Tips and Tricks for Linux Mint After Installation [Mint 17 - MATE

Edition]
Introduction
Linux Mint is one of the top free
operating systems widely used in the
world and currently receives the
highest hits at DistroWatch.
Even though it's an Ubuntu-based
system, Linux Mint features only one panel at the bottom which looks
closer to the taskbar in the Windows system, and a well-organized start
menu complete with a useful Search box. It also pre-installs some
proprietary software, including the Adobe Flash plugin and necessary
media codecs, by default so that you can view streaming media, such
as YouTube videos in a browser, and play mp3, mp4 or most other
media files with a player right away out of the box.
Linux Mint 17 Qiana is a long-term service (LTS) release which will
receive security updates until 2019 and future versions of Linux Mint
will use this same package base until 2016, making it trivial for you to
upgrade accordingly to the developer. The MATE Edition of Linux Mint
17 Qiana uses MATE, a traditional desktop environment which
continues to develop as a fork of GNOME 2. If you have this Edition
installed in your PC, you might find these tips and tricks useful for
working with the system.
Pin Programs to the Panel
Frequently used programs can be easily pinned to the panel.
1. Browse to a program from Menu > Applications.
2. Drag and drop the program to an empty space in the panel, or
right-click the program and select "Add to panel".
3. Right click the program icon, select "Move" and drop it to a new
place in the panel.
4. Right click the program icon and select "Lock to Panel".
Set Preferences for the Mint Menu
Linux Mint has an advanced Gnome menu called "mintMenu" where
you can start doing things like running a program, looking for files, log
out or quit the system and so on.
This menu allows you to set your personal preferences with the steps
below, for example:
1. Right click "Menu", select "Preferences".

2. In the "Main button" tab, remove the word "Menu" from the
"Button text" box if you like to hide the text.
3. Change the keyboard shortcut from <Control>Super_L to others,
such as Super_R, if you'd like to just press the right Windows key
to get to the menu. (This change only takes effect after logging
out and back in the system.)
4. Change
the
Button
icon
from
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintMenu/visualisation-logo.png
to
/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintMenu/mintMenu.png, as shown in the
screenshot. (Caution: avoid changing to a huge size image which
might affect the panel.)
Other preferences can also be set in the various tabs such as Theme,
Applications and Favorites.
Add a Program Shortcut from the Mint Menu
Quite often a shortcut is automatically added to the Menu when you
install an application, but you might encounter a program that does
not. In which case, you need to manually add a shortcut for it to run
from the Menu. This can be done without breaking a sweat.
1. Right-click the Mint Menu and select "Edit menu".
2. Click a software category for example Sound & Video under
Applications.
3. At the right panel, click "+New Item".
4. Type in a name for the application, for example, ClipGrab.
5. To the right of "Command", browse to the application where
you've downloaded, for example,
/home/username/Downloads/clipgrab-3.4.2/clipgrab-3.4.2.x86_64
6. Click OK and Close buttons.
Note: If an executable file is not accessible, try to add permission to
execute the file in the Terminal, for this example assuming the file is
extracted to the "Downloads" folder:
cd ~/Downloads chmod +x lipgrab-3.4.2.x86_64
Open Up a Window in Center
When running an application without maximized, Linux Mint always
puts it in the left-top corner of the desktop by default. The window
manager in Linux Mint does not restore the last known position of an
application window unless an application remembers its own window
position. However, it does offer an option to open new windows at the
center of the screen. To enable this option in Linux Mint is pretty
simple.

1. Go to Menu > Control Center > Personal

2. Click "Windows" to open up "Window Preferences".
3. Tick "Center new windows" under the "Placement" tab.
Snap a Window
Comparison of documents in two windows side by side on the screen is
made much easier with the window snapping feature. This feature is
available in Linux Mint and can be enabled via user settings.
1. Go to Menu > Control Center > Personal
2. Click "Windows" to open up "Window Preferences".
3. Tick "Enable side by side tiling" under the "Placement" tab.
Try now to drag a window to the left edge of the screen and another to
the right edge to tile the two windows.
Roll Up and Down a Window
When you double-click the title bar of a window,
the default setting is to maximize a window.
Since there's already a maximize button you can
use for this, I always like to change the default
setting to rolling up a window when I double-click
on its title bar.
1. Go to Menu > Control Center > Personal
2. Click "Windows" to open up "Window Preferences".
3. In "Titlebar Action" under the "Behaviour" tab, select "Roll up"
from the drop-down list.
Now you can roll up a window when you double-click its title bar, and
roll it down by double-clicking the title bar again. Simple as that.
Customize a Theme
Linux Mint is using the Mint-X as the default theme, but you can
customize it to suit your preferences easily.
1. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences >
Appearance
2. Click the "Customize" button.
3. Select one of the tabs, such as Controls.
4. Choose one of the controls from the list,
then click the "Close" button.
5. Now it becomes your Custom theme and you can save it as a new
theme.
Hide Drive Icons on the Desktop

