Here’s a little time-saver if you (like me) often need to edit text files as root in a graphical app on Ubuntu.
Simply go to a terminal and run:
sudo apt install nautilus-admin
Quit Nautilus and re-open.
Henceforth, you can right-click on pretty much any file in the file manager and select “Edit as Administrator” — a bit Windows-y worded, that — to open the file with root permissions in whatever the default/associated app for that type is Gedit (thanks Jo).
And open it as root safely, without inadvertently screwing up the location of any configuration files touched during your session.
Is this a massive timesaver? No. It’s arguably more efficient to use a command-line text editor to edit text files as root using. terminal. But for a graphically-led chap like myself? Well, I appreciate being able to right-click on a buried config, .desktop, or other text-related file and quickly open in Gedit to do what I need to, then be on my way.
But hey: I’m also the guy who will repeatedly smush the ↑ key 20 times to find the sudo apt dist-upgrade command I ran last Saturday rather than retype it — little timesavers like this are much needed.
As (most of) you may (do) know there are other nifty Nautilus extensions available in Ubuntu’s archive (and likely the archives of most modern Linux distros) including:
- nautilus-gtkhash to check checksums
- nautilus-hide to quickly hide files and folders
- nautilus-image-converter to rotate and resize images
- nautilus-kdeconnect to level up KDE Connect integration
- nautilus-ideviceinfo to see advanced info in the properties dialog
None of these add-ons is going to revolutionise your productivity but if they shave a few seconds off the drudgery of daily computing here and there please make sure you spend the time wisely, i.e. by reading this blog, okay? 😉