Issue #48: Cool Linux Hacks / Jun 2023

Cover Theme: Cool Linux Hacks
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Improve your Linux skills with this cool collection of expert tips and shortcuts.
This Linux Magazine Special Edition promises you “Cool Linux Hacks,” and we’ll certainly deliver. But what exactly is a hack? In today’s world where Windows is the dominant desktop operating system, the decision to use Linux is the first and most important hack.
See below for the complete list of hacks.
Desktop Modding
HACK 1 Create Your Own Gnome Context Menu Entry
HACK 2 New Service Entries for KDE
HACK 3 KZones: KDE Plasma Tiling
HACK 4 Exquisite: Plasma Layout Manager
HACK 5 Disable Your Lock Screen0
HACK 6 What Time, What Date?0
HACK 7 Curing the Caps Lock Disease1
HACK 8 Zoom Everything on Your Screen
HACK 9 Zoom into the Gnome Desktop
HACK 10 Use Virtual Desktops, Memorize the Hotkeys
Security & Privacy
HACK 11 Check Your Downloads
HACK 12 Secure Your Notebook
HACK 13 Strip Metadata from Your Files
HACK 14 Detect Hidden Processes
HACK 15 Run Apps in Boxed Mode with Boxxy
HACK 16 Securely Split Your Files with horcrux
HACK 17 Age: Master of the Keys
HACK 18 OpenSnitch Application Firewall
HACK 19 Parrot OS Desktop Security
Multimedia
HACK 20 Be Entertained with MythTV 33.1
HACK 21 Rip Your Audio CDs with Whipper
HACK 22 Use Ardour, the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW)
HACK 23 Manage Your Audio Data Flows with qpwgraph
HACK 24 Render Music Visualizations with corrscope
HACK 25 projectM Audio Visualizer Plugin
HACK 26 AutoEQ Headphone Improver
Keep It Running
HACK 27 Replace strace with lurk for Process Analysis
HACK 28 Automate Your Servers with sake
HACK 29 Boot any ISO File from USB Stick with Ventoy
HACK 30 GPU-Viewer: Analyze Your Graphics Card
HACK 31 Physical or Virtual? How to Detect It
HACK 32 Check Your SSH Security with ssh-audit
HACK 33 Use Guider as a Profiler and Monitor
HACK 34 Try KDE's Plasma System Monitor
HACK 35 System Monitoring with watch and fswatch
Images & Videos
HACK 36 Mass Image Conversion with Converseen
HACK 37 Use Multi-Threaded FFmpeg 6
HACK 38 Convert Images with ImageMagick
HACK 39 Add Watermarks to Your Images
HACK 40 Generate Images with Stable Diffusion AI
HACK 41 Edit Your RAW Photos in Darktable
HACK 42 Quickly Cut Your Videos with LosslessCut
Networking
HACK 43 DNS Tricks: Improve Hostname Resolution
HACK 44 Watch Network Traffic with ntopng
HACK 45 Create an SSH Bastion with Warpgate
HACK 46 Sniffnet: User-Friendly Traffic Monitor
HACK 47 Call Home with DWS Remote Control
HACK 48 Wonder Shaper Controls the Bandwidth
HACK 49 weborf is a Simple HTTP Server
HACK 50 Use BitTorrent with Transmission
File Formats
HACK 51 Mount ISO Images with a Mouse Click
HACK 52 Get Information about ISO Images
HACK 53 Look Inside Package Files
HACK 54 What File Format Is That?
HACK 55 Chafa Shows Images in the Terminal
HACK 56 Sioyek: View PDF Files, Use "vi" Shortcuts
HACK 57 Let's Look at PDF Security Issues
HACK 58 Kavita: Collection Manager
HACK 59 Search Office Files with uvgrep
Working with Code
HACK 60 Write Code in JupyterLab Notebooks
HACK 61 Run Code Through Many Compilers
HACK 62 Create Games with the Godot 4 Engine
HACK 63 Try the LeanCreator IDE
HACK 64 Green Coding Initiatives
HACK 65 markdownlint Checks Your .md Files
HACK 66 Convert Documents with pandoc 3.1
HACK 67 lazygit Git Client
HACK 68 Edit Your Code with Lapce...
HACK 69 ...or with CudaText Code Editor
HACK 70 xonsh Combines Python and Bash
HACK 71 elfcat: Binary Explorer
HACK 72 GNU poke: Binary Editor
HACK 73 Bladecoder Adventure Engine: Game Creator
Gaming
HACK 74 Luxtorpeda (Steam compatibility tool)
HACK 75 Starship Olympics
HACK 76 Qonquest 2, a Risk Clone
HACK 77 Thorium Nova: Emulate a Starship Bridge
HACK 78 zelda3 Runs Classic 'The Legend of Zelda'
HACK 79 FreedroidRPG 1.0 Reinvents Paradroid (C64)
HACK 80 Tabletop Club: Play Classic Board Games
HACK 81 3D Driving with Stunt Rally
HACK 82 Ambermoon.net, the Classic Amiga Game
HACK 83 Simutrans Will Remind You of SimCity
HACK 84 Play DOS Games in DOS Emulator
Shell Hacks
HACK 85 Improve Shell Performance by Swearing
HACK 86 Record Your Shell Session
HACK 87 dict: A Command-Line Dictionary Tool
HACK 88 Carbonyl: Terminal Browser
HACK 89 Clipboard: Terminal Copy and Paste
HACK 90 just: Command Runner
HACK 91 hiSHtory: History Improvements
Questions? Email subs@linux-magazine.com
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