How to add shortcut/starter (to file, program. or folder) in the desktop or menu bar of Ubuntu 18.04?

The reality is that you are looking for a workflow that is not anymore supported in Gnome Shell, and to a limited extend by Ubuntu Desktop.

Desktop icons

Gnome Shell does not support desktop icons by default. The rationale is, and to some extend they are right, that that desktop, and thus the icons, is covered by windows more often than not. Fact is that a desktop can be quickly crowded with icons, icons you can't see most of the time. Still, you are free not to like that argument, and prefer icons on your desktop.

Shortcuts to files

Gnome Shell limits the use of shortcuts (.desktop files) to applications in your menuing system and on your dock. They took manipulation of these files out of the hand of the user: .desktop files typically they are installed through software installation and are placed in specific locations, hidden from the user (~/.local/share/applications, /usr/share/applications, ...). Gnome does not anymore come with a graphical tool to create .desktop files yourself.

How does Gnome want you to work

The 6 - 8 applications you commonly use are on the Ubuntu Dock (or the Gnome Shell Dash), and are one click away (two in pure Gnome Shell). Applications you use frequently, end up on the "Frequent" tab in the Application view. They are 2 clicks away. Alternatively, search the applications.

For documents you work with frequently, Gnome developers invented the "Starred" feature. Star your files you use for the moment, and you will find them in the Starred category in File manager. Alternatively, search the files. Obviously, you can also create links ("symbolic links") in a specific place for quick access.

Creating a launcher to a document

You cannot anymore easily create launchers all over the place. That does not mean you cannot create a launcher to a document, but, in Gnome Shell, it is handwork. Create a .desktop file.

gedit myfile.desktop

Add the information to launch:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Document name
Exec=xdg-open <path-to-your-file>
Terminal=false
Icon=<location of icon file>
Type=Application
Comment=Comment which appears as a tooltip.

Move the .desktop file to ~/.local/share/applications. It will now appear in your applications overview, from where you can pin it to the dash.

Consider a desktop that fits your preferred workflow better

In reality, the better approach is to move to another desktop environment if you are a user that values the somewhat more classical approach of working with shortcuts and launchers on the desktop. Most other desktops (Mate, xfce, KDE...) still fully adhere to that paradigm so in these desktop environments, you will not need to fight to adopt the workflow you prefer.

So this should not only answer how to create the launchers, but also answer why it is all very hidden indeed.


Setting up windows-like "play to TV" on ubuntu

I don't think this is what you want exactly but XBMC is a really nice media center.

It has also remote control apps for phones and other operating systems.


Did not figure out yet how to make the menu work.
However, from this minimal grub, you can load an installed ubuntu; Just use the commands:

$ linux (hd0,gpt2)/boot/vmlinuz-3.11.0-12-generic.efi.signed root=/dev/sda2
$ initrd (hd0,gpt2)/boot/initrd.img-3.11.0-12-generic
$ boot

In above, use tab completion to obtain correct values. Eg, hd + tab will show you possible disks and partitions (gpt1, gpt2, ...) on the disk. As EFI will be in a first partition, your linux will normally be on a gpt2. You need the root option pointing to the name of the /dev in linux, so for the second on first hd, this normally will be /dev/sda2

The initrd loads the modules you need to talk to your hardware with linux, and boot starts the boot. Once in linux, you at least can start to try to fix the problem.


Xen VM - Ubuntu fails to boot, how can I enter recovery mode?

There's already a great answer written for this question and you can find it here.


How to measure for how long a window is active?

Each time you are launching a process a timer is launched, you can see it under TIME+ using the top command

So if you want to know how long wine has been launch you can find the wine process on top or using this command ps -aux | grep wine it will be the time after the date


Can't login due to losing power during an update

Can you boot to recovery mode entry? If you can, it should show you a small menu.

In that menu:

select Network to activate the network (internet),
then select Drop    to root shell.

That will load a command prompt as root.

Then you can try:

dpkg --configure -a
apt-get install -f

Usually that can help with broken packages.


How to use snapshots with BTRFS in Ubuntu along with a separate HOME partition

from your screenshot of the disks tool i can see that you are trying to create an lvm physical volume using the extended partition (/dev/sda1), you can't do this because an extended partition is only a container for other partitions, in this case your btrfs (/dev/sda5) and swap partitions (/dev/sda6), but not in an lvm compatible way. This is also the reason why lvmdiskscan cannot see it.

The simplest solution would be to , after backing up the data, use the partition with the BTRFS filesystem as your lvm physical volume then create a logical volume within it to restore the data to, assuming it wasn't too full. The command you were trying to run would then be

sudo pvcreate /dev/sda5

A better choice would be to repartition the SSD (ideally with a GPT instead of MS-DOS partition table, then you can make many many partitions without the limitations of older hardware requiring extended partitions) to not use the extended partition at all.  This is not essential given that you are using LVM which allows you to ignore those limitations because of its abstractions. Don't repartition if you need to preserve an existing OS.

FYI, btrfs is optimised for lots of small files like a mail server , its not the most efficient filesystem for a home dir. ext4 might be a better choice as its more general performer


Where do I file bugs for Jupiter applet?

Looks like the WebUpd8 team is responsible for the PPA for the Jupiter applet on Launchpad since the Official Jupiter applet page on Launchpad seems to be inactive. Their bug tracker uses sourceforge and seems to be curently disabled.

So your only viable option would be to register the bugs with the WebUpd8 team on Launchpad. They say on their Launchpad page to contact them with bugs if any on this page

All related links:

WebUpd8's Jupiter Applet on Launchpad
WebUpd8's Bugs Page on Launchpad
Jupiter Applet's Lauchpad page
Jupiter Applet's Bug Inactive Bug Tracker on SourceForge
Jupiter Applet's Support Page (Note: The link under
Ubuntu->Launchpad will take you to the WebUpd8 team's page for
Jupiter Applet)


Error: Attempt to read or write outside of disk 'hd0'

This almost definitely seems like a hardware issue. Try making another live-boot disk or USB drive (ubuntu) and booting into that. If you can mount your hard drive (via the file manager) it isn't a hardware issue, and would be something else. However, hd0 is the name that GRUB gives to your hard drive, so if it (suddenly) doesn't see it, it's likely not due to software.

Alternatively, try booting into your BIOS and see if it can see your hard drive. Either way, I'd be surprised if it's not a hard drive failure.


NVIDIA G92GLM Quadro FX3800M problems on Ubuntu 16.04 kernels

The fix is to go to recovery mode, enable network, install intel-microcode, purge nvidia and install nvidia-340, or just reinstall nvidia-340 if it says is already installed and reboot.


Can I install ubuntu on usb hdd without loosing data on it?

yes you can, i have done this and lost nothing, the ntfs drive was #0, and created ext3 (3 was the latest available) as second, swap as #3, lost nothing, the boot sector of first drive has been always empty for me ( i mean none of my documents been there) so nothing wiped
but really, even if there is the smallest chance of loosing data (0.0001%) do you really want to take it? if no, wait till you find another 160GB to backup, if yes, i wish you luck


Go to the BIOS settings by pressing the escape key and then selecting BIOS (options may vary with firmwares). From there, find the boot devices in UEFI mode (legacy would be disabled by default). Select OS boot manager and hit enter key and bring up ubuntu by either pressing F5 or F6 (explained at the side of the screen) and press F10 twice and save settings and exit.


I got same issue today. I followed message You need to install postgresql-server-dev-X.Y for building a server-side extension or libpq-dev for building a client-side application.
So installed libpq-dev and bundle rails app again and the error disappeared.

$ sudo apt-get install libpq-dev
$ bundle install


It is common for isp's to block port 25 or intercept all traffic on it to prevent spam.

In your case does it look like your isp is blocking the port on your local connection. Your remote server is working cause your VPS provider is not blocking the port.


php5.load: Cannot load libphp5.so undefined symbol: unixd_config apache service not start

libapache2-mod-php is most certainly available here for all currently supported Ubuntu versions. There could be an issue with your network connection or the mirror you are using to install packages from or perhaps you need to upgrade to a supported version.


There are not command line options for lxtask if you try to add a non existant one it just launches lxtask like nothing does it so it is not even parsing them. However with a keyboard shortcut in openbox you can resize to one half of the screen.  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu/Keyboard lists the super (windows) key shortcuts plus arrow keys to snap to the side of the screen. However by adjusting ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml you could configure to as many different windows sizes as you want.

Another way to do this is maybe http://openbox.org/wiki/Help:Applications

For per appsettings using openbox as the window manager. The position force and size properties in ~/.config/openbox/lubuntu-rc.xml will need editing. And then you will need to run openbox --reconfigure to get have openbox reload its configuratoin. I can't write the config arguments for you as I would need to know where and how many pixels.

in the applicat
ions of the openbox config you will need

  0   0
 25% 100%

With the x and y for where you want it on your screen or you can subsitute in other paramaters for putting it in other places on your screen. However this configuration in openbox can resize many different windows not just lxtask.


Installation of GRUB boot loader to hard disk fails

Please provide more information about why the GRUB install failed.

It is hard to suggest possible solutions when no information is available about why GRUB failed to install. Would you please try the following:

boot an Ubuntu Live CD or USB
mount your LVM partition (/dev/sda2)
run the command cat syslog | grep grub
(where syslog is the log file in /var/syslog on /dev/sda2)
add the output from the command to your question by editing it

Is the GRUB install problem related to UEFI?

My understanding is that the IBM 3650 M2 uses a UEFI BIOS. Is your problem installing GRUB possibly related to this? If so, perhaps one of the following links may be helpful.

Ubuntu server, gpt partition table, mdadm, grub boot fail
How to boot Ubuntu from EFI/UEFI?
Setting up GRUB2 (U)EFI


Ksplice - What happen if server power-down when updating kernel

From the Ksplice User's Guide (http://www.ksplice.com/uptrack/guide):

  Ksplice and Kernel VersionsBack to top Ksplice Uptrack updates your
  running kernel in memory. We recommended that, in addition to using
  Ksplice, you continue to use your package manager to update the kernel
  on disk as new kernels become available. That way, if a reboot becomes
  necessary (e.g. power loss or a hardware upgrade) you have the option
  of booting into a newer kernel. Under this plan, you would install all
  the updates available via both Ksplice Uptrack and your package
  manager.

