How To: Add Ubuntu’s Default Repositories

The headline is correct that, in today’s article, I’ll explain how to add Ubuntu’s default repositories – in the terminal. Seeing as I’m doing so, I’ll tell you about each repository as we go along. They exist for different reasons, so we might as well know how and why.

This article is probably only interesting to new Ubuntu users who want to learn to do things in the terminal. That’s a lofty goal, though I’ve already explained how to reset Ubuntu’s default repositories – but that’s graphical. It’s also likely quicker to do this in a GUI. Still, we might as well cover this. 

I see no reason to make the intro section very long. The article will be plenty long. So, onto the article!

Add Ubuntu’s Default Repositories:

Yup. You guessed it. You’re going  to need an open terminal. Many of my articles do. 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.

You’re also going to need Ubuntu, or an official Ubuntu flavor. I can’t recommend trying this will all Ubuntu derivatives, as I have not ever tested this in all Ubuntu derivative. So, only do this if you are using Ubuntu or an official flavor of Ubuntu – or it may mess up your system. You  have been warned.

About Repositories:

If we’re going to be writing about repositories, allow me to explain what those are. They’re central points from which you download software and software upgrades. They are there to provide the software you need, though not all software is included.

There’s generally a lot of software in them and some folks will only install software included in their default repositories. (Some folks will refuse even some software in the available repos, as the repositories may vary based on the licenses used by the software within.)

Ubuntu’s Main Repository:

Inside this repository, you’ll come across all the software the system needs to have a running system and a bunch of applications. All the software in this repository is FOSS (Free Open Source Software).

You already have this repository enabled, but stuff happens. If you’ve somehow disabled it (don’t do that) you can add it back with:

Ubuntu’s Universe Repository:

This repository contains software that is also FOSS – but Ubuntu can’t vouch for the update state or software inside the Universe repository. They are packages managed by the community, not by Ubuntu themselves.

It’s software you can install and doesn’t really come with all that many risks as the above may sound. Stuff tends to get updated pretty well. There are a lot of diligent people who tend to this sort of stuff. Upgrades are usually fairly rapid. To enable Ubuntu’s Universe repository, you’d run this command:

Ubuntu’s Multiverse Repository:

 In Ubuntu’s Multiverse repository, you’ll find software that is not FOSS. Due to licensing reasons, the folks behind Ubuntu can not maintain any of this software.

The software gets updated, but nothing in this archive is going to have Ubuntu doing so. Ubuntu also can’t ship this repository as enabled by default. To enable the Multiverse Repository, use this command:

Ubuntu’s Restricted Repository:

In Ubuntu’s Restricted repository, you’ll also have software that is not FOSS. The Multiverse repository contains things like drivers for hardware that doesn’t have FOSS drivers available. Well, the Restricted repository is where drivers exist.

A number of people are sticklers for FOSS-only operating systems. plus there’s the licenses to worry about, mean that these end up in a repository all there own. If you’re using hardware that doesn’t have FOSS drivers, you might need the Multiverse repository. To enable the Multiverse repository, you’ll want to use this:

Ubuntu’s Partner Repository:

In Ubuntu’s Partner repository, it’s still software that doesn’t have a FOSS license. It’s Ubuntu adding the software for partners of Ubuntu. It’s useless and will be axed at some point. (It has been empty in recent Ubuntu iterations.)

So, you can forget about this one. I will explain how to enable the Partner repository, as it’s both obvious and I’m pretty sure it’s still a thing on older versions of Ubuntu, and the LTS variants are going to be around for a while longer. It’s easy to enable Ubuntu’s Partner repository, the command is simply:

Closure:

Well, there you have it. You have another article and this one tells you to add Ubuntu’s default repositories. There’s a GUI way to do so, but this one takes place in the terminal. Besides, I already showed you how to do it graphically. This article almost got missed. I was at a funeral and that took a bunch of time and energy. But, I just couldn’t resist keeping up the same publication schedule.

