1) Fresh install Mint 17 XFCE( Mint 17 has long term support while Mint 16 is no longer supported). That is pretty easy to do but if you need help there are probably other guides on the internet
Never run this command on a machine you want to get a lot of work done on without having to worry about bugs:
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sudo apt-get upgrade
Then run upgrade your computer:
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sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
2) First with any computer is installing some type of antivirus. I choose avast though I don't know if this is the best antivirus to get. To download it use:
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wget http://files.avast.com/files/linux/avast4workstation_1.3.0-2_i386.deb
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sudo dpkg -i avast4workstation_1.3.0-2_i386.deb
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sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
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sudo sysctl -w kernel.shmmax=256000000
http://www.avast.com/en-us/registration ... ivirus.php
Warning: Sometimes updates to your system will wipe your kernel.shmmax change and your have to reset it.
Note: I got alot of this information off this website. http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1463 http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=57812.0
3) (This step is no longer needed in Mint 17)
Now you need to add a tool to be able to create new accounts without having to use terminal. To do this run:
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sudo apt-get install mate-system-tools
4) (GUI is installed by default in Mint 19 but you still need to turn the firewall on)
Now you need a GUI to access your firewall setting. The system comes with the firewall ufw already installed but without this GUI, you have to use terminal commands. To install it, type:
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sudo apt-get install gufw
5) Add the updated winehq and xorg edgers PPA. This is just so you have access to the lastest graphics drivers and wine. Wine is used to rune windows programs.
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sudo apt-add-repository ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
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sudo apt-get update
6) Install wine1.7
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sudo apt-get install wine1.7
7) Install winetricks. This is used to install support software to wine far easier ( like directx or adobe).
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sudo apt-get install winetricks
First add pipelight to the repository:
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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pipelight/stable
sudo apt-get update
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sudo apt-get install pipelight-multi
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sudo pipelight-plugin --update
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pipelight-plugin --enable unity3d
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... developers
Then download the xml to use it for firefox:
http://techpatterns.com/downloads/firef ... itcher.xml
Then import this xml by going to the firefox browser -> tools -> edit user agents -> import
Then activate it by firefox browser -> tools -> default user agent -> Browser-Windows -> Firefox 25.0 (Win 7 64 bit). This will make websites think you are on that browser instead of a linux firefox browser so they will actually offer you unity web player content. Note that 32 bit computers may have to pick a 32 bit one instead but I don't know this for sure. To finish installation, go to a page that uses the unity web player like http://fenglee.com/game/aog/ . You can now protect the the last of human race from giant titans as well as play many other games that use unity web player.
Note: While the switcher is on, the entire internet will treat you as if your using windows firefox instead. Keep user agent switch off most of the time and only turn it on when you want to use a unity web player application.
Special thanks to vpovirk in freenode irc chat for this information.
9) Using silverlight so you can watch Netflix. This assumes you have already have pipelight-multi installed (which was done in the previous step). First you needed to enable silver light if it is not already enabled (though I heard it is enabled by default. To do this type:
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pipelight-plugin --enable silverlight
This makes an icon in the top right that has three faces. Click on it and set it to Windows / Firefox 26 . This will make both the website and the websites javascript think you are using internet explorer 11 on a windows computer. Now you can enjoy Netflix. Remember that while User Agent Overider is active, all of the internet will think your on IE11 on a windows computer so be sure to turn it off when your done with it.
Note: I got information for this here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2168913
10) Install Nvidia proprietary graphics drivers. Note that the software manager does have proprietary software in it and it is not just freeware. Also, if you have a 32 bit system, you will not need the software to allow 32 bit programs to run on 64 bit systems.
A Nvidia optimus can not use Nvidia-304 as it is to old. It can use Nvidia-319 and Nvidia-340. I choose Nvidia-340. Keep in mind my grahics card was a Nvidia Optimus Geforce GT 740M. This card uses an intel graphics card most of the time since it saves power and has to be told when to use th Nvidia card integrated with it under the current software we are under.
Fist install Nvidia-340. I personally did not run this in terminal because I read that the software repository takes care of Nouvea problems when you use the GUI and I just didn't want to take any chances. To install it this way, simply launch the Software Manager and search for nvidia-340. Then tell it to install it.
Then install bumblebee-nvidia. This helps your computer manage the optimus part of the nvidia card.
Then install primus. This allow your bumblebee to work with your nvidia drivers with 64 bit programs
Then install primus-libs-ia32:i386. This allow bumblebee to work with your nvidia drivers with 32 bit programs.
In total it should have installed primus, primus-libs, primus-libs-ia32:i386, primus-libs:i386 when you installed those two primus packets.
