Random Tips for Ubuntu Beginners
I’m new to Ubuntu and I love it. Every time I log into windows (for a few applications which don’t have their Linux versions) I love Ubuntu so much more!
FYI: I’m working on Ubuntu 10.10, also called Maverick Meerkat on a HP Pavilion dv6000 series notebook.
So I’m putting down some very handy commands which helped me a lot :
1. Installing OpenCV: I spent over four hours just to get something working but then I finally found this blog which simplified things so much.
Although you can only install the OpenCV version 2.1 (not the latest 2.2) it should do for all almost all programming needs. Instead of installing all the packages individually, you can just use the following:
System -> Synaptic Package Manager
Search for OpenCV
Install all the Libraries that you see and you should be good. Although there is no ffmpeg support here you can always download and install that separately via the Synaptic Manager by searching for ‘ffmpeg’. Makes life easy.
2. Compressing PDF Files using GhostScript:
Install GhostScript (Run the commands in Applications->Accessories->Terminal)
sudo apt-get install ghostscriptCreate a new PDF, replace input.pdf and output.pdf with your existing “big” file and your new “lighter” file.
gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen
-dNOPAUSE -dQUIET -dBATCH -sOutputFile=output.pdf input.pdf
Reduced a file that was 120KB to around 30KB for me! Found this here