  Ksplice Uptrack also works great in environments where it is desirable
  to stay with a particular original kernel version (e.g. because of
  third party modules that are compiled against that kernel) but you
  want to stay up to date with all the important security and
  reliability updates for your kernel.

  By default, Ksplice Uptrack will reinstall rebootless updates during
  the boot process so you remain secure even after a reboot. You can
  configure this behavior by changing the install_on_reboot option in
  /etc/uptrack/uptrack.conf.

  [...]

  install_on_reboot will restore the Linux kernel to the same version
  as before rebooting. There may be additional updates that could be
  applied. If you wish all available updates for a particular kernel
  version to be applied, set upgrade_on_reboot to yes.

So, nothing bad should occur. If a power loss happens, your system will boot on the default kernel version and Ksplice will by default re patch your system with security updates at boot time so you don't get uncovered. It will make your boot time longer, so, if you need a faster boot, you should install the updates for your packages using your default package manager too.

As a note, if you will update the kernel of a server you should like to do a kernel only update, isolated from other system updates, always as possible.


Xfce4 make "Super" and "Super + D" working at the same time in a Windows manner

See my answer here: Windows-like global shortcuts with the <Super> key in Xubuntu

Basically install ksuperkey, bind your menu to "alt+f1" and your done. Superkey will open the menu and Super + D, Super + E etc... will work as one would expect.


Is there an easy way to modify samba shared folders?

i am not sure about mythbuntu, there is an option in nautilus. select the folder and right click menu you will find a share option. From where you can manage permission.


Purge first

  sudo apt-get purge steam-launcher

Then from ubuntu store
https://apps.ubuntu.com/cat/applications/steam-launcher/

or if you want to get through terminal you can use

  sudo apt-get update

  sudo apt-get install steam launcher

Or you can select Ubuntu and download .deb file from steam (by default it supports ubuntu)
http://store.steampowered.com/about/

I have experienced this when i ran ubuntu on  Virtual Machine


Touchpad scrolling on Dell Inspiron 17R SE (N7220)

I was able to find a workaround that's almost good enough to be called a solution. It is possible to emulate a scroll wheel while holding down both the left and the right mouse button. They have to pressed simultaneously, but this should be easy enough on a laptop that allows you to press both of them with a single finger. Follow these steps to make it work.

Open a terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T) and type

sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings

There should be a new utility called "Pointing devices". Since I use Gnome Classic, it's located under Applications -> System Tools -> Preferences, but you should be able to search for it in Unity.
Select "Use middle button emulation" and select a short timeout, unless your laptop already has three buttons. This will trigger the "middle button" whenever you press both buttons at once.
Select "Use wheel emulation" as well as vertical/horizontal scrolling to your liking.
Select button 3. This tells the system to use the "middle button" you just created for scrolling.
Adjust the timeout and inertia sliders for wheel emulation to the settings you find optimal.

If it takes to long for the "scrolling mode" to activate, you need to reduce the timeout. On the other hand, if scrolling is activated instead of middle clicking, you need to increase it. Select a value that suits you. I keep this one slightly to the left of the middle.

The inertia slider adjusts the scrolling speed. The more inertia, the slower your scrolling will be. For me, this slider is very close to the left end, and has to be adjusted very carefully.

That's it. Whenever you hold down both buttons, you should be able to scroll using the touchpad. As an added bonus you will get the middle button, which is good for a lot of things such as pasting text in the terminal and opening websites in new tabs.


LibreOffice - Items missing when document is saved in .docx

The formats are different and partially incompatible. The best way to accomplish this is to make a PDF file. There should be a PDF button on your toolbar. Just make a PDF and you can print your file anywhere.


You can add new settings in /etc/network/interfaces

It will look like this:

  iface eth0 inet static
    address x.x.x.x
    netmask x.x.x.x
    gateway x.x.x.x
    dns-nameservers x.x.x.x

Read more from the official documentation


How can I disable the autostart of Brasero when I insert a blank CD/DVD?

In Nautilus under Edit > Preferences > Media:


Open source terminal server to replace MS Terminal Server


I had an issue with either my ISP or my router - don't really care which it was.  Ipv6 was not being handled well, and causing periodic disconnects.

I disabled ipv6 according to instructions I found on itsfoss.com - The following lines are added to /etc/sysctl.conf

net.ipv6.conf.all.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.default.disable_ipv6 = 1
net.ipv6.conf.lo.disable_ipv6 = 1

This is best done from a terminal:  press alt+ctrl+t to open a terminal window, and enter the command sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf to start an editor with the file open.  Add the lines by typing them, or copying them from here (shift+ctrl+v to paste), and press ctrl+o to write the file, and ctrl+x to exit the editor.  You will need to reboot for the changes to take effect.

Because I seem to be a little OCD, I also set IPV6 to IGNORE in the NM applet


Shape/Throttle an IP on the network (QoS)

I recommend reading the Linux Advanced Routing & Traffic Control HOWTO, in particular the examples on rate limiting a single host or netmask and a full nat solution with QoS.

Essentially you have to do the following:

Mark packets from that particular host in the PREROUTING chain of the mangle table
Set up some prioritizing or rate limiting traffic control
Make sure the market packets fall into the low priority resp. limited class

Untested, but something along these lines (feel free to edit if you notice a mistake):

iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -s 192.168.0.666 -j MARK --set-mark 1
tc qdisc add dev ppp0 root handle 1: cbq avpkt 1000 bandwidth 10mbit
tc class add dev ppp0 parent 1: classid 1:1 cbq rate 512kbit \
   allot 1500 prio 5 bounded isolated
tc filter add dev ppp0 parent 1: protocol ip prio 1 handle 1 fw classid 1:1

Notice that you can't directly use tc filter to filter on the IP of that host, since the tc filter applies after NAT, so it will see your public IP, which cannot be used to differentiate the packet.

Usually you'd rate-limit upstream packets, since there you have the most control, and since on a common ADSL link the upstream is more easily saturated by p2p traffic. If you want, you can also attempt to rate-limit the downstream by deliberately dropping packets. You'd do that using another traffic control setup, this time for packets forwarded over the local network device.


Changing the size of the thumbnail images in the Files application also changes the size of the desktop icons by the same percentage. This is the expected behavior in Ubuntu.


For the most part, do-release-upgrade is a wrapper around dist-upgrade with some additional functionality. As noted, it is the recommended official way to upgrade Ubuntu minimal/server installations. Unofficially, dist-upgrade after changing your sources.list often works just as well.

The difference is: using do-release-upgrade is recommended because it has the ability to handle system configuration changes sometimes needed between releases.

For an Ubuntu chroot, I suggest you stick with do-release-upgrade unless it keeps failing for some reason.


Trouble with manual installation of Ubuntu Studio 20.10

I reviewed the BIOS setup on the laptop, and compared it to the settings on my desktop (which does have Ubuntu Studio 20.10 installed with GPT). I ended up setting the Boot List option to UEFI, disabled Legacy ROMs, set the SATA operation to AHCI, and made sure secure boot was not enabled. I then set up three partitions (GPT): 512 Mb fat32 mounted on boot-efi with the boot flag, 95 Gb ext4 mounted as root (/), and 385 Gb (or so) ext4 mounted as /home. I then installed Ubuntu Studio, and it installed with no errors. Thanks again for everyone's suggestions.


HELP: I Broke Ubuntu By Uninstalling Compiz

Compacted answer according to OP:

Switch to a virtual terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F1) and log in with your user name and password.
Reinstall the ubuntu-desktop meta-package:

sudo apt-get install -f ubuntu-desktop

This will restore all the missing packages necessary to run Ubuntu and the Unity desktop.
Either

reboot (sudo reboot or Ctrl+Alt+Del) or
restart the display manager¹ and switch back to the graphical interface (Ctrl+Alt+F7).

¹ to restart the display manager:

on Trusty (14.04): sudo initctl restart lightdm
on Wily (15.10) and later: sudo systemctl restart lightdm

Original answer by OP moved here from the question:

  Thanks @Laugeo and @ToDo, you both helped out.  Here's what I did...

  Booted into Ubuntu with my broken desktop
  Ctrl+Alt+F1 to open virtual terminal
  sudo install gnome-session-flashback
  Reboot
  Launch session with Flashback (compiz)
  Launch Terminal and type apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
  Reboot
  Back up and running

  Ultimately I suppose steps 3-5 weren't necessary, but they allowed me to get to a functional desktop and then I did more searching and found ubuntu-desktop to install.


Un-install 32bit Ubuntu and Install 64bit Ubuntu?

Backup any and all important data.
Download the 64bit iso of 12.04.1, check the md5sum is correct (good copy) and use "startup disk creator" to make a LiveUSB
Boot off the LiveUSB and start the installation of Ubuntu
When prompted, just select "use all of the disk"

This should be almost exactly the same procedure you used to replace Windows (congratulations on that, by the way ;-)


Desktop settings for monitors not maintaining on reboot

From my experience with XFCE, the system tends to use the leftmost monitor for icons and panel placement.  Setting the monitor you want to use, as primary also tells the system to prefer it.

These should also apply to KDE I guess.


Blank Screen after trying to install nvidia proprietary drivers

Please see my post here for a start. After the Failed Installation of a Video Card/Driver Ubuntu 13.04 Displayed a Blank (Black) Screen. There are a variety or reasons for a blank screen, each of which has a different solution.

I see that you have Jockey. For me, Jockey was critical in resolving my blank screen as I was able to use it to assign the Nvidia driver. Under Ubuntu's system settings, for my computer, no proprietary drivers are displayed even-though they are shown as available under Jockey. Furthermore, in my case, the initial re-boot after using Jockey to set the Nvidia driver failed. Taking a leap of faith, I simply re-booted and the screen display worked as expected.

As an additional thought, I suspect (but I have no proof) that the blank screen may result from an Nvidia program associated with (hypothetical) driver XXXX, but is incompatible with driver ZZZZ and was not removed with the purge option for driver XXXX. All that I can say is that aggressively removing all Nvidia programs before using Jockey seemed to help in getting the blank screen problem fixed.

Good Luck.  It took me quite a while to get this issue resolved.


ubuntu16.04 theme not working after reboot

Not sure why this happened but I figured out a way to make things right.

