Time Saving Linux Desktop Tips?

dan_polt asks: "I currently use a Linux desktop system, at work. One of the great things about the Linux desktop is that there are lots of ways to save a lot of time from useful widgets and configuration to minimize the pain of repetitive tasks. Most of my work involves web/e-Mail/SSH access, and I have a very high spec'd machine with dual-head 1600x1200 screens. What software or configuration tips might Slashdot have for me to: make better use of my time; make the most of my screen real estate; and make my use of the desktop more effective?"

Linux Desktop

[B Man]

I use Linux mostly at work as well, I do work in a Windows-centric environment so I use VMWare to run Windows. Otherwise I would rather just use the virtual consoles, with ssh, elinks (for browsing), and rarely X. I do find X to be useful for things that I must use it for, but for the most productivity, nothing beats a console.

Quicksilver

[bennyp]

QS is a great app for OS X. One of it's many functions is as a launcher.
Say I want to start inkscape. I press apple-space,i,n,k. by that point, qs has figured out that i want inkscape and has displayed it's icon, then i press enter and inkscape launches.

or say i want Jack Johnson's phone number. I press apple-space,j,c,k,j,n,s,n. his contact icon pops up, i press the left arrow and his phone number is highlighted, then i press enter and the number fills the screen on a transparent window.

it saves me a whack of time, and i'd love to see a free program with this functionality
http://quicksilver.blacktree.com/ [blacktree.com]

Re:10 hours and 26 minutes?

[Lifewish]

Of the four or so high-content-rate sites I frequent, none of them had anything happening in the last 10 hours. Would you prefer that Slashdot lower their content standards even further? Is that even possible?

Re:10 hours and 26 minutes?

[Karma Farmer]

There were 10 hours and 26 minutes between front page posts.

Given a choice between a few articles of high quality and many articles of low quality, I'd take fewer articles.

Of course, that's a false choice, in two senses. First, there's no correlation between the number of articles and the quantity of articles. Second, it's not a choice Slashdot offers.

Re:10 hours and 26 minutes?

[daviddennis]

Well, it is Thanksgiving weekend. Most people are out doing stuff with their physical world friends.

Some of the ads are actually useful. My business partner's going to get a gift from ThinkGeek (better not say what it is here since he might be watching!) And it looks like I'll be using ServerBeach for my next venture. So I wouldn't give up on ads, and as you say I like supporting Slashdot.

As for your substantiative criticisms, are we really bleeding users? I certainly haven't noticed any lack of comments. In fact, it might not be so bad if we did. It sure was nice when I could actually read every comment on the articles that interested me. Now I'm lucky if I can finish the first page of ten!

Digg is so different from Slashdot in my experience that I don't see them as competitors. I visited there, didn't see what the fuss was about, and came back here.

That being said, to me it's always been about the comments, and the rich experience they bring us here. For example, I've wanted to learn about on-demand water heaters for some time, and all someone had to do was post an article about some bogus new on-demand technology, and whammo! I found out pretty much everything a person could conceivably want to know about them.

The moderation system is clever, and really works, and that seems to be the main value added that Slashdot's founders have created. Other than that, it's been being in the right place at the right time and having the right idea.

As long as there's a good and active user community here, I'm still loyal to it. The founders aren't the most literate bunch in the world, and they make all kinds of silly mistakes, but this place seems to work and generate interesting stuff, and for that I'm happy.

D

Virtual Desktops

[dorkygeek]

Group your running applications by tasks (i.e. browsing, email, development, etc.), and assign each of these tasks a virtual desktop (by remembering on which virtual desktop you grouped these applications). Then switching between different task domains becomes extremely fast, because you just have to click on the correct desktop in the virtual desktop app, and you have all apps you need to complete the task at hand instantly.

This is ways faster than switching between single applications or having them all on one single desktop, and having to dig your way through tons of windows to find the rigt program.

Oh, and use the session manager to save the session before you log-out, so the next time you log-in, you have all the apps you need already running, and on the same virtual desktops as before.

Re:Term Productivity

[wahgnube]

Yes, I can attest to the coolness of Screen because I use it almost all the time. Also, to augment what the parent mentioned, the detaching remote screens isn't just a bonus, it's almost a necessity on a flaky coffee shop wireless connection.

My biggest problem is I almost always use Emacs as well. Does anybody know how to prevent Screen from capturing the C-a keystrokes when in programs like Emacs?

