[SOLVED] Godmode equivalent?

[chiyo]

Hello all.

I am brand new to Mint but not to linux in general, although I have been away from it for a couple years. I admit to trying several other distros first, which catered more to customization and being able to build it to your exact likings, but I was unable to get my displayport working correctly under them and eventually gave up. My computer display/graphics card is problematic apparently- I cant even install the proprietary nvidia driver in Mint without it doing all sorts of bizzarre, bizzare things and breaking.

The only thing I dont like so far (Sarah KDE edition) is that the system settings module is really, really, really over simplified and missing tons of things I wish it had. I guess I wont even bother asking why it's like this, but I feel like it assumes I dont know what Im doing or dont care which is the opposite of most Linux systems and apps, and it really rubs me the wrong way. I mean it feels l like being on a Mac where they dont let you change a thing >_<

In the display settings, there is no option to change HOW I use the second display. I want to duplicate it but there are no options at all. I couldnt find a way to do it in terminal when I searched google (maybe your google skills are better?) There's also no option to turn the laptop display blank when I plug in the tv. The lock settings only let me set it up to 99 min 0_o.... all sorts of bizzare limitations. I could go on and on.

Is there any equivalent to the windows Godmode "folder" you can make on Mint? Some hidden advanced settings area? Is there separate GUI's you can obtain for more settings and customization? Or perhaps you are left to do it all in the terminal (which is fine, I do not fear the terminal and reading man files, but I wish it weren't that way because I cant find instructions for what I need to do.)

[kukamuumuka]

1) Install Arandr and see if is simple enough to use.

2) There has no option like secret "windows GodMode" in linux.

[Cwashpimp]

Try

Code: Select all

sudo su -l mdm

If not Go to the config file, /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf, and you can use the variable display-setup-script to set up a script that can do whatever you like with the resolution, mirroring, etc.

[supertuxkart]

gconf and dconf are used for about all the hidden configurations.
pay attention.

[trytip]

each desktop has their own settings and no master allinone configuration. plasma 5 is nothing like plasma 4 they rearranged and moved all the settings around under new categories making any advanced kde4 user seem as though he's a noob in plasma5.

you're talking about gnome-tweak or programs like that but every distro removes or adds features from control centers and settings. if you download manjaro kde their systemsettings have different categories on top of the default plasma5

not sure what my point is

[Habitual]

Hello all.

I am brand new to Mint but not to linux in general, although I have been away from it for a couple years. I admit to trying several other distros first, which catered more to customization and being able to build it to your exact likings, but I was unable to get my displayport working correctly under them and eventually gave up. My computer display/graphics card is problematic apparently- I cant even install the proprietary nvidia driver in Mint without it doing all sorts of bizzarre, bizzare things and breaking.

As fresh as a baby.
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

[jimallyn]

My computer display/graphics card is problematic apparently- I cant even install the proprietary nvidia driver in Mint without it doing all sorts of bizzarre, bizzare things and breaking.

And just what sort of graphics card do you have? It might be helpful for you to open a terminal, enter inxi -Fxz, and copy paste the results here. That will tell us what kind of graphics card you have, which driver it is using, and lot of other useful information. Also, you mentioned that you had problems installing the Nvidia driver. How did you try to install it? Did you download it from Nvidia's website (not recommended in most cases), or try to install it with the Mint Driver Manager (usually recommended)? And can you be a little more specific about "bizarre, bizarre things"? That doesn't really give us much to go on.

[chiyo]

First of all, thank you everybody for all your kind and helpful responses! I will check out those (multiple) config files you have all pointed me towards, as well as Arandr (well maybe, I already know its just a GUI for xrandr so I will probably just try to use xranr), gconf and dconf. Thats really exactly what I was looking for. I was already somewhat, vaguely familiar with using Xrandr for another purpose and was unaware it would suit this purpose. I didnt fully understood what Xrandr was for before since I only had been taught how to use it to see what my graphics configuration was by typing xrandr. Now I'll read it's man file. The problem was, I didnt know which programs before this thread, to read about and learn.

I think a might have been a little harsh towards the settings at first but I was a little tired and frustrated- I really do like Mint in general. And I don't want it to be windows, I just didnt know what else to compare what I wanted to if not the Godmode folder. I dont think its fair to say I want Windows to be Linux Habitual, because I know what each is having used each for years and and I want Linux- I just need to learn how to do some of the same functions in "linux language" so to speak. I am fine with doing the same thing in a completely different way as long as I can do it.

Trytip, the last linux system I used had gnome installed so I WAS used to things like gnome-tweak and hoping to find something somewhat similar. Even though you werent quite sure what your point was I think I got it.

Jimallyn, the reason I didn't include more details is because I dont want to try to solve that problem here. I thought that problem was too complicated to ask at the Newbie forum based on the forum rules. I also don't want to try to solve it now because I am waiting for a new hard drive to come in the mail and when I reinstall Mint I will return to the problem. Im currently borrowing my boyfreinds laptop and Mint is unbootable. But if you want to give me an idea anyway, I have Thinkpad w530, Nvidia Quadro K2000 graphics card set to discrete graphics at the BIOS, and I installed the driver through the "install drivers" prompt that comes up on the Welcome window that opens when you first install Mint. After that when I rebooted the resolution was way off (which I know if a common solvable problem) and when I tried to open any program, such as Dolphin, Firefox, Hexchat, ect, it would say it couldnt write to it's config file (the messages varied but all pretty much said something to this effect) but then for everything besides Firefox it would just open the program anyway. However I think that this is due to my HDD failing, because it is failing without a doubt so I dont see any point trying to troubleshoot these problems or do anything else on it until I replace it. However I think the configuration question will still be just as relevant once I reinstall the OS, which is why I made that the focus of the question I just mentioned everything else because its "how I got here."

supertuxcart thank you for pointing me in that direction, however what was I supposed to pay attention to? There is no english documentation for Sarah KDE. At least not where I looked: https://linuxmint.com/documentation.php If there was one I would have absolutely read it before I came here. Maybe I will just work my way through some different but similar documentation instead. I loved the one for Debian. I am in awe of Debian's documentation... and since Mint is based on Debian, could it be useful to read though Jessie's Documentation in lieu of Sarahs? I was reading it before I switched to Mint anyway because I originally wanted to do a minimum install of Jessie and build up from there. I just got tired of breaking KDE and XORG and staying up until 3am fixing it repeatedly despite following documented instructions, I am a full time college student and I work to pay my rent too so eventually I just sort of gave in to the time constraint and decided to go with Mint since I needed to get my laptop up and running again and I knew everything was all built in to Mint (Funny, because this is what originally prompted me to stay away from Mint. I wanted something more minimal I could build on and learn more about Linux in the process. Arch and Gentoo seemed like too steep a learning curve right away even though I really was interested in Arch so I thought minimal Debain would be a good middle ground)