Reliability of Ubuntu repositories across versions?

No you can't be sure. You may always be able to download and backup a specific version of a software to install on further release if its get kicked from the repositories. But I strongly recommend you not to do this. Software updates and upgrades for ubuntu are well tested and should not cause problems. Of course there is no guaranty. If software packages are updated and upgraded, the are for a good reason (security issues, legacy software etc.) and you should install them.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates


How to format and auto-mount the HDD after installing OS to SSD?

To format your HDD you would need the Gparted application.
Open the Gparted application, and select your device (HDD) from the top right corner (it would be labelled as /dev/sdb or /dev/sda). Verify that its correct before proceeding furthur.
There would now be a number of partions displayed which are present on your HDD.
Right click on each , and select Delete.
This would Delete all the partitions.
Click on the accept icon /button in the menu to make the changes permanent.
Now you would have only a single block of unallocated space.
;and you can create your desired partitions.
right click on the unallocated space, click on new.
Just change the type to ext4 instead of ext2, rest all options as is.
This would create your desired ext4 partition. Click on accept button to write the changes to disk.
P.S.will post more later.
How to automount a partition on startup
1.) First you will need to create a mount point, that is, a location/folder where the mounted partition will appear.
For example you want the ext4 partition to appear as the folder Data in your home directory, for that you would have to create the folder using-
sudo mkdir /home/<your user name>/Data

Data is the name of the folder, you could choose any like MyData or LinuxData etc
2.)Now you need to find out the UUID of the partition you want to automount.For that,
In a terminal, type
sudo blkid

This would list all your partitions and their UUIDs. From here you need to copy the UUID of your desired partition (the data partition that you have just now created).Copy it.
3.)Now we need to make changes to /etc/fstab, so that your partition is mounted at startup automatically.
in the terminal type-
sudo gedit /etc/fstab
Inside this file there will be a list of partitions. Now you need to make entry for your desired  partition.
Like this-
UUID=5c563186-c587-4715-b9c1-7044dfa05411   /home/<your user name>/Data     ext4    defaults        0   0

In the same way create the entry as I have created, but remeber to replace my partiton partition UUID with the one that you got using the sudo blkid command, and replace your username with
After this save the file and restart..and after restaring, your partition should now be mounted in your desired Directory!
P.s.
You can choose any other , more convinient mount point like
/media/Data if it suits you. But remember to make the directory Data under the media folder!
A little Useful information-
This is what the options that are being edited in /etc/fstab stand for
<file system>                   <dir>                    <type>      <options>         <dump>      <pass>

example
UUID=5c563186-c587-4715-b9c1-7044dfa05411   /media/Data     ext4    defaults        0   0

so file system is the UUID, dir is the directory where partition is being mounted, type is the type of file system, eg ext4, options are for specifying options like ro (readonly), and dump and pass are for checking the filesystem during startup
Thank You!


-o means "options will follow"

rw mounts read and write

remount, well, remount an already mounted system

this command won't work though as you need to provide more details regarding device filesystem, etc.

check man mount


It looks like its a bug.  See here.

The fix is to install Unity source release 7.2.1, .  The file to be downloaded Unity 7.2.1 "14.04 SRU 1" is also listed on the same Launchpad page.


failed to update ref ./HEAD.lock Permission denied

You should change permissions for Git-repository folder to have full control on it:

sudo chown $USER:$USER -R /home/git/projectname/

and then retry.


13.10 - Can't copy iso file to pen drive

It's not the file name, or even the operating system, it's the size of the file that's the problem. The formatting of the pendrive is probably FAT32 which as per Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_Allocation_Table#FAT32 has a maximum file size of 4 GiB minus 1 byte or 4,294,967,295 (2^32 − 1) bytes. FAT32 is the default filesystem for USB flash drives. You can confirm this from a terminal window with  sudo fdisk -l /dev/sdX (the value of 'X' is probably b, as the USB flash drive probably is the second drive in your system).

Now, if you just want to move the ISO using the flash drive to carry it, you can use http://sourceforge.net/projects/p7zip/ , http://linux.die.net/man/1/7z , or other archival utilities to break the file into two pieces, and then carry it to your destination. If so, just use 'store' mode compression, that is to say, no compression, for the fastest operation.  Or, you could reformat the flash drive for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ext2 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS which have a file size limit of 16 TiB-1, orders of magnitude larger.

But, perhaps you wish to make the flashdrive bootable with that ISO? If so, then use unetbootin (installed with apt-get install -y unetbootin if your system does not have it) to create a bootable flashdrive with the contents of the ISO.


In 16.04 the way to do this is with an 'interface' defined in the snapd code, that is driven by a custom schema in your snap definition. There are a bunch already defined, and it looks like all you need are:

a raw disk interface (iirc someone else wants that too)
a raw ethernet interface

You're unlikely to get a blanket /sys/devices/* landed, but I suspect you actually need specific types of access to specific types of devices, and those can all be designed and landed.

The best place to hash out what you need is in #snappy on freenode IRC, chat with zyga for pointers to code describing existing interfaces. Should be a simple patch to work up.


Can't access main setting Ubuntu 18.04LTS

Install Gnome-control-center from Ubuntu software


Batch convert an entire folder of pdf files to jpg or png using pdftoppm in ubuntu

This will help convert all your pdf files to jpg images. It will preserve the original file names and add page numbers to them as this has to be done page by page.

Instructions:

Open a terminal and cd to the directory containing the files you need to convert, for example if the directory is named pdf_files and located in your home directory run the following command:

cd ~/pdf_files

or

cd /home/your_username/pdf_files
Once inside that directory (you will know when you see the name of the directory appears on the left before the blinking courser), then you can type or copy and paste the following command in the terminal and press enter:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -name '*.pdf' -exec pdftoppm -jpeg {} {} \;

Done, you will find the new converted jpg files in the same directory alongside the old pdf files.

Extra step:

If you wish to separate the converted jpg files from the original pdf files, please run the following command in the terminal after finishing step # 2 above to create a new directory called jpg_files within your current directory and move all jpg files into it:

mkdir jpg_files && mv *.jpg jpg_files/


When does an active Ubuntu version expire?

ubuntu.com has a graph on the current active releases + the lts releases.


keyboard layout switch without doing from DE to EN

Ok, I solved the problem.

You must add the command:

setxkbmap de

in the Autostart of the User.

Adding Autostart in Ubuntu

To open a menue for that in Ubuntu, you must type the command:

gnome-session-properties

And now you can add the command in the list


Persistent mode on USB has different data between computers

If there is a casper-rw file in the root of the FAT partition, remove it.

You may also want to shrink the FAT32 partition if the Casper-rw file is large.

However you may want a larger FAT32 partition if you intend using it to transfer data to a Windows machine.

Edit:

It appears that LiveLinux USB creator placed the casper-rw partition on your hard drive.
You can remove it using Gparted. (You might want to copy its contents to the casper-rw partition on the thumb drive.
You can create a new ext2 partition on the thumb drive and label it "casper-rw" using Gparted. Sometimes a Live install does not like it's partition size changed so a fresh install might be better.
This should fix things.


How can I be sure "apt-get install" successfully finished its work?

No problems here!

The moonshadows@moonshadows-A740GM-M:~$ part is where you can enter your commands, so whenever it comes up, you know the previous process has finished.

So you can safely exit the terminal and playonlinux will work fine.


TCP communication with robotic arm -Destination Host Unreachable-

Because 169.254.x.x is not a valid IP range per se. Means windows box tried to get an IP via DHCP failes and just picked a random one from that range. Assign a correct ip in the same subnet as 192.168.2.4 and you should be good


CPU Usage on Asus 1015BX using VAAPI (Lubuntu 12.10)

With a 1.0 GHz processor that's a brilliant result I would say for a regular bitrate 1080p movie.

Keep in mind that only video decoding is offloaded. Other stuff like sound, demuxing the container (e.g. MKV), I/O operations, etc. are still CPU-bound.


compiz screen lock can be bypassed by `metacity --replace`, how to protect against it?

Basically, if someone has access to the user's terminal, there is no level of security.

For example, a user could use htop to kill xscreensaver.

Also, if a user gains access to the terminal, they should need a password.

The fix is to use a strong password and sign out of tty whenever you are done.


It means that the hook script which handles the shared-db relation exited with an error.

Note that from version 2.0, Juju will automatically retry the hooks periodically.

You will find details about hook errors and how to debug them here:

https://jujucharms.com/docs/2.0/developer-debugging


How to use graphics card only for deep learning and not display?

NVIDIA has a suggestion for this question.

Their recommendation is to use two GPUs: one for X, and one for computation.  They also suggest disabling X, limiting the CUDA kernel to short execution times, and turning off interactive mode in the NVIDIA driver.

You don't say that you're using an NVIDIA graphics card, but some of these suggestions may work for any graphics card.

If your motherboard has onboard graphics in addition to a discrete graphics card, you may be able to configure the BIOS to use the onboard graphics for your display.


pyplot.show() not working on pycharm on ubuntu

The following code works in PyCharm. Pillow is packaged python3-pil and matplotlib is packaged as python3-matplotlib in Ubuntu. The image is displayed in a new window. I copied my image named image.png into my PyCharm project's venv folder so that PyCharm would find it automatically.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from PIL import Image

fname = 'image.png'
plt.imshow(Image.open(fname))
plt.show()

Note: PyCharm does not automatically find your globally installed Python packages unless the project has been configured to find them. To do this select the Inherit global-site packages option when you create a new project.
Select File -> New Project to create a new project. Click the triangle marked by the mouse cursor in the below screenshot to show the new project's options.

Then check the Inherit global-site packages checkbox and click the  Create  button in the lower right corner of the Create Project window.


Why does GDM run on TTY1 and gnome-shell on TTY2?

I found an explanation on Gnome's Bugzilla, see below. Hopefully they will address the increased memory consumption by tearing down the greeter after user login.

GDM's behavior was changed in 3.16 so that instead of running one X server on the login screen which is then transformed into the user's session, we now start a new X session from within the user's session, which means that we need to start the user's session on another TTY/VT.
Note that when using fast user switching, you effectively got this behavior as well, with each user on a different TTY/VT. We just extended it to the first user to log in as well.


Ubuntu 14.04 freezes after login, usb keybord/mouse disabled. computer has NvidiaGeforce graphics, Amd athalon II

I think that this is an incompatibility with your computer try to find if your computer is ubuntu certified. You may report a bug and Could you tell me if it works from a live CD?
Also I found an article in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide and it says "Wubi uses a virtual disk that is sensitive to forced shutdowns. If Ubuntu appears to be frozen please refer to: How to reboot cleanly even when the keyboard/mouse are frozen". Even if you did not use wubi please look at this page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide#How_to_reboot_cleanly_even_when_the_keyboard.2BAC8-mouse_are_frozen


Click on the Printer icon in System settings. Highlight the printer. Right click to scroll to View Print Queue. Highlight the print job you want to delete. press delete.