I find it extremely annoying and it often ends up doing something I don't want. Even if it is nothing serious, I'm distracted for a few seconds.

Somebody, anybody, please?

Re:Bind everything to a key combination

[Mr. Spontaneous]

I agree with parent. Honestly, I'd just stick to one monitor for what you do. I'd put email on one desktop, shell on another, and so on, then assign hotkeys to switch between desktops. (window + 1 would bring up the shell, + 2 brings up email, etc.)

A lot of time is lost when you switch between keyboard and mouse.

And, other than a popup notifier for email, try and avoid widgets. You should try and keep your workspace as simple as possible.

Re:Linux Desktop

[Ramses0]

I can mostly agree with this. Untold hours of productivity when you only have a 486 laptop on the couch ssh'd into a remote machine and only basic cable (not expanded basic, you lucky ducks). Tunning full console since getting X even to come up was painfully slow (not that bad, but not that good, either. didn't help that the old laptop video card had buggy drivers).

Anyway, I broke down and got a powerbook when I couldn't do css/html development from the console without a GUI. Remarkably fat-free situation, and highly recommended that you try it sometime.

--Robert

Don't minimize.

[jonadab]

If you're like I used to be, you waste half to two-thirds of a second hundreds of times every day on minimizing and restoring windows. Less than a second each time sounds like nothing, but it can easily add up to half an hour or so every single shift.

Got icons on the desktop? Replace them with panel launchers. Use drawers if you have to; it's still faster to get to a launcher in a drawer than an icon on the desktop, and you aren't left with all your other windows minimized afterward. Keep the launchers you use with any frequency directly on the panel. I like to run one panel along the left side of the screen dedicated mostly to launchers (I do also keep a memory/swap/cpu meter there), and then keep the task list in another panel on the bottom edge of the screen, where I also keep a clock applet; many people would keep a new-mail-notification applet there.

Many window managers will also let you configure global keyboard shortcuts for launching certain applications and other common activities, such as maximizing or lowering the current window. I happen to use sawfish, but I'm sure many other window managers also provide this functionality.

Second thing, take your phone off the hook. Okay, maybe not. It *would* save a lot of time, though.

I found that KDE increased my productivity.

[CyricZ]

I found that using KDE vastly increased my productivity.

I used to use Enlightenment and a mix of Mozilla, XFMail, OpenOffice, and a variety of other random programs. But then I took a week and learned how to effectively use KDE. It's very well integrated, and that level of integration pays off. Once you learn how one application works, the others become quite intuitive.

I also found it to be far more responsive, too. Konqueror flies like a bullet, and KMail is quite swift. The best part is that KDE keeps getting better. Every new release brings substantial improvements. And those are improvements and innovations upon what is already extremely usable! The great keep getting better, it would seem.

Get into a few habits

[ignoramus]

I've found that, once you've covered the very basics:

• learning to touch type;
• learning to get the most out of command line;
• mastering favorite shell features (expansions, for loops, etc.);
• learning to use screen.

The main trick is to keep your thoughts focused by getting into a few habits. I also use a dual head system but with 8 different workspaces setup in the workspace switcher (so a total of 16 virtual screens). In order to get the most out of this system, I actually use the switcher's facility for naming the workspaces and change them from the usual 1,2,3..8 to something meaningful. When I work on a new project, I rename the workspaces if necessary and then, for instance, always open the libraryXYZ project in my IDE in the correctly named space.

If you use Gnome Terminal, learn to use the Profiles facility and color code or at least name different terminal windows/tabs. You can even associate custom commands to run, rather than the shell (for instance, one of my profiles launches something like "ssh -C -L3128:localhost:3128 -L10025:localhost:25 -L... remotebox" to tunnel important activity through SSH so all I need is double click an icon). Pretty much every terminal app has facilities for doing this. Create Profiles for repetitive tasks and use shortcuts on your desktop to activate them.

You might also consider reserving blocks of time in which to shutdown gaim, your email client and phone.

HTH

Re:Bind everything to a key combination

[Short Circuit]

I use GNOME's Keyboard Shortcuts. The media keys are picked up by either XMMS or totem, depending on which I have open.

1. Use very small fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

By using smaller fonts, you'll be able to fit more text on screen, thus saving you valuable screen real-estate.

Also consider using KDE's "Mac like" menus feature. This will save you time, as it makes the menus easier to hit, but it will also save you more screen real estate.