If you want to use termnal commands then use these:
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sudo apt-get install nvidia-340
sudo apt-get install bumblebee-nvidia
sudo apt-get install primus
sudo apt-get install primus-libs-ia32:i386
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optirun glxgears -info
11) Installing League of Legends via Playonlinux. I have found this way works far better then installing it directly into wine as they handle a lot of the bugs you run into. This will not fix the bug with the out of game shop though. First install playonlinux from software repository or use:
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sudo apt-get install playonlinux
Launch the game via Playonlinux and let it patch once it finishes, close the game.
When you installed the game, it put a shortcut on your desktop. It is a good idea to put that shortcut in your account specific shortcut folder so you can access it like any other program on the application launcher. If you deleted that by mistake, you can make a new one by clicking on the game inside the playonlinux menu. Then click on create shortcut on the right. If you don't know the process on how to do this then see 15).
Note: For those that had it working but then it stopped randomly. In 1.7.19-LeagueOfLegends2, some problem occured with the wine version and the way to fix it is to completely remove that version of wine and reinstall it again. You click on League of Legends in PlayonLinux and then click configure. Click the button to add a version of wine. A menu will pop up. x86 is the 32 bit version of wine. Remove 1.7.19-LeagueOfLegends2 by sending it to the list of wine versions to install. Then add it back in after that.
12 ) [I recommend that you skip step this now as the Playonlinux version works better but the infomation is there is case you want it.]
Installing League of Legends. The ne[er installer will not work you have to use the old one that has Kassadin holding the computer. Make sure the computer knows to run it as a wine program by changing it properties via right clicking it. Before running the installer, get the programs league of legends needs. Note that I don't know if all of these are actually needed. I just know this works. In winetricks type:
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winetricks vcrun2005
winetricks vcrun2008
winetricks wininet
winetricks d3dx9
winetricks corefonts
winetricks adobeair
Now install league like you would any widows program. Do not change the directory though I don't know if that will cause problems or not. Once it finishes, let it patch. Close it once it finishes patching.
Note: I got information from this guide http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/bo ... ?t=1946188 http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/bo ... ?t=4130419
13) Fix the in game item shop. Since Wine is not able to handle mipmaps from textures smaller than one block, TuxLoL is intented to patch these files from League of Legends to make the game run. Download it here:
https://bitbucket.org/Xargoth/tuxlol/wiki/Home
Extract the files and then change your directory in terminal to the folder of the python files. Be sure to back up your league of legends folder incase something goes wrong:
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cd /home/<your log on name>/Downloads/LoL-Linux-Tools-master
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lol_path = '/home/<your log on name>/.wine/drive_c/Riot Games/League of Legends/
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lol_path = '/home/<your log on name>/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/LeagueOfLegends/drive_c/Riot Games/League of Legends/'
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python lol_linux.py texture_patch
I got information from here. http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/bo ... ?t=4130419
14) Fix out of game item shop. To do this, you need to install internet explorer 8 and make sure the drive is running in windows xp mode. You can install internet explorer 8 by hitting configure while selected on the installed league of legends( inside PlayonLinux menu). Then go to install components and scroll down until you you see internet explorer 8. Click on that and hit install on the bottom right. Next you need to check if this is in windows xp mode. While in that same configuration menu, go to wine->configure wine-> applications. You will see a scroll bar on the bottom and it should be set to windows xp.
I got information from here. http://askubuntu.com/questions/459888/s ... 256#461256
15) Fix the launching shortcut.
As you may remember I told you Nvidia has to be told to run for the way the sofware works now. Otherwise it will use the intel graphics card which will start the game fine but it can not be used to play league of legends. This can be done with either optirun or primusrun. I choose primusrun because I heard it runs more efficiently and keeps the computer cooler.
Your shortcut looked like this before:
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env WINEPREFIX="/home/<your log on name>/.wine" wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/<your log on name>/.wine/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Desktop/Play\ League\ of\ Legends.lnk
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env WINEPREFIX="/home/<your log on name>/.wine" primusrun wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/<your log on name>/.wine/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Desktop/Play\ League\ of\ Legends.lnk
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env WINEPREFIX="/home/<your log on name>/.wine" PRIMUS_SYNC=2 primusrun wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/<your log on name>/.wine/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Desktop/Play\ League\ of\ Legends.lnk
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PRIMUS_SYNC=2 primusrun playonlinux
/usr/share/
Then open the applications folder as root via right clicking it and going to the correct menu option. Then go to Playonlinux. Go to the Launcher tab. Change the area under Command from:
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playonlinux
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env PRIMUS_SYNC=2 primusrun playonlinux
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/usr/local/share/applications
/usr/share/applications
~/.local/share/applications
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/usr/local/share/applications
You go to the last one by going to the home area for your log in name and pressing "ctrl" and "h" so that you can see hidden files. Pressing "ctrl" and "h" again will rehide them. In front of every application you want to run with your nvidia graphics card put this in the command:
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env PRIMUS_SYNC=2 primusrun
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~/.local/share/applications
16) Fixing your CD/DVD/Blueray Player /dev/dvd link. Your notice if you try to play a dvd that it will give you an error message about not being able to find the dvd. It might look like this:
Playback failure:
DVDRead could not open the disc "/dev/dvd".
Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///dev/dvd'. Check the log for details.
This is because /dev/dvd is what media players like vlc generally call to play your dvd drive but it will not necessarily know where that is actually located on your computer. In VLC go to file->Open Disk. Your see a drop down menu that is by defualt set to /dev/dvd. Change this and hit play until you find the correct one. For me it is /dev/sr0 .
We need to create a symlink to permanently link /dev/dvd to /dev/sr0. You can't just create a normal symlink as rebooting your computer wipes it. You have to tell the computer to create it upon boot. To do this go to the file with root privileges:
/etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules
You can do this by right click rules.d and telling it to open with root privileges. Then just open the file normally. Paste this line at the bottom of the file, save and close it:
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KERNEL=="sr0", SYMLINK+="dvd", NAME="dvd_player_link"
17) Getting your computer to play DVDs. First you need to get the codecs required as they do not ship with the operating system. You do this by typing this in the terminal:
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sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
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sudo regionset
Note: I got information from this website: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Restr ... layingDVDs
18) Installing VirtualBox.
There are a lot of programs you can use on Linux in place of Windows programs but there are also some that don't have equivlents. One way to solve this problem is to install a virtual box. An advatange virtual boxes have over dual booting is that Virtual Boxes can prevent Windows viruses from affecting your Linux system while that protection is not in place if you dual boot. Note that you will lose this protection if you run a virtual box with sudo (aka root privledges). The disadvantage is this is more computer intensive as you have to run both the operatng systems at once. It also can not run graphics intensive games. You can install it from the software repository or use the command:
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sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.3
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cmd
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net use x: \\vboxsvr\sharename
I got information from here: http://linux.m2osw.com/copy-files-betwe ... x-and-host
19) Basic security improvements. These are some very simple things to improve your security.
Install firefox addon https everywhere: https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
This allows you to automatically use a web pages secure version without having to manually type out the url of the secure version. Now that this can mess up Netflix so you might have to turn it off when going to Netflix.
Install firefox addon noscript: http://noscript.net/
This disables javascripts on all pages except the ones you whitelist. If you find this gets to annoying to use, it is still recommeded you keep it but tell it to allow scripts globally. This still provides you with some protection even when disabled like that.
Install Ghostery: https://www.ghostery.com/en/download
Ghostery has a database of tracking scripts and prevents them from running. You can specify which tracker you want disabled. It acts very similar to an ad blocker since most ads track you. It is not an ad blocker though and ads that do not track can still run.
Use DuckDuckGo or Start Page. DuckDuckGo is basically Yahoo's search engine but they do not monitor you like Yahoo does. Using it also helps fund Linux Mint development. Start Page is basically Google search engine but they do not monitor you. They don't help fund Linux Mint but I find Google has a far superior seach engine to any other one out there.
Fix WebRTC leaks. This is to prevent your lan IP from leaking to a website. To see if your leaking go to this site and run a test:
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ipleak.net
Firefox Fix:
Type this where the web addresses goes.
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about:config
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media.peerconnection.enabled
Chrome/Chromium fix:
Go to:
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https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/webrtc-network-limiter/npeicpdbkakmehahjeeohfdhnlpdklia
Note: I got my information from here. https://ipleak.net/#webrtcleak
20) Installing Tor. Tor is a program that uses a network of computers in the Tor network to bounce data around so that it can't be tracked. This is used to protect the privacy of individuals and businesses. It is also used so the media can get important information while not exposing their sources. The military and law enforcement use it to protect their communications. If you want to help out, you can run a Tor node. If you just want the broswer, go hear and download it:
https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en
It only comes fully configured on firefox. It is recommended you use this instead of trying to configure it for another browser as you may mess up the configuration and leave some type of security vulnerability. It is also recommend that you do not change any settings or install any addons on it. If you want to make this convient to launch, change the folders name to have a "." in front of it and place it in your /home/<log in name> folder. The "." makes it invisible so it will not clutter up your folder. You can view/hide hidden files with ctrl + h or Then follow 14) on how to make a launch shortcut.
