Instructionals/Technical Articles and Moving Away From Proprietary Traps

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 18, 2025

• HowTo Geek ☛ 4 Ways to Pinpoint Inevitable Network Outages on Linux

  How many times have you fixed your network problems by restarting your router or computer? That works in a pinch, but it doesn't solve persistent problems; instead, you must identify the root cause. I have four tools I often use to precisely pinpoint most network issues on Linux.

  Ping: The First Port of Call

  Ping should be familiar to most people, and it's always the first tool to start troubleshooting a network. Ping gets its name from sonar because it functions in a similar way. When you send out a ping, it receives a reply, much like a sonar ping when it reflects sounds off objects. Ping sends out a special packet called an ICMP (Internet Control Message Protocol) packet and awaits the response.

  When you execute the ping command, it will periodically send out a packet every second. In the terminal window, ping displays the round-trip time (RTT), which is the total time it takes to send and receive a response.

• HowTo Geek ☛ These 6 Tweaks Make the GNOME File Manager More Useful

  GNOME’s file manager, known as Files (or Nautilus), is solid out of the box, but a few smart adjustments can make it feel like an entirely new tool. With just a handful of tweaks, you can turn Nautilus into a faster, cleaner, and more capable workspace for managing your files.

  GNOME is one of the most widely used Linux desktop environments, appreciated for its clean design and simplicity. Its default file manager reflects that philosophy: easy to use, minimal, and dependable. But while the default setup works for most people, it leaves a lot of useful features hidden beneath the surface. With a few configuration changes, you can make Files far more capable and efficient. The tweaks below improve everything from navigation and previews to appearance and advanced settings.

• HowTo Geek ☛ 7 Open-Source Apps That Will Let You Cancel Pricey Subscriptions

  There’s almost certainly a good open-source alternative for most apps and services you depend on. Not all of them are comparable to paid software, and some require significant setup or technical knowledge, but all are worth considering.

  This is especially true if you’re looking for a way to cut down on your monthly subscription tally.

• HowTo Geek ☛ You Should Try This Open-Source Document Converter

  There are endless options for converting documents from one format to another, like the ‘Save As’ function in word processors, or various online converters. There’s also an open-source utility for the job that I’ve been using constantly: Pandoc.

  Pandoc calls itself "a universal document converter," with support for dozens of markup formats and document types. It can handle Microsoft Word files, multiple variations of Markdown, PDFs, OpenDocument files (primarily used by LibreOffice), Jupyter notebooks, MediaWiki markup, EPUB, PowerPoint presentations, LaTeX, and many other formats. Some file formats can only be used for import or export, and not both ways.

  Pandoc is available in the package managers for many Linux distributions, and Mac owners with Homebrew installed can grab it with that repository. If you have Windows, you can download the package installer from Pandoc’s website, or install it with package managers like Chocolatey and Winget.