Finally, don't use KDE or GNOME, instead use the crudest WM you can find coupled with a bunch of XTerms. As true hackers know, only the command line is your true path to the force that is Unix-like computing. Trust your instincts, learn how "find" and "grep" work (remember, your final test will be when you build your own find and grep commands.)

Re:Mount remote filesystems in KDE via ssh

[Dan Farina]

Of course, unless you actually wanted your remote file system mounts to actually be something more than a hack and used something like Fuse (http://fuse.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]) where file system syscalls can be handled by behavior defined in user space.

sshfs and smbfs work like a charm, although they have some...amusing "file systems" listed as well. (Such as a representation of a relational database as directories and XML files....)

Let me explain your *BIG* mistake:

[Hosiah]

You posted this question during the annual four-day-weekend flamefest, in which thousands of bored cubicle slaves have Thanksgiving holiday off and overrun Slashdot like a horde of goblins. Think Quake Deathmatch with flame-throwers and infinite ammo. Now to address your actual question: (and watch, because I'm the only person providing a helpful answer, I *WILL* be modded down!)

Making better use of your desktop real estate means getting rid of a lot of junk. If you haven't already, I'd try saying goodbye to KDE/Gnome and getting the lightest possible window manager for the job: That's Fluxbox, ICEwm, Fvwm, or the desktop environment Xfce. (I'm low on sadism, so I won't recommend TWM. Anybody that 1337 wouldn't be posting this question.) This doesn't sound like much, but trust me, when you do away with that extra time waiting for KDE to load, you'll be faster and only have (in Fluxbox's case) a tiny slit in your way. No icons cluttering things up (yeah, we need a home directory icon on the desktop when it's in our menu, too! Sheesh!). Every Linux program on your system can be started from any window manager's menu, it's just a matter of editing the menu to launch the program. Too bothered to edit text menus? Then from the console, try "kicker" for KDE's panel, "gnome-panel" for Gnome's, and "xfce4-panel" for Xfce's, depending on what you have installed. I've tried them all and they work even from TWM!

As for time-saving: the key here is "automate". Anything you type in a terminal more than once is grounds for automation. Simply take the same commands you type and save them on a line each in a plain text file with the line "#!/bin/bash" at the top and the line "end" at the bottom. Save that file somewhere in your executable path (type "echo $PATH" if you don't know), and type "chmod +x [name of your program]". You can now execute it just like any other system program.

The next level of automation is programs that require interaction. Two work-arounds exist for this: "Here" documents are little scriptlets you can slip into Bash scripts to do simple keyboard commands for interacting with command-line programs that insist on recieving input. The more sophisticated approach is Tcl/Tk's "expect", which can be used to script damn-near anything (take a command-line web browser like lynx and feed it an expect script with the right instructions, and you can auto-post B1FF comments to Slashdot, even! (Provided you had a nick signed in.), sorry, guys, the secret's out!) I can't think of anything having to do with ssh and email accounts that couldn't be handled with all of the above.

This might be overkill, but anybody who's read "Beginning Linux Programming" by Neil Matthew and Richard Stones, courtesy of www.wrox.com, wouldn't have to post this question. I promise you could skip the GTK and Qt parts and brush up on Bash, at least, which is easier than BASIC on the Apple ][.

Doubtless, part of the indiference/hostility in here is because this is also the kind of question spammers ask, and you wouldn't find any people on Slashdot who deal with too much spam, now would you? I don't mind answering because, if you're a *good* wizard, you deserve to know this stuff as well as I do, and if you're a *bad* wizard, I haven't given you a damn thing you couldn't have gotten from a few hours of Googling.

I like to plaster the root window...

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

With log watchers. Transparent aterm's running "watch tail -n 10 /var/log/apache/server_log" and the like. Evven when partially covered by your terminals and web browsers and such, you'll notice when something new or unexpected pops up. Some heavily scripted tcpdump could also be useful if you keep an eye on security, too.

On my laptop, depending on whether the relevant watcher is better suited to vertical presentation (top, netstat) or horizontal (most log files), I can arrange 4 or so that don't get completely covered with my windows all over the place. Two big screens would at least double that.

Apps

[rwa2]

Stop fooling yourself thinking that spending hours tweaking everything will save time. Just admit that you like tweaking :P

I'll echo the "Use WindowMaker" mantra. The only reason I'm running Gnome now is for the little graphical workspace switcher. I'm still upset that the window thumbnails don't dynamically update their contents anymore like Enlightenment or even older versions of Gnome.

