Author: Gayan

If you use the official “GNU Zip” (file compression tool, widely known as “gzip”) for compressing files in the GNU/Linux and have a powerful multi-core (and multithreaded) CPU unit, then just like me (though my CPU unit ain’t that powerful :D), you too might be frustrated by the fact “gzip” only using a single CPU core when running. Because, if it used all the available CPU power while running (compressing files that is), then it should speed up the process quite significantly. But, it does not do that. Luckily though, just like with the previously discussed “pbzip2” utility, there’s a…

“iat” is a versatile, command-line based tool that lets you convert a lot of different types of disc images into the ISO format. If your CD/DVD burning utility in GNU/Linux is having issues while burning a certain type of image (especially those “proprietary” ones such as “MDF” for instance), then this tool will come in handy. It also has the ability to burn disc images directly (using “cdrecord”), so you don’t even have to convert them manually. But when I tried to burn a “NRG” disc image (created by Nero) it gave me an error though. But I used “iat”…

If you use the CD/DVD burning tool called “Alcohol 120%” or “Daemon Tools” heavily in MS Windows and has a reasonable amount of disc images created in the “MDF/MDS” format but just figured out that you cannot burn them in GNU/Linux (say that you recently switched over to Ubuntu Linux! :D) as with “ISO” disc images, then this small, yet extremely useful tool called “mdf2iso” might save your day ;-). Not just that, but by converting those images, you can actually save some disk space too (after converting to “ISO” format for instance). Because when you create a “.mdf” disc…

If you’re an addicted user of the free, online video sharing website “YouTube” 😉 and use GNU/Linux as the operating system, also happen to be using the command-line interface a lot too, then you might love this small, yet an awesome tool called “yt” (stands for “whitey”). It’s written in Python and is a “YouTube browser” that lets you search and play YouTube videos directly from the command-line!. It’s actually a front-end that uses both “youtube-dl” (YouTube video downloader) and “mplayer” as the video player. It’s not a new tool and has been there for sometime now according to the…

Although when considered the popularity differences between MS Windows and GNU/Linux, one would rather assume that Windows should have a lot of choices when it comes to application software. Well, it’s true in most occasions. However, when it comes to finding free PDF viewer/reader, it seems like GNU/Linux also has a lot of choices too. For instance, Ubuntu comes with the one called “Evince” (Gnome desktop’s tool actually), the KDE has the awesome “Okular”. But if you want something that’s both lightweight and simple, then you can try the awesome ePDFView & “xpdf”. Or if you want a keyboard oriented…

Ubuntu comes with a screen locking utility by default and it is pretty decent. However, if you wanted something that gives you more options plus, a bit fun to use, then you might like the utility called “i3lock”. Let’s say you wanted to lock your screen with the mouse pointer enabled and set the background to a screenshot of your desktop that you just took, and to make your wildest dreams come true ;-), a friend comes and tries to use the computer but complains saying that the desktop seems to be stuck ;-), yep, you can do that with…

Using optical discs for taking backups is somewhat safer than some of the other methods (such as using HDDs). But still, they can be as bad as any other backup media if not properly taken care of (improper storing conditions). And you should also consider the quality of the discs when purchasing as well. For example, even if you properly store them, if the media itself is of low quality then they will more prone to physical damages (ever seen discs with “blurred” surfaces? or ones with see through surfaces, because the data layers has being worn out). Errors can…

“TermSaver” is a pretty cool screensaver that you can launch from the command-line interface (Terminal) in GNU/Linux. It’s not supposed replace other screensavers that come with your desktop (Gnome, KDE, Unity etc). And it also might not be able to carryout the actual purpose of a screesaver since it lacks a lot of pixel movements (screen animations), which otherwise helps to prevent “screen burns” on display devices. But, if the command-line is your primary interface or, if you’re a desktop user who usually uses the Terminal emulator and looking for a screensaver that’s quite fun to use, then you might…

If you’re looking a simple, free & open source audio spectrum analyzer software that can be used in GNU/Linux, MS Windows and Mac OS X, then “Spek” might fit your needs. But, if it’s a tool that has a lot of features (audio filters etc) that you need, then you’ll be disappointed with “Spek”, as it doesn’t have any!. However, it does have few benefits of its own, that some other tools might not have. Such as a wide variety of audio codec support, lightweight and faster spectrum generation times etc. Main features … *. Uses the powerful “ffmpeg” multimedia…

“iotop” is a small but a powerful disk I/O (input/output) monitor that can be used in Ubuntu Linux. It’s an extremely useful tool if you want to know what programs are using your disk’s read/write bandwidth at an any given moment. Or, if you have one of those never notebooks that doesn’t have a HDD LED indicator (such as the Acer Aspire One 722 for instance), then this utility will too come in handy. It’s written in Python and as you can see from the below screenshot, it shows the processes that use the most of your disk I/O at…

Supposing that you have a multi-core processor, whenever you run a process (program), depending on its requirements, it might be executed using all the available multi-cores (say that it’s a multimedia encoding utility which needs a lot of your CPU cycles). Or, if it doesn’t need a lot of CPU usages and a single core is more than capable of handling it, then still, while executing, it might be switched between the multiple CPU cores by your operating system. The OS does this due to various reasons but mainly for achieving a balance between the system’s stability and the performance.…

“procexp” is a powerful process explorer (or a monitor) that you can use in the GNU/Linux platform. If you’re someone like a system administrator who wants some additional power over your running system processes, then “procexp” can be an extremely easy to use & a powerful solution. The developer claims that “procexp” is the only process monitor that lets you access advanced details per running processes such as their CPU usage (of both the Kernel and the user based), network I/O activity and TCP/IP statics. Nonetheless, this is a very useful features, because, let’s say that you wanted to quickly…