Do not match hidden files during autocompletion

In bash, if you do not want to see hidden files while using autocompletion feature put this in $HOME/.inputrc

set match-hidden-files off

Pretty useful for me since, if you have a lot of applications installed then each of them would most probably have a hidden file (configuration) in your home directory.

Update Time/Time Zone settings

One of the easiest way to edit time/timezone on a linux box is to run timeconfig.

$ sudo /usr/sbin/timeconfig

Or if you want to edit stuff manually, make sure /etc/localtime points to the time zone of your choice:

/etc/locatime -> /usr/share/zoneinfo/Asia/Kolkata

This link gives some good information on how to set it up manually :
http://www.linuxsa.org.au/tips/time.html

Linux Open Source books

A very good collection of linux books:

http://www.dailyartisan.com/news/open-source-e-books-for-linux/

How to set dpi for your system

There's a couple of ways that dpi can be set for the linux system.

Add Options "DPI" "100x100" in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file under device sections.

Section "Device"
.
.
Option "DPI" "100x100
End Section

Set display size in the xorg.conf file under section Monitor. X needs the display size in mm. So if your monitor resolution is 1360x768, then the display width for 100dpi would be 1360*.254 and for length : 768*.254

Section "Monitor"
.
.
Identifier "Monitor0"
DisplaySize 345 195 # 1360x768 100dpi
.
.
End Section

Needless to say the result rocks :)

How to set hostname

A pretty good synopsis on how to set the hostname of your system. I guess it covers all the angles : http://www.cpqlinux.com/hostname.html

Install freetype with byte code interpreter enabled.

This link explains how to install freetyp with byte code interpreter enabled. This is supposed to improve freetype font rendering in linux.
http://cblfs.cross-lfs.org/index.php/FreeType


Edit: I tried this, but it didn't much good as far as I can tell. But I edited the $HOME/.Xdefaults file and added the following:

Xft.antialias: 1
Xft.hinting: 0
Xft.hintstyle: hintnone
Xft.rgba: none

and that seemed to help the general look and feel of fluxbox (running on Slackware 12.1)

Do note that this is when I have connected my laptop to the 20" LG LCD HDTV. On native LCD screen the rendering is beautiful, much better than the way vista was rendered.

Optimize Slackware installation

I finally gave up trying to get my laptop connected to my LCD HDTV. The graphic was just not setting the resolution to that of the LCD TV, rathet or it stuck to the native resolution of the laptop. Wonder whether it is some BIOS setting that I have to change ?
Anyway I guess I will leave that for now. I chanced on a site that gives some good info about optimizing the Slackware installation.
http://www.vcn.bc.ca/~dugan/setting-up-slackware.html