To set the theme and icon-theme, say Ambiance and Paper, change the settings.ini in the ~/.config/ directory like this:

[Settings]
gtk-font-name=Noto Sans 10
gtk-theme-name=Ambiance
gtk-icon-theme-name=Paper
gtk-fallback-icon-theme=gnome
gtk-toolbar-style=GTK_TOOLBAR_ICONS
gtk-menu-images=1
gtk-button-images=1

The names of themes and icon-themes can be found in the file index.theme in their corresponding dirs.

The themes and icon-themes are located in the /usr/share/themes and /usr/share/icons.


Dconf schema tree is tricky and not always relevant to actual schema names.

For example, under apps you can find update-manager, but you will not find apps.update-manager schema using gsettings. Valid schema name is com.ubuntu.update-manager, and it isn't shown in Dconf where it actually should be. Correct schema name in Dconf can be found below the keys list, at the grey field with Description and Default value. (See screenshot) Topmost entry shows real Schema name.

So I'd trust gsettings output. In your case com.canonical.Unity.Launcher is the valid schema name and its case really matters.


Same here, the boot process stucks, I need to edit the grub and use the options noapic,  acpi=off and pnpbios=off (found that in dmesg) otherwise the system won't start up.
Found it out, the boot process gets stuck because of wrong settings, therefore you have to edit the file grub.cfg, in my case I added the options needed.
noapic acpi=off

Now, my notebook starts up, now in dmesg the warning about pnpbios comes up, when I set this off, then again it stucks, so better leave it on.


Is there anyway to create screen space for Plank dock like in Mac OS X?

This works in cairo dock
Just selct Reserve space for dock

Thats it.
Just as you wanted

Install Cairo dock
By ppa

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cairo-dock-team/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install cairo-dock cairo-dock-plug-ins


How do I make the VPN use different DNS?

Why don't you add 'lab109-01.stud.ii' with ip address in /etc/hosts file?


Distribution upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04 on Power PC

This is not much of an answer, but at least I can tell you that in my case trying to do an upgrade has not caused anything bad to happen.  I have tried twice to upgrade my old G4 Mac Mini and each time I was unable to complete the upgrade.  But now I can't remember exactly what happened.  I do know that nothing broke and I just ended up with the same old 12.04LTS system.  Every now and then something tells me that there is an upgrade available, so I thought I'd check to see if anyone has yet been able to do such an upgrade on a PPC.


How can I downgrade to an older version of Nautilus?

Grab Nemo (Linux Mint team forked nautilus 3.4, because they don't like what was changed in 3.6)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nemo


It depends on the nature of the update:

If the new release fixes critical bugs, you can ask for a Stable Release Update (SRU).
If the new release provides new features, but not fixes for critical bugs, you can ask for a Backport.


I try to install TweetDeck, but nothing happens

In case you are unsure to install an unsupported Adobe software you can also run Tweetdeck from within the Chrome or Chromium browser by installing the application from Chrome Webstore.

Another alternative for Ubuntu is Qwit.


Get notification each time someone uses apt-get install or changes files in /etc/

In "vanilla" (no additional software downloaded) you would have to write a script that monitors the /var/log/auth.log file. Any time a user uses "su" to become root or any other user, an entry is made here with their UID:

Apr 24 04:32:57 Hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)

This would tell you who became root and when. Then you would also be able to parse through each individual users' bash history (stored in the home directory at /home/user/.bash_history. In the end your script would look something like:

for name in $(awk --field-separator=":" '{print $1}' /etc/passwd); do echo $name >> /var/log/report; cat /home/$name/.bash_history | grep -i "apt install" >> /var/log/report; done

You could also just as easily replace "apt-install" with "sudo" to see all instances of the sudo command being run, but this script would save you the time in seeing who installed programs. If they were using "su" to become root, you would need to take the additional step of tying it to a timestamp and UID in the auth.log file. So long as your devs don't have that access and can only run sudo, it shouldn't be necessary (but all of this falls flat if one of your devs modifies their bash history)

As for monitoring the entire /etc directory, my recommendation would be to look explicitly at timestamps. Whenever a modification is performed on a file (something actually changes/the file is written), the timestamp in ls -l gets updated:

-rw-------  1 user  user  32500 Apr 24 04:25  .bash_history

The script for this would be a little more complex, as it would need to recurse through directories, requiring it to also incorporate logic to determine whether an item is a directory. Recursion aside, though, it would be looking at fields 6,7,8 of the ls-l output, ideally running once at the end of the day, and checking whether the timestamp is equal to the day's date. If it is, it would jot down which files were changed or created.


how to find out the apache version installed in ubuntu?

Open the terminal and type:

apache2 -v

-v  Print the version of apache2, and then exit.


looks like I got the new driver working now.  I had forgot to change the config.mk file to HAS_WPA_SUPPLICANT=y & HAS_NATIVE_WPA_SUPPLICANT_SUPPORT=y

I also disabled ipv6.

Since I am using a 30ft powered usb cable, I also did a sudo ifconfig wlan0 txqueuelen 675.


Remove "Restore Missing Files..." from my context menu in Nautilus?

The extension for this menu entry is in the package deja-dup.

% apt-file search /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/libdeja-dup.so
deja-dup: /usr/lib/nautilus/extensions-3.0/libdeja-dup.so

Therefore and as you don't use backups (really? You should read this.), a simple solution. Remove Déjà Dup from your system:

sudo apt-get remove deja-dup

and the menu entry will disappear.

Unfortunately this solution is like you having cancer and not wanting to take any chemo-therapy because it makes you feel bad.  The better solution is to actually do backups, because otherwise we'll see each other again in a few years when your hard drive blows up and you've lost all your data!


Building a new rig: will a 9800 GT work well for my needs?

You will be able to play Minecraft awesomely. In my personal experience with Minecraft (Server Admin). It's most important to have at least 4GB and a quad core processor. Other than that, everything should be exactly what you need.


Trying to modify /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory, but getting permission denied even with sudo

Instead of using sudo -i and then using echo, just pipe echo to sudo tee instead like this:

echo 1 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory


Nvidia-331 Nvidia-Settings Prime Profile Switching Error

I also had the same problem but only after I made some modification on compiz.

For the fix, I just reinstalled the nvidia drivers and nvidia prime with

sudo apt-get purge libvdpau-va-gl1 bumblebee* nvidia*
sudo apt-get install nvidia-331 nvidia-settings nvidia-prime


Problem regarding upgrading ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04

Look at /etc/apt/sources.list a there lines for ubuntu18?

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security main restricted

If yes, then just make command in console:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade


Run a script with user interaction on log out / shutdown?

I believe your shutdown/powerdown question is (more-or-less) answered here:

Logout scripts: not completed on shutdown, reboot

When looking at the answer(s) provided there, I would like to tweak/elaborate/summarize you probably need both, to use the session-cleanup-script such that X will not die before you can respond and run the job, and a new, smallish /etc/init.d/ script at a high enough run level to 'block' shut down until your session-cleanup-script invoked AutoFsck script completes.

Thus:

Add to session-cleanup-script setting a flag via 'touch /etc/noreboot' (or similar) that is cleared by your AutoFsck calling script (i.e. remove /etc/noreboot file when answered no, or, if yes, removed only after AutoFsck is completed).
Your new /etc/init.d script must check for existence of /etc/noreboot and if it exists, check again every second or two in a while loop until the file is removed.  Once /etc/noreboot is not existed, the script can complete and allow the rest of the shutdown process to continue.  Again, the key here is to make sure the init.d script runs before the lightdm shutdown or any other X shutdown runs.

Since X should still be running while the /etc/noreboot check script in init.d is running, you can also send an X message to the screen saying that shutdown is blocked awaiting removal of the file.  This little nuisance message might come in handy if the /etc/noreboot file is not cleared for some reason, preventing your system from a graceful shutdown.


Nope. The only way to allow Thunderbird to update itself is to launch it as root, or to find yet another source that built Thunderbird in such a way that you can install it entirely within your own home folder.

A better option, if you want to run cutting-edge apps, is to try to find someone making builds on the in a Launchpad PPA. These can update through the normal Synaptic/Upgrade system, which means you won't end up with corner cases like this. As it happens, the Mozilla team maintains a PPA of newer versions of Firefox and Thunderbird, including even nightlies. If you install Thunderbird 3.1 from there, you should be golden.


Any desktop environment available for Ubuntu is available on the server edition of Ubuntu and can be installed as any other package with apt-get.

ubuntu-desktop will install the default Unity desktop, kde-desktop will install the Kubuntu KDE desktop, lubuntu-desktop will install the LXDE packages of the Lubuntu release and xfce-desktop the Xubuntu desktop environment.

Any of those will work for you, but there are other more "light" options. Please check the appropriate ubuntu wiki page for GUI setup in a server environment.


20GB is about right for the root directory ( / ).
Put /home folder on the 250GB SSD.

If you want a separate data partition in case you decide to redo /home, then
make a 50GB /home and 200GB data partitions on the 250GB SDD.
the data partition can be set to auto mount or manually mount.

If booting EFI, then split the 20GB SSD into a 500MB ESP (EFI system partition) and the rest for root.


nmcli d wifi connect <WiFiSSID> password <WiFiPassword> iface wlan0


You should install version 4.1.12 from the official site.

The version numbers are the same beteween official and Ubuntu packages, only the part after the _  (_Ubuntu for this package) is used to add Ubuntu own versioning if needed.


Download Jahshaka here and put the file in a folder of your choice, e.g. ~/MyApps

Then follow these steps:

cd ~/MyApps
mv Jahshaka\ 2.0 jahshaka_2-0
chmod +x jahshaka_2-0

It may be that you still need the following libraries:

sudo apt-get install libfuse2:i386
sudo apt-get install libxmu6:i386
sudo apt-get install libxft2:i386

The start Jahshaka with:

~/MyApps/jahshaka_2-0

For a better integration with your desktop, you can create a .desktop file:

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/jahshaka.desktop

and paste these lines:

[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=Jahshaka
Comment=video and film compositing, editing and special fx system
Icon=/path/to/image
Exec=/home/<your_username>/MyApps/jahshaka_2-0
Terminal=false
Categories=Video;
StartupWMClass=Jahshaka

Then save and exit...


Server logs are filling my hard disk, how do I fix this?

