Hello,

Many new Linux users might be unaware that they can change the way the default file manager, Nemo 6.6.3, included with Linux Mint 22.3 Cinnamon can display information or its overall appearance.

What is a file manager? In simple terms it is a GUI (graphical user interface, as opposed to terminal) program that can display system and user created files and folders, mounted drives, network drives and other system information.

How to open the file Manager? By default on Linux Mint 22.3 with Cinnamon desktop environment you can open it from the desktop by click on Home icon or going to Menu (Start equivalent from Windows), locating and opening Files icon.

What are the major sections of the Nemo file manager? The main and most important components are:

- Menu bar at the top. If hidden press Alt to temporarily expose it and it can be hidden by going to View and clicking on Menu bar. Likewise to make it visible, press Alt, go to View and click on Menu bar once again. When hidden, the file manager will appear as

https://imgur.com/a/2uDG1UH

- Toolbar, the section under the Menu bar, above the sidebar and to the left of the location entry (address bar with the file path). It includes button for back, forward, up one directory level and home or refresh as well as other buttons can be added or removed from Edit, Preferences and on the left side select Toolbar. On the right left click once to add or remove elements.

- Sidebar which includes main file locations like Home, Downloads, Documents, etc., the Filesystem or / which is the top most directory, when connected and mounted USB drives will also be listed in the sidebar as well as virtual mounted drives with the button to eject/unmount next to them as well as network drives. In the lower left corner under the sidebar there are 3 buttons, the one on left sets sidebar to show Places, the one in the middle shows the tree view and the one on the right hides sidebar which will appear as

https://imgur.com/a/BaPKowy

To return the sidebar click on the unhide sidebar button in the same location or press F9 when the file manager is open and in focus

- Location entry (address bar that shows file path) as called in Nemo file manager, the bar at center in the upper part. By default it will display the path in a symbolic manner, to change it to show the file path as text click on the Toggle Location Entry button in the upper right of the file manager or go to View > Toolbar > Location entry. If toolbar is hidden press Alt, if so Nemo will appear as

https://imgur.com/a/TtLgNVO

- Right side toolbar to the right of the address bar which includes Toggle Location Entry button, Search button, Icon view, List view, Compact view. If you choose list view, it will appear as such

https://imgur.com/a/TGEJ1Xr

- Status bar at the bottom, on the left are sidebar button, in the middle it will display number of items in the working directory and free storage capacity, on the right there is a slider to adjust icon size, if set to max it will appear as

https://imgur.com/a/o3NukQ4

The most important feature of Nemo is that it allows to open the working directory (folder) as root by right clicking on an empty spot and selecting Open as root option. This will allow to open restricted directories such as /boot/efi/EFI which is essential for example when setting up different boot loaders, EFIstub or UKI.

https://imgur.com/a/3dlbCEi

From the context menu there is also the option to open the working directory in the terminal in case it is required.

This is how I have it set up normally

https://imgur.com/a/ji7uYNe

Of note, Nemo is not the only type of file manager available on Linux, most distributions also have access to Dolphin (typically used with KDE) and Thunar (used with XFCE).

https://imgur.com/a/HkBKimd

Hello,

Many new users might find problems with the Steam program when installed with scavenged instructions on the internet, using AI assistant trained on outdated guides or other mistakes they might have made during installation. If you have NOT installed Steam yet but want to then press Menu (Start equivalent for Windows) button in the left zone of the Cinnamon panel, in the pop up window click on Software Manager. When it first loads it takes some time to refresh, be patient and once it loads click in the upper left corner in the search bar and type Steam, select the installer, a new page exclusive to it will open and in the upper right part of the window click Install. After the Linux user password authentification prompt input password and press Enter and the installation process will begin.

Assuming the above process or other instructions you found online failed and the Steam program refuses to launch or gives errors, first remove all package installed so far and the follow bellow instructions on how to install the official steam .deb package supported by Valve.