I usually configure my window managers to use Meta + various mouse keys to move/resize windows. Gnome's Metacity does not allow you to move the window title above the top of the screen - very annoying when you want to put, say, a web browser's various rows of buttons off-screen so you can fit more precious content onto your screen (more so than you could get with using the full screen view, which isn't available for all apps). Window Maker does the right thing, and allows you to move the window off the top of the screen (but only if you use the Meta-click technique, so the titlebar only disappears if you prove that you know how to move the window back without it).

I also configure focus-follows-mouse, and disable raise-on-click. This allows me to organize my workspace and have more control, say, copying and pasting stuff between windows without the "behind" window popping to the foreground unless I tell it to (by Meta-clicking on it or clicking on the titlebar/frame).

Configure a larger virtual desktop in the Xorg.conf if you really want more scrollable space. I imagine this would be more complicated with your dual-monitor setup, though... maybe you just want to add a few pixels to the top of each screen. I trust that you've read and configured the extra Xorg directives that came with your Nvidia / ATi drivers to optimize your Xorg.conf already.

Also useful to configure some means of "pushing" windows back, usually by middle-clicking on the titlebar/frame or Meta-down.

I've heavily configured gkrellm - it works great as an app launcher that works under any window manager, in addition to doing all of its normal monitoring. It can really give you a good feeling for what your computer is doing, when it's finished downloading or compiling or transferring to USB drives, how well your RAID throughput is behaving, etc From the default, I usually tweak it to use a better theme (the default wastes a few columns of pixels on the sides!), show system CPU time and network TX / disk writes as inverted, and of course set it to sticky so it's always in its corner when I switch virtual desktops.

Learn to use gnu screen. It's indispensible for managing multiple consoles. I usually start mine as "screen -e ^Zz", since I use Ctrl-a quite more often than Ctrl-z... what a silly default.

Give the Galeon web browser a serious try. It has much better tab management than Mozilla, even with Mozilla's tabextensions plugin. Plus, it remembers the last tab state after crashes by default... why isn't that a standard Mozilla feature yet??!

Check out Hotkeys for making use of those extra multimedia button keys on your keyboard for launching apps.

Does anyone know of a mechanism for launching apps using keystrokes like Win-e for explorer.exe under MS windows? Best I could do outside of mapping "extra" keys with hotkey is to map the Super key to gnome's "Run command" dialog and then type in the app ... weak.

Well, have fun.

Translucency

[J. T. MacLeod]

If you can do it without crashing, that is!

I gave it up because of stability issues, but using window translucency, tinting, and shading (via Xorg's Composite and Render extensions) REALLY helped improve my productivity.

Seriously.

It allowed me to keep an eye on multiple window levels at once, yet everything but my current window being tinted darker ensured that my focus stayed where I needed it. That and the shadowed windows also helped me identify things much faster.

If it's just used for eye candy, it can be distracting, but used properly I found it helped me a great deal.

Re:Some simple things

[Jeff Mahoney]

Pet peave: why doesn't unlink(2) move stuff to a filesystem-wide deleted area?

UNIX lacks a recycle bin, but so does the Windows NT kernel and the MacOSX kernel. "Recycle Bins" are typically a GUI function, not a kernel function. Try doing an "rm" or "del" using the OSX or Windows command line and see if your files end up in the recycle bin.

KDE and Gnome have a "recycle/trash bin" as well. It's just that a lot of users prefer the command line.

This may be getting too nit picky, but unlink(2) shouldn't do things like that. I've thought about how to implement an automatic undelete cache in a file system, but it just ends up being way too much in-kernel maintenance so that it ultimately detracts from performance. But, flexibility is always there. You're perfectly welcome to override unlink(2) with your own function and LD_PRELOAD, and get exactly the behavior you're asking about - even on the command line. Just make sure you have a "realrm" that uses the stock unlink(2) ;)

Learn to use bash

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you know that you can incrementally search history with CTRL-r ? That alone saves me a bunch of time, you have access to really powfull line editing (ie cutting whole words backwards and pasting them with only 2 key strokes) but the shortcuts are weird. You must learn them to fully enjoy how a shell is more efficient than a GUI. Hint: try the emacs shortcuts.

Don't pretend it's 1970

[mnemonic_]

Use Xsu [eu.org] to get a graphical su login automatically when you need it (configuration varies). Instead of opening a new terminal and typing "su [enter] password [enter] vi /etc/mpd.conf [enter]," you'll just be typing "password [enter]" whenever you need to access something as root.

