Bodhi Linux 5.1

By Roger Carter

Based on the popular Ubuntu operating system, Bodhi Linux 5.1 incorporates the Moksha desktop, a customized version of the elegant Enlightenment desktop manager. This guide explains in easy steps how to install, customize, and use Bodhi Linux 5.1 on your computer. If you are using Bodhi Linux 6 please download instead my latest ebook "Bodhi Linux 6 - The Complete Guide for Beginners".

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Carter
• Release date: Aug 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005216191

Roger Carter

Roger Carter has had a varied career, including working as a studio manager at the BBC, working for the British Overseas Civil Service in the Solomon Islands, and running his own business. From 1975 to 2000 he was a lecturer at what is now the Buckinghamshire New University, and during this time he wrote 20 student textbooks, including Quantitative Methods for Business Students, and Business Administration for the Computer Age (both published by Heinemann) as well as books on information technology and computer software (various publishers).He is now retired and lives with his wife Sandra in Buckinghamshire, England. They have two children and five grandchildren.In 2018 he helped set up the Bourne End & District U3A and became its first Chair, and in 2021 was appointed its Honorary President..

Book preview

Bodhi Linux 5.1

The Complete Guide for Beginners

By Roger Carter

Copyright 2020 Roger Carter

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords License Notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

1 Getting Started

1.1 What this chapter covers

1.2 Bodhi is a Linux distribution

1.3 Why choose Bodhi Linux?

1.4 Moksha - the Bodhi desktop

1.5 Sources of help

1.6 Which Bodhi distro release should you choose?

1.7 Download and burn the Bodhi ISO image

1.8 Run Bodhi on your computer

1.9 Install Bodhi Linux

1.10 Update your system

2 Bodhi Basics

2.1 What this chapter covers

2.2 The Moksha menu system

2.3 Quick Launcher

2.4 More ways to open an application

2.5 The Bodhi Appcenter

2.6 Moksha desktop themes

2.7 Application themes and icon themes

2.8 Changing the wallpaper

2.9 Changes for the visually impaired

2.10 What’s next?

2.11 The file manager: PCManFM

2.12 PCManFM preferences

2.13 Hidden files

2.14 Filesystem Root

2.15 Searching for files with PCManFM

2.16 Set default applications

2.17 Terminology

2.18 Using Terminology: install Xarchiver

2.19 Using Terminology: disable the touchpad

3 Beef up your Bodhi

3.1 What this chapter covers

3.2 Download options

3.3 Install extra fonts, codecs, and utilities

3.4 Web browsers

3.5 Google apps on Chromium

3.6 Email clients

3.7 Cloud storage

3.8 An Office suite

3.9 PDF Readers

3.10 Note-taking and organizing software

3.11 Media players

3.12 Media recorders

3.13 Get-iplayer for BBC downloads

3.14 Sound Converter

3.15 Photo viewers and editors

3.16 Other applications

4 Streamline your desktop

4.1 What this chapter covers

4.2 The exercise desktop

4.3 The Settings Panel

4.4 The shelf

4.5 Customize the shelf

4.6 Customize the iBar

4.7 A second shelf

4.8 The Tasks gadget (taskbar)

4.9 Add more gadgets

4.10 Desktop gadgets

4.11 Removing and relocating gadgets

4.12 Virtual desktops

4.13 A shelf for your second desktop

4.14 Application icons

4.15 The Favorites menu

4.16 Combining elements from different themes

4.17 Reposition the clock

4.18 Endless possibilities

5 Desktop shortcuts and more

5.1 What this chapter covers

5.2 Key bindings

5.3 Edge bindings

5.4 Personal Application Launchers

5.5 Window borders

5.6 Changing the desktop colors

5.7 Changing the desktop fonts

5.8 Profiles

5.9 Start again!

Appendix: The default key bindings

6 Further topics

6.1 What this chapter covers

6.2 Connecting a projector or monitor

6.3 Launching files from the desktop

6.4 Opening folders from the desktop

6.5 Set the keyboard language

6.6 Aliases

6.7 Administrative privileges

6.8 Running PCManFM as Root

6.9 Turn off passwords for sudo

6.10 Copy your system with Bodhibuilder

6.11 And finally...

1.1 What this chapter covers

In this chapter we’ll introduce Bodhi and install it on your computer. We cover the following topics:

1. An explanation of what Bodhi is and why you should choose it.

2. The various Bodhi releases and how to download and write them to a USB memory stick or optical drive.

3. How to run and install Bodhi on your computer, and how to update it.

If you have already installed Bodhi Linux on your computer, just read down to Section 1.5 below and then go directly to Chapter 2.

