remove the file with sudo:

sudo rm foo.txt

1	sudo rm foo.txt

Surprise! You still can’t delete it, even with sudo or logging in as root. To delete the file, you have to first remove the immutable bit, like so:

sudo chattr -i foo.txt

1	sudo chattr -i foo.txt

After that, you can happily (and trivially) remove the file with:

rm foo.txt

1	rm foo.txt

In case that’s not very clear, I’ve made you an image. That should help!

prevent a file from being deleted — See? If the words aren’t useful, perhaps the picture will explain it better.

That should explain it well enough. The file can still be deleted, it just requires sudo and removing the immutable bit from the file’s attributes. Pretty neat, huh?

Closure:

Of course, there’s always a way for a root user to be able to remove a file. However, you can make it difficult should you want to prevent a file from being deleted. A skilled user will check the file’s attributes and know how to delete the file, so it’s more about protecting a file from being deleted unless you want to.

Make Applications Start Faster in Ubuntu

Today’s article is pretty specific as we discuss one way to make applications start faster in Ubuntu. However, I feel like I need to make you aware that this isn’t some sort of miracle software. The usage and results are pretty limited and I’m mostly covering this because it was in my notes and a question I saw recently on Reddit.

Now, for reasons, I’m not sure what format this article will take. I haven’t written it yet and the information I want to share is kinda mixed. I guess we could have a longer intro than normal.

So, the tool in question is called ‘Preload’. The man page describes Preload like this:

preload – Adaptive readahead daemon

Though I think it’s important to also quote this (also from the man page):

preload is an adaptive readahead daemon that prefetches files mapped by applications from the disk to reduce application startup time.

So, what is this Preload? It’s a daemon that runs in the background and monitors what you do. It pays attention to what applications you open (for example) and loads the various files into memory. Then, when you open the application it will open faster. This is mostly useful if you’ve opened the application, closed it, and wish to open it again. The second time you open the application, the theory is that it’ll open faster.

Does it work? I haven’t lied to you yet and I’m not going to start now. I haven’t tested it enough to claim it has any great benefits. Oh, I’ve installed it before and left it running. I just didn’t do any verification and I’m not going to cite my observations as factual without having data to back that up. I will say that I didn’t notice it slowing anything down. Of course, I have fast hardware, and using a stopwatch to test the results would be full of all sorts of inaccuracies.

Do I recommend it? Well, it doesn’t seem to hurt anything. It does seem faster when I close Thunderbird and open it back up again. I use an NVMe M.2 SSD, which is already pretty speedy, so I doubt I’d see much. I’ve never tried with a slower SSD nor on an older spinning platter HDD – which is where I’d expect this Preload to work best. If you’re using older disks, it may be worth trying Preload. But, you won’t break anything if you install it on more modern hardware.

Make Applications Start Faster:

So, installing Preload is pretty simple. Once you’ve installed Preload, you are done. There’s no need to tinker with settings. There’s no need to configure it. It should even automatically set itself up as a self-starting daemon.

Crack open your terminal (you know how to do that by now) and enter the following to install Preload in Ubuntu:

sudo apt install preload

1	sudo apt install preload

Agree to install and enter your password. That’s it. That’s all you need to do. You can check the man page:

man preload

1	man preload

See? I told you this would look like a weird article.

Closure:

Have you had good luck with Preload? Have you been using it all along? Did you use it back when you were using a spinning hard drive? Did it help to make applications start faster? Let me know in a comment. I mean, it’s not snake oil, but how much could it help an average user with modern hardware? I’m not sure how much it’ll help those folks.

How To: Encrypt A USB Drive

So, today’s article will be a bit different, as I answer a question posed to me by way of the contact form – which is how to encrypt a USB drive. Being the nice guy I am, I answered the question. As I’m also often busy (or lazy), I also decided to turn this into an article. Why not?

