UbuntuDapperWhatStillNeedsAConsole

This page describes what in Ubuntu Dapper 6.06 LTS still needs console to make it works.

Also see KubuntuDapperWhatStillNeedsAConsole.
"ListOfNGUIs" no longer exists, content imported here!

Mission: the primary mission for a desktop OS is to be user-friendly, and for newbie users console is NOT user-friendly, also for write very simple command.

It will be fantastic to see a distribution one day (Edgy or Edgy+1?) that will can do all these stuff via GUI

Nautilus

Recursive permission editing
- Nautilus has this behaviour in the 2.15.x series - article
Opening a file with superuser permissions
- (Imported from ListOfNGUIs) When you need to edit a file you don't have access to, you need to be able to run gksudo or similar in a transparent way without having to use the terminal and sudo things.
Create a link to a read-only location
Removing a symbolic link that points to a file/directory on another file system (like fat32)
Labelling/naming a mounted removable drive (mtools)
Hard links
- (Imported from ListOfNGUIs)In natilus, there is still no ability to change permissions recurseively. (Right-clicking on a folder and selecting properties only results in changing the permissions for THAT folder, not the potentially thousands of files within)

Current fix: In a terminal, type chmod -R ### /folder/subfolder.

Synaptic

Opening sources.list in a text editor (-> gedit)

PPPOE

Running pppoeconf to set up a PPPOE connection the first time
pon dsl-provider and poff to switch on and off the PPPOE connection subsequently

gedit

Opening a file in superuser mode: gksudo gedit filename

Samba

Need to configure fileharing by modifying smb.conf. Cause of a lot of frutration to newbies. Needs a Samba configuration console
- GSAMBAD
- Gshare, uses FTP and zeroconf. Very simple to uses. Has ubuntu packages.

Alternatives

Running sudo update-alternatives -switch. Unless gAlternatives is included in the base package

Xorg.conf

(Imported from ListOfNGUIs)

It seems to me that the first thing I do when I install any distro is change the default resolutions to delete the massive one with a low frequency, and change the "nv" line to "nvidia". It would be great if this could be done in one or more GUIs under System->Administration, as 99% of users have to edit this file at some point and the only way to do it involves using the CLI and/or editing an important system file by hand.

Current fix: In a terminal, "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf"

It would be extremely convenient to be able to make common edits to xorg.conf that won't break future automatic updating of the file; such as mouse buttons, monitor resolutions, etc. While some of these items can be configured via dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg, at present, you cannot properly configure anything other than a standard mouse without a manual edit. Retaining edits to xorg.conf will make future updates and upgrades to the xserver easier for beginners (no scary warning messages or decisions on whether to keep or replace xorg.conf).

labelling removable media