Can't boot windows after both windows and linux were working together (Get Repair Windows Option)

This problem appears to be a windows problem but only when I have a particular external hard drive attached.  It is a USB3 drive formatted with EXT3 that I used to transport files.

I reformatted the drive and all seems to work well now.


Bash aliases should go in the .bash_aliases or .bashrc files in individual home directories. If you must create global bash aliases, they can go in /etc/bash.bashrc, but it is often best simply to add them to the .bash_aliases or .bashrc files in /etc/skel so they are inherited by newly created users.
It is virtually always wrong to define an alias in in .profile, .bash_profile, or /etc/profile.
To understand why, one must understand under what circumstances commands from each of these files are run. There are misconceptions about this, which I address below.
Even though you want to define aliases for multiple users, you should be familiar with how they are defined for individual users, so that you can decide on the best method of doing what you need.
Aliases for Individual Users
Especially if you use a GUI, most of your interactive shells are probably non-login shells. Even if you never use a GUI, you probably still use non-login shells with some frequency. You'll want your aliases to work in these shells.
Especially if you ever log in non-graphically in a virtual console or via SSH, you probably use login shells some of the time. So you'll want your aliases to work in interactive login shells also.
When an interactive, non-login shell starts, it sources .bashrc in the user's home directory. By default in Ubuntu, each user's .bashrc itself sources .bash_aliases, if it exists.

To source a file is to cause its contents to be run in the current shell. Changes to the shell environment made in a file that is sourced persist even after all the commands in the file have been run.

Reading the comments in Ubuntu's default .bashrc reveals that it is officially intended that aliases go in .bashrc or .bash_aliases. .bashrc already contains some alias definitions (run grep '^[[:blank:]]*alias' ~/.bashrc to see them), and gives explicit advice about where to put new such definitions:
# Alias definitions.
# You may want to put all your additions into a separate file like
# ~/.bash_aliases, instead of adding them here directly.
# See /usr/share/doc/bash-doc/examples in the bash-doc package.

if [ -f ~/.bash_aliases ]; then
    . ~/.bash_aliases
fi

But what about interactive login shells? Instead of .bashrc, login shells source .profile.

...Unless .bash_login exists, then it gets sourced instead.
...Unless .bash_profile exists, then it gets sourced instead.

However, the good news is that by default in Ubuntu, commands in .bashrc will also run in interactive login shells because the default .profile checks if the current shell is bash (and if .bashrc exists), and if so, sources .bashrc:
# if running bash
if [ -n "$BASH_VERSION" ]; then
    # include .bashrc if it exists
    if [ -f "$HOME/.bashrc" ]; then
        . "$HOME/.bashrc"
    fi
fi

I suggest users define new bash aliases in .bash_aliases in their home directories (creating it if it doesn't already exist). This is a particularly clean and simple way to make alias definitions permanent at the per-user level.
Aliases should not be defined in .profile because they would remain undefined in non-login shells. Unlike much of a bash shell's environment, aliases are not exported to child shells:
ek@Io:~$ alias hi='echo "Greetings, $USER!"'
ek@Io:~$ hi
Greetings, ek!
ek@Io:~$ bash
ek@Io:~$ hi
hi: command not found

In particular, by default most desktop environments cause .profile to be sourced on graphical login, but:

This is not necessarily done by a bash shell, so alias definitions may not even be processed, and more importantly
even if alias definitions are processed, they are not passed on to child processes. Particularly, they are not passed on to shells created by opening a Terminal window!

Aliases should not be defined in .bash_profile (or .bash_login) for the very same reason, but also for another reason. Naively creating one of these files and putting just alias definitions in it prevents any of the code in .profile from running!
In situations where .bash_profile or .bash_login really is useful, typically one sources .profile somewhere in them, which solves that problem. (Then the only remaining problem is that, like with .profile, defining aliases in .bash_profile or .bash_login doesn't work right.)
Aliases for New Individual Users, Automatically
When a user account of the type intended to represent a real human being is created, a new directory is typically made to serve as their home directory. The contents of /etc/skel are then copied to their home directory. This is how multiple users start out with some similar configuration files in their home directories. In Ubuntu, this includes .profile, .bashrc, and some other files.
To change what aliases are defined for new users, you can simply put them in /etc/skel/.bash_aliases (you will have to create it) or /etc/skel/.bashrc.
If you edit an already-existing file in /etc/skel you may want to back it up first--but you shouldn't put the backup in /etc/skel, or it, too, will be copied into new users' home directories.
This is likely the best way for you to add new aliases for multiple users. Existing users can simply add the aliases themselves. If you define the aliases in /etc/skel/.bash_aliases, you can simply direct them to that file, which they may choose to copy into their home directories (or add into their own custom .bash_aliases file).
It's trivial for a user to undefine an alias. Additionally, aliases are not extremely robust; they work only in particular circumstances. If you need to create a new command that works all the time, for everyone, you should not implement that command as an alias. And you cannot successfully force aliases on users who don't want them--they can simply unalias them.
Global Aliases, for All Users
Though I advise you to avoid this approach, you can define aliases in the the global /etc/bash.bashrc file. They will then be defined both for interactive non-login shells and for interactive login shells. The reason is, before any of the files in the user's home directory are sourced:

Login shells (and only login shells and other processes behaving like login shells) run commands from /etc/profile automatically.
Only non-login shells run commands in /etc/bash.bashrc automatically, but
Ubuntu's default /etc/profile checks if the running shell is bash (and if /etc/bash.bashrc exists) and, if so, sources /etc/bash.bashrc.

This is analogous to how the default per-user .profile sources the per-user .bashrc if the shell is bash (as detailed above).
Here's what the actual code for this looks like in the default /etc/profile:
if [ "$PS1" ]; then
  if [ "$BASH" ] && [ "$BASH" != "/bin/sh" ]; then
    # The file bash.bashrc already sets the default PS1.
    # PS1='\h:\w\$ '
    if [ -f /etc/bash.bashrc ]; then
      . /etc/bash.bashrc
    fi
  else
    if [ "`id -u`" -eq 0 ]; then
      PS1='# '
    else
      PS1='$ '
    fi
  fi
fi

That block also performs other tasks. Specifically, the outer if checks if the shell is likely to be interactive (by checking that the prompt text is non-empty), then checks if the current shell is bash and sources /etc/bash.bashrc if it is, and if not does some work that, for bash, is already done in /etc/bash.bashrc.
You should not define global aliases in /etc/profile for the same reason users should not define them in their local .profiles: if you do, they will be defined only for login shells, and not for their child shells.
Finally, note that, unlike the default per-user .bashrc, the default /etc/bash.bashrc file does not contain anything about aliases. It is somewhat unusual to give users aliases in a file where they cannot edit or disable them. (Of course, they still can do that, by overriding their definitions in their own local .bashrc, .bash_aliases, or elsewhere.)
Further Reading

Why is /etc/profile not invoked for non-login shells?
How to create a permanent “alias”?
How do I create a permanent Bash alias?
Why must I do . .bash_profile every time I create a new alias?


ubuntu vm: name resolution working, no internet connection

Not really an answer (can't comment - must have 50 rep) but did you configure the gateway to forward traffic (other than ICMP) from the VM ?


I am currently using this, it requires a lightdm restart though. Execute it from a different tty console, not within the lightdm session itself.

(CTRL+ALT+F# for a console, F7 is normally the xsession)

#!/bin/bash

read -n3 -rsp "Restart lightdm to unbind the GPU? [yes] " res
test "$res" != 'yes' && exit 1
echo

sudo service lightdm stop
sudo echo "1002 683d" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/new_id
sudo echo "1002 aab0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/new_id
sudo echo "0000:01:00.0" > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.0/driver/unbind
sudo echo "0000:01:00.1" > /sys/bus/pci/devices/0000:01:00.1/driver/unbind
sudo echo "0000:01:00.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/bind
sudo echo "0000:01:00.1" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/bind
sudo echo "1002 683d" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/remove_id
sudo echo "1002 aab0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/remove_id
sudo service lightdm start

echo "Rebind Audio"
sudo modprobe pci_stub
sudo echo "8086 8ca0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/new_id
sudo echo "0000:00:1b.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/snd_hda_intel/unbind
sudo echo "0000:00:1b.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/bind
sudo echo "8086 8ca0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/remove_id

# Check if VM drive is mounted
if ! grep -qs '/media/ljosalfur/VM' /proc/mounts; then
echo "Attempting to mount VM drive. I don't know how though."
#sudo mkdir /media/ljosalfur/VM
#sudo mount /dev/disk/by-id/0BD253F0-EF7F-6F40-BDD8-FABF85161762 /media/ljosalfur/VM
fi

sudo kvm -monitor stdio -vnc :0 \
-m 6G -mem-path /dev/hugepages \
-drive if=pflash,format=raw,file=./OVMF.fd -rtc base=localtime \
-cpu host -smp 6,sockets=1,cores=6,threads=1 \
-device vfio-pci,host=01:00.0,multifunction=on,x-vga=on \
-device vfio-pci,host=01:00.1 \
-device pci-assign,host=00:1b.0 \
-drive file=/media/ljosalfur/VM/vm7.img,format=raw,cache=writethrough \
-smb /media/ljosalfur \
-usb -usbdevice host:046d:c24a -show-cursor \
-usb -usbdevice host:1b1c:1b08

echo
echo "Re-Rebind Audio"
sudo echo "0000:00:1b.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/pci-stub/unbind
sudo echo "0000:00:1b.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/snd_hda_intel/bind

echo "Unbind GPU from vfio-pci"
sudo echo "0000:01:00.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/unbind
sudo echo "0000:01:00.1" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/unbind

read -n3 -rsp "Restart lightdm to rebind the GPU? [yes] " ress
test "$ress" != 'yes' && (exit 1)
echo
sudo echo "0000:01:00.0" > /sys/bus/pci/drivers/radeon/bind

I am looking for a workaround as restarting lightdm is not favourable, I think I will open a new question with different tags for this.


How-to stop computer locking when lid closes?


Is there anyway for me to remove mysql and just reinstall it?

Yes there is:

sudo apt remove mysql-server

or

sudo apt purge mysql-server

The latter will ensure that all packages related to the installation are removed including configuration files.

Then to reinstall:

sudo apt install mysql-server

To set mysql root password run sudo mysql_secure_installation command.


Does Evince (Document Viewer) have a plug-in system?

In principle evince can be controlled through its dbus api. An example of its application is the SyncTeX plugin for gedit, which allows easier editing and browsing of latex source files in combination with evince. On the other hand, the dbus api itself has been found to change sensibly from gnome 2 to 3 and it's somewhat hidden so you'll have to dig into the evince source to find the exposed methods.

Concerning annotations: as of version 2.31 evince supports adding (but not deleting) annotations. This feature is currently broken in evince 3.2 (the version shipped with Ubuntu 12.04) due to a regression but a fix has been released upstream.