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Compress A File With WinRAR

Today’s article is going to teach you how to compress a file with WinRAR. This isn’t exactly something you’re going to do often, unless you share files with Windows users. If you do share files with Windows users, this isn’t such a terrible idea. There are worse ideas, some of which are on this site.

Before you get to excited, there are countless ways to compress a file in Linux. The odds of  you technically needing WinRAR are about zero. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun and learn new things!

Right?

Right!

It’s great to learn new things, even if you’re never gonna use them. Until about 5 minutes ago, I can’t remember the last time I felt the urge to compress a file with WinRAR. I’ve previously written about WinRAR, actually. 

How To: Extract An .rar File

So, if you follow that link you’ll learn how to perform the other end of this operation! I’d like to pretend I planned it that way, but I did not. No, there’s no rhyme or reason to the publication schedule – except you get a new article every other day.

Compress A File With WinRAR:

Yup. You’re gonna need an open terminal for this one. 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.

First, you’re going to need rar. It’s probably in your default repositories. It’s there for Debian, Ubuntu, and Mint. So, it’s probably available for you. You can get the proprietary version of WinRAR here. (Or not… I don’t see a whole lot of folks wanting that, but it’s there if you do! Also, I think it’s just a trial version.) Or, install it from your repositories. With those operating systems, it’s just:

Now, it’s really easy to compress a file with WinRAR. The command is:

The ‘a’ flag is telling the command to archive the file/folder you named. If you wanted to compress a file (or even a directory) named foo, it’d look like this:

See? That’s all you really needed to know if you want to compress a file with WinRAR. It’s not exactly complicated, but it’s helpful to know how if you come across a situation where you actually need to know. Again, there’s a zillion ways to compress files in Linux, so you’re not going to need this one all that often unless you really need it. If you do use WinRAR with Linux often, please leave a comment explaining why.

Closure:

Yup. It’s another article! This one teaches you how to compress a file with WinRAR. In my defense, this is information that’s from my notes. I have a whole lot of notes, but this one stood out today and so you get this for your article. You’re welcome!

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How To: Change The Timezone

In today’s article, I’m going to show you how to change the timezone. This isn’t a task you’ll need to do often, but it’ll be nice to know how to do it when you do need to change the timezone.

Personally, I find myself mostly needing to change the timezone when I lease a VPS and want the system timezone to match my own timezone. All in all, the  computer doesn’t actually care what timezone it is in, so you can set it to your local timezone and not have any issues. Normally, I’d configure the timezone during the installation process.

I suppose this is probably only going to work in systems that make use of systemd. It makes use of timedatectl and I’m pretty sure that’s a systemd thing. If this was a good site, the author would actually go verify this. You get what you pay for! Still, you may need another tool if you don’t use systemd.

It’s also going to be a fairly easy article. If you want to change the timezone, it’s not all that difficult. There really isn’t a whole lot to it. So, without further ado, let’s get into the article…

Change The Timezone:

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.

I suppose you should first know what timezone you’re currently using. To learn that information, you can use this command:

Your output might look something like this:

timedatectl output
Your timedatectl output may look different, obviously. You might not be in my timezone!

Anyhow, to change it, the format of the command is:

I suppose you might not know your timezone options. You can generate a giant list of ’em with this command:

If you don’t know your timezone options, you can use ‘grep’ to narrow it down. For example, if you’re pretty sure you’re in America, your command might look a little like:

That’ll narrow it down. By the way, the  “America” in this case actually more like ‘the Americas’ and far more than just the United States – or even  more than North America. That information might come in handy for some of you.

Closure:

Whelp, there you have it… You have another article. This one will show you how to change the timezone, which might be something you need to know from time to time. It’s probably not something you need to remember, but now you can easily search for it.

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 own site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

Make A Website Screenshot With CutyCapt

In today’s article, we’re going to use the terminal and make a website screenshot with CutyCapt. It’ll be a short and easily followed article, but one for everyone to follow. Even a rank beginner will easily be able to make a website screenshot with CutyCapt! (That’s the link to the project homepage, or where you need to go to learn more about CutyCapt.)

