Category: Tips

Keyboard Shortcuts to Browser Bookmarks

I open a lot of URLs in the course of a day, especially during the pandemic when there’s naught to do but while away my time online. Seriously, I open a whole lot of addresses – many of them the same and opened often. I thought it’d be great to have keyboard shortcuts to browser bookmarks.

The answer isn’t to open more tabs, I already have too many tabs open. With 100+ tabs open across three browsers almost all the time, I have too many tabs already.

The address bar is helpful – but not as much as one might think. For example, I have multiple sites with Google Analytics. The URLs in the drop down menu are cryptic and bookmarking them all just extra steps to my workflow. They look like:

“https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/#/report/visitors-overview/a178003867w269232012p241267937/overview-dimensionSummary.selectedGroup=demographics&overview-dimensionSummary.selectedDimension=analytics.country“

When I start typing in the address bar, my ‘drop-down’ menu has all sorts of URLs that look exactly like that. That’s not too helpful.

Looking for plugins to solve this issue wasted so much time that I’m writing this now, because sleeping is futile.  I need to be awake in few hours. No sleep for me…

I searched high and low, hoping to find a browser plugin/extension/add-on that’d let me assign keyboard shortcuts to my bookmarks. None of them met my needs – and I’m pretty sure I tried them all. 

By the time I had tried the last of them, I realized that I don’t actually need any help from a plugin or extension. No, my desktop environment takes care of this for me. I just hadn’t thought of it.

Make Keyboard Shortcuts to Browser Bookmarks

Pretty much all the major desktops have resolved this problem. You just have to look at it from the right perspective. So, I write this in hopes of saving someone else the time I spent searching for solutions.

‘Member all those keyboard shortcuts you use for doing things like opening the menu, opening the terminal, showing your desktop, maximizing windows, and things like that? 

Well, they work just fine for other commands. Keyboard shortcuts work just fine for opening browser tabs and windows. Your keyboard shortcuts can do more than just turn the volume up or down, and they can do more than enable typing things things like ©, Ø, or ¶. These shortcut things can do more than open menus!

Other people may have thought this obvious. You may think it obvious after the fact. I am unashamed to admit that it took quite a while for me to realize that I already had the tools for this. Again, I hope writing this saves someone else some time. It’d be great if this had been obvious from the start.

For this, we’re going to be using Lubuntu (LXQt) and Google Chrome. For other desktop environments, you’ll have to adjust. You almost certainly have a similar function, just look in your menu.

In Lubuntu, you’d be looking for Menu > Preferences > LXQt settings > Shortcut Keys. 

Yup, we’re going to use those. We’re going to fix this oversight – by using system shortcuts as keyboard shortcuts to browser bookmarks!

I admit, it’s a bit of a sledgehammer method, but it works!

Making it Work

It will vary for you, but for me it looks like this:

assign keyboard shortcuts
By now, the method should be becoming self-evident.

Then it looks like:

add keyboard shortcut
Figure it out yet? Yup, the solution is that easy.

In this case, and you’ll have to change it for your desktop environment. In LXQt you set the shortcut by clicking where the first arrow is and then pressing the keyboard combination before the timer runs out. Me? I used CTRL + SHIFT[keybt] +[keybt]A for the first one and then I went across the home row adding more.

An  example of the command I used, and I needed to tick the circle to make it a command based shortcut, was this:

I could/should have used ‘google-chrome-stable’ for the command, but why follow the rules when you’re already breaking them? I’m pretty sure these type of shortcuts are meant to be used as system shortcuts and I’m pretty sure that we’re ‘not supposed to’ turn them into shortcuts for browser bookmarks! For that reason, you’ll see that I picked an unusual set of key combinations for them.

I used the CTRL and SHIFT modifiers because they are not used in tandem for many things. You should probably adjust accordingly for your system. Try to make up key combinations that aren’t likely to be claimed by your system, your desktop environment, and the applications you use. These new shortcuts will almost certainly overwrite any application-specific shortcuts as they’re truly system shortcuts!