In addition to the Computer and Home icons, Linux Mint adds an icon
to the desktop for every removable drive that you attach to your
system. The icons can be hidden by these steps:
1. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Desktop Settings
2. Untick Computer, Home and Mounted Volumes, then close the
window.
The drive icons as well as Computer and Home icons will then
disappear from the desktop. Remember that you can always access
the drives from Menu > Places.
Set a Default View in File Browser
Windows Explorer allows for users to set a default view to all folders. In
almost the same way, Linux Mint's Caja File Browser allows for these
settings:
1. Go to Menu > Applications > System Tools
> Caja file browser.
2. At the top of the File Browser, click "Edit"
and "Preferences".
3. Under Default View, change "Icon View" to
"List View", which lists more details in columns.
4. Tick "Show hidden and backup files" if that's your choice.
Other various settings, such as single or double click to open items,
icon captions, list columns, preview files and media handling can be
done in the same window as well.
Create an Advanced File Browser
In the Mint file system, you can use Caja file browser to browse most
files but can only write files in your home folder /home/your_name and
its sub-folders such as Desktop and Documents. If you have to rename
a folder or write files outside of your home folder using the file
browser, you won't be able to but you can create an advanced file
browser for this purpose.
1. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences >
Main Menu
2. Select "Accessories" in the left panel and
click "New Item" in the right panel.
3. Enter a name such as Advanced File Browser in the "Name" box.
4. Enter gksu caja in the "Command" field.
5. Click the "OK" button and the "Close" button.

Now you can go to Menu > Applications > Accessories and see that the
Advanced File Browser is ready for use. But be careful since you can
use it to delete or change any files on your system.
Add or Change Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts are preset in the system, but you can add new
ones or change them easily. For instance, the keyboard shortcut to the
Terminal is disabled by default and you can change it to Ctrl+Alt+T
which is common in Linux system.
1. Go To Menu > Applications > Preferences >
Keyboard Shortcuts
2. Browse to Desktop > "Run a terminal"
3. Click on the Shortcut, and it shows "New
shortcut..."
4. Press Ctrl+Alt+T, and it shows Ctrl+Alt+T
5. Click the Close button and try the new shortcut.
Note 1: To disable a shortcut, press Backspace when it shows "New
shortcut..." after the step 3 above.
Note 2: Shortcuts beginning with XF86 refer to special keys available to
some multimedia keyboards.
Terminate Unresponsive Programs
Xkill is part of the X11 utilities pre-installed in Linux Mint and a tool for
terminating misbehaving X clients or unresponsive programs. You can
easily add a shortcut key to launch xkill with the steps below.
1. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences >
Keyboard Shortcuts.
2. Click the Add button to create a custom
shortcut.
3. Enter xkill to both the Name and Command
boxes and click the Apply button.
4. Click on Disabled at the xkill row in the Keyboard Shortcuts
window (Disabled is then changed to New shortcut...).
5. Press a new key combination, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+X (New shortcut... is
then changed to Ctrl+Alt+X).
6. Click the Close button.
Xkill is ready for use. Press the above key combination to turn the
cursor to an X-sign, move the X-sign and drop it into a program
interface to terminate the unresponsive program, or cancel the X-sign
with a right-click.

Note: As an alternative, you can right-click the panel, select "Add to

panel", then choose "Force Quit" to add to the panel. This works
similarly to the above but it's activated from a button on the panel
instead of the keyboard shortcut.
Re-start System without Rebooting
If you press Ctrl+Alt+Delete, Linux Mint brings you a menu to shut
down, restart, or suspend your system. But for some reason you might
encounter that the system freezes, the mouse cursor can't move,
neither pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete can work.
As an alternative, you can also use Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to do the
same. If this shortcut key is disabled, you can easily enable it by the
following steps:
1. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Keyboard.
2. Select the Layouts tab and click the Options button.
3. Select Key sequence to kill the X server and enable Control +
Alt + Backspace.
Set Sound Preferences
If you use a PC with an integrated audio device and it has no sound
when playing a media file on a player, try these simple steps to set
Sound Preferences for your PC. It works for me for the audio device I
have.
1. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Sound to bring up the
Sound Preferences window.
2. Under the Hardware tab, change Profile to Analog Stereo Duplex
from the drop-down menu.
3. Click "Test Speakers" to check if it works.
As the items available from the drop-down menus might differ
depending on the hardware devices detected by the system, you might
want to try other items in the menus to see if they work for your
devices.
Install Extra Fonts
Do you prefer Windows TrueType fonts to the default fonts installed by
Linux Mint? The mscorefonts package containing most Microsoft fonts
can be installed and configured easily in a few steps below:
1. Go to Menu > Terminal.
2. Paste sudo apt-get install ttf-mscorefontsinstaller into the Terminal (by pressing CtrlShift-V in the Terminal after copying the
highlighted code).