Use a graphical file explorer like Rox to navigate and sort through directories quickly. Don't rely on ls for everything; it is far faster and more flexible to organize files graphically. Dragging a box and one click-drag can replace dozens of keystrokes across multiple commands.

If you always startup X after you login, then have X startup automatically. No reason to type "startx" every time.

Use Conky [sf.net] for system monitoring.

Let normal users halt or reboot [linuxquestions.org] the system if appropriate. In many, many cases it's silly to maintain the *nix default behavior of only letting root shutdown/reboot the system. If you're running a server with dozens of remote users then yes, this would be unwise. If it's your personal workstation though, it's completely reasonable.

Use "slocate" instead of "find." Pardon me if this is obvious, but I still see too many *nix diehards waiting for "find" to finish when there's a perfectly up to date slocate DB ready for searching. "find" is nearly obsolete.

Have your drives automounted with Submount [sourceforge.net]. It's pretty sad that something like this is not standard in the 2.6 kernel. Typing a command every time you want to read a CD looks pathetic to the average Windows user used to autorun or clicking "My Computer."

That's all I have for now. Basically, I liberally automate outdated procedures (which many *nix users still tolerate). This makes day-to-day operations much smoother overall, and doesn't disrupt tasks by having to constantly bring up new terminal windows.

Re:10 hours and 26 minutes?

[tomhudson]

The "cell-phone used to monitor traffic flow" - the last 2 dupes have only 1 story between them http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&cid =14070720 [slashdot.org] or http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168794&cid =14070568> and follow-up posts mention.

A lot of us immediately went "Dupe!, then , :"Hey, this was also on yesterday - Tripe!" then, as people checked, sure enough its been run to death.

use an ssh agent

[Anonymous Coward]

For starters, run an ssh-agent on your machine, and then use public key authentication when you authenticate to ssh sessions. That's one of my favorite time savers, prevents needing to enter a password with each log in.

Here's a decent resource on how to set up pub key authentication:
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-8.0-M anual/custom-guide/s1-openssh-client-config.html [redhat.com]

VNC

[BrookHarty]

I run vnc with icewm, so I Can keep xchat, rtin, gaim, ssh terminals that never close. Very nice.
Then you can play with KDE or Gnome, and never have to worry about losing your active sessions.

IceWM also can snap window edges, support gnome and kde. So its my favorite for vnc.

Added benefit, you can vnc from another computer on the net and have your desktop, like using your laptop on wifi from the living room.

And you even run multiple VNC servers on the same machine, have one with kde, or gnome, etc, but you loose accelerated gfx.

Re:Some simple things

[Anonymous Coward]

The file system Novell NetWare used did a pretty good job of this. I really don't know the technical details of how they implemented it. After using it for some years, it appears that instead of actually deleting the file, it would hang around the file system tree until the OS needed more free space. It would then reclaim space by actually deleting the files in a FIFO manner. Unless the space had been reclaimed, you could recover files you owned that were deleted (even previous revisions by date of a file edited multiple times). It was quite handy and I never understood why none of the popular OS and or FS ever implemented a similar system.

foreign technologies

[namekuseijin]

"why is kde so unloved here in the USA?"

I'm guessing it's the very american "Not invented here" syndrome.

Good technologies don't have a chance in the USA if it isn't to be actively developed there. KDE is from the germans. OCaml from the french. Pascal never got a chance against USA own C, even having the same capabilities but much nicer language features, like being a real block structured language with real lexical scoping.

Python was to die a slow death against Perl hadn't Guido Van Rossum moved over to the country. Perhaps the japanese guy behing Ruby should move over to so it can be considered the intelectual property of an american? perhaps then ruby would get a boost...

Examples abound...

Re:Time saver

[optikSmoke]

Your strategy is broken. Observe the following steps:

1. Type some random letters, eg klshdfas
2. Type .slashdot.org
3. Press enter
4. Watch productivity disappear!

Slashdot's DNS servers appear to give a usable IP for any garbage you throw at them that isn't assigned to something else.

Re:10 hours and 26 minutes?

[caluml]

Well, it is Thanksgiving weekend.

Only in the US. Don't forget that there are 4.7 billion people that haven't got a clue about/don't give a shit about Thanksgiving. And before everyone starts banging on about Slashdot being a US site, (which I think it is becoming less and less true all the time), it's not so hard to employ an editor in Europe, and possibly one another in Japan so that all timezones are covered, is it? I'm sure a dedicated geek would do it for the kudos of it - you wouldn't even need to pay them.

