Articles by Bill Toulas
About Bill Toulas
Over five years of experience writing about Linux and open source software on blogs and news websites. As part of the community, this is my way to give back as well as to promote what I perceive as the most amazing development in the area of software and operation systems.
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How to connect to IRC through console, app, or a web client on Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: desktop, linux, shell •
Comments: 2 IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text communication layer protocol that has been available for at least 15 years. It is used by tens of thousands around the globe for quick communication, online conferences, conduction of real-time text interviews, asking for technical help etc.
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How to run DOS applications in Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 6 Chances are that most of you reading along those lines have started your “adventure” in computers through DOS. Although this long deprecated operating system is only running in our memories anymore, it will always hold a special place in our hearts. That said, some of you may still want to drink a sip of nostalgia or show your kids what old days were like by running some MS-DOS applications on your Linux distribution.
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How to use Stellarium's Oculars plugin to match your optics
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: desktop •
Comments: 5 The Stellarium virtual planetarium is one of the most widely used open source specialized tools in the world. It features a captivating dome that counts over 600000 starts, hundreds of constellations and asterisms, planets with their moons and realistic sky effects like atmospheric scattering, shooting stars and supernovae simulation. It can serve as an educational tool, telescope guidance software, position calculator, or even as a rendered for fish-eye projection on domes.
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How to install and set up multiple chess engines on XBoard
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: arch linux, centos, debian, desktop, fedora, linux, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 2 XBoard is an open source graphical chess interface that was made to be compatible with the X window system and that can accept mouse moves, support countless chess engines and even allow the playing of chess variations. It can also serve as a front-end for local game analysis, net server based games, or even email chess (auto-parsing of received mail moves and auto-sending of mail when move is done).
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How to secure your PDF documents with passwords (and how to crack them if needed)
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, opensuse, security, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 9 Documents safety is a particularly sensitive matter due to the typical usage nature and possible value and importance of the contents. That said, users should be extra careful when sharing documents that shouldn't be leaked to other parties.
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How to record from JACK with Ardour on Linux
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, desktop, fedora, opensuse, ubuntu •
Comments: 0 With all the madness that prevails the Linux audio engines and complex inter-related frameworks and subsystems, it is very easy to get lost and overwhelmed when you want to do something as simple as to record yourself playing an electric musical instrument. Recording from JACK is imperative in that case, as using a “mic to speaker” arrangement will introduce unwanted noise to the recording, no matter what.
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How to edit Movie Subtitles on the Linux Desktop
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: centos, debian, desktop, suse, ubuntu •
Comments: 0 Here's is a quick guide on how to load and edit subtitles on GNOME Subtitles and Subtitle Editor. The movie that I will be using for this tutorial is a documentary called “The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard” released in 2013 under a Creative Commons (CC) license.
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Sound Recording and Editing with Audacity on Ubuntu
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: desktop, linux, ubuntu •
Comments: 4 In all the years I have been dealing with both Linux and sound recordings, I have never found a simplest and more powerful tool than Audacity to get the job done. This open source sound recorder, editor, analyzer, generator and effect applicator is surely one of the most useful and important tools ever to be produced by the free software community.
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How to defrag your Linux system
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: arch linux, debian, fedora, linux, ubuntu •
Comments: 21 There is a common misconception among GNU/Linux users that our systems never ever need to be defragmented. This stems from the success of the journalized filesystems used by most distributions including EXT2,3 and 4, JFS, ZFS, XFS, ReiserFS and BTRFS. Fragmentation though can still be an issue though, especially for users that use space limited disks that may not offer many file allocation options.
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How to use Avidemux for Video Editing
Author: Bill Toulas •
Tags: desktop, linux, other •
Comments: 3 Thankfully, the open source world offers many good choices when it comes to video editing. Some of the most popular choices are the PiTiVi, OpenShot, Kdenlive and Blender. Avidemux is another one - maybe the one with the worst name, but being one of the oldest (five years old) it is now quite mature and stable as well as relatively feature rich.