3. When prompted, use the arrow left/right keys to navigate and

agree to the EULA license terms for the install.
4. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts.
5. Click each of them, pick a font and size to configure for window
title and so on.
Besides this, you can run an application such as Font-Manager to view,
install, remove fonts and so on.
Install Screenlets
Screenlets are small applications to represent things such as sticky
notes, clocks, calendars around on your desktop. You can launch a preinstalled screenlet from Screenlet Manager, or install a new one into
the Manager for launching it. Here are the steps for installing and
launching a screenlet, for example, WaterMark System Information.
1. Install Screenlets app if it has not been
added.
2. Download the screenlet "WaterMark System
Information" to a folder.
3. Go to Menu > Applications > Accessories >
Screenlets.
4. Click Install, select Install Screenlet and click OK.
5. Browse to the folder, select the file downloaded and click "Open"
to install the screenlet into the Screenlets manager.
6. Select the screenlet "WaterMark" and click "Launch/Add". (Tips:
you can add more than one WaterMark screenlet and set it to
display other system information.)
More screenlets are available for installation from screenlets.org.

Install Oracle Java Packages

Linux Mint uses OpenJDK by default, but some web services might
need the Oracle Java Runtime Environment (JRE) to be installed for
running the services properly. If you would like to get the proprietary
Oracle Java package for your system, you can download and install it
with the steps below:
1. Go to Menu > Terminal.
2. Enter sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java to add the
partner repository.
3. Enter sudo apt-get update to update the source list.

4. Enter sudo apt-get install oracle-java7-installer

At any time, you can check the Java version you're using and configure
it when necessary:

Enter sudo java -version to check the version of the Java used in
the system.

Enter sudo update-alternatives --config java to choose the default

Java for use in the system.

Install Apps from Ubuntu Apps Directory

The Ubuntu Apps Directory is one of the good sources to look for
applications to run in Linux Mint system. On a web page listing a
product such as K3b, you can click a download button, in which the APT
protocol is applied to invoke the default package manager to download
and install software for you, right from a web browser and pretty
straightforward.
This works well with common browsers such as Chrome and Firefox in
the current version of Linux Mint system.
Add More Useful Software
Linux Mint's Software Manager lets you search and get free software,
or straight from the Menu, you can type an application name into the
Search box to see if the software has been installed and ready for use.
If the software has not been installed, you can click "Install" when a
software package is shown in the search result. What's more, you can
also go to Menu > Package Manager, type in an application name to
search and install a software package from the repositories.
Besides this, you can browse the Ubuntu Apps Directory to find
software products you need as mentioned in the tip above.
Alternatively, you can get the latest freeware applications by clicking
the Install this now button from the GetDeb Repository after the getdeb
package is installed with the instructions given.
Manually Mount a USB Drive
A USB storage device plugged into the system usually mounts
automatically, but if for some reasons it doesn't automount, it's
possible to manually mount it with these steps.
1. Go to Menu > Terminal.
2. Enter sudo mkdir /media/usb to create a mount point called usb.
3. Enter sudo fdisk -l to look for the USB drive already plugged in,
let's say the drive you want to mount is /dev/sdb1.
4. Enter
sudo
mount
-t
vfat
/dev/sdb1
/media/usb
-o
uid=1000,gid=100,utf8,dmask=027,fmask=137 to mount a USB

drive
formatted
with
FAT16
or
FAT32
system.
OR:
Enter sudo mount -t ntfs-3g /dev/sdb1 /media/usb to mount a USB
drive formatted with NTFS system.
To unmount it, just enter sudo umount /media/usb in the Terminal.
Name or Label a Partition
The File Browser shows the root directory as File System for your Mint
system partition. If you have other partitions (or volumes), it shows
them as xx GB Filesystem if theyre not named or labelled.
Using Disks app is one of the effective ways to name a partition easily:
1. Install Disks app from the Ubuntu Apps
Directory if it has not been added.
2. Go to Menu > Applications > Preferences >
Disks
3. Select the item Hard Disk.
4. In the Volumes section, click a partition you
want to label.
5. Click the 'More actions' button below the Volumes section then
select "Edit Filesystem..."
6. In the Label box, enter a name, e.g. Data-Disk, and click Apply.
The file manager should now show the partition label, such as DataDisk, instead of xx GB Filesystem. This tip is for naming a partition
using the application; use other advanced features such as format, edit
or delete partition with caution as they can delete data on your disk.
Auto Start Up an Application
In Windows, you can place a program shortcut in a startup folder for
running a program automatically when the system starts. In Linux Mint,
you can do the same in this way:
1. Go To Menu > Applications > Preferences >
Startup Applications
2. Click the "Add" button.
3. Name a program.
4. Click the "Browse" button and navigate to
File System > usr > bin, where programs
are usually installed.
5. Select a program, click the "Open" button followed by the "Add"
button.