If you use a different browser, you’ll also have to adjust accordingly. You can test the commands by trying them in the terminal first. If they work in the terminal, you can probably assign keyboard shortcuts to them.

For example, if you use Firefox, then it is ‘firefox <url>’, just like it is ‘vivaldi <url> for Vivaldi. Your browser may even have additional modifiers to open it in a new tab, in an existing window, or maybe open the URL in an incognito session! Look it up and find out – or use ‘man <browser>’ for more information. Try ‘firefox –new-tab –url https://linux-tips.us’ if you want to see an example.

While this is pretty heavy-handed, and probably not something they suggest doing, it works. Sure, it will take some time to remember which keyboard shortcut is which, but I doubt that’ll take long before it’s muscle memory.

It’s a bit like pounding in thumbtacks with a framing hammer, but it works – and there are many, many possible keyboard combinations that aren’t already in use. Given enough time and effort, you could have a ton of bookmarks that open with a simple set of keyboard presses.

Like always, thanks for reading! This has been a pretty fun project and the goal-reaching feels pretty great on the ego-muscle! It’s not all that easy to come up with article ideas, so feel free to suggest some. Don’t forget that you can unblock ads, sign up for the newsletter, donate, contribute by writing an article, register to participate, help edit, etc…

You can also scroll to the bottom of the page to check the copyright that has been there since Day One. This blog is itself opensource, so you can use these articles as you want.

Prevent Application Updates With ‘YUM-VERSIONLOCK’

I recently wrote a similar article, illustrating how you can use ‘apt-mark’ to prevent application updates. While that was handy, it only applied to those who use APT as their package manager. It offered nothing of value to those who use YUM.

This article will explain how you can prevent application updates with ‘yum-versionlock’. You will learn how you can temporarily prevent application updates when you have no choice but to.

In the previous article, I explained that you should always use the most up-to-date software that you can, at least if your system is connected to the public internet. Software updates provide security fixes, not just bug fixes.

Not updating means you’re vulnerable and your vulnerabilities may impact other users. For example, your computer may become a part of a botnet, a spam relay, or even be used as a command and control device for those things. As a global citizen of the ‘net, you’re obligated to do what you can to minimize harm.

So, it is possible to prevent application updates, but you really should only do so when it’s absolutely necessary. In an ideal world, you’d be able to always use the updated version, but we don’t live in that world. We live in the real world, where we have things like compliance and compatibility issues. 

YUM, what is it? YUM stands for Yellowdog Updater, Modified. It’s a package management utility for RPM based distros. You’ll find YUM in distros like RHEL, Fedora, and even OpenSUSE. It’s fairly widely used, though many of the RPM-based distros are more prominent in the server space than they are in the desktop space.

These days there’s actually DNF (which stands for Dandified YUM – don’t blame me, I don’t name these things) but that’s not important today. Today, we’ll be using ‘YUM-VERSIONLOCK‘ to prevent application updates.

Prevent Updates with ‘yum-versionlock’

Unlike ‘apt-mark’, you’ll need to install something in order to do this. It should also be mentioned that there are other ways to accomplish this, but this is the easiest way to prevent application updates. Using versionlock is the most straightforward way of accomplishing this.

First, you’re gonna need to crack open your terminal. You can do that by using your keyboard. Just press CTRL + ALT + T. 

Once your terminal is open, you’ll need to install ‘yum-versionlock’. You can try this first:

If that gives you an error, I can’t figure out where the name changed, then you can most likely install it with:

Once you have it installed, you can check the man page to see how you use it. Even if you installed it with the second command, the man page is still found at:

The one-liner quite accurately defines versionlock as:

yum-versionlock – Version lock rpm packages

Anyhow, to use it to hold a package at its current version, you simply use:

NOTE: The command supports wildcards. You can use an asterisk with this command. The command will give you feedback. You can also use ‘add’, but it’s redundant.