It's 2018. Does Linux in general (any distro) have a good file copying utility

Ultracopier works with Ubuntu 18.04:

If you have a problem installing or operating it you can contact the developer directly at: ultracopier@first-world.info


I've got Internal Error whilst running a Ubuntu Beta. How to gather information and find out what it is?

Bug reporting is something Ubuntu is seriously good at. When you see that dialog, Ubuntu has already collected all the relevant information for you, so all you need to do, is to click "Show Details".

You'll first see a dialog like this:

Or like this:

Then clicking 'Show Details' will display more details.

That will collect data from all the relevant files and if you click "Continue" while the checkbox is checked, you'll automatically upload it to Launchpad.net, which will scan for similar reports, allow you to add to an existing report or to create a new one.

Particularly during development, you might be told that you can't report bugs because you have software that is out of date.


I uninstalled xorg and can't use Ubuntu Desktop without wayland

I couldn't find what I did, but this helped me at a later date, when I did something similar.
I followed the instructions from https://serverfault.com/a/703266, but I've posted them here:

I ran
awk '!/^Start|^Commandl|^End|^Upgrade:|^Error:/ { gsub( /\([^()]*\)/ ,"" );gsub(/ ,/," ");sub(/^Install:/,""); print}' /var/log/apt/history.log. This command gets the latest remove, then removes any nonsense.
Run apt install [The output] of the above command.


VLC does not show any text at all, not only subtitles

Using another thread about VLC subtitles (Ubuntu VLC subtitles blurry) I was able to solve myself the problem:

One has to go under Tools > Preferences > Video and and change the output field from Default to x11 video output (XCB).


Update, it works. I retried connecting my laptop to the TV after verifying everything with a second laptop running Windows 7. This time in nvidia-settings a second monitor appeared and I could extend my desktop to the TV. But sound does not work. There is a HDMI audio device in the mixer, but I can't get sound via the TV (worked in my test with the other laptop, so connection-wise it is OK).

Update: I have a HDMI device in system-settings->multimedia->phonon. And when I click the test button the TV actually plays something which sounds like the test-melody with a lot of noise. Standard application sound is only audible on laptop speakers. Any ideas on how to fix this?

Update2:
Video: Seems the TV has to be set to the input connected to the laptop. Then nvidia-settings detects the external screen and twinview can be configured.
Audio: No full solution yet, but for me following commandline worked to get audio and video via the TV set:

mplayer -ao alsa:noblock:device=hw=1.7 <videoFile>

Had to experiment with the 1.7 argument a little. First 1.3 worked, after suspending the machine and waking up again 1.7 did. (found the command here: http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/DisplayPort)


UEFI hardware and dual booting with windows

Unfortunately, you'll get a lot of completely unhelpful information on the Internet about this, since the boot process on UEFI-based systems is completely different from the boot process on older BIOS-based hardware. Completely describing the relevant differences in one post here is impossible, so for full information, I recommend you check out the Wikipedia page on UEFI and my Web page on EFI boot loaders for Linux. (Note that "UEFI" refers to the next generation of EFI; essentially EFI 2.x. For the most part, the two terms are interchangeable, although "UEFI" is more specific and refers to a newer version of the technology.)

To get you started, though, you should first verify that you are booting Windows in EFI mode. This can be done in a number of ways, such as typing "bcdedit" in an Administrative Command Prompt window. The result should include a reference to winload.efi in the "path" line of the "Windows Boot Loader" section. If instead this line refers to winload.exe, then the system is booted in BIOS mode, and you need to follow more conventional BIOS advice for this.

Assuming you're booted in EFI mode, my first advice is to forget about installing Ubuntu 11.10 or earlier. These versions include bugs in the installation process that make it much harder to set up a dual-boot with any other OS. Ubuntu 12.04 fixes the worst of these bugs. In 12.04 booted in EFI mode, the installer should detect the EFI System Partition (ESP; a partition that holds boot loaders) created by Windows and add its own boot loader to that partition.

One possible complication is that Ubuntu might not boot in EFI mode, even if Windows is installed in that mode. You can check this detail by looking for the directory /sys/firmware/efi. (You may need to use the "try before installing" option to check for this file, then launch the installer.) If This file is present, you're definitely booted in EFI mode. If not, you're probably booted in BIOS mode, although that's not 100% certain. If you find you're booting in BIOS mode, you should either correct that problem or go ahead and install in BIOS mode and switch your boot mode afterward. Either of those options is worth a whole new question here, so I won't go into them.

Ideally, if Ubuntu 12.04 installs correctly, it'll detect Windows and make GRUB 2 the default boot loader, so the system will work as expected, offering you a boot menu when you boot. Sometimes, though, you'll need to add Windows to the GRUB configuration, which you can do by creating an entry like this in /etc/grub.d/40_custom and then re-running "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg":

menuentry "Windows 7" {
        set root='(hd0,gpt1)'
        chainloader /EFI/microsoft/BOOT/bootmgfw.efi
}

Other times the system may continue to boot straight into Windows. This can usually be corrected by deleting EFI/boot/bootx64.efi from the ESP, or perhaps replacing it with a copy of the GRUB 2 boot loader file (probably EFI/ubuntu/grub_x64.efi, IIRC). Unfortunately, this problem is caused by bugs in specific EFI implementations, so the workaround can be highly system-specific.

Your symptom of a black screen with a blinking cursor suggests a serious GRUB misconfiguration, or perhaps a completely missing GRUB installation. I'm going to duck this question by saying that with any luck it will be fixed by Ubuntu 12.04. If not, I recommend installing ELILO or Fedora's patched GRUB Legacy to replace GRUB 2, since in my experience GRUB 2 is the least reliable of the available Linux EFI boot loaders. (See the EFI boot loaders page I referenced in the first paragraph of this reply for details.)


Why am I getting gdm and a bunch of packages in the list of apt-get autoremove?

the command apt-cache showpkg <package> will tell you the packages "reverse depends" i.e. what other packages - in your configured repositories (not necessarily installed packages) -  depend on that package.
In the case of gdm there are alot, so I wrote this script to iterate through all of the reverse dependencies to check if any were installed - which would indicate that you probably shouldnt remove gdm.

#!/bin/bash

package=$1

apt-cache showpkg $package | sed '1,/Reverse Depends:/d;/Dependencies:/,$d'  > /tmp/dependencies.txt

while read line
do
    reverse_dependency=$(awk -F '[:,]' '{print $1}' <<< $line)
    if dpkg -s $reverse_dependency &> /dev/null
    then
        echo "$line is installed and depends on $package"
    fi
done < /tmp/dependencies.txt

If you invoke the script you need to pass the package as a parameter i.e.

./script "gdm"

On my machine the result was

$ ./script.sh gdm
plymouth:i386,gdm 3.0.4-0ubuntu11 is installed and depends on gdm
plymouth,gdm 3.0.4-0ubuntu11 is installed and depends on gdm
plymouth:i386,gdm 3.0.4-0ubuntu11 is installed and depends on gdm
plymouth,gdm 3.0.4-0ubuntu11 is installed and depends on gdm


Cannot ping/ssh computers in LAN (including gateway) but can still access the internet

This will be easier to resolve if you have only one interface up.

Try shutting down eth1 and then show the output of both: ip addr ls and ip route show (again).


how can I find files matching multiple extensions from current directory with a single command?

You can combine tests in find using -o (OR)

find path/to/somedir \( -name '*.doc' -o -name '*.txt' \)

See man find, in particular


Does synaptic only install required packages?

In Synaptic, click on Settings and then on Preferences. You may want to untick Consider recommended packages as dependencies if you're concerned about installing stuff that isn't essential. I've left that option ticked.


Everything works now. When I installed ubuntu on virtual box, I set the language settings as English UK (old international ...), I changed it to English US. The problem was not with php or lamp at all. It was with the language settings.
Kian William Nowrouzian


How to stop automatic brightness change while on battery?

First, install dconf-tools with sudo apt-get install dconf-tools, then run dconf-editor to launch it.

Navigate to org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.power, and modify according to your needs, the relevant keys, namely:

brightness-ac
brightness-dim-battery
idle-brightness
idle-dim-ac
idle-dim-battery
idle-dim-time


snap starts plexmediaserver service as root

It seems like it's normal behavior for snap at the moment. Here are further details to this topic:
here and here


Bluetooth speaker sound distorted (ubuntu 18.04)

Ok, I finally got through this. :)
Simply: the sound is distorted only while the Bluetooth settings window is open and scanning for devices. Closing the windows clears the sound.


Dont know about a GUI program but, there is a powerfull CLI tool : fdupes

  Searches  the given path for duplicate files. Such files are found by
  comparing file sizes and MD5 signatures, followed by a byte-by-byte
  comparison.

Source code on GitHUB
Ubuntu ManPage

Install

sudo apt install fdupes

Usage

# List dupes in an entire directory
# -r : recursive
fdupes -r /path/to/adir

# List and delete dupes in a dir
# -r : recursive
# -d : preserve first file, delete other dupes
fdupes -rd /path/to/adir


How to install GNU Make 4.0 on Ubuntu 12.04

For folks like you I have just put a 64-bit amd deb of remake for Ubuntu 12.04. remake is GNU Make with some extensions. The specific version I used was 4.1.


How can I use the dictionary application in my language?

I found a similar question https://answers.launchpad.net/gnome-utils/+question/706.
Unfortunately, I don't see a Portuguese DICT server on the list.


Windows "disappeared" after Ubuntu istalled and system setup reset

It looks like the BIOS is skipping the whole SSD while booting up, this is very common and it happened to me as well. You just have to go to the BIOS and change the boot hierarchy, put the SSD before the HDD and you should be good to go.

Anyway I'd recommend, based on my experience, using the grub boot manager. I could easily boot directly into Windows by putting the SSD right before the HDD, however is very easy for me booting from the HDD, because it will prompt me the grub menu, as it has detected another system, then select which one to use. By using two separate disks you don't have the risk of Windows messing the grub with its updates.


Enable iBus

From Menu, System -> Administration -> Language Support
Under "Keyboard input method system" choose ibus

Create a new input method file for transliteration

gksudo gedit /usr/share/m17n/sa-translit.mim

The following is the complete content of the file which can be easily copied and pasted and changed according to your taste. Save it, before closing the file:

;;; sa-translit.mim
;;;
;;; Input method for Sanskrit transliteration using the ITRANS scheme.

