Local offline dictionary instead of an online dictionary

sudo apt install dict xfce4-dict dictd dict-gcide dict-wn

xfce4-dict is a dictionary as seen in the screenshot
dictd is the database server for dictionaries
dict-gcide is The Collaborative International Dictionary of English
dict-wn WordNet 3.0 English dictionary
dict is a terminal dictionary

dict baby

searches for baby and use Shift Page Up/Down to navigate
or use
dict baby | less and use Page Up/Down to navigate and q to quit.

In Preferences set in Dictionary Server tab set Server: localhost
in terminal for dict set to localhost
dict —host localhost
dict -S (show available search strategies)

Tested out a bunch of ebook readers and I believe at this stage Foliate is the best one. It supports epub, mobi, kindle, fictionbook and comic book.

Just download and install the deb file from the homepage. If you installed the dictionaries in the previous post you can set Foliate when you double click on a word to open up one of the default offline dictionaries.

You can also easily add a custom theme. It does not have grayscale for images just invert unfortunately but I couldn't find an epub reader that does on Linux.

Also don't bother with text to speech as I tried both of them and they are both horrendous.

in XFCE these are the Settings | Keyboard | Application Shortcuts that are worth memorizing.

I did replace xfce-taskmanager with gnome-system-monitor but kept the shortcut the same. I added Super+Z to open app launcher.

Print to take a screenshot
Shift+Print to select a region to screenshot

Ctrl+Alt+Escape xkill which will give you an X and click on a frozen app and it'll do a kill -9 (forced kill) of all instances of app

Ctrl+Alt+T to open terminal

XFCE Window Tiling Keyboard Shortcuts

Settings | Window Manager

I keep four workspaces and to flip between them just use Ctrl-Alt+Right.

Window Tiling helps you organize windows to say a 1/4 of the screen top right corner Super+Page Up (keypad). You don't have to memorize these ones just know Super+ a key on the keypad does windows tiling in XFCE.

Super+Left (keypad) or Super+Right (keypad) makes the window 1/2 the screen.

XFCE Windows Tiling quickly put four apps into their respective corners taking up 1/4 of the screen with keyboard shortcuts.

Stream opus, mp3, FLAC music collection on Linux Mint to android, eyefoam, ipad clients. Install proftpd server and use foobar2000 (free) app.

sudo apt install proftpd

lock users into home directory
sudo nano /etc/proftpd/proftpd.conf

uncomment by removing the # and save file
#DefaultRoot
(change to)
DefaultRoot

If you wish to share music amongst multiple users then create a user named ftpmusic which can be shared with many household users. Otherwise just use your existing username/password to login to the ftp server.

disallow ftpmusic user from logging in via SSH
sudo nano /etc/shells
add the following to the end of the file then save it.
/bin/false

create ftpmusic user and choose a password
sudo useradd -m -s /bin/false ftpmusic

sudo passwd ftpmusic
New password:
Retype new password:
passwd: password updated successfully

restart proftpd
sudo systemctl restart proftpd

set proftpd to start on boot
sudo systemctl start proftpd

check status of proftpd
sudo systemctl status proftpd

foobar2000 app in Settings | DSP Manager I set Crossfader to 20000ms (20 seconds) and Skip Silence minimum 5000ms (5 seconds).

Now in foobar iOS or Android app add server go to Media Servers and +Add New
This is assuming your ip is 192.168.0.19

ftp://ftpmusic:[email protected]

Just browse to your music folder and then a subdirectory folder and tap and hold and choose Create a New Playlist. Go to your playlists and play it from there. When streaming you cant jump forward or backward in a song unless you download that folder to your foobar2000 Music Folder.

Foobar2000 doesn’t have a sleep timer but on iOS just set your Timer in the Clock App to Stop Playing and any music or audiobook will stop when timer ends.

Openboard.ch is a free app for a White board in an educational setting. Here are some of the applications it comes with.

Openboard interactives or whatever they're called.

btop++ probably is my favorite system monitoring utility. Even beating s-tui

Just make a directory and download btop to it then extract the files. Run the install. sh by doing ./ install. sh

Toggle a few presets by pressing p key

sudo apt install nmap

sudo nmap -O 192.168.0.*

scans your entire network in about a minute to check for open ports and the -O (letter o not zero) does OS fingerprinting and requires sudo. No need to install a fancy IP scanner GUI.