If you want to remove the lock, which you should do as soon as realistically possible, then the command is fairly evident. It’s just:

If you, like me, don’t always keep the best notes and don’t have the greatest memory, then you can list the locked packages with this command:

There’s no need for elevated permissions with that command, but it will take a little while for it to complete. It will output any locked packages and you can unlock them individually. Again, you can use wildcards in this command.

However, you can remove all the locks with just one command:

As you might expect, that removes all the locks and your system will resume updating normally. You should not keep software locked to one version for long. Though you may be using a LTS-type distro, only getting minor point release upgrades, you are still getting security updates. Keeping your system secure makes you a good netizen. 

Closure:

And there you have it. Another article in the books, this one explaining how to stop updates for specific applications. Thanks for reading and feel free, nay encouraged, to leave feedback. If you have any ideas for articles, feel free to share them. You can also contribute by writing your own article. I’ll even edit it up for you!

Don’t forget that there’s a newsletter (we never spam or share your address with anyone, it’s all in-house) and you can even donate. I’d kinda like the site to at least pay for itself, simply out of principle. If not, there are ads you can unblock! Even if you do none of those things, there are good odds that I’ll keep this site up, running, and interesting.

Prevent Application Updates With ‘APT-MARK’

While unwise, there are times when you need to prevent application updates. You can do this with ‘apt-mark’ and this article will explain how. Obviously, this method is only effective if you use a Linux distro that has an APT-based package manager.

For the most part, you should always keep your software updated. However, that’s a rule for the Ideal World®. For the rest of us, those of us that live in the Real World®, you’ll almost certainly run into an eventuality that requires you to keep an existing, specific version of software.

While entirely stupid and irresponsible, I kept a version of Thunderbird past its due date because the update simply ruined my existing installation. I only kept that outdated version long enough to make the leap to a more recent distro version. The tool I used to prevent application updates was apt-mark.

You will have your own reasons, from compliance to stability to functionality, for keeping the same version of your installed software. You should only use this sparingly, only as necessary, when there’s simply no other solution. This should also be a temporary measure. You should always try to use the upgraded software because there are (possibly) security implications if you don’t.

A little about APT…

While we’ll technically be using ‘apt-mark‘, it should be mentioned that APT stands for Advanced Package Tool. It’s the default package manager that is used in many distros, mostly Debian and those of Debian descent. So, you’ll see it in everything from Ubuntu to Linux Mint. 

In the desktop scene, I suspect it’d be the most common of all package management tools. Even if you use a different distro with a different package manager, you should probably have a basic familiarity.

Using ‘apt-mark’ hold and unhold

The tool we’ll be using is ‘apt-mark’, and the man page helpfully defines it as:

apt-mark – show, set and unset various settings for a package

We’ll only be concentrating on a couple of commands, those necessary when you want to prevent application updates, plus one extra command that will help you keep track of the two commands we’ll be focusing on.

The first of those two commands is ‘hold’. This command is used when you want to ‘hold’ a package at its current version, preventing upgrades. Remember, this should really be used only when there’s no other solution, as many upgrades fix security issues as well as bugs. It’s actually a fairly simple command.

When you enter this command, you’ll get a confirmation message. It will tell you that the application is now being held. It will remain held until you ‘unhold’ it. So, it’s a set-it-and-forget-it type of deal, though you shouldn’t really forget it. You should undo it as soon as you realistically can.

To reverse the restriction, resuming your normal updates, you simply need to ‘unhold’ it. The command is fairly obvious, and it looks like this:

That will free the hold on the package and tell you that the hold has been lifted. The package should then upgrade as necessary and as issued. If new upgrades show up in the repositories, it should function as normal and upgrade like it did prior to the hold.

If you are like me, you may well forget that you’ve held packages back. The package names are often long and nonsensical, so they’re easy to forget. In the heat of the moment, you may have forgotten to make a note of the package(s) you’ve held.