I normally frown on people asking me questions directly. My usual suggestion is that they visit a forum and ask there. I usually direct them to Linux.org, where there’s a good forum filled with all sorts of smart people. That’s usually a sufficient answer, but this time I had a few spare minutes and typed out a response to them.

First of all, this was their question (I’ve removed all the superfluous stuff):

How would you encrypt a USB drive?

There were several sentences, a preemptive thanks, and some commentary about reading the site regularly. I decided to tackle this question but I was limited strictly to text because I was using email as my format.

But, if we start with the question, we can see an immediate problem. The question was ‘how would you’… Well, I’d crack open the terminal and use a tool called cryptsetup. That’s what I’d do. It’s a great tool and I’m familiar with its use.

However… That’s not what I’d suggest to the person asking the question. I did mention this to them in my reply, leaving the door open for more questions or for them to hit up their favorite search engine. Instead, I detailed another way to encrypt a USB drive. Yes, they used the word ‘drive’ and not ‘thumbdrive’. That doesn’t matter.

How To Encrypt A USB Drive:

The first thing you’re going to need for this is ‘Gnome Disks’. So, let’s go ahead and ensure you’ve got that installed, open your terminal by pressing CTRL + ALT + T and install the application. If you’re using apt you’d use the following command, but you’ll need to edit it for your package manager. (It’s almost certainly available in your default repos.)

sudo apt install gnome-disk-utilities

1	sudo apt install gnome-disk-utilities

Using Gnome Disks is a good idea. It’s fairly ubiquitous, easy to install, and doesn’t pull in a ton of dependencies when you install it. That means you can easily use Gnome Disks with pretty much any desktop environment out there with ease and very little fanfare.

Now, insert the USB drive. Don’t worry if it automatically mounts. Gnome Disks is smart enough to deal with that. Any data on this disk will be lost. It will be irrevocably lost. There’s no ‘oops’ button involved.

With Gnome Disks now installed (do not ask me why the command to open the application is different than the command to install the application), you can open it with the following:

sudo gnome-disks

1	sudo gnome-disks

There you go, you’re in a GUI now. You won’t need the terminal for anything else. (This would be easier with images, but I couldn’t really include images in the email reply without a lot of work and them potentially never even seeing the images due to reading the email in plain text format.)

On the lefthand part of the Gnome Disks window, pick the USB drive you want to encrypt.

On the right-hand part of Gnome Disks, click on the ‘gears’ icon and select the ‘Format Partition’ option.

Add a name for your encrypted USB drive in the next window. Then, say it is an internal disk (it’s all good) and tick the button to password-protect the volume.

In the next window, you will type your password twice. You’ll type it once and then type it again below that. This is to make sure you typed it properly. It’s a good idea to remember this password, ’cause this isn’t something you can just back out of and still have your data.

At this point, Gnome Disks will give you a warning about data loss. In the upper right, click the ‘Format’ button. Be certain about what you’re doing because this will erase data. Gnome Disks doesn’t care if the drive contained the only copies of your child’s birthday pictures.

Gnome Disks is kinda like a wolverine. Approach it with caution because it does not give a crap about your feelings.

Assuming the winds are in your favor, you should now have an encrypted USB drive. Test this by unplugging your USB drive and plugging it back in. When you plug it back in, it should ask you for a password. Enter your password to ensure you typed it properly in an earlier step. If all goes well, enjoy your encrypted USB drive.

Closure:

By the way, happy Mother’s Day (for those who qualify).

And so, that was more or less my answer to the inquisitive user. I don’t mind questions. I just don’t always have time for that, and often don’t know the answers. Of course, I did make a few changes. The actual reply I sent them was worded a bit differently in places. I think the above reads better and is more concise.

In this case, I think I got it right and they were able to encrypt their USB drive. I haven’t heard back from them since. It’d be nice if they let me know but they left me hanging. Ah well… If it’s wrong, someone will leave me a comment!

