GNOME life hack: ever wanted to set a region locale for dates and numbers that wasn't available on your settings menu? Use this:

gsettings set org.gnome.system.locale region [locale]

For instance, if you want to use Esperanto dates and numbers, it'd be:

gsettings set org.gnome.system.locale region eo.UTF-8

I'm making a thread of my #lifeHacks, starting up there, then filling up with this:

https://mstdn.io/@espectalll/99456733491953855

I wish I could do this as a moment tho. I should make one in Twitter for sure.

Bash #lifeHack: ever been confused by $@, "$@", $* and "$*"? Here's a brief explanation: https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/129077/218415 https://mstdn.io/media/0rLhJ6c7v5gvl3NAJQY

XBPS small life hack: to check how many packages do you have, do

xbps-query -l | wc -l

YET ANOTHER MORE #lifeHack! Woo!

If you have #ffmpeg installed, you probably also have a media player as well. It's called `ffplay` and it supports piping and weird stuff!

Nautilus/Caja/GNOME :gnome: Thumbnail #lifeHack! Annoyed by a missing thumbnail? Just do this:

rm -r ~/.cache/thumbnails/fail

Hey there! Want to get #lifeHack'd? Here's one weird one!

Do you know REISUB? It uses the magic SysRq thing in Linux to force to reboot/shutdown if possible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key#Uses

...it turns out, many keyboards won't let you do the final "B" combo, or any other of them. You have to press Alt, press SysRq, release SysRq, press the letter, and then release everything. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/Documentation/admin-guide/sysrq.rst#how-do-i-use-the-magic-sysrq-key

You got #lifeHack'd!

OK, #lifeHack time! This one is for Git: do you want to use GPG signing with GnuPG 2, but have no idea how to set it up? Well, here it is!

git config --global gpg.program gpg2

Make sure you have installed all of the pinentry packages you may need as well!

https://stackoverflow.com/a/41054093/1446229

Every source code file should have a header with, at the absolute very least, a modeline. Very preferably an one as well. #lifeHack

More info:
👉 http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/options.html#modeline
👉 http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Modeline_magic
👉 https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Specifying-File-Variables.html

I can't believe how undocumented and hard to find this is, because it's an amazing little tool that saves programmer lives.

This looks like a way better option, comes preinstalled on GNOME Builder, IntelliJ, Github, Gogs, available for almost every editor. Very worth taking a look at. http://editorconfig.org/

A #lifeHack guide on how to apply the CC0, the best non-GNU license https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC0_FAQ#May_I_apply_CC0_to_computer_software.3F_If_so.2C_is_there_a_recommended_implementation.3F

(keep in mind this license does not grant any rights to use trademarks or patents)

#lifeHack: use TOML instead of YAML. Why? Well, why does Cargo (Rust) use it? https://users.rust-lang.org/t/why-does-cargo-use-toml/3577/17

It's also a good alternative to INI and JSON for configuration. Take a look at https://github.com/toml-lang/toml

BTW, YAML has stuff like implicit typing, which is absolute garbage. I've considered StrictYAML, but that's Python-specific (http://hitchdev.com/strictyaml/why/turing-complete-schema)

OK, so I still didn't go to bed, and I have a #lifeHack to share. Want to get head/tail or init/last on your bourne shell script's parameters? Welp, take a look at this - it's pretty cool, check the screenshot to understand what's going on.

Head: ${@:1:1}
Tail: "${@:2}"
Init: "${@:1:$#-1}"
Last: ${@:$#}

Hey, here's a surprise bonus #lifeHack, everyone! 🎉

Ever wanted to shut down, reboot, etc. from a script without root permissions or dealing with your init? This should work at the very least with GNOME

https://askubuntu.com/a/454077/45926

e.g. shut down the computer with this:

dbus-send --system --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.login1 /org/freedesktop/login1 "org.freedesktop.login1.Manager.PowerOff" boolean:true

Do I count this as a #lifeHack? I guess so?

Use KDE Connect with GNOME: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1319/gsconnect

Back to the #lifeHack lifestyle! 😎

Have you ever noticed font rendering sucks on ? No problem, just do this:

mkdir -p ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d
ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/{10-sub-pixel-rgb.conf,70-no-bitmaps.conf} ~/.config/fontconfig/conf.d/

Based on info at http://blog.brunomiguel.net/geekices/how-to-get-good-font-rendering-in-void-linux

Hi everyone! Xerzthony Xerztano here, the busiest #lifeHack nerd on the Internet, and today we have a guide on how to to not do shitty encoding with ffmpeg for the most popular codecs.

tl;dr: Read the wrap-up, then check the commands and understand them. The most important part is probably CRF, attached as the second picture on this toot.

And it's time for another #lifeHack, yay~ I missed those...

Actually, they're two, both related to Bash! First one you may have read before on my or and it's nice, because it lets you invoke your aliases with `sudo`:

alias sudo='sudo '

This works because aliases on bourne shells, by default, only subsitute the first word of a command by the associated string, BUT if you use a space as the last character of that string, then it looks for aliases for the next word.

You may have also found out that your Bash history sucks, because every single time you write something it ends up there, even if you're just repeating a command over and over. How do you avoid this? Well, you use the HISTCONTROL variable, of course!

export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth:erasedups

Check the `man` for more info on that. There's also a HISTIGNORE, in which you can set a list of patterns for... ignoring!

Oh, and here you can see how to clean your current history https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/48716/218415

Today we have a whole new #lifeHack for a lovely piece of bloat – I'm talking, of course, about Firefox!

You want better privacy protection? Enable first party isolation by changing this at about:config

privacy.firstparty.isolate = true

This works on both desktop and mobile Firefox! More info here: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/22/how-to-enable-first-party-isolation-in-firefox/

(also read https://www.privacytools.io/#about_config if you haven't yet)

Here's a #lifeHack I'm adding into here only because nobody seems to have done it before for some reason lmao

I'm trying to backup a Linux USB on Windows, thus I need something like dd for copying. All I can find is this Stack Overflow (https://superuser.com/questions/839502/windows-equivalent-for-dd) filled with shitty answers. Most people replying don't even seem to know how to read.

The solution? Well, it turns out I already have Cygwin installed, so:

1) `cat /proc/partitions` to see which device it is
2) Use dd like usual

Hey, everyone! Your favorite show is BACK! That's right, welcome again to the #lifeHack lifestyle!

Today we have a special one for (U)EFI! Did you know that you can boot straight into Linux, without any bootloader at all? Use `efibootmgr` to create a boot entry that will get you straight into the kernel with whichever options you want.

This is too hardcore for a simple toot so please check Arch and Gentoo's wikis:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/EFISTUB#Using_UEFI_directly
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Efibootmgr#Creating_a_boot_entry