For clarity Steam officially is only supported by Valve for Linux as a .deb package available for download on the official website. However when you install that way it will require to install a lot of dependencies and newbies might mess something up. Thus most distros repackage said installer with dependencies in their respective package managers, i.e. the one you install with either terminal command or when using the GUI app store called Software Manager, is repackaged and not the original installer, thus Valve officially does not support it, only the .deb from their website is "official" so any bugs or errors is "not their problem" but up to the distro that repackaged the installer and provides dependencies. There is also the alternative, which would be nice if Valve supported officially to get rid of all this nonesense, of using the flatpak version available on flathub website but then again it is maintained by some random guy, it's not Valve making sure it's malware and bug free. The official version is from the website, if you need to try to install it that way then follow the next steps.

1. Remove installed packages and dependencies to prepare for a clean install

- Use the following command (it assumed you tried to install it and failed), copy paste it in the terminal (note ctrl and v does not work, right click with the mouse to paste and do not leave any weird spaces when selecting and copying) and press Enter (password will be requested afterwards, type Linux administrator account password, press Enter and wait for the process to finish and for the command line to return, if asked to confirm anything during the process, type y and press Enter)

sudo apt remove --purge steam

- the second command will remove orphaned dependencies, use above instructions (carefully select copy and paste command in the terminal, wait for the process to finish, you will know it when it returns to the command line and if prompted at any time for the password, input password and press Enter or if asked to confirm removal of packages, type "y" without the " and press Enter)

sudo apt autoremove

Once the command prompt returns, proceed with the the following steps. IF you never installed Steam either from the terminal or from app store (Software Manager) skip to next step.

2. Download steam .deb package from official website and install as follows

Download steam_latest.deb (whatever Valve names the installer, this is just the most recent name for this .deb package) from official website only and save it in Downloads folder. After that open Home icon on the desktop or from the Menu open Files, in the left part click on Downloads.

Once the folder is opened and the .deb package is confirmed in Donwloads:

- right click on an empty part of the Downloads folder and select Open as root, input password and Enter

- right click again on an empty part of the new window and select Open in terminal

These above operations make sure that you are executing the command as super user and that the working directory is the one containing the .deb package. You can double check with list command.

ls

Example output

steam_latest.deb

Now use command

dpkg -i steam_latest.deb

Here is an example screenshot from my PC

https://imgur.com/a/5AlDOXR

After that install any missing dependencies until no more missing packages are listed and the command line returns. Once finished go to Menu and open Steam, it will ask again to install more missing dependencies, when prompted press Enter, wait for the process to finish after which Steam will update and finally prompt for log in into Steam account.

Hello,

I made this tutorial in order to make it easier for long time Windows users to acclimate with arguably one of the most beginner friendly distribution, Linux Mint.

Disclaimer, these instructions are for newbies and casuals that are relatively new to Linux and have installed Linux Mint 22.3 (Zena) and want to know how to use and change some cosmetic things on how the desktop environment (Cinnamon 6.6.7) appears using only the GUI and no terminal commands.

First step, don't panic and keep your wits about you. Let's start with...

1.The basics

Linux Mint and the default Cinnamon (version 6.6.7) desktop environment specifically keeps many common sense actions and structures that are present in Microsoft's Windows, but there are some things you will need to adjust to. Let's start with the desktop GUI elements:

• Panel on the bottom of the screen which is equivalent to Windows taskbar. The Cinnamon panel is divided into the 1. Left zone which includes the Menu button equivalent to Start from Windows, from here you can access settings, software manager (app store), the file manager, system components and user installed packages. 2. Center zone which includes the pinned programs icons for quick launch or other opened files or folders. 3. Right zone which are applets such as time and calendar, volume control, network and others.
• Home icon on the desktop to open file manager and access system and user created files and folders. Users can also add Trash, My computer and other default icons from System Settings > Desktop or create new files, folders or place shortcuts.