Note: Due to some bug, you have to use:
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exec=xdg-open /home/"your name"/.tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser.desktop %u
instead of the normal:
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exec=/home/"your name"/.tor-browser_en-US/start-tor-browser.desktop %u
The https everywhere addon can use Tor if you install it on the computer itself. Below are the instructions on how to do that but I recommend you check out the page itself to see if anything has changed (like the key could have changed). It is also recommend that you use this site and not any auto made packages since those are not maintained by the Tor Project:
https://www.torproject.org/docs/debian.html.en
First add the them as a source for your updates. Go to Software Manager-> Additional Repositories - Add New Repository . It shows me this since I am Trusty:
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deb http://packages.domain.com/ trusty main
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http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org
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deb http://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org/ trusty main
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sudo gpg --keyserver keys.gnupg.net --recv 886DDD89
sudo gpg --export A3C4F0F979CAA22CDBA8F512EE8CBC9E886DDD89 | sudo apt-key add -
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sudo apt-get update
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sudo apt-get install deb.torproject.org-keyring
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sudo apt-get install tor
This will allow you to not only have the addon https everywhere communicate securely over Tor; It will also allow you to set up a Tor node or service, however it does not have a GUI to make it easy. If you want a GUI use Vidalia. You can get a detail guide here:
https://www.torproject.org/docs/tor-doc-relay.html.en
You can download it here:
https://people.torproject.org/~erinn/vi ... e-bundles/
Remember that you need to open both the entry and exit ports for your Tor relay to work.
21) Fixing brightness control. (added in mint 17)
You need to add the kernal parameter:
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video.use_native_backlight=1
a) Reboot your computer and hold shift until you get to your grub menu
b) press "e"
c) Go to the line that says linux
d) At the very end of that line, put a space and then:
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video.use_native_backlight=1
This will boot with that kernal parameter set for this time only. You should be able to use the function keys to adjust brightness now. If everything is working fine then it is time to add it permanently. To do that:
a) Type this in terminal:
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sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT
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"quiet splash"
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"quiet splash video.use_native_backlight=1"
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sudo update-grub
d) Restart your system when it is done. You should now be able to change your brightness.
I got my information from this website: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/KernelBootParameters and https://forum.xfce.org/viewtopic.php?pid=34310#p34310
Special thanks to ToZ
22) Setting a default brightness level. After you have fixed it so that you can change the brightness level; you then need to be able to change it so that it does not revert back to max brightness every reboot. After this change, it will boot up at this new brightness level. To change it:
Change your current brightness to what you want it to be. Then check its number with this command:
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cat /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
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sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
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echo X > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
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echo 214 > /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness
I got my information from this website: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2061712
23) To disable built in camera. If your not going to be using your webcam, it improves your securrity to have it disabled. To do that, enter this line in terminal:
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gksu gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
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#disables webcam
blacklist uvcvideo
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blacklist uvcvideo
Note: I got information from here: http://askubuntu.com/questions/166809/h ... -my-webcam
Congratulations, you now have avast, nvida optimus, wine,league of legends, silver light, netflix, unity web player, got shortcuts working, Set up a Virtual Box, set up a secure Tor Browser/Tor Relay and improved you browser security. There is Demacian Justice in the world.
Additional Knowledge: Now I'm going to tell you some basic things your probably want to know.
A) To make an iso file of a disk run:
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dd if=/dev/cdrom of=~/Name.iso
To run a command as root from a limited account:
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su -c '<command>'
To see what processes are running, type this in terminal:
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top
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q
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kill <process_number>
B) To add links to your application menu, go to:
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/usr/local/share/applications
/usr/share/applications
~/.local/share/applications
C) To give applications you put in the application launcher a category. Edit that application and look for:
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Categories=
D) To do a boot repair along with other useful things, run the program ferret. Details on how to run it are on the website. You can download it here:
https://github.com/crimsonmane/nightsha ... erret-wiki
E) To make a symlink:
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ln -s linktofile linktosymlink/name
If someone that understands linux better can clarify things or knows how to make more professional fixes then post below so I can update the guide.
Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7260 17.3-Inch Laptop (AMD Quad-Core A6-6310:
Next I will be talking about a different computer to show what I did to fix problems when I was installing Mint 17.2 XFCE 64 Bit.
1) Graphical Bug:
I used proprietary drivers to fix it. To change your drivers go to the star bar in the bottom left. It is the green linux ment logo that has the letters "lm". Type:
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Device Manager
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fglrx-updates
2) No wifi:
In the device manager your see see that no driver is selected for the wifi antenna. Change it to the one shown in the device manager. If this doesn't fix your problem then your have to look into other guides. You can look at 1) to see hwo to open device manager.
3) Can not control brightness with function buttons.
I did not find a way to get this work but I found a work around. If you type:
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AMD Catalyst Control Center