As you noticed yourself, your log folder is huge. You probably want to delete some old logs. Old logs are being archived periodically. If you look into your log folder by

cd /var/log
ls -lh

you will see a lot of files ending in .gz. Those files are the archives logs. They have a number before that indicating how old the archive is. .1.gz is the newest. If you are sure you don't need the old logs any more, delete them:

sudo rm *.gz

Before you do so you might want to check why your logs are that huge. Take a look which log files and corresponding archives are huge. If you find some look into them. What are the log entries? Are some of them very frequent? What process/program/event is responsible? Can you safely lower the log level for that?

EDIT

Look into the error_log. You should use tail for showing the last few lines and hope that it can process such a huge file. You could also delete that file to free up the space but we should find out why it is that big.


Visudo - Change user without password doesn't work

So I have already found the solution:

sudo -u test2 bash


Installing new windows version over dual boot

Last time I've tried that grub was gone. If you reinstall windows, the procedure will delete the grub bootloader - your image will still be present - but you can't reach it.
So after installing windows you'll need a live USB stick and reinstall grub on your device.
Since things go wrong (especially if Windows is involved) I'd save my data before doing anything. Here is a good guide on how to install grub with an USB live image


How do I ensure an NFS share stays mounted?

There are multiple things you could do:

add the retry=n (with n being an integer representing minutes) to your mount options in /etc/fstab for the cases NFS is not (yet) available at boot time
make use of autofs, as you suggested (lots of How-Tos returned by this Google search)
create some simple daemon process which exits when the NFS share is not available, and mounts it when invoked with the start parameter -- so you can set it up as upstart event with respawn (i.e. automatically restart when aborted other than by service xyz stop). Combine this with above retry=n)
setup a cron job checking for some (existing) directory on the NFS share -- and run the mount command when it is not found (again, combine it with retry=n)


Can you backup with Duplicity (or similar) with Amazon Cloud Drive?

Authentication is done via "Login with Amazon" which is based on OAuth2. There is a getting started guide here.  They offer an HTTP API for accessing the data. I never looked at the duplicity connectors, but there might be some that utilize HTTP already.


Is ext4 still prone to data loss in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS?

Every file system is prone to data loss, so the answer is "Yes".

It is everyone's personal choice to pick the file system that s/he feels meets her/his requirements. The default ext4 for Ubuntu was not chosen because it is free from data loss (or "the best" in any other way), but because it adequately meets the requirements of a large group of users.

Ext4 is fine for that large group.  Users with additional requirements have the option of changing the default - and then discuss the advantages of their choice with others who are into that sort of thing ;-).


OK, well, here's the solution I came up with. A bit of a pain, but...

First, when I am ready to wait for the next second, I get the current MilliSecond. This is the finest resolution I can get from the system.

Then, I subtract that from 1000 (1000 Ms per second) minus the current Ms equals the number of Ms I need to wait.

Then multiply that by 1 million (to convert to NanoSeconds)

Then use NanoSleep(blah,blah).

This seems to work.

PS, I compared the CPU usage (with top) between this method and one that simply polls waiting for the next second to arrive, and the polling version uses 98% CPU, and this uses 0.3%. This is the way.


How to solve problem same command-line for different apps

What I would do is find the full command to each dep command. For example if PHP dep is /usr/bin/dep I would then alias it like this:

alias php-dep='/usr/bin/dep

Then I would figure out what the full command to run Golang dep is and then run:
alias go-dep='/usr/local/bin/dep

Then when I needed to reference one of these commands I could just run go-dep or php-dep and the correct command can run.

In order to find the dep commands I would do something like this

locate dep |grep -v headers |grep -v snap |grep -v python |grep -v share

And sort through the output until I found the locations of each.

In order to make your alias' permanent you can create the file ~/.bash_aliases which is sourced by ~/.bashrc or simply edit the ~/.bashrc` file directly.

These files are read when a new session is being created and will run whatever alias or command you put in them

For example I have a very basic ~/.bashrc:

cat ~/.bashrc
#
# ~/.bashrc
#

# If not running interactively, don't do anything
[[ $- != *i* ]] && return
if [ $TILIX_ID ] || [ $VTE_VERSION ]; then
        source /etc/profile.d/vte.sh
fi
alias nano='nano -wET 4'
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
PS1="\[\e[01;32m\]\u@\h \[\e[01;34m\]\w  \[\e[01;34m\]$\[\e[00m\] "
export EDITOR=nano

This runs every time I create a session in bash.


Disable the "restart" option in Ctrl Alt Delete menu

For most desktops got to control center or system settings
Click on keyboard then shortcuts tab.

Scroll through the list of preset shortcuts. You should find logout, Lock screen, and shut down together.

Click on the one you want to change, then press the short cut to use.

In your case:
Select shut down then backspace to disable shut down.
Then, select Logout and press ctrl+alt+del to set it.


You have set up LVM - Logical Volume Management.

This means 750 GB Hard Disk (WDC WD7500...) is your physical hard disk.
It contains 3 partitions, a small (573 MB) EFI partition, another small (512 MB) partition which is probably (can't see it in your screenshot) mounted as /boot and holds your GRUB boot loader files and kernels etc, and a huge (749 GB) LVM container partition.

The LVM container partition itself contains now multiple virtual volumes that store your actual data. Those virtual volumes are shown in your sidebar above as 741 GB Block Device (/dev/ubuntu-vg/root) and 8.5 GB Block Device (/dev/ubuntu-vg/swap_1). The first, big one holds your Ubuntu's file system root / and all contained data, while the second, smaller one is used as swap partition.


SOLVED!  This was a multifaceted problem.  First my own unfamiliarity with Grub did not let me recognize that Grub was trying to tell me something but it's incorrect video setting was just showing garbage.  Reconfiguring Grub solved that.  Second, something bogus was installed that was conflicting with the card, causing it to be activated even with no b43 driver installed, and it was then hanging the system.  I removed several things I could not identify and then suddenly I could get it to run, with complaints that the firmware was not installed.  I am not sure exactly what I removed that got around the problem.  Then I installed the firmware per the standard instructions here and is all started working.  Note I had installed the firmware before but it didn't work, since the bogus something or other was hanging things up.  It is working now, and I am posting this answer over the Wifi link.  Thanks for all the help...


In order to have sudo not asking a password you'd use ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL attached to the user or to the group of your choice in the configuration file.

I'd suggest you to see man sudoers or a tutorial like this.

I prefer the man page first, though.

By the way, in order to get a root shell you can also run sudo -s -H. Again, the man page can be of help.


Upgrade manager wants me to do a partial upgrade

It looks like sudo dpkg --configure -a is the magical command.

Here is the dpkg man page’s explanation of the --configure -a options:

  --configure package...|-a|--pending

  Configure a package which has been unpacked but not yet configured. If -a or --pending is given […], all unpacked but unconfigured packages are configured.

  […]

  Configuring consists of the following steps:

  Unpack the conffiles, and at the same time back up the old conffiles, so that they can be restored if something goes wrong.
  Run postinst script, if provided by the package.


i faced something similar recently.
So, i used gparted to format for USB with FAT32.
Secondly, i used mkusd in order to build up the persistent installation of Xubuntu 17.
I tried other options and tools for persistent storage, but the combination was the one that worked fine.
Regards,
CJ


Binary clock for top menu bar - Ubuntu 16.04

If I've understood you correctly, this will do what you want: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/46/binary-clock/


Ubuntu 18.04 Red Dots over screen - Freeze/Crash of OS

so after some time, i think i found solution.

Manjaro, Fedora or other distributions did not work, same problem, so i tried Windows (Just for the sake of fixing it) and no, same problem. So i tough its HW problem, i tester RAM (OK) and CPU (also OK), after that i swaped SSD, Wifi/BT card. Still same problem. And after some investigation with BSOD report (i ques that's one thing nice on Windows) i found its USB kernel problem.

And you are not gonna believe it, i unplugged my Wireless mouse dongle, from right port, and now i am using wired on left port, and voila, its 7 days and its working without problem. So its gonna by the wireless mouse dongle or right USB. Its just so bizarre that one small thing could make so much treble. Also back on Ubuntu. Thanks guys for help.


vlc issues with Monkey's Audio .ape files

solved this problem by removing vlc and installing it from vlc repos.

     sudo add-apt-repository ppa:videolan/stable-daily
     sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install vlc


Network manager wireless connection duplicated

In network indicator menu click on edit connections

Hare you can add/remove/edit your connections

This issue has been reported as a bug.


Automatically Run a Command/script at startup

rc.local has solved this for me, and although I have read is outdated But kept around for compatibility, if somebody has the updated, but JUST AS SIMPLE answer, please share as I will update my server.
sudo nano /etc/rc.local

You can use either calling a script in rc.local or directly run desired commands. Eg:
# By default this script does nothing.

/root/script.sh
(or)
sudo service deluged restart

exit 0

Cheers!


Installed babl, but gimp2.7 still says No package 'babl' found

It looks like you need to adjust your PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable so the configure script can properly resolve the location of the babl library that you installed in the previous step.

You can do so in two ways:

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfig/"

which will take the current value of PKG_CONFIG_PATH and append /opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfig/ to it.

When using export the value of PKG_CONFIG_PATH variable will persist during single terminal session. Once the command above is run you can invoke configure script as normal:

./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7

Another way to achieve the same end result would be to invoke the configure script as below:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$PKG_CONFIG_PATH:/opt/gimp-2.7/lib/pkgconfig/" ./configure --prefix=/opt/gimp-2.7

When invoked in this way the value of the PKG_CONFIG_PATH will only be modified for the time of execution of the configure script.


I want a clean install of linux, are all of these partitions needed? Why is there a 999gb one?

You're right, most instructions for Ubuntu just show one big partition, but you can have multiple partitions, especially if you want to keep Windows plus run Ubuntu.

/dev/sda1 is an NTFS partition to run Windows - and you can keep it if you choose the 'install alongside' option of Ubuntu, or you can erase it and reuse it for Ubuntu if you want.

/dev/sda2 is the EFI partition, created for Windows and which Ubuntu will automatically share when you install it. Leave it alone for now unless you will completely erase the entire drive.

/dev/sda3 I can't tell what that is, but you can leave it alone for now. Please check that in Windows by right-clicking on the Windows icon then choosing Disk Management.

/dev/sda4 is NTFS also usable by Windows, your 999 GB partition which you can use for Ubuntu. That's 20X more than you'd need for Ubuntu; 50 GB is a decent amount. If you want, you can use only part of it for Ubuntu and share the rest with Windows; the Ubuntu installer will let you shrink it and take as little or as much of that as you want.