The above program will then be listed in additional startup programs.

Check if the program runs automatically by logging out and back to the
system.
Change a Login Screen and Theme
Linux Mint offers you a Mint Display Manager (MDM) to configure a
login session. You can use it to change a login screen or a theme you
like in a few steps:
1. Go to Menu > Administration > "Login
Window" to open this window "Login
Window Preferences".
2. Under the "theme" tab, select a built-in
theme, then log out and back in to try a
new log-in screen.
Under the same tab, you can choose a style such as "GDM" and select
a theme from the list based on that style. Moreover, you can also
download a similar theme for installation. For example:
1. Download a theme from gnome-look.org, such as Relaxing Water
for the GDM style.
2. Drag and drop the downloaded theme file (.tar.gz) to the MDM,
under the "Theme" tab with the style "GDM" chosen.
3. Click "Install", select this new theme then close the MDM.
4. Log out and back in to enjoy a new login session.
Change Default Boot Options
After full installation, Linux Mint is commonly set
to be the default operating system to boot up if
no key is pressed within a few seconds on a
multi-boot system. You might want to set your
preferred operating system to boot up by
default. This can be done easily with Grub
Customizer.
Press Ctrl-Alt-T to call up Terminal, copy following
codes and paste (Ctrl-Shift-V) them inside Terminal to install Grub
Customizer.
1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
2. sudo apt-get update
3. sudo apt-get install grub-customizer
After installation, run Grub Customizer to set the default boot options
with the following steps.

1. Press Alt-F2, type grub-customizer into the box and press Enter to
run it.
2. Under the "General Settings" tab, select the default entry you like
to boot up from the drop-down menu.
3. Adjust the timeout value if needed, then press the Close button
and the Save button.
Avoid changing timeout to 0 seconds if you need to select a system to
boot up from a multi-boot menu.
Remove Old Linux Kernel, Clean Up Boot Menu
Each time when Linux Mint updates to a new Linux kernel, the old one
is left behind and the boot menu gets longer. If your new Linux kernel
works well, it's safe to remove the old one and clean up the boot
menu. Do take these steps carefully as incorrect removal of the items
can make your system unbootable.
1. Go to Menu > Terminal.
2. Enter uname -r to print the Linux kernel version you're running
(e.g. 3.13.0-24-generic).
3. Go to Menu > Package Manager.
4. Click Status from the left panel and select Installed.
5. Enter the main version number (e.g. 3.13.0) in the Search box.
6. Right-click the items with smaller sub-version number (e.g.
3.13.0-23) for older Linux kernel and select Mark for Complete
Removal. The files for the older version to remove may include
linux-headers-3.13.0-23,
linux-headers-3.13.0-23-generic
and
linux-image-3.13.0-23-generic.
7. Click Apply from the top panel.
8. Click Apply again from the pop-up window to confirm removal of
the marked packages. The boot menu will be cleaned up
automatically after the removal is confirmed.
Note: Try also Grub Customizer which can be used to hide items from
the boot menu. Just install the program by entering the following in the
Terminal, then run the program, remove the items you want to hide
and click 'Save'.
1. sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
2. sudo apt-get update
3. sudo apt-get install grub-customizer
Auto Shutdown the System

A simple command can be entered in the Terminal to schedule a time

for the system to shut down.
1. Go Menu > Terminal.
2. Enter sudo shutdown -h +m (replace m with the number of
minutes,
e.g.
+60).
OR: enter sudo shutdown -h hh:mm (replace hh:mm with the time
on the 24hr clock, e.g. 23:15).
3. Enter password and minimize the Terminal window.
The system will then shut down within the minutes or at the time
specified. To cancel a scheduled time, enter sudo shutdown -c in the
Terminal.
Alternatively, you might want to download and install GShutdown,
which is a GUI application for scheduling a time to shutdown the
system. If the application cannot detect your desktop, go to Edit >
Preferences > Actions, select "Specify the method manually" and click
the "..." button, then choose "GNOME" for the Desktop and "GDM" for
the Display manager.