(input-method t sa-translit)

(title "sa-translit")

(map
(trans

("aa" "ā")
("AA" "Ā")
("ii" "ī")
("II" "Ī")
("uu" "ū")
("UU" "Ū")
(".r" "ṛ")
(".R" "Ṛ")
(".rr" "ṝ")
(".RR" "Ṝ")
(".l" "ḷ")
(".L" "Ḷ")
(".ll" "ḹ")
(".LL" "Ḹ")
(".M" "ṁ")
(".m" "ṃ")
(".h" "ḥ")
(".H" "Ḥ")
(";n" "ṅ")
(";N" "Ṅ")
("~n" "ñ")
("~N" "Ñ")
(".t" "ṭ")
(".T" "Ṭ")
(".d" "ḍ")
(".D" "Ḍ")
(".n" "ṇ")
(".N" "Ṇ")
(";s" "ś")
(";S" "Ś")
(".s" "ṣ")
(".S" "Ṣ")
))

(state
(init
(trans)))

Add Sa-translit to IBus

From menu, System -> Preferences -> IBus Preferences -> add input method: under the "Other" category, choose "sa-translit".
Typing Pali

If you want to type in Pali switch to "sa-translit" (keyboard sign) and use the following key combinations:

ITRANS Method

aa = ā
AA = Ā
ii = ī
II = Ī
uu = ū
UU = Ū
.r = ṛ
.R = Ṛ
.rr = ṝ
.RR = Ṝ
.l = ḷ
.L = Ḷ
.ll = ḹ
.LL = Ḹ
.M = ṁ
.m = ṃ
.h = ḥ
.H = Ḥ
;n = ṅ
;N = Ṅ
~n = ñ
~N = Ñ
.t = ṭ
.T = Ṭ
.d = ḍ
.D = Ḍ
.n = ṇ
.N = Ṇ
;s = ś
;S = Ś
.s = ṣ
.S = Ṣ


SMART data no longer available for my external HDD in disks utility

It's never good news if a hard-disk suddenly starts not reporting on SMART data.

Therefore, please check if your drive have SMART capabilities:

sudo hdparm -I /dev/XdY

(where X=h or s and Y=a, b, c, ... depending on your hardware) and enable it:

sudo smartctl --smart=on /dev/sdb

and install the command-line version of the SMART monitoring:

apt-get install smartmontools

Then perform the command:

smartctl --scan

which should give you the drives you have on the system.  Then perform a more in-depth scan on the troubled drive by typing:

smartctl --all /dev/XdY

If the test above doesn't give any conclusive results, run an even more in-depth testing by:

smartctl --all /dev/XdY --test=short

For more information: man smartctl

In your case, with serious errors, please make a back-up first and then go out and buy a new drive!


Kubuntu 16.04 GUI not working, goes straight to terminal login

While you're on terminal after boot, install sddm.

sudo apt-get install sddm

This will install the required display manager for KDE and you'll be presented with graphical login after reboot.


If you examine the package details for that PPA you'll notice that both the i386 & amd64 builds of the vlc package failed.

It does not look like the author of the PPA has pushed for the new version of vlc to be rebuilt.

My suggestion is to follow my answer here to upgrade your version of VLC to 1.1.10.

Note, first untick the ferrnroberto ppa from Software Sources and do a Reload before adding the new PPA.


You've missed out a step - so enter your above commands as well as (note that you don't need to use sudo for the cvt command):

xrandr --output Virtual1 --mode 1920x1080_60.00

You will now have a resolution applied, but it won't be selectable from the Display window and is only temporary. To make the resolution visible in the Display window, follow this answer.

If you choose not to do that, then you make the resolution permanent but not visible in Display:

Create a bash script, xrandr.sh for example, and place your xrandr commands into it: #!/bin/bash
sudo xrandr --newmode "1920x1080_60.00" 173.00 1920 2048 2248 2576 1080 1083 1088 1120 -hsync +vsync
sudo xrandr --addmode Virtual1 1920x1080_60.00
xrandr --output Virtual1 --mode 1920x1080_60.00
Make the script executable with chmod +x xrandr.sh
Search for "Startup Applications" in the dash, run it, and add the script as a startup application.

The commands will now run every time you log into your account.

OR you can go the easy way and use a program that does the above for you -  ResolutionX.


I had the same issue, ended up fixing it with a

sudo apt remove python3-click-package
sudo apt install python3-click-package


Live Wallpaper

The Live Wallpaper app was featured on OMG! Ubuntu.

A number of live wallpapers come with the software, including:

Circles

Galaxy

Nexus

Noise

Photoslide

(Obviously, these look really cool when they're actually moving.)

Additional live wallpapers can be added as plugins written in C.


Accessed: the last time the file was read.
Modified: the last time the file's content was modified.

Since you haven't modified the file yourself after downloading, the "modified' time should be the time when the download finished.


The package clang does not install a manual page. You may want to install clang-3.8-doc which installs documentation in HTML format in /usr/share/doc/clang-3.8-doc/html/; point your browser to /usr/share/doc/clang-3.8-doc/html/index.html.


How to set Level3_Shift to Caps Lock AND Compose to Caps Lock+Ctrl in XFCE?

Map the third level shift to <CAPS> (caps lock) and use the third level of left control as the compose key (Multi_key):

setxkbmap -option compose:lctrl-altgr \
    -option lv3:caps_switch \
    -layout "us(intl)"

For the numlock key you can make a symbols file as a wrapper for whatever layout you are using (I am going to use us(intl)).  Make a symbols file named custom :

xkb_symbols "basic" {

    // The layout that you want to use.
    include "us(intl)"

    key <NMLK> { [
        Caps_Lock, Num_Lock, Caps_Lock, Num_Lock
    ] };

};

Save the custom file in a directory tree which mirrors the structure of /usr/share/X11/xkb.  So if your directory is stored at /home/<user>/my-xkb/, the custom file should be at /home/<user>/my-xkb/symbols/custom.

(See here for general instructions on how to make and use custom Xkb files.)

Instead of just using setxkbmap you’re going to have to use the -print option in order to pipe the output to xkbcomp.  xkbcomp has the -I option which you’ll use to give the path to your custom Xkb directory tree.

setxkbmap -option compose:lctrl-altgr \
    -option lv3:caps_switch \
    -layout "custom" \
    -print |
        xkbcomp -I"/home/<user>/my-xkb" \
            - "$DISPLAY"


Linksys WUSB 6300 Wireless Adapter Keeps Disconnecting on Ubuntu 16.04

The following worked for me on Ubuntu 16.04:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential git

git clone https://github.com/zebulon2/rtl8812AU-driver-5.2.9

sudo dpkg -i gord-rtl8812au-dkms_1.0-13_amd64.deb

Or install with gdebi package installer


There's no specific Ubuntu man page for qbittorrent, but I did find the home page, FAQ, wiki, and support forum.

The latter showed an option to Run an external program on torrent completion which would allow you to summon 7z or some other extraction app; 7z does just about all formats including ZIP and RAR, so that's my suggestion to use.  To install it, run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt install p7zip-full .

In Qbittorrent, choose Options then Download and check the tickbox for Run an external program on torrent completion, then give it an external CLI command line to extract the file, such as:  7z x *


Phpmyadmin access denied every time ubuntu restarts

I think this is due to a recent change in MySql for Ubuntu, MySql wont allow root user to login via apache/phpmyadmin/any web interface.

Try login to Mysql in ubuntu terminal and create a new user with root privileges and configuring phpmyadmin to use that user will solve the issue.

Type this in our terminal

$ sudo mysql -u root -p

proceed with your password.

I strongly recommend you to use LAMP stack instead of packaged XAMPP,  (Installing and configuring PHP, Apache2 individually) because XAMPP might not be as handy as it in Windows.


How to install old version of XBMC on 14.04?

XBMC 12.3 is available in Ubuntu's 14.04 official repositories. Just open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T), then run:

sudo apt-get install xbmc

If you added XBMC PPA, you have to remove it before installing. Install ppa-purge:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

Then purge XBMC PPA:

sudo ppa-purge ppa:team-xbmc/ppa


On Ubunutu 19.04:

Open Settings.
Click on Region & Language.
Under Input Sources, click the + symbol.
The dialog "Add an Input Source" will appear.  Click the "..." at the end of the list.
Scroll down to the end of the list, and click Other.  Wait a few moments for the list of other input sources to appear.
In the search box, type 'other'.  You will see "Other (LaTeX).


does not have a release file indicate the repository has no support for your Ubuntu release, in this case it's Ubuntu Eoan → 19.10.

You have added deprecated/outdated repository, the developer has put up an announcement regarding this issue on the WineHQ mailing list https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-devel/2017-March/117104.html.

You have to follow the new guide for installing Wine, luckily the Wine team has made this easy by posting a complete guide on their site— which you can uses with your 19.10.

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
wget -nc -qO- https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/winehq.key | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-add-repository 'deb https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/ eoan main'

Then install the packages.

sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-staging

According to https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/ubuntu/dists/eoan/main/binary-amd64/, the only available version is: staging and devel

UPDATE

The new repo works fine, it's just you haven't removed old obsolete repo which you added before.

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:wine/wine-builds
sudo apt update

Now there should not be any error.


Undo your changes using

sudo update-alternatives --remove  python /usr/bin/python3
sudo ln -s python2 /usr/bin/python

See Why isn't python 3 the default python binary? for why you shouldn't change /usr/bin/python


Using two ethernet connections (Internet enabled) simultaneously

Since the explanation for a solution for this is very long I will point to the sites that have some pretty extensive knowledge about it and are working on projects that can help with this:

Network Load Balancing - http://lnlb.sourceforge.net/
IPTables with Multiple Connections - http://linux-ip.net/html/adv-multi-internet.html

Firewall Managers like Shorewall are known to help in scenarios like this although they need a bit of setting them up for this.

In most cases as you have searched over the internet you noticed one of two things:

Network Load Balancing is easier to achieve than bonding. you are not aggregating the internet connection, only using each one separately.
Bonding is easier to achieve with hardware made for that, like special switches or routers.

In this last case, the best I have seen (not tested) is this: http://www.internetloadbalancers.com/ which offers hardware that can solve your problems and make it zero conf.

If the links provided and solutions using iptables and firewalls do not work, you can always count on a hardware device that does it easier.


I found a partial solution - creating a hibernation keyboard shortcut working in GDM.
First I ran the following commands to enable login for gdm user:

chsh -s /bin/bash gdm
passwd gdm

followed by the password. The I logged in as gdm user and adjusted the keyboard shortcuts for gdm user. I would still like to get it to the menu as well but at least a partial workaround for the moment.


Thanks for the replies,
David the "and other" should have read "others" as I tried some older updates files
As it happens I tried installing "Ubuntu Studio", and this has worked out perfectly, so everything is now sorted....
Thanks again...


Ubuntu isn't starting after unexpected shutdown

If you can still access your PC's Boot Menu you could try loading Ubuntu onto a USB and running it off there (Check my answer here if you don't know how to do it) if you're fortunate that could work, otherwise could you please go into further detail:

Firstly does you PC load to the boot screen when you turn it on? (if your hardware was damaged during the power cut as it,you're probably going to have to send it back to the manufacturer)
Do you have access to the grub screen if you're dual booting?
If you are dual booting can you still access your files from another OS?
Does anything come up when you try running the live CD? Or no response at all?