It appears to use the program axel to download the files using multiple concurrent connections to multiple mirrors.  My guess is that everyone isn't using it because most people don't have connections that are significantly faster than the mirrors, and therefore, can substantially benefit from concurrent downloads, combined with the fact that most people haven't heard of it.  This is the first time I've ever heard it mentioned in 5 years of running Ubuntu.


How to enable / disable root user account in ubuntu 16.04 LTS?

For the most of Ubuntu usage, you do not actually need to enable the root user.
In case you want act as root in a terminal, just switch using:

sudo -i

and type the password.
To revert to your user, just type exit


How to create Windows XP LiveUSB using Ubuntu to replace it

Create a bootable Windows XP USB drive:

Download "ms-sys"

Install it.

Partition your USB drive to NTFS.

Now copy the files from your Windows XP ISO to the USB drive

Copy the Windows XP mbr to the USB drive

ms-sys -m /dev/sdX

Replace sdX with the number of your usb hard drive (for example: sda5).

After that, backup your data, then format your drive to NTFS from your Live USB.

You can now install Windows XP through the USB.


texlive problems after upgrade to 14.04 from 12.04

This worked for me:

sudo apt-get purge tex-common
sudo update-updmap
sudo updmap-sys --syncwithtrees
sudo updmap-sys
sudo apt-get install texlive

During the first command above, pay attention to the list of packages that are removed along with tex-common. In my case it removed kile and a lot of other texlive advanced packages. You will need to reinstall them after.


There is a Kiosk mode for node-webkit that goes fullscreen after the program launches BUT for Linux it can be bypassed with Alt-F4 key combination which is handled at system level. The library states that otherwise the program would be perceived as a potential virus:

  On Linux and Windows, users can still quit node-webkit by pressing keys like Alt + F4 and Control + Alt + Del, currently node-webkit does not block those keys be because it would make node-webkit behave like virus and be blocked by AV software.


Why don't you just install the current version and its sources? Should be as easy as

sudo apt-get build-dep gnome-calculator

and then (having the sources repository activated)

apt-get source gnome-calculator

And then try to compile it (to start from a known point) and start hacking.

Reference here: How do I get and modify the source code of packages installed through apt-get?


Dell Inspiron 15 3000 w/Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, 1TB Hdd, want to Install Dual Boot Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

You can install Ubuntu on D or E partition. During the installing wizard you have to install the grub as well and select the first disk (sda) not the partition (e.g sda4). At the end you can reboot and select the starting O.S from the grub menu.
Remember to add the boot/efi partition if your PC has UEFI


How can I use the backspace character as a backspace when entering a password?

Try this:

#!/bin/bash
unset password
prompt="Enter Password:"
while IFS= read -p "$prompt" -r -s -n 1 char
do
    if [[ $char == $'\0' ]];     then
        break
    fi
    if [[ $char == $'\177' ]];  then
        prompt=$'\b \b'
        password="${password%?}"
    else
        prompt='*'
        password+="$char"
    fi
done
echo " "
echo "Done. Password=$password"

The options of the read command are:
-p : Prompt string.
-r : Don't use backslash as escape character.
-s : Silent mode, inputs are not echoed.
-n 1 : Number of character to input.

read returns 0 unless \0 is encountered, and the character the user types is placed into the char variable.

The IFS= part clears the IFS variable, which ensures that any space or tab characters that you type are included in the password rather than being parsed out by read.


Why do I need to install every Django dependency after upgrade to Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial Xerus)?

Python packages are specific to a Python version.
Each Python version has its own library of packages,
isolated from the libraries of other versions at the filesystem level.
Packages installed for one library will not be available for another.

So when you install a new version of Python,
you will have to install in its library any packages that you need,
even if you installed them with the previous version.
This also means that the previously installed packages remain available with the previous version of Python.

Lastly,
it's recommended to install Django and its dependencies in a virtualenv.
That will not save you from the "pain" of reinstalling the dependencies when you change the version,
this is just a good measure to avoid polluting your system with packages that are only needed by Django, and it also allows having multiple versions of Django and its dependencies independently.
And when I say "pain" of reinstalling dependencies,
when following good practices it's not supposed to be a pain at all.
The dependencies should be declared in a requirements.txt file at the project's root, and reinstalling everything should be a matter of pip install -r requirements.txt.


You can use the du command to walk the file system and see what is taking space.  The process I use for this is to start at '/' (cd /) and run du -h --max-depth=1.  This will list the space taken by all files and directories in human readable format for the directory you are currently in.  You can then navigate into the largest directories and re-run the command to see the size of their contents.  Depending on what you find taking the space you can then decide what you need to do next.  If its junk than you can just delete the offending files and continue on; if the space consumption is legitimate (you need the files) than you'll have to look at larger partitions as already mentioned in the issue comments.


Deploying charm installer from local repository

The ceph charm's "source" config option can be used in a number of ways.  As long as the local repo is also served and accessible by remote systems (such as http://), the source config option can be used.

Here is an excerpt from the config.yaml file in the charm:

  source:
    type: string
    default:
    description: |
      Optional configuration to support use of additional sources such as:

        - ppa:myteam/ppa
        - cloud:trusty-proposed/kilo
        - http://my.archive.com/ubuntu main

      The last option should be used in conjunction with the key configuration
      option.

      Note that a minimum ceph version of 0.48.2 is required for use with this
      charm which is NOT provided by the packages in the main Ubuntu archive
      for precise but is provided in the Ubuntu cloud archive.

It may also be helpful to review the following docstring from the underlying code which acts on the source value:

Add a package source to this system.

@param source: a URL or sources.list entry, as supported by
add-apt-repository(1). Examples::

ppa:charmers/example
deb https://stub:key@private.example.com/ubuntu trusty main

In addition:
'proposed:' may be used to enable the standard 'proposed'
pocket for the release.
'cloud:' may be used to activate official cloud archive pockets,
such as 'cloud:icehouse'
'distro' may be used as a noop

@param key: A key to be added to the system's APT keyring and used
to verify the signatures on packages. Ideally, this should be an
ASCII format GPG public key including the block headers. A GPG key
id may also be used, but be aware that only insecure protocols are
available to retrieve the actual public key from a public keyserver
placing your Juju environment at risk. ppa and cloud archive keys
are securely added automtically, so sould not be provided.


Dual boot remove useless options, remove boot timer, run exe. on Kubuntu

the answer to question 1 and 2 is grub-customizer you can install it by running these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

you can edit the entries under the 'List configuration' tab and the timeout under the 'general settings' tab.

for question 3 you need to be more specific about which drivers are missing and what hardware you have. maybe you can make a new question about it, that way the answers will be better focused.


Unable to save scripts from the Python interpreter

The command line interpreter for Python is not an editor and does not have a save option. This is just something for testing your commands.

You need something like gedit (or another editor) to type your commands. Those editors all have save option.


Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Shown in Upgrade Manager Now

update-manager -d checks if upgrading to the latest development release is possible. Since 16.04 alpha 1 release is available from January 7, you'll be notified about this.

Read this post to know how to upgrade your system. Your best bet would be to use a 15.10 live USB.


ERROR: could not insert 'fuse': Unknown symbol in module, or unknown parameter

I've actually never gotten davfs to work. Not sure how well-supported it is anymore.
However, there is a GUI workaround. I use an application called gigolo to mount my dav filesystems in the GUI, and have set it up to automount when I log in.
It's maybe not quite as solid as a permanent davfs mount, but it could get you access to your dav files.


Setting AuthorizedKeysFile value causes ssh failure?

You have rightly put:

AuthorizedKeysFile    /etc/ssh/.authorized_keys

in /etc/ssh/sshd_config and also correctly moved all the public keys from ~/.ssh/authorized_keys to /etc/ssh/.authorized_keys.

The problem is that /etc/ssh/.authorized_keys is owned by root and a permission of 600 on the file means that only root can read-write the file, not the user you are login as.

To solve the issue make the user owner of the file, if the user is foobar then do:

sudo chown foobar /etc/ssh/.authorized_keys

and keep everything else as it is.


Touchpad sensitivity way too high on lowest setting (ZenbookPrime UX32VD-DH71) 12.04LTS

On my Thinkpad, increasing rather than decreasing "Synaptics Scrolling distance" value slowed my two-finger scroll speed.


Install Android emulator to play mobile game

Games like free fire and PUBG are supported in emulators only on windows. There is no android emulator available for Ubuntu.

But if you want to feel like playing on Desktop(Ubuntu). you can follow these steps :

Install screen share over USB like scrcpy (freeware)

In terminal run cmd sudo snap install scrcpy
Allow USB debugging in developer option
Then connect your android phone with laptop or desktop using USB
In terminal run cmd scrcpy

Install octopus from the app store for mapping keyboard on the screen.


How do I find the size of ubuntu 14.04 befor installation?

The size variation can be very quite a bit because of what files you need for your environment but here are the system requirement for memory if this is helpful.

5 GB of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)

Good luck!


Terminal error messages: bash: /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/2823/tasks: No such file or directory

Remove this stanza from your ~.bashrc:

if [ "$PS1" ] ; then
    mkdir -m 0700 /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/$$
    echo $$ > /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/$$/tasks
    echo "1" > /dev/cgroup/cpu/user/$$/notify_on_release
fi


Running shellscript with cronjob is making problems, executing manually not. Ideas?

Try to use absolute path for all your commands or get the PATH variable as here:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10129381/crontab-path-and-user


Grub installation failed with fresh installation 14.04 on VMware ESX 5.1

After trying many different options, I remember 12.04 also had the same problem and solution was remove Network Adapter from VM setting then install ubuntu without network card.
I tried the same with 14.04 and voila grub install successfully. After boot up, we just need to add Network adapter again then we are done.
I thought I need to share this as many people will have the same issue.


How do I search the package lists of old Ubuntu releases?

For online search I would recommend to use the https://repology.org service.
If we search for xbattle

as the package of interest

it will show the following:

So this package was last available in 12.04 LTS. If you click on the xbattle then you will be transferred to the launchpad project page.


xls file some formula not open in open office

The minimum system requirements for LibreOffice on Linux are here.

Whether one wants to invest effort upgrading from OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice on systems running Ubuntu 10.04 given that support (for the desktop version) ends in April 2013 is the question.

