Enabling autocompletion in gedit

While typing documents using gedit we can enable a very useful plugin called the autocompletion. This plugin will automatically prompt the words that have been typed previously in the document and hence save the time of retyping it.

To enable autocompletion in gedit click on

Edit->Prefernces

Click on the tab "plugins"



Move to the option word completion.



Enable it by checking the box on the left and close it.

Now when ever a document is being typed, gedit will automatically pop up the words that have been typed as the first letter of a word is typed. as shown below.



Please note that the autocompletion will work only on documents that have been saved and the new words that are typed will be shown in the autocompletion options only when the document has been saved after entering the new words.

Enabling Aplications drop down menu in gnome3

In the new gnome deskptops the applications menu that used to come as a drop menu to choose the applications to launch is not available by default. But we can enable the drop down menu of applications by going to

Activites on the left corner.

Clicking on Applications tab

Click on Advanced settings

The following window will appear.



Now click on Shell extentions

Turn on The last option in the shell extentions



Applications Menu extention

Once this is turned on we should have the gnome symbol next to the activites tab, clicking on which will bring out the familiar pull down menu.

Enabling snippets for languages in gedit

Snippets in gedit are some thing that will allow you to make the typing of repeated texts easier when we are diong programmig. To enable snippets in gedit frst we need to turn on the plugins.

Click on edit->preferences



Choose the tab titled plugins. Now browse down the list of plugins listed and look for the plugin named snippets. Enable snippers by checking the box next to it and closet h plugins menu.



Now click on

Tools-> manage Snippets



It will open window as shown below.



In the left column we can see a number of languages. Let us take html as an example. Click on the + mark beside HTML. It will open a list of all the commands of HTML. Click on which ever command you want to create shortcut for. For example we use the command
a number of times in HTML. To create a shortcut for break click on br.



On the right we will able to see the actual command that is below this window there will be options

Tab Trigger: What ever word is entered in against this option will act as a shortcut for the command.For example for break let us say we use the character "b" as the tab trigger word. While typing a html document using gedit we will need to only enter b and then press "tab" and the command will automatically get completed.

Shortcut Key : This is the combination of keys that when pressed will insert the command into the document. For example for "br" if you use the combination "cntrl + shift + space" , it means that in any html document that we create using gedit if we enter the above mentioned combination of keys the
command will automatically get inserted.

We can also create our own customized shortcuts using the options using the "+" key below left. On clcking on the "+" a new snippet option get added under which ever language we have selected. Give the name for the snippet and on the right insert the text you want to create shortcut for and on the options below add the shortcut we need to create for the text.

Enabling minimize and maximize buttons in gnome3 (Debian7)

In gnome3 by default only the close button is available at the right corner and the buttons for minimize and maximize that we are used to are missing. We can enable these buttons using the following steps

Click on the Activites tab on the top left corner. Then click on the Applications tab and choose Advanced Settings. A window as shown below will pop up.



Choose the option "shell" from the left column. Now look at the option labeled

"Arrangement of buttons on the titlebar"

A pull down menu lists the combinations in which the buttons can be displayed . To show all the buttons choose the option "All" and close the settings.



Now both minimize and maximize buttons should appear on the top right.

Enabling and disabling touchpad clicks in gnome3 (debian 7)

The mouse clicks on touchpad of the mouse on the laptops can be enabled or disabled in gnome3 as required as shown below.

Click on the Activies tab on the top left. In the serch box that appears on the top right, type "Mouse and touchpad"

The following window will pop up.

The second tab is the tab for touchpad. In the touchpad tab, the options are

Disable touchpad while typing : Which will make sure that while we are typing if we touch the mouser pad the pointer will not move randomly.

Enable mouse clicks with touchpad : If this option is checked, we can use the touchpad to click too.