Edit: I stumbled accross a fix for people who tried launching Ubuntu and ended up with a black screen, not sure if your issue is similar but this might be worth a shot if your graphics drivers had a bug because of the power-cut: Potential fix


Why can't I install Phusion Passenger for nginx?

From Passenger installation with nginx fails in Stack Overflow:

  The correct way of running the Phusion Passenger installer for nginx,
  when using RVM, is to use rvmsudo as in:

rvmsudo passenger-install-nginx-module

  Credits go to this blog post.


Skype stops sending and receiving chat messages after 10+ mins into the chat/login

I have this problem on 11.04 and 11.10.

As far as I can see, what happens is that PulseAudio dies, and then the next time Skype tries to play a sound (to notify about an incoming/outgoing message), it blocks.  And then does nothing.  The user interface is responsive, but the background thread that does the actual network communication (and plays sounds) is stopped and will not restart.

PulseAudio restarts automatically, but Skype isn't smart enough to notice that and reconnect to PulseAudio.

The only way to make it work is to killall -9 skype and restart.

The easiest way to identify the issue is to notice that the timestamp of your outgoing messages stops advancing and always shows the same second.

As a workaround I went to Skype's configuration and disabled all sound notifications.  Now it never hangs.  But I miss incoming calls if I'm not paying attention to the visual notifications.


How to open Nautilus (File Manager) preferences in 13.04?

Open Files -> Preferences in the menu bar.
In the preferences dialog, you find the option for running shell files under the tab Behavior -> Executable Text Files:


As per Ubuntu bug 403691, try editing your .gtkrc and adding:

gtk-auto-mnemonics = 0

The .gtkrc file to edit will either be in ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkrc or your current theme's gtkrc, e.g. /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/gtkrc.

I'm guessing you need to log out and back in for it to take effect.


How to interpret Ubuntu's ON/OFF toggle buttons?

If it shows 'off', that is the current state. If you click it and it goes from on->off, there you have it. It's now off.


Try reinstalling xserver-xorg-input-all using Synaptic.

Copied from comments because some people (like me) never look at the comments if there is no answer when they are having the same problem...


"Never hide" Unity launcher via CCSM & gconf doesn't work

You should run echo $DESKTOP_SESSION in a terminal to see what Unity version you are running. Especially when you updated your videocard drivers. Chances are something ent wrong and it falls back to 2d.


Use M-p (M being you meta key, that's either Alt or "Windows key")
Then you get a list of commands you can run, you can type the command or use auto-completion.

There is no "Menu" in wmii though. I started using wmii about 2 weeks ago and I love it! Hope you find at ease using it.


Split into two files based on a pattern in file

Using Awk, split on characters [ and ] and then modulo divide the second field:

$ awk -F'[][]' '{f = $2%2 ? "odd" : "even"; print > f}' file

$ head odd even
==> odd <==
xyz[1]
xyz[3]
abc[1]

==> even <==
xyz[0]
xyz[2]
abc[0]
abc[2]


Using apt-file list on the two packages, the files are identical -- the only difference is the name of the location, /usr/share/doc/nvidia-driver-440 vs. /usr/share/doc/nvidia-driver-440-server
Using apt-cache depends, the non-server metapackage has only the below five additional dependencies:
linux-modules-nvidia-440-aws
linux-modules-nvidia-440-azure
linux-modules-nvidia-440-gcp
linux-modules-nvidia-440-oem-20.04
linux-modules-nvidia-440-oracle

--Looks like the ...server is a subset of the driver package without some possible vendor/cloud support.


Unable to move or copy files from partition to other due to permission issue

I suspect you issued the copy command as a non-root user. So either become root user beforehand (sudo su -) or use something like sudo cp ...


How can I export my contacts from Ubuntu One?

So i had the same problem and got around it using evolution to export all contacts to a .vcf file, allthough i had some problems i had to parse that file. instructions can be found here: How to export contacts from ubuntu one


Install ChruBuntu on SD card or USB flash drive on Chromebook

alright i solved it thanks to this answer
"See chromeos-cr48.blogspot.com/2013/10/… for dualbooting. Once you have enabled developer mode and can boot to legacy mode, you will be able to boot plain old Ubuntu from an SD card or USB drive. –  user68186 yesterday"


How can I fix "libQt5XcbQpa.so.5: undefined symbol: FT_Get_Font_Format" when I'm already using freetype 2.9?

So it turns out there was an old "fix" I had for FFMPEG in /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ that was pointing at another lib folder. It must have taken priority because I saw when I ran teamviewer with strace it was using libfreetype.so.6 from there. Must have been a older version without the FT_Get_Font_Format because when I removed that 'fix' it grabbed the correct version and was fine.


All windows decorations disappear after I maximize any window

I have begun experiencing this very recently(yesterday) as well. Going into compiz settings manager and unchecking "windows decorations", then re-checking it, seems to "fix" it, although it does continue to happen, causing me to have to open up compiz fairly often. Hopefully a fix will be found soon.

Edit!:
Fixed this issue for myself by entering Compiz Settings (CCSM), going into the Window Decorations menu, and changing the Command setting from:

gtk-window-decorator --replace

to:

/usr/bin/compiz-decorator

Backing out of this menu, then unchecking Window Decoration, allowing the desktop to reload, then checking Window Decoration and exiting out of CCSM.

After doing this, I've tested multiple applications, in various combinations of maximizing, minimizing, re-sizing, opening, closing, etc and can no longer reproduce the issue. The titlebar and everything stay exactly as they are supposed to. I don't remember ever changing this setting personally, though it is possible I did at some point, or gave compiz permission to while messing with another setting, but for me this has seemingly fixed the issue. Hopefully it will help you as well.


In the traditional sense no, however AMD does have what I guess you could say is a pocket PC coming in the future (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO0IbIiaAVM) If you mean pocket PC as in really small PCs then there are Intel NUCs and Gigabyte Brixs. They are I guess 'Pocket PCs' As 'xangua' said it really depends on what your definition of a pocket PC is


How do I set Netbeans as the default for .js files

Right click on any .js files and select "properties" option and in "properties" dialog box, go to "open with" tab and select netbeans from there and if netbeans is not listed there, go to "add" button and show the location of netbeans and set it as default app to handle this type of files.


Only tested on KDE4 at the moment, but assuming you can find the same layout in KDE5 (or any other environment), this should work.

Choose the "English (US, international with dead keys)" layout.


How to install an old version of Open Office?

I would be surprised if anyone is maintaining old Libreoffice versions to continue working on newer distributions of Linux. As such, if old installation files do not work on your current Ubuntu version, I doubt you will find updated deb files of that old version that do.

Your alternative then may be to compile old source code of Libreoffice yourself. But that is merely theory, because compiling LO is not a trivial task, and you probably would need to adapt old source code to work with the newer code base of your system.

Somewhat more realistic, if you really want that old spelling software to work, could be to install an older version of linux in a virtual machine. It is adviced then to keep that old linux version disconnected from the internet. Old versions are not anymore maintained and may expose you to a range of vulnerabilities.

Integration of your Antidote software with LO thus will not quite practical. However, the software perhaps can be used independently, provided you can install it on your current Ubuntu. That would be the only practical solution to continue using that software.

You still can pay 50 euro, of course, to continue using this proprietary software with current versions of LO.


Adding a CPU monitor widget in the top corner like in Gnome2

For Gnome Shell:
http://www.webupd8.org/2011/10/gnome-shell-system-monitor-extension.html

For Unity:
What can replace system monitoring in the top Gnome Panel in Unity?


Run following in terminal:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install steam-launcher

then run steam

If that fails get the steam off the website

wget https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/client/installer/steam.deb
sudo dpkg -i steam.deb

then run steam


Simply placing the *.iso on the usb will not work. You need to use a utility such as unetbootin.

sudo apt-get install unetbootin

This will take you through the process of using that *.iso to create a bootable USB stick.

Some other alternatives:

How to create a bootable USB stick
on Ubuntu

How to create a bootable USB stick
on Windows


Three monitors supported on NVIDIA card?

Nope you can only use two monitors per Nvidia card.

Even in Windows you're limited to two per card. The only exception to this is the latest GTX590 which, technically speaking, is two cards in one.

Edit: This seems like it might be changing in the newest Nvidia hardware (higher Kepler chipsets). Do not own so cannot confirm for certain but reports suggest you can connect and drive four monitors at once.

I've no idea whether the binary driver supports this. I don't know if nouveau supports this.


How do I keep the icon of a program on the taskbar even after opening it?

There is a simple solution that does exactly what you want. Right click the menu entry for the desired application, and choose "Add to Panel (Widget)". This will create a separate launcher that is always present. You can also drag and drop, but it's extremely finicky.

Other solutions include:

Add the "Quick Launch" Plasma widget to your panel (does the same thing, but a bit more neatly)
Right clicking on the task bar entry and choosing the action "New Window" (this is especially nice if you use the "Icons-only Task Manager", which keeps the icons in the same place like in Windows)
The simplest of all: the keyboard shortcut for opening a new window in Chromium (and Firefox) is Ctrl+N


Install iTunes on Ubuntu
Open the command terminal and type sudo apt-get install wine and press “Enter.” Wine installs to Ubuntu, allowing you to download applications not supported by the Linux distribution.

Type sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras in the command terminal to allow you to manage mp3 and AAC files with Ubuntu.

Go online to apple.com/itunes/download and click “Download Now” to download the 32-bit Windows version of iTunes.

Type chmod +x iTunesSetup.exe in the command terminal to make the iTunes installer executable.

Right-click the iTunes installer file downloaded to your computer and select “Open with Wine Windows Program Loader.” ITunes installs to Ubuntu using Wine.

Sync iPad With iTunes on Ubuntu
Launch iTunes by opening the Applications folder and double-clicking “iTunes.” Wine starts and runs iTunes.

Click “iTunes Store” in the left sidebar, click “Sign In” in the top right, type your Apple ID and password in the corresponding text fields, and click “Sign In.”

Connect your iPad to your Ubuntu computer using the device’s USB connector cable. An iPad icon appears in the left sidebar.

Click the iPad icon in the left sidebar and click “Sync” in the bottom right. Sync options are configured through the control panels accessed by clicking the menu items along the top of the iTunes application window.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/sync-ipad-ubuntu-34326.html


Unity Launcher shows two questionmarks when running PyMol


Texture Mods (tga files) in Knights of the Old Republic II (Steam)

I was and kind of still am in the same boat after this fix I found.

But I found a steam post suggesting that if you have TSLRCM installed then you should use the 'override' folder that the mod makes.

Usually located:

(...)\Steam\SteamApps\workshop\content\208580\485537937\override

After I applied this fix I can get most texture replacers and such to work, but for some reason not all.

Sad all the installer scripts are .exe's

I'd honestly rather manually install but I cant seem to make them all work as I said, even if I install in both my 'override' folders.