1.2 Bodhi is a Linux distribution

Bodhi (rhymes with Jodie) is just one of many Linux distributions, or distros. Without getting too technical, a distro is a computer operating system made up of three software layers:

- The essential Linux kernel that is the interface between the applications running on your computer and the physical hardware.

- A package management layer (such as Ubuntu, used by Bodhi) that manages the installation and configuration of programs and applications.

- a desktop environment (DE) layer that sits on top of these and which provides a graphical user interface (GUI) to rest of the system - i.e. the windows, icons, menus etc that appear on your screen. Popular desktops include KDE, LXDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, and a number of others. The one used by Bodhi is a version of Enlightenment called ‘Moksha’.

So Bodhi = Linux + Ubuntu + Moksha.

A distro will be distributed online as an ISO, i.e. a software image that can be written to an optical disc (CD or DVD) or to a USB memory stick and which can then be run on a computer. It will include some essential applications such as a file manager and web browser and it may also include other applications such as office software, a media player, photo editor, games, and so on.

Ubuntu-based distros are the most popular. They all share the same Ubuntu software store or repository in which you will find the thousands of programs and applications available on Linux. Some of these are the same as those used on Windows systems, but some Windows applications are not available on Linux, and, conversely, some Linux applications are not available on Windows.

1.3 Why choose Bodhi Linux?

There are many excellent Linux distros out there, so why choose Bodhi? Its fans will give several reasons, including the fact that it’s a fast, light-weight distribution, able to run well on older less-powerful machines, it’s not encumbered with unnecessary packages, it’s elegant and good-looking, and it’s based on Ubuntu and uses the Ubuntu software repository. All this is true of a number of distros; what sets Bodhi apart from the rest of the pack is its amazing flexibility - you can configure it to work and look exactly the way you want.

For example, I don’t like using those tiny buttons at the top right of a window to close, maximize, or minimize it. No problem: you can easily arrange things so that, for example, you can close the window by clicking the top right corner of the screen, maximize it by clicking the top of the screen, and minimize it by clicking the bottom of the screen. And having done away with the need for those tiny buttons, you can then remove the title bar of the window altogether to give you more space for the stuff you’re actually working on.

This is just one of many examples of the way you can customize Bodhi so that it works the way you want it. This book will show you many more!

Bodhi’s remarkable flexibility comes at a cost, however: it has more of a learning curve than other less configurable systems. For example, several Linux distributions try to copy the look and feel of Microsoft Windows as closely as they can, and, like Windows, there isn’t much customization that you can do. It means that people migrating from Windows to Linux often find them easier to use. Zorin (also based on Ubuntu) is one example of such a distro. But if you are willing to invest in a bit of learning (by for instance working through this book), Bodhi will repay you handsomely.

1.4 Moksha - the Bodhi desktop

As I’ve said, Bodhi is essentially Ubuntu plus the Enlightenment desktop. It’s not the latest version of Enlightenment, but the older version 17, called E17. It may seem strange to use an old version, and in fact a few years ago Bodhi moved from E17 to a later version (E19). The problem was firstly that the new version proved to be less stable than the old with a number of glitches, and secondly that some of the much-loved features of E17 had been stripped out of this later version. For example, E19 removed the ability to mix features from one theme with those from another, which had given users unparalled flexibility in personalizing their desktop.

So Bodhi reverted to E17, added some modifications and improvements of its own, and renamed it Moksha.

1.5 Sources of help

Besides this book, you can get help on using Bodhi from its wiki at