Use Tab Autocomplete In The Linux Terminal

Today’s article isn’t all that complex or anything, we’ll just cover how to use tab autocomplete in the Linux terminal. It’s a pretty handy tool to have in your Linux toolbox. It’s especially handy if you spend a lot of time in the terminal.

It seems to me that tab autocomplete is easier to do than it is to explain. It’s a great concept. I asked ChatGPT to explain it on my behalf and it did a fairly good job. It’s the middle of the night and I almost forgot to do an article. I got distracted, ended up elsewhere in the house, and fell asleep.

Fortunately, I already had the headline written. (Coming up with ideas is often more time-consuming than writing some articles.) That was a good thing. Otherwise, I’d have gone back to sleep and just written this tomorrow.

Anyhow, tab autocomplete is a tool that WILL save you some time. If you were local to me, it’d take like 2 minutes to show you how autocomplete works. It’s gonna take a bit longer to explain it with text!

I suppose that’s an adequate intro. Let’s see how AI does at explaining tab autocomplete and then try to make it more clear below that:

Use Tab Autocomplete In The Linux Terminal:

Linux terminal tab autocomplete is a feature that allows users to quickly and efficiently navigate through the file system and execute commands without typing out the entire file or command name. It works by automatically completing a partially typed file or command name when the user presses the “Tab” key.

To use tab autocomplete, the user needs to start typing the file or command name in the terminal window and then press the “Tab” key. If there is only one file or command that matches the typed characters, the system will automatically complete the name. If there are multiple matches, the system will display a list of possible options. The user can then continue typing until the desired file or command is highlighted and press “Tab” again to complete the name.

Tab autocomplete can be used for a variety of tasks, such as navigating the file system, running programs, and passing arguments to commands. For example, if the user wants to navigate to a directory called “Documents” in their home directory, they can type “cd Doc” and press “Tab.” The system will automatically complete the name to “cd Documents/”. This can save the user time and effort compared to typing out the full path.

Tab autocomplete also supports wildcards, which can be used to match multiple files or commands with similar names. For example, if the user types “ls *.txt” and presses “Tab,” the system will show a list of all the files in the current directory that end in “.txt”.

In summary, Linux terminal tab autocomplete is a powerful feature that allows users to quickly and efficiently navigate the file system and execute commands without typing out the entire name. It saves time and effort and can be used for a wide range of tasks.

Additional Tab Autocomplete Stuff:

So, to put that information to use, we can open a terminal. You can do so now just by pressing CTRL + ALT + T.

With your terminal now open, try the following command:

cd Do

cd Do

Now, press the TAB key on your keyboard (you may need to press the tab key twice). You’ll see something like this:

use tab autocomplete in the Linux terminal — You can probably figure it out from here. Once you understand it, you’ll appreciate it.

As you can see, it was not able to autocomplete because there were two available choices. If there are no choices it will show nothing. In this case, if you want to change to the Downloads directory, you’d enter the following:

cd Dow

cd Dow

Press the TAB key (probably twice), of course. For most of you, that’ll be enough. If it’s not, you should be able to figure out the minimum number of characters needed for autocomplete to work.

This also works on commands, but you need to have narrowed it down or it needs to not start with the more common letters. How to explain it?

If you type ‘l’ and hit tab, nothing will autocomplete.

If you type ‘ali’ and hit tab, it will spot autocomplete to ‘alias’. Additionally, it works for your installed applications. If you just enter ‘l’ and press the tab key (twice, if once doesn’t work) it will offer to display a bunch of commands starting with the letter ‘l’. For many of you, you should be able to just type ‘pav’ and then press the tab key to have it autocomplete to ‘pavucontrol’. That should make it reasonably clear.

Closure:

See? It’s not hard to do. It’s easier to do than it is to explain. I’ve never really needed to properly explain tab autocomplete in text format before. It’s much easier just to physically show folks than it is to explain it in text. Hmm… Now I can go back to bed. Dunno if I’ll sleep again, but I might as well try.