Successfully installed:

face retexts,

saber blade retxts,

revan robe stuff,

custom item blasters,

hd blaster retexts.

Then I slap in an HK-47 retext and its like just slightly transparent lol, its there but i can see thru him a bit like one of the alpha maps isnt there or something.

Similar situation with hilts but they flicker like they cant read the .tga correctly

Hope this can help someone.

I'm on Mint 18.3 currently also


what does it mean if `which X` finds something but executing `X` fails?

You might have an alias. Try type -a python


You'll have to combine all the elements in the right order in case you're coming from the situation of a spinning disk which contains a volume being mounted.

Unmount all volumes on this disk, e.g.:

sudo umount /path/to/mount/point

Verify it's unmounted using grep sda /proc/mounts. Repeat for other volumes on the physical disk.
Stop the drive, e.g.:

sudo hdparm -Y /dev/sda

Tell the SATA controller you'd like to unplug it:

sudo sh -c "echo 1 > /sys/block/sda/device/delete"


Getting rid of windows 10 from dual boot

When you are running Ubuntu, you can easily destroy the whole Windows partition and repair the grub menu.
First, install "gparted"

sudo apt-get install gparted

Open it, and find your Windows partition. Now you can simply delete it or reformat it in order to use it from Ubuntu (if you wanted to extend your actual Ubuntu partition, you would have to do it from USB/liveCD).

After confirming changes, open terminal (ctrl+alt+t) and type

sudo update-grub

in order to restore grub.

Enjoy!


How to add a Custom Openshot Blender Template?

After reading the forums on the Openshot website this thread was found:

http://openshotusers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=821

Where in it mentions the problem is that the files are not directly access rather a symbolic link is used from /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/openshot/blender

In my case it was required to create symbolic links from:

/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.7/openshot/blender


Will Unity lets users flick the left upper corner to reveal launcher?

Try this:

Install xdotool (a program that allows you to simulate X11 keyboard/mouse input).
Run ccsm (the CompizConfig Settings Manager).
Activate the Commands plugin (probably will crash Unity, do Ctrl + Alt + F1, log in, run unity --replace, press Ctrl + Alt + F7).
In the Commands tab, enter the following command:

xdotool key super

In the Edge Bindings tab, click on None and activate the top-left corner:

Now you should be able to open the Dash by moving your mouse to the top-left corner. Works fine here, I just don't know how this will affect fullscreen applications. In the General Options plugin options, there's a delay for the edge triggering (Edge Trigger Delay), so you can add some delay to prevent accidental activation.


What is the httpd process on Ubuntu Server 18.04.2 LTS?

The problem was because there was installed nextcloud and used port 80. I was removed nextcloud because I don't need it.


bash: /usr/bin/groups: /bin/sh: bad interpreter: No such file or directory"

In Ubuntu, /bin/sh is a symbolic link to /bin/dash - so you should be able to fix your mistake by re-creating the link:

sudo ln -s dash /bin/sh

In future, don't randomly delete system files.


How to increase the update download speed?

Those are terribly slow speeds. Assuming you have a broadband connection, you should try changing the download server. Try a few close to you.

Open Update Manager and click on the 'Settings' button at the bottom left. Click the 'Ubuntu Software' tab and change servers. I don't know what kind of connection you have but I typically see downloads max out my connection within a few seconds.


Configuring a vpn connection with network manager

I found what was keeping me from performing the modifications and probably also why the connection would fail after reboot. When I imported the configuration file, I had to uncheck the option to set it for "all users", which is enabled by default. Now vpn works and I can make modifications.


Logs of Ubuntu going into Sleep and waking up?

In case your Ubuntu is using systemd, you can use:

journalctl | grep systemd-sleep

You should get something like:

Jul 31 16:02:51 johndoe systemd-sleep[5958]: Suspending system...
Aug 01 15:34:03 johndoe systemd-sleep[25509]: Suspending system...
Aug 02 09:01:40 johndoe systemd-sleep[25509]: System resumed.
Aug 02 16:59:16 johndoe systemd-sleep[23496]: Suspending system...
Aug 06 08:46:04 johndoe systemd-sleep[23496]: System resumed.
Aug 06 17:05:08 johndoe systemd-sleep[6071]: Suspending system...
Aug 07 08:41:33 johndoe systemd-sleep[6071]: System resumed.
Aug 07 16:48:01 johndoe systemd-sleep[14495]: Suspending system...
Aug 08 09:06:48 johndoe systemd-sleep[14495]: System resumed.
Aug 08 16:38:55 johndoe systemd-sleep[14729]: Suspending system...
Aug 09 07:53:48 johndoe systemd-sleep[14729]: System resumed.


How do I remove GPG private keys from memory?

man gpg-agent gives you:

   --default-cache-ttl n
          Set the time a cache entry is valid to n seconds.  The default is 600 seconds.

Either modify the way you start gpg-agent and add this parameter with a shorter time-to-live or don't start gpg-agent at all.

Edit

You need to figure out which exactly program is asking you for the passphrase. So far it become clear that it is not gpg-agent and not seahorse.

With the window open run wmctrl -lp | grep "The Window Title, Case Sensitive". You should see a row like:

0x03e0000c  0 2580   <your_host_name>  The Window Title

The 3-rd number is the process id. Run cat /proc/2580/cmdline (replacing 2580 with the actual process id) and you will see the program file of the thing that is asking you for your password, along with any parameters. Then you can look that one up and see what you could do about it. Uninstalling it is certainly an option.


Would like to know the state of my drive / mount

Alright, after reading through it for the third time.

What we currently see is you hard drive being displayed twice. Once as the installation, once as the disk itself. Since I assume you're using 12.10 and I can't verify what the screen should look like, I'll also assume that this is not intended.

Unless you had the second partition only as large as a handful of GB (or are wrong on the total disk size), your partitions have been merged. This may have happened following the issues with the first Ubuntu installation.

However, even if this merge did not happen, there is no way there could be 70GB of data on this hard drive that are not on the partition of the current Ubuntu installation. You could try to check your disk status through the Dash->"Disks" app.

Overall, my money is on Murphy's Law: This data is lost, after the disk was merged into one partition and Ubuntu installed over it. The merge probably happened during the first Ubuntu installation & crash.


Wacom Cintiq 21ux Touchstrips Are Assigned To Opposite Button Toggles

Note: This fix only applies to the Ubuntu not running Wayland. It appears that Wayland has the correct button mappings, but using any wacom buttons will crash to login screen. So stay away from that until it is fixed.

To resolve the button mapping for the touch strips, you must download the source file and modify 4 entries relating to strips from the kernel driver for input-wacom. https://github.com/linuxwacom/input-wacom/releases

Before you begin, you must first install the prerequisites as outlines here https://github.com/linuxwacom/input-wacom/wiki/Installing-input-wacom-from-source

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-$(uname -r) build-essential
sudo apt-get install autoconf

You may need the dependencies as found here https://github.com/linuxwacom/xf86-input-wacom/wiki/Building-The-Driver

After downloading the source file, extract the file, and navigate to each file named 'wacom_wac.c' and edit it. In my folder, I see this file in five different folders. Only the last folder was used by my system, but to be safe I changed all of them.

Locate the following code relating to strip1 and strip2.

strip1 = ((data[1] & 0x1f) << 8) | data[2];
strip2 = ((data[3] & 0x1f) << 8) | data[4];

Swap data[1] and data[3] and swap data[2] and data[4] so it looks like this:

strip1 = ((data[3] & 0x1f) << 8) | data[4];
strip2 = ((data[1] & 0x1f) << 8) | data[2];

Save the file. Open terminal, and navigate to modified extracted folder.

cd '/home/[your username here]/Downloads/[input-wacom file here]'

Build and install as outlined in the '...installing-input-wacom-from-source' page:

if test -x ./autogen.sh; then ./autogen.sh; else ./configure; fi && make && sudo make install || echo "Build Failed"

Reboot system. Now the Leds/button-toggle should be mapped to the correct touch strips.

Enjoy.


I've never used xvkbd, but there are two other great programs for simulating keyboard input that I like and use. One is xte and the other is xdotool.

sudo apt-get install xautomation xdotool

Both xdotool and xte are very similar, but since I use xte the most I'll go into that one.

xte:

The most basic syntax for xte is:

xte 'command key/mousebutton/xyCoordinates'

xte can do a lot more than just create keyboard input though, it can also move your mouse and simulate mouse button presses, among others things.

Syntax examples:

To call a single key press: xte 'key keyName'
To call a key combination: xte 'keydown keyName' 'keydown secondKeyName' 'keyup keyName' 'keyup secondKeyName
To call a mouse button: xte 'mouseclick buttonNumber' (You can find button numbers through xev)
To move the mouse: xte 'mousemove xCoordinate yCoordinate'
And more! Read man xte

Keynames:

Here are a list of key names (other than the obvious ones):

Home
Left
Up
Right
Down
Page_Up
Page_Down
End
Return
BackSpace
Tab
Escape
Delete
Shift_L
Shift_R
Control_L
Control_R
Meta_L
Meta_R
Alt_L
Alt_R
Multi_key
Super_L
Super_R

Reading:

You might also be interested in reading:

How can I change what keys on my keyboard do? (How can I create custom keyboard commands/shortcuts?)

How do I remap certain keys or devices?


CUDA is indeed not in the Software Center. Try downloading it from http://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads.


Is Medibuntu needed - or even desirable?

If you have the PPA or Repository active then you will get any updates they make. If you have it disabled then you will be left with whatever you downloaded from them. It will not create any problem if you disable or remove the repository since you have already downloaded what you need it. The only thing is that any updates to their repository will not be reflected as updates in your PC (Since you do not have the repository active of course).

Now for the question as such, the packages in 11.10 and am guessing future versions have most if not all needed codecs and multimedia packages needed for everything to work correctly.

It is common now to install the ubuntu-restricted-addons and ubuntu-restricted-extras (It is so common that the installer gives you that option to select) and get many of the packages that medibuntu has. And if there are any missing you can find them in the repositories of Ubuntu without the need to add medibuntu. For example mencoder, the dvd authoring stuff, etc..


How to enable HUD in KDE Plasma to search menu items?

You will need to have either global menu widget enabled, or have app menu button in the titlebar.

To install the dependencies, run

sudo apt install rofi python3 python3-dbus python3-setproctitle python3-xlib gir1.2-gtk-3.0
sudo apt install appmenu-gtk2-module appmenu-gtk3-module

Download the source code:

git clone https://github.com/Zren/plasma-hud
cd plasma-hud

Use the following commands to install the files

sudo mkdir -p /usr/lib/plasma-hud
sudo cp usr/lib/plasma-hud/plasma-hud /usr/lib/plasma-hud/
sudo mkdir -p /etc/xdg/autostart
sudo cp etc/xdg/autostart/plasma-hud.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/

Log out and log in.