Don’t worry, ‘apt-mark’ has you covered! When you want to know what packages are being held, just run this command:

Note the lack of ‘sudo’ in that command. You don’t need sudo because you don’t need elevated permissions to list held packages. You only need elevated permission if you want to change something. As that command only lists them, you can run it as a normal user.

The apt-mark command has a ton of other uses, this is not an all-inclusive article. You can always see the man page for more help and the rest of the features. This article is only covering the ‘hold’ and ‘unhold’ functions. Maybe there will be another article covering other aspects, but this limited in scope – preventing application updates.

Like always, thanks for reading and I appreciate the feedback! Don’t forget that the site has ads enabled and that you can donate. So, if this article helped you learn how to prevent application updates then show some love! Otherwise, sign up for the newsletter or share this article with your friends on social media. Thanks!

 

How do I ‘Boot to USB’? (Or CD/DVD, if Such is Available)

In order to install Linux, you need to be able to boot to USB (or CD/DVD – with USB being more common these days and many devices not even having CD/DVD drives). The goal of this article is to help you boot to USB or to optical media, so that you can install or repair your Linux system.

To install Linux you pretty much have to boot to USB or to a CD or DVD. It’s true, you can actually install directly from your regular disk drive, but that’s a convoluted method that few people will ever need. I may cover that method at some point, but today is not that day!

You may also need to boot to a live Linux instance for other reasons. Maybe you need to repair your installation? Perhaps you need to grow your partition because you have run out of room? Or, just maybe, you need to recover your data so that you can do a fresh installation – or so that you can start the recovery from your backed up data?

It’d be rather pointless to enumerate the many reasons why you’d want to boot to USB. There are many reasons and it’s a skill you’re going to need. Trust me, you need to know this stuff.

I say USB because that’s the most common today, but you may also need to boot to CD or DVD. Your hardware may actually be so old that it won’t even let you boot to USB. So, for the sake of this article, let’s just assume you’re booting to some form of external media, be it USB, optical media, or even an SD card. No matter what you’re trying to boot as an alternative media, the process is pretty much the same.

Booting to USB

Booting to USB, what’s the purpose? The purpose is to install or repair an already running system. It means booting to something other than your default internal drive (under normal configurations) and using that booted media to effect change on your system.

As I said above, there are many reasons why you’d want to do this. It’s a pretty common thing, especially among Linux users. There are many questions asked about this process and I’ve decided to document the methods here.

However, there’s no way I can possibly make this article truly definitive. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d help. In the comments section, fill in the blanks for me. You have hardware that I may not have access to, so you can tell us what works for your hardware and the article will be a more complete source of information. It’s your time to shine!

How to Boot to USB

In order to boot to USB, you have to have fairly good timing – or a willingness to sit there and pound on the same key over and over again. In a traditional sense, you’re aiming for a boot selection menu that you can access after POST (Power On Self-Test) and that split-second before the OS starts its boot sequence.

You’re not trying to access the BIOS, you’re trying to access the boot selection menu and there’s a narrow window to get it right. The good news is that the key to access the BIOS is different than the key to access the alternative boot menu. So, a good working strategy is to press the right key on your keyboard over and over again during boot while hoping for the best.

The question is, which is the right key? You don’t want the BIOS menu, unless you plan on changing it permanently. You only want the temporary boot menu, which another animal entirely.

So, I have a bunch of hardware. I also have a search engine. I’ve made an attempt to find the temporary boot menu keys and to document them all in one place.

The list of keys!

     Acer: ESC, F2, or F12
     Apple/Mac: OPTION
     Asus: F8 or ESC
     Compaq: ESC or F9
     Dell: F12
     HP: ESC or F9
     Lenovo: F8, F10, or F12
     MSI: F11
     NEC: F5
     Packard Bell: F8
     Samsung: ESC, F2, or F12
     Sony: F1, F2, or F3
     Toshiba: F12

NOTE: This list isn’t exhaustive nor is it completely accurate. In some cases, you may need to actually enable this in your BIOS. Samsung, for example, will not show the temporary boot selection menu unless you’ve first disabled “Fast Boot”. Other OEMs may require similar changes.

