How To : Show Desktop icons in ubuntu after fresh install & hide ntfs drive icons on desktop

Part 1

You may have noticed that after a fresh ubuntu install there are no desktop icons not even the icon for computer and home folder? There is a simple solution to that problem

Open Applications>Acccessories > Terminal

Type in the following gconf-editor

Now,

You’ll get a window that looks like this

Expand the apps menu by by clicking the arrow on it

Now scroll down to a sub menu by the name nautilus and expand it and click on a sub menu by the name desktop

Check the entries as needed

computer_icon_visible Shows the Computer icon (yeah like My Computer in windows )

home_icon_visible Shows the home icon (Home where your documents & personal files dwell)

network_icon_visible Shows Network icon (similar to network neighbourhood in windows)Part 2

trash_icon_visible Shows Trash icon

Part 2

hiding mounted ntfs drives on desktop

Whenever your ntfs drive is mounted it shows up on desktop which doesn’t look good IMHO

to change that uncheck the entry volumes_visible in the same window in part 1

volumes_visible

HowTo:Configure Mutt For Gmail Imap

Mutt is a command line mail client for linux its very good for people who need quick mail access.

Download Mutt from ubuntu repositories

$sudo apt-get install mutt

Or fedora users can do

$sudo yum install mutt

Or download it from here .

Create a file by the name .muttrc (dont miss the dot there its dot muttrc ) in your home directory and copy the following

set imap_user = ‘youremailid@gmail.com’
set imap_pass = ‘your password’
set spoolfile = imaps://imap.gmail.com:993/INBOX
set folder = imaps://imap.gmail.com:993
set record=”imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Sent Mail”
set postponed=”imaps://imap.gmail.com/[Gmail]/Drafts”
set header_cache=”~/.mutt/cache/headers”
set message_cachedir=”~/.mutt/cache/bodies”
set certificate_file=~/.mutt/certificates

Change the first two values matching your mail account. Then you’re done!

Type the command mutt in terminal to check your mail

Linux Tip : mounting iso files in Linux

Mounting iso files in windows requires you to install Daemon tools,alcohol software etc but things are different and better in linux.Say you have a file called myfile.iso now to mount it on your system all you have to do is make a folder for mounting it say you name it miso.Here are the commands…

**Create a folder called miso **

$mkdir miso

**(assuming both myfile.iso and folder miso are in the same directory) now mount the file called myfile.iso in miso**

$sudo mount -o loop myfile.iso miso

**if miso is in /mnt directory and myfile.iso is in the downloads directory of your home directory**

$sudo mount -o loop ~/Downloads/myfile.iso /mnt/miso

Congrats ! Your iso file is mounted in miso directory

If you don’t have root access that is sudo then you can try this command

$mount -o loop -t iso9660 myfile.iso miso

Enjoy!