Nmap scan report for 192.168.0.254
Host is up (0.014s latency).
Not shown: 998 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
23/tcp open telnet
80/tcp open http
MAC Address: (Netgear)
Device type: general purpose
Running: Linux 2.6.X
OS CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel:2.6
OS details: Linux 2.6.9 - 2.6.30
Network Distance: 1 hop

Nmap scan report for geektips-laptop (192.168.0.19)
Host is up (0.00010s latency).
Not shown: 993 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
111/tcp open rpcbind
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
5900/tcp open vnc
Device type: general purpose
Running: Linux 2.6.X
OS CPE: cpe:/o:linux:linux_kernel:2.6.32
OS details: Linux 2.6.32
Network Distance: 0 hops

OS detection performed. Please report any incorrect results at https://nmap.org/submit/ .
Nmap done: 256 IP addresses (8 hosts up) scanned in 45.32 seconds

BASH keyboard shortcuts

• Alt+Backspace: Deletes the previous word.
• Ctrl+U: Cuts all text up to the cursor.
• Ctrl+K: Cuts all text after the cursor until end of line.
• Ctrl+A: Moves the cursor to the start of line.
• Ctrl+E: Moves the cursor to the end of line.

Appimages

Fotoxx — image editor
freac — mp3 —> opus
Inkscape — vector drawing
czkawka — file duplicates
LosslessCut — video / audio cuttings, muxing
MKVToolNix — mkv editing, muxing
qprompt — teleprompter
Shotcut — video editor
tageditor — m4b cover, metadata

flatpaks

Foliate — epub reader
Minder — mind mapping
telegram — social media
TextShine — remove line breaks, text maniuplation

Some apps not installed via apt / debian

Annotator — image editor, blur, magnifier, text, crop, resize
authpass — password manager
komga — java PDF, book server
Outliner — create outlines, export markdown, Minder, OPML

command line apps

btop++ — system monitor, CPU temp
inxi — displays hardware info
m4b-tool — create m4b chaptered audiobooks
ncdu — navigate and display disk usage
neofetch — system info
proftpd — ftp server for Foobar2000 client on phone
ocrmypdf — ocr and optimize PDFs
rpiplay — mirror iphone / ipad on linux
s-tui — system monitor
tldr — too long didn't read more concise than man pages

Python apps
sudo apt install pip

yt-dlp — youtube download, etc for videomass
sudo pip3 install yt-dlp

Node.js apps
if you don't have npm and nodejs installed then do

sudo apt install nodejs npm

ezshare — transfer multiple files QR Code to phone
sudo npm install -g ezshare

TLDR (too long, didn't read) is like quick, concise man (manual page)

sudo npm install -g tldr

List of Linux apps I use

Argos-Translate — offline translator / libretranslate
Atom - text editor
Bforartists — Blender but improved UI
bookletimposer — create PDF booklets
Celluloid — movie player
Cozy — audiobook player
CudaText — text editor
Darktable — RAW image editor
Deadbeef — audio player, m4b audiobook player
Dictionary — xfce dictionary client
Document Viewer — evince PDF viewer, highlighter
drawio — diagram
ExifCleaner — clean metadata from images, videos, PDFs
Firefox — webbrowser with 3 extensions: Dark Background and Light Text, DownthemAll, UBlock Origin
GMIC-Qt — 500+ image filters
Geany — text editor, IDE
Host Minder — block porn, spam, gambling
Hypnotix — internet tv
LibreOffice — word processor, spreadsheet, presentation
Master PDF Editor — PDF viewer, dark mode, highlighter
OpenBoard — educational sharing desktop tool
PDF Arranger — merging, rearranging, splitting, rotation, cropping PDFs
Remmina — vnc, rdp remote viewer
Ristretto Image viewer — XFCE image viewer
sgt-puzzles — Simon Tabatha’s Puzzle collection
SimpleScreenRecorder — records video of screen or selected area
Solaar — Logitech Unifying receiver for mouse and keyboard
Transmission — downloading bittorrent Linux ISO images
Veracrypt — file encryption
Videomass — video encoder, video downloader (yt-dlp)
Virtual Machine Manager — libvirt, QEMU linux distros
VLC — music player, video player
X2Go Client — remote control LInux computer
Zathura — dark mode PDF reader

Found four apps from the same author. I was trying to get back into CherryTree which is a hierarchical note taking application, featuring rich text and syntax highlighting, storing data in a single xml or sqlite file. I just couldn't get into it. I've used for many years $10 iThoughts mind mapping app on iOS and it's also on Mac. So I went searching for the best mind mapping app. There are a few but most are subscription based and not free. I finally found one I simply did

sudo apt install minder

and I was quite impressed as I thought it did most of what iThoughts can do. Then I realized it was version 1.5.1 from 2019. So I tried to install from source but main problem was it needed libgranite-dev 6.0 but I couldn't figure out how to install it even download a few deb files.

Dependency granite found: NO found 5.3.0 but need: '>=6.0'

However, there is a flatpak for it an it's up2date 1.14.0 which was released 3 weeks ago. You can search for it in the Software Manager and install it from there.

Minder overview mind mapping / flowchart app

Here is a PDF I made with Minder just showing all the keyboard shortcuts in the app. It was about a 15 to 30 minute learning curve and then it was quite easy to add a child, and navigate around.

edit: this isn't cropped so will post that below

Here's a PNG image of Minder Keyboard Shortcuts. Most likely have to download it and open it in an image viewer to zoom in.