How to set Google Chrome’s proxy settings in command line on Linux?

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How to set Google Chrome’s proxy settings in command line on Linux? I am using Google Chrome on Linux and start it by google-chrome. How can I set the proxy using the command line? It tell me that my desktop is not supported but I can set the proxy in command line. Use the –proxy-server
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How to activate or deactivate a Linux host with Gnome remotely?

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I have a Fedora Linux server with Gnome 3. I want to lock / unlock the remote Gnome desktop remotely. How to activate or deactivate it remotely through SSH? Use gnome-screensaver-command. It is not specific to Gnome 3. Turn the screensaver on (blank the screen): $ gnome-screensaver-command -a If the screensaver is active then deactivate
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How to write a autostart script for gnome

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I want to automatically run a program when I log in gnome. How to write a autorun script for it? Here is one example: $ cat ~/.config/autostart/dropbox.py.desktop [Desktop Entry] Comment[en_US]= Comment= Exec=/home/zma/bin/dropbox.py start GenericName[en_US]= GenericName= Icon=system-run MimeType= Name[en_US]= Name= Path= StartupNotify=true Terminal=false TerminalOptions= Type=Application X-DBUS-ServiceName= X-DBUS-StartupType= X-KDE-SubstituteUID=false X-KDE-Username= To set up a new one, you
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How to install the MATE fork of Gnome 2 on Fedora 17?

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I miss Gnome 2. How to install the MATE fork of Gnome 2 on Fedora 17? MATE is already included into Fedora 17’s repository and is an official feature of Fedora 18. To install MATE on Fedora 17 # yum install @mate-desktop To install softwares usually needed: # yum install mate-media mate-screensaver mate-system-monitor mate-power-manager mate-utils
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Essential Gnome Shell Extensions for Gnome 3 Users

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Gnome Shell has a clean design. But many users want to get more from the desktop environment. Gnome 3’s extension system can help users customize the Gnome Shell’s look greatly. In this post, we summarize 6 extensions we considered essential to make Gnome Shell great. AlternateTab Make Alt-Tab “classic” instead of grouping windows by application.
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Additional Repositories for CentOS Linux

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CentOS is a super solid Linux distro. However, its default repository’s packages are limited compared to Fedora. Even Fedora needs some additional repositories to have software packages for daily usage, such as MPlayer, ffmpeg. Fortunately, some community maintained repositories provides these software. In this post, we introduce theses additional common repositories and how to install
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What Is the Name of the Linux-based OS: A Survey

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You may already well know “Linux” and may also use the “operating system based on the Linux kernel” directly or indirectly (you are indirectly using it now as this site is hosted on Linux). But how should we name the OS based on Linux? You may know there is GNU/Linux naming controversy. Different people have
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How to Turn GNOME terminal to a Pop-up Terminal

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A pop-up terminal is great and handy on Linux and similar OS. On KDE, Yakuake is great. On Gnome or GTK, I ever tried Guake. It is quite good. However, it has not been as mature, stable and figure-rich as gnome-terminal. One day, I got this idea: why not using a script/program to manage the
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Keyboard Key Mapping for Emacs: Evil Mode and Rearranging Alt, Ctrl and Win Keys

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Ctrl keys are important and possibly most frequently used in Emacs. However, it is painful on today’s common PC keyboards since Ctrl keys are usually in the corner of the keyboard main area. Why the key mappings in Emacs are designed like this? After it was designed, Emacs was commonly on the Lisp Machine keyboards
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Making Emacs Start Up Faster

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I use Emacs in terminals and start/close Emacs frequently as needed like in a file checking-editing-closing loop. However, Emacs seems take some time to start up especially some heavy modes are used. How to make Emacs start up faster? (If you just want the solution/script first, find the command in the summary section.) My solution
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Customizing Fonts in Gnome 3

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Gnome 3 is great and I can understand that it emphasizes on simplicity. However, the configuration settings for Gnome 3 does not provide tools for certain functions that I need. One of them is customizing the fonts. This post will summarize the tools/tips that I adopted to customize the fonts in Gnome 3. Usually, the
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Infrastructure Software For Fedora

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Fedora is a popular distro supported by the RedHat Corporation. This article recommends you some infrastructure software and how to install them in details. Minimize and Maximize window 1, Install software gnome-tweak-tool # yum install gnome-tweak-tool 2, Start gnome-tweak-tool and set minimizing and maximizing functions as follows. Actually, gnome-tweak-tool has more functions than what I
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How to Connect to Remote Servers by VNC on Windows

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Software you will need 1, Putty 2, Real VNC viewer 3, twm (lightweight desktop). On fedora (centos, redhat): sudo yum install twm (on other distros, you may need other commands, or download source code and install it). Specific steps 1, Enter your Host name and port in putty. 2, Set port forwarding in putty Tunnels.
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How to Measure Time Accurately in Programs

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It is quite common to measure the time in programs using APIs like clock() and gettimeofday(). We may also want to measure the time “accurately” for certain purposes, such as measuring a small piece of code’s execution time for performance analysis, or measuring the time in time-sensitive game software. It is hard to measure the
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How To Enable GNOME Classic Mode in Fedora / CentOS / RHEL Linux

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GNOME 3.8 introduces the classic mode: Classic mode is a new feature for those people who prefer a more traditional desktop experience. Built entirely from GNOME 3 technologies, it adds a number of features such as an application menu, a places menu and a window switcher along the bottom of the screen. Each of these
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Configuring Mouse Cursor Style for QT Applications in GNOME / MATE Desktop

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QT and GTK applications use different settings for cursor styles. This makes the mouse cursor styles for QT applications in the GNOME / MATE desktop environment or GTK applications in the KDE desktop environment look different with other programs. In the post [[configuring-mouse-cursor-style-for-gtk-applications-in-kde-desktop]], we talked about how to configure the mouse cursor style for GTK
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Setting MATE as Default Desktop Environment for startx on Fedora

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I ever discussed Starting KDE from Command Line by startx for KDE and GNOME. Recently, I installed MATE desktop on Fedora 17 and am very happy with it—dear, Gnome 2 is back. However, I checked the /etc/X11/xinit/Xclients script which is called by ‘startx’ and it only includes ‘startkde’ and ‘gnome-session’ without support to MATE. But
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Finding Out the Firmware Version in Linux

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In Linux, it is often necessary to check the firmware version of your system. The firmware, also known as BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), is a software that is built into the hardware of your system and serves as an interface between the hardware and the operating system. In this post, we will explore how to
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Configuring Mouse Cursor Style for GTK Applications in KDE Desktop

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Update on Jan. 7, 2012: The package for the gtk application style setting on KDE 4.7 is kcm-gtk. The command to install this package is: “# yum install kcm-gtk”. One annoying thing when using KDE desktop is that the theme and style of GTK applications differ from KDE’s. The gtk-qt-engine can let us select the
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