8 Most Useful Ubuntu Utilities To Make Your Experience Better
If you are a beginner in Ubuntu or an expert, it doesn’t matter,
what we want is just to enrich your Ubuntu experience by every possible
means. Ubuntu has much more to offer than initially it seems. You can
refine the look of your Unity desktop, tweak the desktop to perform
system maintenance and whatever else you wish to do. There are a huge
array of utilities which can customise Ubuntu in a way that it meets all
your needs. Here are eight best utilities or apps to make your Ubuntu
experience much and much better.
1. Unity Tweak Tool:
Unity Tweak Tool is the best example of customisation options on Ubuntu as it offers a set of system tweaks for both Ubuntu and Unity desktop. It’s packed with full of switches and control and you can configure Unity as however you wish. You can change the GTK theme and icon set without much hassle, adjust launcher size, add or remove workspaces and more. Unity Tweak Tool is available for free at the Software Center.
2. Disk Utility:
This is an awesome utility application which allows easy management of any disk drive in the computer. Users can format, partition and erase hard drives easily and also clone, copy and backup from one disk to another one. It’s very helpful for a Ubuntu novice who is not very aware of the formatting and partition requirements in the operating system.
3. Proprietary Drivers:
You must install proprietary drivers which allow hardware to function in a better way than open source drivers, which come with Ubuntu. It depends on your system’s hardware, if the drivers can be installed or not. The most common types of hardware which have these drivers available are AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and Broadcom wireless chipsets. The drivers can be found at Software & Updates utility.
4. Graphical Firewall Config Utility:
Install graphical firewall configuration utility to enable and configure a firewall for your Ubuntu system. Linux is usually immune to viruses but hackers can gain remote access to the systems if there is no firewall which protects network ports. Run the command: sudo apt-get install gufw and configure firewall.
5. WinFF: GUI for FFMPEG:
It provides graphical user interface or GUI for FFmpeg. It also helps convert a video file to any format and WinFF can convert multiple files in multiple formats at one time. There are also a variety of preset conversion settings for common formats and devices in this package.
6. Unity Privacy Indicator:
Privacy is a big issue and Privacy Indicator is a useful tool to help you stay informed about which files, folders and services are getting accessed and logged in your Ubuntu desktop. If you click on the ‘eye’ icon, you can enable the privacy settings on your system.
7. System Load Indicator:
If you want to keep a tab on apps and your hardware status, then it’s an easy job on Linux. There is no dearth of mediums through which you can monitor CPU usage, network traffic or GPU temperature. System Load Indicator is available from the Ubuntu Software Center which has a host of configuration options.
8. Disk Space Visualiser:
In this era of hard drives which have huge storage options, we don’t worry much about disk space and all. But if there is smaller SSD and multiple partitions are run and a virtual machine is worked upon with a fixed size virtual disk, then freeing up disk space might become a huge requirement. GNOME Disk Space Visualiser, which comes as default in Ubuntu, is very useful for locating hidden logs, cache files and media files.
1. Unity Tweak Tool:
Unity Tweak Tool is the best example of customisation options on Ubuntu as it offers a set of system tweaks for both Ubuntu and Unity desktop. It’s packed with full of switches and control and you can configure Unity as however you wish. You can change the GTK theme and icon set without much hassle, adjust launcher size, add or remove workspaces and more. Unity Tweak Tool is available for free at the Software Center.
2. Disk Utility:
This is an awesome utility application which allows easy management of any disk drive in the computer. Users can format, partition and erase hard drives easily and also clone, copy and backup from one disk to another one. It’s very helpful for a Ubuntu novice who is not very aware of the formatting and partition requirements in the operating system.
3. Proprietary Drivers:
You must install proprietary drivers which allow hardware to function in a better way than open source drivers, which come with Ubuntu. It depends on your system’s hardware, if the drivers can be installed or not. The most common types of hardware which have these drivers available are AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards and Broadcom wireless chipsets. The drivers can be found at Software & Updates utility.
4. Graphical Firewall Config Utility:
Install graphical firewall configuration utility to enable and configure a firewall for your Ubuntu system. Linux is usually immune to viruses but hackers can gain remote access to the systems if there is no firewall which protects network ports. Run the command: sudo apt-get install gufw and configure firewall.
5. WinFF: GUI for FFMPEG:
It provides graphical user interface or GUI for FFmpeg. It also helps convert a video file to any format and WinFF can convert multiple files in multiple formats at one time. There are also a variety of preset conversion settings for common formats and devices in this package.
6. Unity Privacy Indicator:
Privacy is a big issue and Privacy Indicator is a useful tool to help you stay informed about which files, folders and services are getting accessed and logged in your Ubuntu desktop. If you click on the ‘eye’ icon, you can enable the privacy settings on your system.
7. System Load Indicator:
If you want to keep a tab on apps and your hardware status, then it’s an easy job on Linux. There is no dearth of mediums through which you can monitor CPU usage, network traffic or GPU temperature. System Load Indicator is available from the Ubuntu Software Center which has a host of configuration options.
8. Disk Space Visualiser:
In this era of hard drives which have huge storage options, we don’t worry much about disk space and all. But if there is smaller SSD and multiple partitions are run and a virtual machine is worked upon with a fixed size virtual disk, then freeing up disk space might become a huge requirement. GNOME Disk Space Visualiser, which comes as default in Ubuntu, is very useful for locating hidden logs, cache files and media files.