Immediately, long time Windows users will want to know

• how to shut down the system, restart or put the system to sleep? Assuming this wasn't obvious already and you just installed the system, click on the Menu in the left side of the panel, on the pop up window click again on the red power button symbol and you will get the options to Suspend (sleep mode equivalent), Restart or Shut down. When opening the Menu there is also a button for locking the system as well as Log out if you have multiple users set up (though if you do you probably know the basics).
• How to refresh the desktop since "Refresh" option does not appear when right clicking on the desktop, that is because it does not exist as default functionality so this will be the first adjustment, generally inside folders pressing F5 on the keyboard refreshes the contents inside the folder but not on the desktop, at least not to my knowledge.
• How to access task manager, on Linux Mint and most Linux distros it is called "System Monitor", if it's not present you can install it easily from their respective app store (it is called Software Manager in the case of Linux Mint). To open System Monitor click on the Menu icon on panel then find and click on the "System Monitor" icon. Alternative, after opening the Menu (Start equivalent) type System Monitor in the search bar and it will be displayed and then click on the icon.
• How to install apps? The recommended way on Linux Mint is to use the Software Manager. Open it from Menu button on the left side of the panel, once the window opens it will refresh so wait a few seconds. In the upper left side there is a search bar, select it and type the name of the app you want to find. Note the search results will display both native apps from repos but also the flatpak versions if said app has this alternative (note it will be indicated with a flatpak symbol). Once you find what you want, select it and then a page exclusive to that app will appear and on the upper right part of the window there will be a button with Install, click on it and after authentification with the default password, it will start to install. What if it's not listed in the App Store? You can look up fllathub website and search for the app you want there, if there is then install them since Linux Mint supports them by default. If the flathub website does not have what you need you can search programs such as Wine or Lutris which allows Windows version of apps to run on Linux. Not everything will work or work bug free but most things do including video games. A third option is to use Appimage which are containerized programs that do not require install, at most you might need to extract the files from the compressed downloaded file and find the executable, right click on it, select Properties and enable it to run as an executable, then just double click on the executable to open the program. The disadvantage of Appimage is that they do not create shortcuts and include themselves by default (generally) in the app list. The upside is that to uninstall them you can just delete the file. The idea of Appimage is to work in a sense like .exe files on Windows, in this case, they just run skipping the installation, this is a pro and a con as it requires the same user discipline to not download them from random places and compromise their system so only download from official websites of programs that offer Appimage version for Linux. The native installation package for Linux Mint is .deb in case you find programs that offer standalone installers, though only download from official websites.
• How to uninstall apps? Open the Software Manager from Menu button (Start equivalent), on the upper right side of the Software Manager window click on the three horizontal lines icons and then Show installed applications. For the program you want to uninstall click on what you want removed listed on this page, a new window exclusive to the application will open and in the upper right part of the window click on Remove.. However this GUI software manager solution does not list all installed applications or "packages" as called on Linux, to view the entire list you will need to use the terminal, mostly required for intermediate or advanced users as it will list all operating system components.