Run the following two commands one by one to bind the Alt keys to HUD.

kwriteconfig5 --file ~/.config/kwinrc --group ModifierOnlyShortcuts --key Alt "com.github.zren.PlasmaHUD,/PlasmaHUD,com.github.zren.PlasmaHUD,toggleHUD"
qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin reconfigure

This answer was based on the README of this project.


Edit the following file with root permission (e.g. sudo vim):
/var/lib/dpkg/info/adobe-flashplugin.prerm

Go to the line:
set -e

Delete the line. Save the file and reissue your upgrade commands. (I actually proceeded to remove and re-add flash and Firefox.)
N.B. caveat emptor: the fix may have side-effects I haven't seen yet but I've survived a week.
Explanation:
The problem is the adobe-flashplugin "prerm" (pre-remove) script expects update-alternatives to exit cleanly.  Our (I had the same problem) systems aren't exiting cleanly there. The fix says ignore the error and keep going.


I Had exactly the same issue. Solved it with this thread:

PulseAudio can not load bluetooth module 15.10/16.04/16.10

After reboot reconnect your speaker and it would appear as a sound device.


make my ubuntu a live disk from my hard disk

None of the previous answers mention bootcd, that seems to correspond exactly to your question. Nevertheless, I never tried it.

This is the package description:

 Build an image of your running Debian System with the command bootcdwrite.
 You can also build a bootcd ISO image via NFS on a remote System.
 When you run your system from CD you do not need any disks. All
 changes will be done in ram. To reuse this changes at next boot time
 you can save them on FLOPPY with the command bootcdflopcp. If booting
 from your CD-drive is not supported, booting from FLOPPY is possible.
 It is possible to install a new system from the running CD with the
 command bootcd2disk. Bootcd2disk can also find a target disk, format
 it and make it bootable automatically. Bootcd also supports lilo,
 grub, initrd, udev, lvm, transparent-compression ISO 9660 fs and
 syslinux/isolinux. The included FAQ describes how bootcd can do
 online or offline backups of other Linux distributions, resulting
 in restore-bootcds. The bootcdbackupwizard helps to create online
 backups.


Will the Lightning calendar app be available in 11.10?

Calendar Extension for Thunderbird

Install this plug-in: xul-ext-lightning

Google calendar and Evolution....

Currently there is a bug in evolution. A workaround to do the following :

Option to sync to Google Calendar doesn't show up in Evolution

How to migrate from evolution to thunderbird...

Migrating from Evolution to Thunderbird


As your machine gets started, it will need to know the mapping of some hostnames to IP addresses before DNS can be referenced. This mapping is kept in the /etc/hosts file.

In the absence of a name server, any network program on your system consults this file to determine the IP address that corresponds to a host name.

For your second question try to restart the network manager after editing your /etc/hosts file by typing this in terminal
sudo service network-manager restart


The screen icons in the system settings can actually be dragged, so you can place the green Samsung on the left. Alternatively, you can use this command:

xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1024x768 --pos 0x0 --rotate normal \
       --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768 --pos 1024x0 --rotate normal

I use this command (with different outputs of course) to position my screen, VGA to the left, internal monitor to the right, on graphical login.

Alternativelly, you can look into lxrandr program, which does exactly same job as Ubuntu's settings, but may be a little less confusing.


you can use this command as Normal user not root. this will kill all processes and send you back to login window

kill -9 -1

  "A PID of -1 is special; it indicates all processes except the kill
  process itself and init."

Read this for more info


Gnome Shell integration native host connector will not work with Firefox 58

maybe - the easiest way is to install:

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

Then

cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell

if there is NO such folder, then please:

mkdir ~/.local/share/gnome-shell

then:

cd ~/.local/share/gnome-shell
mkdir extensions

and extract your downloaded .zip file from the homepage of gnome-extensions to the extensions folder by clicking on the zip file and show hidden files and folders by either pressing ctrl+h or clicking on the upper right symbol with the 3 lines and choosing show all files/hidden files (I do not exactly know the English text version).

Then open up your files - choose other locations - look for hidden files and folders again and click on .local and then upon share and then upon gnome-shell and then upon extensions and RIGHT-click upon the file metadata.json and open with some text-editor and at the bottom after uuid please enter /home/username/.local/share/gnome-extensions/ where username is your real username... or in your sub-folder you MAY have created in case you want to use several extensions more..

Then, please restart your computer.

Although this sounds a little weird this got my gnome-extensions (in this case suspend-button) to work properly (after 1 hour work , haha :))


We are not quite sure how you got installed without the correct firmware. Let's fix it. With a temporary working internet connection, open a terminal and do:

cd /tmp
wget http://mirrors.kernel.org/ubuntu/pool/main/l/linux-firmware/linux-firmware_1.157.15_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i linux*.deb

Reboot and your wireless should be working.


How to avoid out of memory to hang the system

I've solved a similar problem with a memory/cpu watcher script and just have it kill any processes that it sees that have more than x ram or y memory for longer than t seconds.  That doesn't solve the problem of reserving CPU/Mem for the OS, but it is a workaround until you find a better answer (And when you do, share it with me, because I got here looking for the same thing)

#!/bin/bash

# Kill POS if we're doing stupid shit.
HOG_COUNTER=0
while true; do
    # This is pulling CPU, change the awk column from 9 to something
    # that you want to check against.
    HOG=$(top -b -n 1 | grep pos2 | awk '$9 > 90 {print $1}')
    # If the hog variable is not empty, add some counter info - we don't
    # want to catch periodic spikes, we want to catch consistent offenders.
    if [ ! -z "$HOG" ]; then
        counter_time=$(date)
        HOG_COUNTER=$(expr ${HOG_COUNTER} + 1)
        echo "$counter_time - Found a hog: $HOG - ${HOG_COUNTER} counters." >> high_mem_kill_log
    else
        HOG_COUNTER=0
    fi
    # If we have more than 2 counters (3 or more) then we kill the process
    # that's doing it.
    if [ $HOG_COUNTER -gt 2 ]; then
        kill_time=$(date)
        echo "$kill_time - Found a hog: $HOG.  $HOG_COUNTER counters.  Killing $HOG." >> high_mem_kill_log
        kill $HOG
    fi
    sleep 30s
done


No DispalyPort option in audio output device menu, Nvidia Drivers

This problem was fixed with the new NVidia drivers (435) that came with Ubuntu 19.10


Okay, this seems not libvirt related after all.
This is a way systemd works.
Systemd ignores default environment variables. It also ignores /etc/environment settings.
You have to explicitly configure libvirt-bin service file to contain variables you require:

[Service]
Environment="PATH=/usr/local/TEST:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin:/snap/bin"

You can also specify default environment file:

[Service]
EnvironmentFile=/etc/environment

Things you learn each day...


How to stream HDMI input to a desktop window

The HDMI plug on your Pandaboard and the HDMI plug on your Laptop are the same 'side' of an HDMI connection. HDMI is a client-server protocol, except they're called something different. Essentially one side produces content, and the other side accepts it. The designers of HDMI did it this way to make it harder to rip 1080p content right off the wire. There is no way to make this work (to my knowledge) without writing a custom driver for your HDMI port that says it's a TV or another display device (software may not even be enough, it might require a hardware hack)


NTFS partition works slow after booting from windows to ubuntu

If the NTFS drives are mounting as read-only, not mounting at all, or operating slowly, it's probably because Ubuntu thinks their filesystems are unclean, probably due to hibernation, or a damaged file system. Do this...
in Windows

boot into Windows
open the Power control panel
choose change what the power buttons do
choose change options that are unavailable
uncheck fast startup
close the Power control panel
open an administrative command prompt window
type powercfg /h off
type chkdsk /f c:
approve to run chkdsk at next reboot
type chkdsk /f x: (replacing "x" with drive letters of other visible NTFS partitions)
reboot into Windows to let chkdsk run on drive C:


Is Skype in partener repository the same as from website?

You can get the version number of the repo package using

apt-cache policy skype

For my 14.04.2 setup, this returns:

skype:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 4.3.0.37-0ubuntu0.12.04.1
  Version table:
     4.3.0.37-0ubuntu0.12.04.1 0
        500 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ trusty/partner amd64 Packages

So the version in the Trusty repos is 4.3.0.37-0. The package downloaded from Skype's website is named

skype-ubuntu-precise_4.3.0.37-1_i386.deb

So it has version 4.3.0.37-1.

The number after the hyphen usually indicates a change in the packaging, not in the software itself.

The fact that the package is called ubuntu-precise means that it was packaged for 12.04 Precise Pangolin. So one can see that the software hasn't undergone any change in the past two years (or that the devs were too lazy to update the version number in the package control file...)

So eventually both packages ship with the same version of Skype. If you, however, compare apt-cache show skype with the DEBIAN/control file of the package from the website, you'll see that the packages are maintained by different people. Still, the software is the same.


How to decide which version of Ruby to install, ruby1.8 or ruby1.9.1?

This online slideshow tells the differences of Ruby 1.8 and 1.9: http://slideshow.rubyforge.org/ruby19.html#1


Cannot put/create files&folders on the Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Gnome Desktop

To enable displaying items on the desktop itself:
First install dconf-editor.
What's dconf-editor?, from dpkg -s dconf-editor

  ...
  Description: simple configuration storage system - graphical editor
   DConf is a low-level key/value database designed for storing desktop
   environment settings.
   .
   This package contains a graphical editor for settings stored in dconf.

install via apt/dpkg

sudo apt-get install -y dconf-editor

once installed

goto org > gnome > desktop
backgroud
check show-deskop-icons

or alternatively from the command line use:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.background show-desktop-icons true

This has the advantage that you won't have to install any new packages (dconf-editor) however dconf-editor is nice for discovering the SCHEMA[:PATH] KEY VALUE values for building up your gettings command line commands.


How to modify the system default background image

Place the image that you want to use as background image at /usr/share/backgrounds/
Example:

sudo cp ~/Pictures/1.jpg /usr/share/backgrounds/1.jpg
Edit the /usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu-wallpapers.xml. Remove the default images (if you want to) and add custom entries and finally save the file. (Make sure that the entries are done before the last line, that is, before the </wallpapers> line). Example:

nits@nits-workstation:$ gksudo gedit/usr/share/gnome-background-properties/ubuntu-    wallpapers.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE wallpapers SYSTEM "gnome-wp-list.dtd">
<wallpapers>
   <wallpaper>
    <name>Custom_Back1</name>
    <filename>/usr/share/backgrounds/1.jpg</filename>
    <options>zoom</options>
    <pcolor>#000000</pcolor>
    <scolor>#000000</scolor>
    <shade_type>solid</shade_type>
   </wallpaper>
</wallpapers>

Now whenever a user tries to change the background, the files listed according to the XML file only will show up by default in the Appearances Preferences window


External display flickers after upgrade on a Lenovo ThinkVision L2440p

many people has this problem with the lenovo  I guess you have Nvidia card
try to install the new nvidia driver and see how it goes you can download it from nvidia website. instructions to install can be found here try both but I guess the second is the best:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/02/how-to-install-nvidia-drivers-manually-in-ubuntu/

http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-install-nvidia-drivers-manually-on-ubuntu-10-04-lucid-lynx.html

this problem is because of graphic card. and hopefully it maybe fixed by the newest driver from nvidia which is released in 20 of April or so good luck


What's the best TCP congestion avoidance algorithm to an ADSL2+ connection?

