Author: Gayan

In computing, when it comes to delivering excellent performance and stability, both software and hardware go hand in hand. Meaning that, even if you have the most powerful hardware, if your software or the operating system, is not properly optimized, then that can still lead to decreased performance & stability. However, optimizing an operating system is no easy task either, as an OS is actually a collection of software tools, rather than a single entity, and thus, a major flow in a single core utility can negatively affect the entire OS, quite easily. Take a file system for example. Let’s say…

‘bzip2’ is perhaps one of the most widely used file compression format in GNU/Linux. It compresses data well, runs fast and does not need a lot of memory to run. However, because newer computers come with 4GB or more RAM and powerful CPUs, there are other data compression tools that one can use as they give high compression ratios, in comparison. In that sense, you can try ‘lrzip’ utility (‘Long Range ZIP). By default it uses the ‘LZMA’ algorithm, combined with ‘rzip’, as they are known for excellent compression ratios, and according to its creator, Con Kolivas (who is also…

Recently, I ‘partially’ converted one of me friends to Ubuntu, and he is using Ubuntu alongside with Windows. After few days of using it, one day, he came to see me (with his Laptop) and said; ‘hey Gayan, mate I’m experiencing something weird here!’ … … Because of its nature, I thought that, this particular conversation might come in handy for someone who is also new to Ubuntu. So I decided to write about it, and here it goes. So I said, ‘what did you mean?’ He answered, ‘The other day, I downloaded a file in Ubuntu yeah, and saved…

When compared with the excellent and robust Ubuntu 12.04 LTS release (at least in my experience), though the current 12.10 version brought few new features, it does not seem robust at all, as I’m having some serious issues with Compiz (which has never been the case for me as my Intel HD 3000 GPU worked really well with it). Anyway, that is a hardware related issue, and perhaps the next one too might be as such. That is, despite Ubuntu 12.10 booting as fast as the 12.04 did, and I don’t know how it is in your computer, but I…

Different operating systems use different file systems. The GNU/Linux for instance, has a lot of file systems, but primarily relies on the ‘Ext4’ (which will eventually be replaced by ‘Btrfs’). And when talking about file systems, another thing that comes into mind, as it has a direct effect on the performance of the file system, is the term, ‘fragmentation’. Because, no matter what file system that your operating system uses, it is inevitable that it too will be fragmented, as time goes on. And the main reason for file system fragmentation is the complications that occur while trying to find…

Starting with Ubuntu 12.10, users can now install Ubuntu OS and its core files into an encrypted volume (partition) for additional security (there is an option for that in the installer wizard). It is called, ‘Encrypt the new Ubuntu installation for security’, and once chosen, all you have to do is enter a password, and the rest will be taken care of. However, if you go with that option, it will erase your entire HDD, and if you use Ubuntu alongside with Windows (I’m using 7), then this is not an ‘option’. So I just thought that writing a ‘how-to’…

In my experience, each time a new version of Ubuntu is released, for couple of days, the software repositories get a bit slow (especially if you are out side of US). And as a result, if you use software managers such as the ‘apt-get’, Ubuntu Software Center or Synaptic, then sometimes the download speeds can be frustratingly slow. I’m experiencing it (again) right now with my newly installed Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal. Not only some are slow and I could not even install some of my ‘must have’ software packages as ‘apt-get’ says it cannot contact a certain server. Then…

By default, Ubuntu’s battery indicator does not show the remaining battery life as a percentage, instead it shows the remaining time. This I think is preferred by the most users, however, it would have been nice, if we could manually change between the two. Then again, this indicator icon does show a small ‘bar’ that goes up/down, and you can get a rough idea about the remaining percentage. Plus, you can always access advanced statistics by using this icon and there it lists the current percentage as well. Still, it is a bit of a stretch. Due to few issues…

The network manager in Ubuntu has the ability to restore the last user saved settings of network hardware devices, upon the next desktop login. For example, if you had disabled Bluetooth, then it should be disabled then next time you login to your desktop. If you had it turned ON, then it will be turned ON, automatically etc. However, sometimes, out of no reason, even after manually disabling it (because I hardly use it), upon the next reboot, Ubuntu 12.04 automatically enables the Bluetooth device in my laptop computer. And when running, it consumes a reasonable amount of power too,…

Most Ubuntu users do not need an introduction to ‘indicator-cpufreq’. However, if you don’t know what that is, then ‘indicator-cpufreq’ is a small utility that runs on the system tray area that lets you manually change the speeds at which your CPU run (also known as changing ‘clock speeds’). The CPU or the ‘Central Processing Unit’ is a hardware device that consumes a lot of power. And because of that, newer processors have a lot of power saving techniques, for enhancing the battery life or to minimize the power pollution in general. Some of these power saving feature are controlled…

Though they are not the only important ones, apart from the resolution and the bitrate, frame rate or frames (images) per second plays a major role giving the viewer a pleasurable experience while watching a video. And most movies (videos) still use a frame rate between 24 – 30 as a ‘fps’ of 24 or beyond is just enough for fooling the eyes so that the moving images look like a video. But interestingly, according to the American file director ‘Douglas Trumbull’, who has done intensive research into the subject of frame rate and its effects on human emotion, has…

‘dstat’ is a very handy tool that generates system resources statistics of your computer. Like most other these type of tools, ‘dstat’ is also based on the command-line. But because it uses vivid colors and separate columns (shown in the below screenshot), the output is easily readable and is very user-friendly too. It is intended for individuals like systems administrators thus by default it includes few columns that are not really needed for most users. But by using few command-line arguments we can easily make it to only include system resources details that have a particular importance to you anyway.…