Re:Rotate This!

[angrykeyboarder]

That sounds like some mighty-small text in that browser window.

As it is, I have to increase the font size defaults in Firefox on my 1280x1024 screen. I'd have my screen resolution at 1024x768 but it's a 19" LCD which (as you probably know) has optimal resolution at 1280x1024.

Re:foreign technologies

[Anonymous Coward]

Pascal never got a chance against USA own C, even having the same capabilities but much nicer language features, like being a real block structured language with real lexical scoping.

I personally much prefer C to Pascal because of the language. I find Pascal is strict and verbose and not fun to work in.

Re:Outsource

[mildgift]

Thanks for the 3x3 workspace tip! It works great.

My productivity tip is to keep some index cards and tape around. Make little labels for your keyboard, and tape them in place, so you can learn the keyboard shortcuts.

This is like setting your clock fast

[hey!]

and other methods for tricking yourself.

The problem I have with these tactics is that obfuscation strategies don't work against a sufficiently clever and determined opponent. And I'm very clever and determined when it comes to avoiding work.

No, the important thing to do is to sap your determination for wasting time. The reason people waste time is that they have so many commitments they can't keep them straight, although they're rattling around somewhere in their head.

The mind is like a thick, opaque stew -- you can only be aware of what happens to boil to the surface at the moment. We toss all the commitments we make to ourselves and others into the pot, and pretty soon its beyond us to know all the things that are in there. It's very common to harbor a unnamed suspicion that that something nasty like a severed human finger could surface at any second. This creates a tremendous resistance to even looking at the stew, much less stirring it up to find something important you've lost.

The secret to productivity is to change your mind from stew to consommé. To do this, you have to find some place other than your mind to put all your commitments. Then you have to look at all those things on a regular basis, because they'll sneak into your head if you don't. That's what people miss when they "get organized".

Simple program to clear your mind of frightening junk:

1. Refuse every commitment that is not essential.
   
2. Place every commitment you make, no matter how trivial, into a tracking system.
   
3. Review everything in you system without fail every Monday, refactoring undoable items into doable steps.
   
4. Review the doable items you have without fail every day.
   

Re:Stop Trying to Save Time

[Anonymous Coward]

Very good advice.

If you really want to save time in the long run, invest a bit of time soon (and regularly) learning things like shell scripting, regular expressions, PERL, high level languages like Ruby and Python, make etc.

Practice makes perfect. Every time you discover that you're doing something repetitive, try to script it (in shell - I recommend bash) or write a program in something very high level.

Take the time to read other people's code and scripts.

Read the HOWTOs and guides at tldp.org.

Get some good books. Dip into them regularly. Get to know wise and learned people and ask them intelligent questions.

Never underestimate your own ability. ${DEITY} helps those who help themselves, so to speak.

These are all worthwile investments in time. It may sound silly if you are impatient and want to get stuff done _now_ but cutting corners on learning hurts in the long term.

If you learn to use your tools wisely you will become orders of magnitude more productive in the medium term.

Re:Desktop is home dir!

[paving-slab]

This is one of my pet hates with linux:- Why oh why didn't they put an "etc" directory in the home directory for applications files? Is there a good reason? Anyone know?

Re:foreign technologies

[TheRaven64]

More keystrokes for begin and end than for { and } is only half of the problem. The human brain is very good at recognising matched pairs of symmetric symbols. If you see a { on one line, and then a } a few lines down, then your brain will automatically associate the two. This doesn't happen with begin and end (well, it does, but it has to go through the linguistic part of your brain which is incredibly slow in comparison).

Re:Fix Less and vim

[cerberusss]

Now, Less and vim won't restore the @#*$!%ing terminal on exit

This is highly useful, except when you're editing an encrypted file in vim. I can't find the syntax for .vimrc. Anybody know the solution? I've gotten as far as this, but it doesn't work:

" Don't clear terminal after exiting
if &key == ''
" we're not encrypted
set t_ti= t_te=
endif

Anybody got the solution?

(Yes, I know it shouldn't be used since it's trivial to defeat, but it's useful to prevent the occasional viewer).

Kuake

[bcmm]

Try kuake (http://www.nemohackers.org/kuake.php [nemohackers.org]) if you use KDE (there are similar apps out there for other desktops). It's a terminal emulator which lowers on a keyboard shortcut like the console in Quake. It saves me a lot of time which I used to spend opening and closing xterms. I keep a screen session in it normally.