• How to access/view the storage device(s) as displayed in Windows as "drives" in My Computer which also, more crucially, displays free or used storage capacity for the drive(s) or available partitions, C: being the first. Well this is another adjustment, if partial. Here on Linux Mint, things are more scattered, some in flux and might change over time, others more permanent. One of the quickest way to view/overview the drives connected to the PC including partitions within that hosts the operating system would be to use Gnome System Monitor and select "File System" tab at the top. It will then display the drives, capacities and partitions. Note on Linux Mint there is no C: partition, generally by default the first partition is called sda1 and fairly small used for setting up the booting procedure, do not mess with it. The partition where the OS is installed and files generally reside by default will be called sda2 or root partition with the mount point /, as for advanced options and experienced users there is the Gnome disk utility aka "Disks", Gparted or KDE Partition Manager (typically one will be included by default if not install Disks from Software Manager). Once Disks is opens select the drive on the left side and stop, do not click on anything else if don't know what you are doing as you can easily mess up your install. Only after learning more about disk partition tools you can use it for drives or thumb drives to resize or create partitions, for beginners use it mostly to verify the internal drive scheme, free or used capacity and partitions. Also note the file system type is not like Windows which uses NTFS generally for storage but a thing called ext4, other distros might use Btrfs or other types. For USB drives it's usually FAT32, this will give the most compatibility with other operating systems. Users can open/read/copy files from an attached drive or USB drive containing files copied from Windows without issues with ext4, but idk if the reverse is true. Keep in mind when dual booting when transferring files to and from between operating systems. Note a common problem being people using Steam and wanting to avoid to redownload their library, they link their already downloaded games from the Windows partition which is in NTFS filesystem and it will almost always fail. You will need to redownload the library so the files will be stored on a Linux drive in ext4 formatted partition or whatever filesystem you chose during installation. But wait, earlier I said Linux with ext4 can read copy and open NTFS files? Yes, files such as images, videos (provided codecs are installed), pdf, doc files can with the appropriate Linux program but games are more complicated and they have Windows specific dependencies and possibly designed for DirectX so do not conflate the two, otherwise Proton, Wine and other hacks would not have taken so long to make Linux gaming possible. Install the games on the Linux partition or drive, do not try to run them off of an NTFS formatted drive or partition.
• location of Ubuntu install files for the OS itself, open Home icon on the desktop or Files icon from the Menu, on the left side select Filesystem. If you click on the file location at the top you will notice it just say /. On Windows the equivalent directory path would be C:\Windows so why not sda2/Mint or sda2/? Well this is how Linux is structured, / is the root directory. Note that by default the included Nemo file manager might not display the directory path in text such as /home/user/Downloads but with symbols, in order to show the path written in the location entry bar, on the upper right part of the window click on Toggle location entry button which is the first on the left in that icons list. Alternative, after opening Home or Files from Menu, click on View in the Menu bar at the top, then Toolbar and Location entry.
• how to view hidden files for managing games or other programs? To view hidden files, first open the folder and press Ctrl + H once. To hide them again repeat.
• how to minimize everything at once like pressing on Show desktop button? In the right corner of the panel click on the Show the desktop button, by default is not clearly visible, however hovering the mouse cursor over the right corner will reveal it (not required to activate). Alternative keyboard combination, Super key (Windows key) and d.
• how to change or adjust time and date? Open Menu > System Settings > Date and Time.
• how to install nvidia drivers for the video card? Open Menu and then Driver Manager. Wait a bit for the list to update, once it finishes it will give the option to select the driver version you want.
• how to install AMD integrated GPUs or dedicated card drivers? They should come with the kernel, however things are a bit more complicated for troubleshooting. You should know that while each AMD or Intel cards have their own kernel included drivers, overall they are managed at this time, afaik by Mesa driver. The important things to know is that newer kernels include newer drivers and older kernel will include older drivers. If you bought a new PC with recently launched GPUs, it's best to use the latest kernel or in the extreme use another distro with the most recent kernel, Linux Mint is LTS, long term support only, this means it's stable because it uses tried and tested packages and drivers but it will also restrict the newest ones including kernel and thus the required video drivers..