That macros written for Microsoft Excel don't always "translate" perfectly is not unknown.


why is chrome unity launcher launching a live preview from brackets?

i figured out the problem if anyone else has a similar problem, apparently there is another file that contains the .desktop files, which takes precedence over the /usr/share/applications/ directory of .desktop files, and that is located at ~/.local/share/applications, and for some reason the google-chrome.desktop file was set to open a brackets preview. dont know why that happened still but deleting it was enough to solve the problem anyhow.


mount -o remount,rw /
dpkg --configure -a
mount -o remount,ro/
sync
reboot

I couldn't actually perform the final remount/sync as the drive was busy so just went for the reboot and hoped for the best. Everything started up and I'm running 13.10 without any issues.

The --configure took about 20mins so a bit of patience here


Bad resolution in 12.10 after upgrade from 12.04

I think you havent installed your graphics drivers for your nvidia card still.. install them from Additional Drivers ..and retry to set your resolution

Type in terminal
command  : sudo nvidia-settings


disabling touchpad buttons at startup with command subtitution

I used xinput set-button-map "AlpsPS/2 ALPS DualPoint TouchPad" "1" "1" "1" instead.


You can start by removing any applications that you do not use through Ubuntu Software Center, and by stopping the automatic start-up of certain programs. You could switch to the Ubuntu classic environment, as well.

What is the CPU usage? Ubuntu is not generally going to use too many resources on a dual-core laptop especially compared to 7 Starter. This may just be a driver/fan control problem.


Check out your pings with the web site you use to check to quality of your connection.

ping ip/host

If you are sure it's a DNS issue, then try these DNS:

4.2.2.2

4.2.2.1

Should perform faster than your ISP's DNS provider.


No "connect wireless Network" option 16.04.1 LTS

Disabling "secure boot" in the bios worked for me! after months I have such an easy answer!

step1:
restart computer and enter Bios by pressing F2 or F11 or what ever it is for your computer manufacturer.

step2:
go to Boot security, and select safe boot.
disable it!

step3:
continue with start up and enjoy Wifi!!


Unable to Install blender in Ubuntu 18.04

You don't need to add any repository; simply run

sudo apt install blender

It's available by default, you don't need thomas-shiex repo.

Or alternatively you can do

sudo snap install blender --classic


WSL doesn't update when Windows file system is updated

Assuming you're running Windows 10 Creators Update or later, WSL does support File Change Notifications via iNotify, so if you open & edit a file in gedit, VSCode, Sublime, Notepad, Notepad++, etc. and hit save, the file will be updated and WSL should receive the inotify file change notification.

  Note: If you repeatedly hit CTRL+S in some editors, they won't write to the file until the editor's contents have changed. Try inserting and deleting a space (to fool the editor into thinking its contents have changed) and re-saving afterwards.

Alternatively, try another editor (e.g. one listed above).


Dual monitor not working when 'nomodeset' is used

nomodeset disables kernel mode setting (KMS), which is needed by the graphics drivers you are using; there is no workaround.  Some proprietary drivers don't require KMS; try installing those.


GNOME - Scale Windows to factor less than 1

On debian, but not ubuntu ... apparently.  I'm looking for the answer myself.

edit: just used this in the dconf editor:

org>>gnome>>desktop>>interface>>text-scaling-factor

I set it to .8 ... it seems do do the same thing because the bars are scaled by the text.


I think you are confusing two different concepts. pip is a tool to install python packages (on your current system or in a virtualenv) that you can use with the python interpreter.

The packages you are referring are not python packages but binary packages (packages that provide programs and libraries specific to Ubuntu system), and can only be installed in your system (using apt-get or a similar tool).

So, you cannot install LaTeX in a virtualenv (although eventually you could find some package in pip that provides bindings to use LaTeX with python).


What's the recommended way to configure a Synaptics touchpad device?

UPDATED WITH TESTED VERSION from 10.10 up to 13.04

Tested on HP dv6000, Sony Vaio NW240, Hp dv5-2130 and Toshiba NB305

Since Ubuntu 10.10 the new xorg.conf configuration is inside the /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d directory for the input devices.

Go to this directory and you will find several files:

10-evdev.conf, 50-synaptics.conf, 50-vmmouse.conf, 50-wacom.conf, 51-synaptics-quirks.conf, 60-magictrackpad.conf

It might depend on what devices you have connected but this are the ones i have seen always.

Now we want to open the first one that loads. That will be 10-evdev.conf. But before we open it we need the synaptic edges values.

First go to the terminal, if in a 11.04 or previous version of Ubuntu press ALT+F2 and type gnome-terminal, then press ENTER. If in a 11.04 or newer version you can simply open the Dash and type terminal.

After the terminal opens type xinput list

Look for the device that is the one you want to work with. Grab the ID from the input you want to work with.

In my case i have the following output:

The one i want to work with is SynPS/2 Synaptics TouchPad with an ID of 11.

Now we type: xinput list-props ID | grep Edges
(ID is the number you grabbed from the ID in the xinput list)

in my case i typed xinput list-props 11 | grep Edges

and the output was this: Synaptics Edges (276):  1752, 5192, 1620, 4236

Take note of the 4 Edges numbers (They go in the order: Left, Right, Top, Bottom)

Open 10-evdev.conf: sudo nano 10-evdev.conf

Inside the 10-evdev.conf file you will find several InputClass Sections. You need to look for the section that has MatchIsTouchpad "on" in it. That would be the third one for me.

ADD at the bottom of the section the 4 positions in order like this

SAVE and Reboot. This is to test if it is working. If for some reason you made a mistake, select in the grub menu Recovery Mode, load in terminal as root and edit the file again and remove the lines or repair the problem. Either way, if you run terminal as root in the recovery mode, type startx and it will log out where the error is found and how to fix it. The beauty of linux is that it not only SHOWS you where the error is, in most cases it TELLS you how to fix it.

If it reboots normally then NOW YOU CAN START EDITING. Go to 10-evdev.conf:

sudo nano 10-evdev.conf

And start lowering the values to the one you feel more perfect.

In my case i lowered the RightEdge value every 1000 points. Just for testing. Of course reducing the RightEdge increases the space you have to SCROLL up/down. This way, you now have the ability to increase/decrease every area of your synaptic, including the scrolling area. And this answers your question.

Let us now take the code you put up in the question: xinput --set-prop --type=int --format=32 11 252 1781 5125 1646 4582

In your case you have:

Option "LeftEdge" "1781"
Option "RightEdge" "5125"
Option "TopEdge" "1646"
Option "BottomEdge" "4582"

Simply edit the section in 10-evdev.conf with your values. Then start lowering the RighEdge value. I recommend to start with lowering every 512 points (since 5125 divided by 10 = 512.5 which is 10% of the total). So you would be modifying 10% each time you lower it.

NOTE: The values MUST BE between double quotes ("")

More info in the man pages here

The information you will find in that link is up-to-date and shows the several places where you can find the xorg configuration files apart from the several options you can use to customize your synaptic any way you want.

There is also a neat program called gpointing-device-settings  (apt-get install gpointing-device-settings) which does some of the stuff.

In any case it worked great, very nice to have the ability to decide how much you want for scroll and how much you want for anything else, including the tapping options.


This is a known issue, I have reported it here. Don't worry about it! The kernel team it is working on it already. It seems  to be some calculation problem.


I get a trust list error at the end of sudo apt update

Drive full error caused the issue - fixed drive - problem is fixed


Ubuntu 17.10 with two NICs: routing requests to correct NIC

It's called "Packet Routing". Look at ip route. When an IP address is seen, it's compared against the IP/netmask value in a route, and, if it matches, the packet uses that route.


Sure, you can get it from the MATLAB MathWorks site.

You need to login to use this, so you should have a University account that can be used.

If not, you can ask the University to download it for you, and give them a USB for it.

You can follow the Ubuntu Wiki page to install it.


Important note:
Although normally everything works fine, there is a small risk of something going wrong when modifying your partitions, resulting in data loss.
Therefore you should always have a current back-up of your important files before starting.

Boot from a live system, e.g. from the Ubuntu installer DVD/USB drive. Select "Try Ubuntu without installing" in the boot menu.

Start GParted on the live system.

Select your Ubuntu root partition /dev/sda8, right-click on it and click on Resize/Move.

Enlarge the partition by either dragging the left border of its graphic visualization to the left so that it covers up all unallocated space, or manually enter a value in the Free space preceeding field (probably you want 0 or whatever minimal value it allows to keep the partitions properly aligned).

Confirm your modification with the Resize/Move button.

Let GParted begin its work by clicking the green check button labelled "Apply all operations".

Once it is finished, reboot into your normal Ubuntu system on the disk. Done.


Install slim:

sudo apt-get install slim

If you change your mind later, and want to fall back to the default login manager back:

Ubuntu 11.04 and later:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm

Before Ubuntu 11.04:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm


How can I remove third Unity Launcher on a 3+ Screen setup?

It is not currently possible to configure the launcher in this manner.


After re-installing ubuntu 13.10, stuck at GRUB Rescue, Boot-Repair didn't work!

So, i have tried Boot-Repair again, but this time in a different way. I downloaded the bootable boot-repair iso and made a usb disk. Then boot into it, connect to internet and start "Recommended Repair".

This time, it took me through a series of steps, asked me to manually delete/uninstall grub and then re-install a new version on sda & sdb. After the repair. i could successfully have a dual boot setup, without loosing any data !! This was AWESOME.. thanks to the easy tool "boot-repair"

In case anyone has a similar issue, i would recommend them to try boot-repair first and then look for an alternate solution. Again, like in my case, it is better to have a bootable boot-repair usb rather than running it from bootable ubuntu disk.


Well for anyone who has the same problem I have found the solution.
I purged the alsa driver and pulseaudio and did CLEAN install not from repository but from source provided on alsa website. It was followed by many many other errors like non-existing functions - fw_device_get and put which I have found on the Internet and put them into Linux kernel headers, included asm/system.h file which wasn't found (it was enough just to comment the line) and some others but now my sound works, we will see for how long :)

Also I sticked to this tutorial if it helps:
ubuntuforums


What is the command to remove all files but not directories?

What you're trying to do is recursive deletion. For that you need a recursive tool, such as find.

find FOLDER -type f -delete


System can not return display after locking

Try just using suspend mode as that always returns to where you were. Unless you are using the lock function so others can't access your screen.