Enabling Desktop in Gnome 3 (Debian 7)

In the default settings in the genome 3 that comes with debian 7 there are no icons on the desktop and nothing happens even when we right click on the desktop. All the applications and windows can be managed by going to the activites tab on the right extreme. But we can enable the desktop icons and handle it just like the classic gnome desktop by using the followint settings.

Click on Activities->Advanced settings

The following window will appear



Now click on the first option in the left column i.e. Desktop.

A number of options appear on the right of which the first one is

Have file manager handle the Desktop.



Move the slider from Off to On for this option and close the setting window.

Now we should able to see the similar icons of computer, file system, etc on the desktop.

Unknown symbol cfg80211_scan_done

The following errors might occur while working with wireless drivers for linux.

Unknown symbol cfg80211_scan_done Unknown symbol ieee80211_frequency_to_channel

These errors are basically because the modules lib80211 and cfg80211 are not loaded into the kernel. Thus we need to load these modules

modprobe lib80211 modprobe cfg80211

Now the above symbols should be recognized.

Installing broadcom bcm43142 Wireless driver for linux

Most of the Linux distros do not have drivers for wireless bcm43142 wireless adapter. If your system has amd64 architecture then the driver can be for debian based systems can be installed using the command

sudo apt-get install wireless-bcm43142-dkms

or can be downloaded from

http://jas.gemnetworks.com/debian/pool/main/w/wireless-bcm43142/

Download the package wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb

Open a terminal and go to the directory where the above package is placed and run the command

sudo dpkg -i wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb

To build the deb package yourself, download the package wireless-bcm43142_6.20.55.19.orig.tar.bz2 and run the following commands

$ tar -xjvf wireless-bcm43142_6.20.55.19.orig.tar.bz2 $ cd wireless-bcm43142 $ debuild -us -uc

The package wireless-bcm43142-dkms_6.20.55.19-1_amd64.deb will be available in the folder where the .tar.bz2 file was placed which can be installed as the previous .deb package.

The files on the above link work only for amd architecture, but for i386 the driver fails to build. For i386 architecture and non debian based systems download the source files from choose the files depending on 32bit or 64 bit architecture and run the following commands

http://www.broadcom.com/support/802.11/Linux_sta.php

$ tar -xjvf hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_141.tar.gz $ make $ ls built-in.o hybrid-v35-nodebug-pcoem-6_30_223_141.tar.gz lib Makefile modules.order Module.symvers src wl.ko wl.mod.c wl.mod.o wl.o

If the module is compiled successfully try inserting it into the kernel

$ insmod wl.ko

If the module inserts without error then the wireless should start working. It might throw an error Unknown symbol

To get around the problem, we need to inert modules on which the wl module depends on which are cfg80211 lib80211. Thus insert these modules first

$ modprobe lib80211 $ modprobe cfg80211

Now insert the module

$ insmod wl.ko

The wireless should start working now.

To make sure that we need not do the above steps every time we boot the system we can automate it using the following steps.

Copy the wl.ko to the folder /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/net/wireless

$ cp wl.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/net/wireless $ depmod -a

Now to see if the wl.ko module has been recognized along with its dependencies look into the file

$ cat /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/modules.dep | tail -2 kernel/lib/cordic.ko: kernel/net/wireless/wl.ko: kernel/net/wireless/lib80211.ko kernel/net/wireless/cfg80211.ko kernel/net/rfkill/rfkill.ko

Thus we can see that the wl.ko has been listed along with its dependent modules.

Now remove the module wl.ko that was inserted before

$ rmmod wl.ko

Insert it again using

$ modprobe wl

If the module gets inserted with out any errors than put the above command into the file /etc/rc.local to make sure that the module gets inserted every time system boots.

$sudo gedit /etc/rc.local

Put the command before exit 0

$ modprobe wl

Save the file and close it. Now reboot the system and the wireless should automatically start working on reboot.
If you can not find the files in the above links, you can get them from

BCM_Driver

Useful links

https://wiki.debian.org/IntroDebianPackaging
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2123154