There are pretty much a zillion screenshot tools. There are even a metric-ton of browser extensions that specialize in taking a website screenshot. You can use any of those, or you can just install CutyCapt and use that from the terminal. There are even multiple choices when it comes to taking website screenshots from within the terminal, but  we’ll just be using this CutyCapt in this article.

If you’re curious, CutyCapt defines itself on SourceForge as:

CutyCapt is a small cross-platform command-line utility to capture WebKit’s rendering of a web page into a variety of vector and bitmap formats, including SVG, PDF, PS, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and BMP.

That appears to be a pretty solid definition. The CutyCapt tool does what it says on the tin and that’s it. You can’t really expect anything more – which is not a bad thing. You have one job and you need one tool. If the goal is to take a screenshot of a website via the terminal, the tool is CutyCat.

Make A Website Screenshot With CutyCapt:

Like oh so many, this article also requires an open terminal. 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, you’re going to need to install said CutyCapt. This may not be available for in all default repositories, but it’s in Debian/Ubuntu/Mint’s default repositories. So, using those as my example, you can install CutyCapt with:

Just know that your distro may not have this packaged, so follow the link in the preamble and find a way to install it in your distro of choice. You can compile it easily enough, should you need to go that far.

Once you have CutyCapt installed, it’s actually pretty easy. If you want use CutyCapt to take a screenshot of linux-tips.us, your command might look a little like this:

Or, in other words, it’s pretty basic:

It might look complicated, but CutyCapt is not all that complicated when you break it down. If the output size isn’t quite what you’re after (and it might not be), you can just keep playing with it until you get it exactly how you want it. The output format and expected screenshot size is all you need to worry about getting right.

Either way, as mentioned in the preamble, you can change the output. In our example, we specified .png. You need only change that and the output will change to what you specified. If you need any further assistance, you can use the classic man cutycapt to learn more about the application.

Closure:

See? You have yet another article. This one teaches you how to make a website screenshot with CutyCapt. It’s a pretty handy application to have on-hand if you’re into taking screenshots of websites. CutyCapt is only used for making screenshots and not a whole lot more than that, so it’s a one-trick-pony and intentionally so.

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 own site. If you scroll down, you can sign up for the newsletter, vote for the article, and comment.

How To: Hide The Output From wget

In today’s article you’re going to learn that you actually can hide the output from wget. I am not one of folks want to do this, but some do. Or at least the option is there, so I assume they do. Either way, read on and you’ll know how to hide the output from wget! 

Goodwood Revival is this weekend, but you’ll still get an article. I am thinking about going in person next year, so I’ll have to write articles ahead of time. I probably should have done that even though I’m just streaming it.

Anyhow, there’s an option that will let you hide the output from wget and it’s in my notes. I might as well turn it into an article because I’m sure someone wants to do this. 

What this does, to be clear, is shows no wget output in the terminal once you enter the command. You’re not running blind, however. I’ll show you how to at least ensure the command gets completed. So, it does have uses – when  you just don’t need to see the clutter.

Lots of people do loads of useful work in the terminal and don’t really need to see clutter, so this is one way to avoid that terminal clutter. I actually prefer to see what’s going on, but I’m weird like that. If you do not prefer to see what’s going on with wget, this article is for you!

Hide The Output From wget:

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.

It next requires that you use wget to get something. So, pick something and download it with wget. I don’t care what. You do you and download anything you want. To hide the output from wget, the command is:

That’s really it. However, you then have no idea if it it completed. Fortunately, you can make sure wget completes its task (within reason) with the -c flag. So then the command would look like:

See? Pretty simple. That command will not only hide the output from wget, it will ensure the download is completed. You’ll avoid cluttering up your terminal, or something…

Closure:

There you have it! You now know you can, and how you can, hide the output from wget. You can even be reasonably sure it completes behind the scenes. It’s not a very difficult article to follow today, so consider it an easy day. Now, back to my racing…

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.

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