How to activate scroll bar in LibreOffice Writer on Ubuntu GNOME 16.04?

Go to View > Scrollbars and select Vertical Scrollbar.


Ubuntu 14.04 lags after watching video on Internet

Update your graphics driver. Check for additional drivers in Software & Updates or run this in teminal

  software-properties-gtk --open-tab=4


Why can't I type with some keys on my laptop?

Numlock may be on. And the layout is set to GB
sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup Might help to set it to the correct layout again.


How do I gain root access to my own folders when using file manager?

This can be done using "Custom Actions".

GUI method:

Open Thunar and go to the following option:

There, select Add, and write something like this:

After this change, restart Thunar, and now, once you right-click, you will see something like this:

That will prompt a window asking you to introduce the password, and you are done.

More information can be found here.

Non-GUI Method:

Go to ~/.config/Thunar/ and open the file called uca.xml with a text editor (double-clicking will open a browser). Then, create a new entry like this (here, with the same properties as in the GUI method):

<action>
    <icon>changes-prevent</icon>
    <name>Open Folder as root</name>
    <unique-id>1426762241486505-1</unique-id>
    <command>gksudo thunar %f</command>
    <description>Open a folder as super user</description>
    <patterns>*</patterns>
    <directories/>
</action>

Save, restart thunar, and enjoy!

Finally, regarding your naming question, the program is called Thunar (as opposed to Nautilus in Gnome), but it is a File Manager (category of program), so I imagine that is why it gets the generic name. In fact, from a terminal, you can start it with thunar but not with file-manager or so.

Note: Another useful option is to open a file as Root (generally a script or text file). The code would be something like this:

<action>
    <icon>locked</icon>
    <name>Open File as root</name>
    <unique-id>1426762251695002-2</unique-id>
    <command>gksudo mousepad %f</command>
    <description>Open a file as super user</description>
    <patterns>*</patterns>
    <text-files/>
</action>


Are Linux VirtualBox images legal to distribute?

You need to be careful. Linux - as in the kernel - is licensed under the GPL. This means you are free to distribute it, but you are under an obligation to supply the source code used to build it if requested - though you may charge a fee to cover your costs when doing so. Of course, it is unlikely you will be asked, but you might be.

The wider operating system - sometimes referred to as GNU/Linux - will be covered by a variety of licenses and I am sure it is this, as opposed to the kernel, you wish to distribute. Depending on your jurisdiction (software patent law is very different in the EU from the US, for instance) and the software used you may not be free to distribute that at all eg you may have software which is built using combined GPL and non-GPL code (you can build this but you may not distribute it in this form) etc - you need to check all this thoroughly.


Your installation is not a typical EFI-mode installation. You do have an EFI-mode version of GRUB installed on /dev/sdb5; however, your fdisk output indicates that your disk is partitioned using the MBR system, whereas EFI installations almost always use GPT, and /dev/sdb5 is marked in the MBR as a Linux partition, not as an EFI System Partition (ESP; the type of partition that holds EFI boot loaders). As 12.04.3 is fairly new, it could be that you've run into a new bug (or set of bugs) in its installer.

I suggest you try the following:

Using fdisk, change the type code on /dev/sdb5 (or /dev/sda5, if the disks change identities) from 0x83 to 0xEF.
Reboot. If it boots to Linux, declare victory and ignore the following steps.
Boot the System Rescue CD. (You could use an Ubuntu live CD/DVD, but that will require you to install gdisk, which was awkward from the Ubuntu live CDs/DVDs, the last time I checked.)
Launch gdisk on /dev/sdb. Type p to verify you've got the right disk, then type w to save the partition table. This should convert the disk from MBR to GPT form. See this page of the gdisk documentation for more on this procedure.
Reboot. If it boots to Linux, declare victory and ignore the following steps.
Re-run Boot Repair.
Reboot. If it boots to Linux, declare victory and ignore the following steps.
Download and prepare the CD-R or USB flash drive version of my rEFInd boot manager.
Boot using the rEFInd medium. You should see a rEFInd menu showing three Linux entries, each of which should boot Linux using a different kernel.
Try each of the kernels until one boots successfully. If none boot, post back with details.
If you can get Linux booted via the external rEFInd medium, install the rEFInd Debian package, remove the external medium, and reboot.
If you can boot with rEFInd installed on your hard disk, declare victory. If not, run the Boot Info Script, post the RESULTS.txt file that it creates to a pastebin site, and post back for more help (including the URL to your RESULTS.txt file).


How to remove Plymouth Boot Animation manager and keep the default boot screen

Do not remove "plymouth" as you say carries packages with it that are vital.
Go to synaptic type plymouth in search window and go to "plymouth themes"
choose the theme you want looks like text and install it. (Make sure it is a Plymouth Theme)
Now run below in a terminal and pick out theme you wish to use by the number.
Code:

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

Once you have chosen and installed now run below:
Code:

sudo update-initramfs -u

Code:

sudo reboot


Laptop running Ubuntu 18.04 and Nvidia GPU does not detect HDMI display

I fixed the problem by upgrading to 18.10.

Using a VGA cable I was able to dual monitor but even that was was problematic, the system wouldn't allow any other resolution than 1024x768. Dual-booting to Windows proved there was no problem with the monitor, cables, etc.

I wish the LTS versions would be a little bit more stable, even for less mainstream stuff like this.


How do I prevent Kubuntu from forgetting its sticky keys settings?

I have the same problem: sometimes KDE does not have Sticky Keys set on boot. This script turns on sticky keys:

#!/bin/bash

xkbset exp 120 =b =r -m =ma =a -st =twokey =latchlock -sl -bo =f =dumbbell -led =feature =slowwarn =slowpress =slowaccept =slowreject =slowrelease =bouncereject =stickybeep =ov1 =ov2 =ignoregrouplock
xkbset b r rate 660 40 perkeyrepeat 00ffffffdffffbbffadfffefffedffff9ffffffffffffffffff7ffffffffffff -m 1 ma 160 40 30 30 500 -a st -twokey -latchlock -sl 500 -bo 500 f dumbbell -led feature slowwarn slowpress slowaccept -slowreject -slowrelease bouncereject -stickybeep -ov1 -ov2 groupswrap wrap 1 ignoregrouplock nullify -shift -lock -control -mod1 -mod2 -mod3 -mod4 -mod5 ignorelock -shift -lock -control -mod1 -mod2 -mod3 -mod4 -mod5

You can put the script in i.e. ~/bin/stickykeys.sh, give it executable permissions with chmod +x ~/bin/stickykeys.sh, and then add a line to run it to your ~/.profile script:

~/bin/stickykeys.sh


Seems I found what was the issue. I just needed to press Meta+P and choose another display.


Ubuntu Software Center does not allow changes to software sources

I can reproduce this if my /etc/apt/sources.list has bad permissions, ie read-only.

what does

ls -l /etc/apt/sources.list

show?

It should look like:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 3881 2011-11-18 16:30 /etc/apt/sources.list

You can fix it with

sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/sources.list


First a little background. You seem to have two physical hard drives in your computer, sda and sdb. These are each split into separate partitions. Based on your df output, sda is the 24GB HD and sdb the 750. The sdb2 partition is mounted at /media/blah/534E-B317. Since this is not a standard mount point, I am assuming you have set it up yourself and that it will always be the same, every time you boot. The rest of this answer depends on that.

So, you have a 693G partition which is available at /media/blah/534E-B317. All you need to do is copy your files there. Ideally, this should be the default location of any new files you may create as well.

The easiest solution is to make your $HOME folder (which, by default, is /home/yourusername) a link to a directory on sdb:

Create the new directory on sdb (in this and all subsequent steps, replace "pharaohmoans" with your actual user name):

sudo mkdir /media/blah/534E-B317/pharaohmoans

Make it belong to your user

sudo chown pharaohmoans /media/blah/534E-B317/pharaohmoans

Copy your files over

cp -rpv $HOME/* /media/blah/534E-B317/pharaohmoans

Rename your old $HOME directory. Once you're sure everything is working fine, you can delete it.

sudo mv $HOME /home/pharaomoans_backup

Create a symlink pointing to the new directory with the same name as your original $HOME

sudo ln -s /media/blah/534E-B317/pharaohmoans /home/pharaomoans

Now just log out and log back in again (or restart) and you should be using the new $HOME directory. Any files you create will now be placed here unless you explicitly choose to place them elsewhere. Note that this does not apply to any applications you install. To make those install in the other partition as well, you will need to repeat the above steps for the directory /usr/.


How can I get the Last-modified header on a https website?

You cannot access HTTPS sites with the telnet command, because they need encrypted communication and telnet is only for unencrypted TCP connections. For this, you need "https-aware" command-line tools like wget or curl. Please, try one of the following commands:
curl --header 'If-Modified-Since: Fri, 30 Apr 2021 10:18:09 GMT' \
  https://kupdf.net/download/netzwerk-a1-kursbuch_59ce3ec508bbc5765a686f41_pdf

or
wget --header 'If-Modified-Since: Fri, 30 Apr 2021 10:18:09 GMT' \
  https://kupdf.net/download/netzwerk-a1-kursbuch_59ce3ec508bbc5765a686f41_pdf

However, I do not believe that the site or "web page" you are trying to access supports the If-Modified-Since request header, because there is a high probability that the "web page" is created and served dynamically.


Stuck for applying permissions with Ubuntu 18.04

Maybe it's this.
No progress bar when copying files on Ubuntu 17.10
There's a circle instead of a progress bar now.  If I click on that, I do get the progress bar.

While copying, I got a permissions box pop up.  Last week the copying eventually errored out.  Today it appears to be moving.  No other changes made to permissions.  I did restart the machine, but I tried that last week too.


Installed and used Ubuntu Successfully, still takes me to black "install ubuntu" screen upon restart

From BIOS change the boot device priority to have you hdd/ssd on top. You might have changed the order for installing ubuntu from the thumb drive and for some reason it might not have switched back when you removed the drive.

After some talking and thinking, I think that you might have selected a wrong partition to install boot loader while installing ubuntu and thus it's not running without the thumb drive.

Boot-Repair is a good package that might help you in this case.

If that does not work you can go here. The page however seems to be down right now, but it has helped me a lot of time and hopefully will be up, after they fix the problem.