Due to bufferbloat on typical consumer ADSL2+ connection the TCP congestion avoidance algorithms do not work at all. If you are suffering from that, this blog posting by Jim Gettys might be helpful. Personally, I apply bandwidth limit on the bulk uploads (scp and torrents, mainly) to not exceed half the stated capacity of my link, and that seems to be sufficient.

If your problem is something else (for example, if you are on the DSLAM side or provide the link further downstream), please give more details.


Dell Trackpad not recognized in Ubuntu 14.04

Reinstall the driver:

sudo apt-get --purge autoremove xserver-xorg-input-synaptics && sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

Then reboot.


Is there a way to quickly change all the file extensions of all files in a folder?

This will do the job for you.

rename 's/.m4b$/.m4a/' *.m4b

For a test run you can use this command:

rename 's/.m4b$/.m4a/' *.m4b -vn

-v means "verbose" and it will output the names of the files when it renames them.

-n will do a test run where it won't rename any files, But will show you a list of files that would be renamed.


Which version of ubuntu are you running? Screensavers are, by default, removed in 12.04, with a blank screen replacing them.

You could use nautilius or Dash to search for your files.  Apple screensavers aren't included officially in ubuntu releases.

Though please take this into consideration : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screensaver#Considerations

If you're running 12.04 and would rather use screensavers, then this may be of use to you:
http://www.howtogeek.com/114027/


How to replace a PAE kernel with non PAE Kernel?

To install a different kernel (such as a non-pae kernel), you would need to install the package for it. Use your favourite package manager (like Synaptic) to install linux-image-generic, or use this command in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-generic

In Ubuntu 12.04 or earlier version, this will install the latest generic kernel that is not pae. Then you would need to reboot and in the grub menu select the non-pae kernel. Once it boots up, verify everything is working.

In Ubuntu 12.10 or later version, this will NOT work since linux-image-generic is equivelent to linux-image-generic-pae.

Optional: You can remove the other kernel once you know everything is working with the new kernel by doing

sudo apt-get remove linux-image-generic-pae


From man at:

                   The  user will be mailed standard error and standard
output from his commands, if any.  Mail will be sent using the  command
/usr/sbin/sendmail.

The same as for cron, if you don't have a configured mail transfer agent (MTA) running on your system, the output will simply get discarded - if you look in the syslog you will likely see an error something like

atd[28729]: Exec failed for mail command: No such file or directory


My screen is bigger than my TV, how can I change the size?

Your TV probably believes that your computer is a set top box or something like that. And it does it by looking at the HDMI port label. If it's labelled as a cable box, DVD or similar, it requests an Over-/Underscanned image.

Make sure the HDMI port on the TV is set to "PC"

On my 47 inch LG TV, I set it at Menu->Option->Input label


You should report the issue to the TightVNC developers so that they can fix the issue:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

http://www.tightvnc.com/bugs.php


Where are the emblems coming from on the default folders?

Those are not emblems, in the image below you can see that the emblems are located in the lower right part of the Item (in this case is a symlink/shortcut).
The Icons for the user folders usually have a little representation of what that folder is all about. Those folders are "special" and are different from the rest of the folders on your system. In this example the folder is Shared/Public stuff, next to this is a regular folder.
Icons are located in two locations:

~/.icons
/usr/share/icons

Depending on the the icon theme, they will placed in different categories (most are in /places).
This will help you understand it better:

What is the meaning of the default directories in the Linux filesystem hierachy?

Why does, for example, Nautilus know that it has to apply a special icon for these directories? Is there some flag on the actual dir, a metadata field in GVFS or is this hard-coded into Nautilus?

It's a standard set by the freedesktop organization called xdg-user-dirs.
From the site:

xdg-user-dirs is a tool to help manage "well known" user directories like the desktop folder and the music folder. It also handles localization (i.e. translation) of the filenames.
The way it works is that xdg-user-dirs-update is run very early in the login phase.
This program reads a configuration file, and a set of default directories. It then creates localized versions of these directories in the users home directory and sets up a config file in $(XDG_CONFIG_HOME)/user-dirs.dirs (XDG_CONFIG_HOME defaults to ~/.config) that applications can read to find these directories.

You can read more about the XDG Base Directory Specification here.


You can use find command for that

find /location -group group_name -delete

and yeah, please be careful with command as these. Before running just double & make sure that you know what you are doing.


Livepatch is not available for this system (Ubuntu 20.04)

You have to install GNOME Online Accounts first with:
sudo apt-get install gnome-online-accounts


Grub wait time 10 seconds after editing to "0" in /etc/default/grub?

This is a bug. The problem is in the file /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober.

As presented here, a workaround is to add the files /etc/grub.d/25_pre-os-prober and /etc/grub.d/35_post-os-prober.

The two files must also be marked as executable to work.

After adding this two files, your modifications to the variable GRUB_TIMEOUT in /etc/default/grub should work as expected.

If you are not dual booting, another workaround is to uninstall os-prober.

25_pre-os-prober:

#! /bin/sh
# file: /etc/grub.d/25_pre-os-prober
set -e

# Save the $timeout and $timeout_style values set by /etc/grub.d/00_header
# before /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober messes them up.

cat << EOF
set timeout_bak=\${timeout}
set timeout_style_bak=\${timeout_style}
EOF

35_post-os-prober

#! /bin/sh
# file: /etc/grub.d/35_post-os-prober
set -e

# Reset $timeout and $timeout_style to their original values
# set by /etc/grub.d/00_header before /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober messed them up.

cat << EOF
set timeout=\${timeout_bak}
set timeout_style=\${timeout_style_bak}
EOF


Ubuntu/Linux configuration file usage convention

Once I install a new pacakge, how can I find all its configuration files?

Run dpkg -L package-name and see which files the package contains in /etc (which should all be configuration files). Look in the package documentation and manpages for any other configuration files it may use.

  What's the usage convention of the numerous configuration files in /etc folder? Is there some catagorization schema such as folder for network configuration, folder for user management configuration, etc.?

Usually, /etc/<program-name>.conf or /etc/<program-name>.d. It could be anything (for example, /etc/NetworkManager, /etc/wgetrc).

  Is it possible for some configuration files live outside the /etc folder?

Certainly. Though convention is for configuration to be in /etc, configuration that is not supposed to be edited by users/administrators can be elsewhere. For example, /lib/systemd/system contains all the systemd units from packages (whereas Upstart jobs would be in /etc/init).


How to share Tomboy-ng notes between two users on Ubuntu

luki, this is probably a question better posted to the tomboy-ng issues page of github.  tomboy-ng is not an Ubuntu official package.
Anyway, yes, would work fine as long as you have a some shared diskspace between the two users. Create a directory somewhere and give both users write access to it. Set that dir as tomboy-ng's note location.  I might make that dir in /var/tomboy-ng, change its owner to one of the users and set its group to be one that both users are members of. If there is any change both users could be active at the same time, use file sync, leave each users notes in the default place and sync to that shared dir.
( and to remove all of tomboy-ng's content, the default place to store config is $HOME/.config/tomboy-ng and the default place for notes is $HOME/.local/share/tomboy-ng )


How can I diagnose this networking problem in which scp freezes temporarily?

Look at ifconfig output, there are collisions detected on Ubuntu VM.

TX errors 0  dropped 1 overruns 0  carrier 0  collisions 11541

Duplicate IP?


Facebook integration in Empathy doesn't work in 12.10

Go to your account settings on Facebook and disable the Login Notifications (Security Settings). Then, try to login on Empathy. Worked here!!


16.04 LTS, dpkg fails setting up update-notifier-common

I have pointed the system python3 to python3.6 and the dpkg error disappears.  I'm still a bit uncomfortable with this but so far all my codes that depend on python3 seem to be working ok.


Can I directly upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04?

I would recommend that you take a backup of your data and do a fresh install instead.

However, if you wish to upgrade, enter the following commands in the terminal

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

sudo update-manager -d

Now your Update Manager will open and it will show the availability of the upgrade. Click on the Upgrade button.


The best LAMP Stack with a GUI for Web Dev

This is so easy. Using it in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and it's working without a hitch:

Create a new file via terminal by running the command below

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

Copy and paste this text inside

[Desktop Entry]
Name=LAMP
GenericName=LAMP
X-GNOME-FullName=LAMP
Comment=Open services of your LAMP server
Exec=gksu service apache2 start &amp;&amp; gksu service mysql start
Icon=emblem-web
Terminal=false
Type=Application
StartupNotify=true

X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=Start;Stop;Restart

[Start Shortcut Group]
Name=Start
Exec=gksu service apache2 start &amp;&amp; gksu service mysql start
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Stop Shortcut Group]
Name=Stop
Exec=gksu service apache2 stop &amp;&amp; gksu service mysql stop
TargetEnvironment=Unity

[Restart Shortcut Group]
Name=Restart
Exec=gksu service apache2 restart &amp;&amp; gksu service mysql restart
TargetEnvironment=Unity

Drag and Drop onto the launcher by navigating to ~/.local/share/applications/ in Nautilus.

Source: What Custom Launchers and Unity Quicklists are available?


Is it possible to extend thunderbird mail box size?

Making my answer more formal:

"Ubuntu file size limitations are dependent on the file system being used, but generally start at 2 terabytes."

If you are actually using that, you could try compressing it. Also you could move your mail to other folders, organize it, and then run the compaction on it again.

Should help you.
https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/compact-inbox-or-other-folder


How to add binary third party libraries in qt creator (Ubuntu-sdk verison of QT-Creator)

I found the solution by myself.

Adding TARGET_LINK_LIBRARIES(Projectname library) to CMakeLists.txt made it run.


Problems add a new resolution to monitor(2nd monitor) (16.04 desktop)

So I googled around a little more and after trying a few things I found that xrandr doesn't quite work well nvidia proprietary drivers, so I had to use :

sudo nvidia-xconfig

to generate a xorg.conf in /etc/X11/xorg.conf

I then googled around for the HorizSync and VertRefresh values for the monitor in question which I found to be:

HorizSync     30 - 83
VertRefresh   56-75

So I found in my xorg.conf where the monitor was, at this block and made the changes:

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Unknown"
    HorizSync       30 - 83
    VertRefresh     56 - 75
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

then I restart lightdm:

sudo systemctl restart lightdm

Checked the display settings again and...Bam! there is was.