Take Control Of Ubuntu Start-Up

Ever wanted to change the default Operating System at boot time? Does your Ubuntu have a long list of kernel versions over the course of upgrades that can use some trimming? These tasks can be quite challenging when you're using GRUB configuration.

Good thing there's StartUp-Manager, a tool for configuring start-up options in Ubuntu. It provides four configuration tabs for boot options, appearance, security and an advanced tab. Here are some of the things you can do with StartUp-Manager:

• Change timeout settings of boot loader
• Change default Operating System
• Apply colors and themes
• Password-protect the boot loader
• Limit the number of kernels in the boot menu

Follow these easy steps to install StartUp-Manager:

(1) Update packages.

sudo apt-get update

(2) Install StartUp-Manager.

sudo apt-get install startupmanager

(3) You should now have System >> Administration >> StartUp-Manager

Linux Software From Google

Google made available some of its free software for Linux. This includes Picasa and Google Desktop.

GUI and Command Line configuration instructions are available in the Google Linux Software Repositories page. Click here for more information.

Extend Laptop Battery With Ubuntu Using PowerTOP

PowerTOP is a Linux tool to analyze the power consumption of your laptop. It collects and presents a number of information including CPU states, wakeups per second, power usage (in watts) and top causes of wakeups.

Perhaps the most important piece of information is the top causes for wakeups. It lists the most active processes that require CPU and therefore, consumes power. Here is a sample screen shot from my laptop:


It shows the wireless LAN adapter, Bluetooth and Firefox as part of the top 5 causes of wakeups. The bottom-part of the screen includes further explanation, suggestion and the exact command to carry out the recommendation e.g. how to turn off Bluetooth.

Follow these steps to install and run PowerTOP:

(1) Update packages.

sudo apt-get update

(2) Install PowerTOP.

sudo apt-get install powertop

(3) Run PowerTOP using priviledged access.

sudo powertop

Tip: run PowerTOP when you're using battery. If you plan to follow the suggestions e.g. disabling processes, please make sure you know how to re-enable them for future use.

You can find more information here.