The above keys should get you into the temporary boot menu, where you can choose to boot to USB, CD/DVD, an external drive, a microSD card, or whatever. It’s an essential step in both booting and repairing your Linux computer. It’s a good idea to memorize it once you know which one works for you.

As I mentioned above, you can help. If you have a device that’s not listed, please let me know in the comments. Some manufacturers have more than one way to access the screen, so be sure to let me know if your device is different. The more data we get, the more people we can help.

Thanks for reading! As always, feedback is fantastic, you can sign up for the newsletter, and you can donate. You don’t have to donate. The site will remain online regardless, but you can help cover the costs. If I keep this schedule up, we should have a new article in two more days – so stay tuned!

Is My System Capable of 32 or 64 Bit Linux?

There are a number of situations where you may not be sure if your CPU supports 32 or 64 bit Linux. If you want to know, it’s pretty easy to see if it supports 32 or 64 bit. If nothing else, it’s always good to know what your CPU architecture is and thus know which distros are compatible with your hardware.

You simply might not know this information. You wouldn’t be alone in that. These sort of questions pop up fairly regularly at the various support sites.

Maybe you were still new to Linux when you installed? Or maybe you’re working on a system that you yourself didn’t install? Perhaps you just don’t remember? There are a number of reasons why you’d want to know and why you might not already know.

Anyhow, this should be a relatively short article. There’s only so much fluff that I can add! I’m gonna tell you how to know for sure what architecture you can use.

Is my CPU 32 or 64 bit?

It was not that long ago that I saw someone asking this question at a forum I frequent. They wanted to know if their CPU supported 64 bit. The answer, which was well intended, was that they should run this command:

Which would indeed output this sort of text:

That’s great, but it’s not actually informative – as an answer to this specific question. What that command and output determine is that you’re using a specific variation of Linux. Granted, it’s true for those CPUs that support 62 bit and have a 62 bit CPU installed. It’s not always certain to be true, however.

For example, if you were using a 32 bit distro then the output from the ‘uname’ command would be 32 bit. You can run 32 bit Linux versions on 64 bit CPUs and the output will only be accurate so far as the version installed. After all, a 32 bit distro will run just fine on 64 bit hardware. Even if your hardware supports 64 bit, the uname command will output something about i686 if you have a 32 bit distro installed.

So, you could realistically have an output that says something about 32 bit while being perfectly capable of running 64 bit Linux versions. Using the uname command doesn’t tell you the hardware capability (necessarily). It tells you what is currently in use.

How do we know for sure? Well, there are a number of ways, but the easiest way that I can think of and it requires the terminal. Go ahead and open your terminal emulator by pressing CTRL + ALT + T on your keyboard.

Next, enter this ‘lshw‘ command:

In the output you will find something about ‘width’ and that’s your answer.

If you want, you can use ‘grep‘ to process the output and get an even easier, or at least more concise answer. Just use this command:

With any luck, that won’t lie to you. That won’t tell you what you’re using, that will tell you what CPU architecture you can use. If your CPU architecture supports it, it will tell you right then and there.

I’ve prepared a graphical demonstration of when it may present inaccurate information. The CPU is capable of 64 bit, but the OS in question is actually just a 32 bit OS.

32 vs 64 bit demonstration
See? The 32 bit OS is in use and it could use 64 bit.

There’s no doubt with the ‘lshw’ command, you learn if you can use 32 or 64 bit versions of Linux. That’s why it’s important to use that command rather than relying out the output of ‘uname’, as the ‘uname’ output only only tells you what CPU architecture you are currently using and not what CPU architecture you could be using.

And, there you have it. Thanks for reading! Don’t forget that you can sign up for the newsletter, donate, or simply opt to contribute to the site with articles of your own. If you want to lend a hand, let me know. I’m receptive to such things, as I am receptive to feedback!

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