Note: If everything is set up correctly you can find your exact GPU model listed correctly in Menu, System Settings, System Information. If under Graphics Card something else is listed then you have not set up the drivers correctly. Other clues are the lack of ability to set the correct monitor refresh rate from System Settings, Display specifically for monitors with higher refresh rate than 60Hz like 144Hz or higher will not be listed if the video card driver is not supporting your specific hardware. Also note that HDMI connector standard (not just the wire between the plug and monitor) has support issues on Linux due to being proprietary so avoid it and use instead display port, DVI or VGA, as per card available ports and monitors. Keep this is mind if buying a new PC, also note AMD cards have generally easier user driver configuration vs nvidia.

• how to make the speakers/headphones/microphone work? Click on Menu, System Settings, Sound. If the settings still cause issues, like static noise sound you can try and install Pauv (Pulse Audio Volume Control) from Software Manager, it has a volume knob icon. Once installed open it from Menu, it will be listed Volume Contrl, on the new window go to Configuration tab, select the audio processing device and parse through the options until you find the correct setting for your system. Generally, avoid hardware that lack support for audio processing chips on Linux, I would recommend buying and using audio peripherals sporting 3.5mm jack only, being analog they will just work. Avoid using smart TVs as monitors since they might pick up the sound from the graphics card or using speakers with built in audio processing and possibly ports to connect to headphones or microphones on their own. Generally avoid also USB headsets or heahphones with integrated microphones and use instead dedicated ones each with their 3.5mm wired connector. Also avoid wireless sound devices for the same reason, lack of driver support.
• How to open Device Manager equivalent that lists all components, be they installed with drivers or not? Go to Menu, System Settings, System Information. On the left side of the Window select the category required for hardware. This is the only time I will mention the terminal, but just in case, you can open the terminal from Menu, once opened type or copy and paste the following (without the " " and you need to right click with the mouse on the terminal to paste, Ctrl and V will not work) "sudo lshw". Input password and press Enter. Note the list of components might be listed at the bottom so scroll up if required.
• how to change update settings, manually check for updates or disable them? Go to Menu and type Update Manager and click on the icon. When it opens it will auto refresh and check for updates automatically and if there are available click on Install updates in the upper part of the window. To manually check press on Refresh button. To turn off automatic updates, on the same window go to Edit > Preferences and on the new window select Automation and turn off automatic updates toggle.
• How to install text editor? Open Software Manager from the Dock and search Libre, the result should show Libreoffifce suite. Once installed you can find Libre Office Writer in the apps list. There is a default text editor called intuitively Text Editor.
• How to install Steam? From Software Manager search Steam and install. To play Windows games you can find tutorials online, some are cross platform and work without issues, other video games might require ticking a few options in the settings to enable Proton. Right click on the game in the library after installation, select Properties, Compatibility on the left side and on the right, if you want or need to use Proton select Force the use of a Steam compatibility tool. After that you can click on the list of Proton version with a drop down menu and select the version required, some legacy games might prefer an older version but generally select the latest. After that you will need to update the game (the button to launch it will change to update automatically). After that launch the game as normal and it should work just as it does on Windows. Another way of installing Steam is using the .deb package from the official Valve website for Steam (be warned to install dependencies it requires, this is more for experienced users). An alternative is Lutris, you can install it from the Software Manager. You can check on this website if your video game of choice is compatible or not. Note some online games that use anti cheat which require kernel access will not work, or they might work but if you attempt to play the anti cheat will ban your account. Single player should work fine for most video games on Steam.

https://www.protondb.com/

• How to use Paint? Open Software Manager and search GIMP which is short for GNU Image Manipulation Program, it's like Paint but better.

2.Changing the look of the default Cinnamon theme.

This is based on my personal preference to make it look closer to Windows but with Ubuntu particular quirks and features. The result should look like this:

https://imgur.com/a/9uIYA1l

Wallpapers

https://imgur.com/a/8xsqVf8

• Change the location of the major elements inside the Menu (Start equivalent from Windows), first right click on the Menu icon on the panel and select Configure, on the new window there will be three tabs you can change different settings for how the icons appear or where they are located. To change the Menu listed icons themselves right click on the Menu on the panel and select Edit Menu.
• Change the wallpaper. First save the image you want on your drive, navigate to it by opening Home or Files from Menu and right click on the image and choose Set as wallpaper. Additional settings can be used from System Settings, Backgrounds.
• Change dark or light theme, cursor and icons theme. Select Menu, then System Settings, Themes and here change between light and dark or mixed theme. For more settings click on Advanced settings button and here click on each item and a new selection window will appear with the available options for each category.
• Make the panel taller with larger icons. Right click in the middle of the panel and select Panel settings. On the new window use slider to make the panel larger and on the lower part you can choose Left Zone, Center Zone and Right Zone to change icon sizes to match the panel. Click on Panel edit mode to make additional changes to the applets and click on Panel edit mode again to finish. Additional applets settings will be found in System Settings, Applets and here you can enable or disable them as required.
• Change font size and style. Click on Menu, System Settings and then click on Font selection. Note the default font style and size and remember them in case you make unwanted changes. I recommend using these settings instead of scaling to make everything appear larger.
• Change the order of the pinned icons on the panel. To change the order simply left click and hold the icon and then move it left or right to arrange. To add more icons click on Menu button on the panel, find the application icon, right click on it and choose Add to panel. Note you can also add icons to desktop the same way from Menu.

Phew, you made it all the way to the end? Well, I don't have much to reward your concentration and attention span, I leave only these words of wisdom that big things have small beginnings. Linux might be different and strange but it's not made for aliens, it's made by people on Earth, you can use it too.