After coming to know that the boot partition was installed on the thumb drive (i.e. grub on thumb drive)

Do the following:

Boot up ubuntu however you can.
Open terminal
Run sudo grub-install /dev/sdXY where you replace X with drive letter i.e a, b, ... and Y with partition number i.e. 1, 2,...


USB Flash drives performance is inferior to traditional hard drives. It's just a different technology and not as fast. The illustrious Jeff Atwood has an article explaining this in detail on his Coding Horror site, where he goes into more detail. Lots more detail.


Non-interactively feeding answers to a package's install questions?

Question linked in comment by @user535733 had the answer; I'll try to generalize the procedure here.
First, install the package interactively and feed the values you need;
Second, run this:
root@myhost:~# PACKAGE_NAME=libvpb1
root@myhost:~# debconf-get-selections | grep "^${PACKAGE_NAME}[[:blank:]]"
libvpb1 libvpb1/countrycode     string  55
root@myhost:~#

Next time you have to install the package, just feed the output from that to debconf-get-selections beforehand:
root@myhost:~# echo 'libvpb1 libvpb1/countrycode string 55' | sudo debconf-set-selections -v
root@myhost:~# apt-get -y install libvpb1

In Ubuntu 20.04, debconf-get-selections is in the debconf-utils package.


Can't access windows 7 shared files on Ubuntu 11.10

Its a windows configuration problem. In windows system Turn off password protected sharing.
A tutorial is here


apt-get install stuck at "Unpacking wine..."

I spent a couple of hours on this until I found two previous threads where Sophos AV antivirus interfered with this unpacking without throwing up a warning.  Turning off live scanning, install Wine, then turn live scanning back on.

To turn it OFF: sudo /opt/sophos-av/bin/savconfig set LiveProtection false
To turn it ON : sudo /opt/sophos-av/bin/savconfig set LiveProtection true


How can I run a script before Deja-dup back up starts?

The question is: can I change deja-dup setting to run that script before the back up starts

Nope. deja-dup is made to do 1 thing and do it good: make a backup. It has, intentionally, not got a lot of features.

  or there is another better automated way to do that?

Create a script that does the things you need it to do and let the script itself start deja-dup and then execute your script instead of the deja-dup executable.


What are the different ways I can contribute to the One Hundred Paper Cuts project?

There are a lot of ways to get involved in the One Hundred Paper Cuts project. It's important to note that you do not have to be a programmer to make a significant contribution. There are many roles that need to be filled, and writing code is only a small part of fixing a paper cut.

If you find something below that you find interesting, then join the Paper Cut Ninja team on Launchpad, subscribe to the mailing list, introduce yourself and left us know what you're interested in doing. If you've got any questions at all, we'll be happy to help you out.

Reporter - Reports an issue

Reporting an issue is something everyone can do. If there's something in your favourite app that gets under your skin, then report it (as long as the app is included on the desktop). If you really want to get involved, then pick an app from the desktop and sit down with it for an hour or two and look for paper cuts to report.

Analyst - identifies what's actually wrong

Confirm new bugs - someone needs to come along and see if the backlog of newly reported bugs are actually valid paper cuts. Sit down with the app in question and have a look at what's happening. If the reported did not provide enough information, then request the missing information and mark the report as Incomplete.

Triage confirmed bugs - once a bug has been confirmed to exist, someone has to come along and figure out what's actually wrong. For example, is the problem with the app itself or in the graphical toolkit it's built with, such as Gtk. This will usually involve talking with someone on the Paper Cuts or Desktop teams for advice until you get enough experience to make the decision yourself.

Once the affected package has been identified, then someone can figure out what's actually wrong. If you're not familiar with the codebase of the package itself, then get in contact with the package developer for advice. Once they tell you what's up, you should post that response as a comment on the bug report.

Designer - Decides how it should work

Once a problem has been identified, a fix needs to be designed. This won't be necessary for every paper cut (some of them will only have a single way to be fixed). In the other cases, you should sit down with the app and think about how the fix should work. Once you've come up with an idea, you should get approval for your design before it is implemented.

Developer - implements fix in code

If you know exactly what's going on then you can get stuck right into the code and start fixing the paper cut. How you go about this depends on which app your working on and where that app was originally developed.

If it's a Gnome app, then your best bet would be to pull the source code down from git.gnome.org, work on your patch and export the fix as a .patch file which you can attach to the bug report in Gnome Bugzilla.

Many other project are hosted in Git repositories and track their issues in Bugzilla. If you're even unsure of where to go, then here into #ubuntu-desktop and ask. Someone there will be more than happy to point you in the right direction.

If it's a bug in an Ubuntu package, such as Unity or the Ubuntu Software Centre, then there's a great guide to fixing Ubuntu bugs on the Ubuntu developer website.

Tester - verifies the fix works properly

Once a path has been developed and submitted for approval, someone needs to test it. This could be left to the package developer/maintainer, but they have a lot of other work to do, and everything that can be done to lighten their workload in one area means they can get more done in others. In that regard, if a patch or branch is sitting on a paper cut, either on Launchpad or upstream, then downloading and applying that patch before giving it a test drive will be a great help.

Once you're put it through it's paces, leave a message on the bug report, both upstream and in Ubuntu, detailing your results. In the beginning, the developer or maintainer won't be able to simply take your word that the patch is ready, but if you work on one package a lot and the developer gets to know you, your word will carry more weight and you may even be given upload rights to that packages source archive.

Liaison - ensures fix is acceptable upstream

Liason and Tester can, but don't have to, overlap. Once it has been verified that a patch has solved the problem, it needs to gain approval from the upstream developer of the package. Comments from the upstream bug tracker don't always get posted in Launchpad, so someone has to act as the runner between the two, copying and pasting questions and their answers between the two. Remember, Ubuntu isn't the only distro these apps are appearing in, and the developers can't be expected to keep track of everyone that's using their software, so you have to make sure everyone working on a bug is kept in the loop.

Packager - integrates patch or branch into the distro

Once a patch has been written, it needs to be integrated into the existing app package. This will involve downloading and installing the version of Ubuntu you intend the patch to be released on, download the source for the package, applying the patch, and packaging the result. The Ubuntu Packaging Guide covers how to go about doing this.

Depending on the nature of the patch, you may need to do this up to three times - the current stable release, the current LTS and the current development release are all viable targets for patches.

Updater - handles SRU to get patch into the stable release

This is one that not everyone will be able to do, as it requires upload right to the Ubuntu package archives. Once a patch has been packaged, it may need to be backported to needs to either the current stable release, the current LTS, or both. If you want to earn those upload right, the best way to go about doing it is to package patches and propose them for SRU. Once you've proposed a number that are perfect first time round, you can apply for upload rights.


Bluetooth is paired but greyed out as audio device

I found this elsewhere on ask-ubuntu:

To enable Bluetooth audio device discovery in Pulse Audio we need to make sure we had loaded the bluetooth packages for pulseaudio (pulseaudio-module-bluetooth Install pulseaudio-module-bluetooth should be installed by default).

The module-bluetooth-discover then is responsible to add a bluetooth audio device as sink (or source in HSP/Telephony mode) to the known audio devices.

To load this module we can issue

pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

To always load this module on startup of the pulseaudio sound server we add the following lines to our /etc/pulse/default.pa (or to our custom user-based ~/.pulse/default.pa, or ~/.config/pulse/default.pa resp., if this file exists):

Automatically load driver modules for Bluetooth hardware

.ifexists module-bluetooth-discover.so
load-module module-bluetooth-discover
.endif

And it worked for me!


How to create a system-wide environmental variable?

You can set it in /etc/bash.bashrc

It will be available for all the users in the machine.


Commands or script to clean out media folder of unwanted filetypes

Create a file with the extensions you want to remove, one per line (say, dontwant.files):

.txt
.nfo
.torrent
.csv

Combine find with grep, xargs and rm:

find /path/to/media/directory -type f -print0 |
  grep -zFf /path/to/dontwant.files |
  xargs -0 rm

find with -type f and -print0 will print out the names of all the files it finds separated by the ASCII NUL character - the only one which is perfectly safe for delimiting paths and filenames.
grepwith -z separates lines by the ASCII NUL character, so that each filename output by find is treated as a separate line. -F disables regex matching, and -f reads in patterns from the file.
xargs with -0 reads in lines separated by ASCII NUL characters, and uses them as arguments for the command, in this case rm.

This is easily converted to the the other approach (remove all but some extensions). For example, with a file like want.files, containing:

.mp4
.srt
.avi
.mp3

only the grep command needs changing, using -v to negate matches:

grep -vzFf /path/to/want.files |


I cannot install OR run a live session of Ubuntu Gnome 15.10 either with a USB key or DVD

You could install gnome as a desktop environment within Ubuntu. You don't have to install elementary or gnome as a separate distro.
To install Gnome:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-gnome-desktop

You can find out how to install the pantheon desktop here.
To choose which environment you want to use, click:

(source: howtogeek.com)


You are not escaping the space character:

Type

rm -r ./Pretty\ Good\ Solitaire

Or alternatively type

rm -r ./Pretty

and then  Tab to use the bash autocompletion feature.

Have a look here and here for a better understanding of escaping characters.

You are also not using the correct command, but I guess this was on purpose. Do not forget the -r flag, as otherwise rm does not delete directories. To get a comprehensive list of options:

man rm


Boot-repair did not work. Nor did tinkering with various ways of massaging that corrupted partition. I tried to open my encrypted ~/home folder using my passphrase, which gave some errors about some important part of ecryptfs being missing. I finally reformatted and upgraded to Ubuntu 18 at the same time. When I went to Restore from my Duplicity backup, it refused to acknowledge the existence of my backup files. No surprises there. My experience (mostly with Windows) has been that half of the backup software out there won't complete a full backup. The other half won't complete a restoration. Fortunately, I was able to do the Restore using a different computer with an older version of Ubuntu. I'll be piecing this thing back together over the next few days.

You shouldn't be able to format your active disk out from under yourself so easily.

In the future, I think I'm going to extract my backups from the Duplicity archives and store them as encrypted *.tar files instead. I've never been able to restore from any backup program without getting an ugly surprise. There are just too many creaking wheels that have to turn in just the right way for one to restore from a backup archive. Tar is well-supported and allows you to extract certain pieces of your archive, unlike Duplicity which will only dump all 80GB in one spot and nothing more.