How do I scale menu and title bars in Ubuntu 17.10?

This OMG Ubuntu article refers to this as "fractional scaling" and notes it has been excluded from the Gnome shell v3.26 used in Ubuntu 17.10.  However, it can be enabled "experimentally" by using the following command in a terminal:

gsettings set org.gnome.mutter experimental-features "['scale-monitor-framebuffer']"

This will allow you to open 'Displays' (Settings > Devices > Displays) and see 'Scale' values other than 100% and 200%.

Your other option is to add the Untiy desktop back to Ubuntu 17.10 which retains the old scale factor options.


remove swap to create another backup partition

Open the file /etc/fstab like this:

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

And find the line referring to your swap partition. In my case is:

/dev/sdb1 none swap sw 0 0

And I've commented it to look like this:

#/dev/sdb1 none swap sw 0 0

After that, reboot your computer and check for a few minutes/hours of normal usage. If it works OK, you can now use gparted to format that swap partition as you like. If you want to use it for windows, I recomend FAT32 or NTFS format.

If you have problems, just revert to the previous state by un-comenting the swap line (that's removing the "#" symbol). And, of course, reformating the partition to swap format.


Is upgrading to Utopic worth it? Will I encounter lots of bugs?

14.10 Utopic has been released (in October last year) and is stable, but is newer than 14.04 LTS Trusty (which could be 'more stable') - 15.04 Vivid is in development and will be released in April. See more here

As for GNOME, Ubuntu sort of misses out on newer versions due to the timing of GNOME's release and Ubuntu's. So if you want to install a newer version (e.g. 3.14 on Utopic), you need to use PPA's to update to it:

 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ricotz/testing
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Note this is experimental, and may break other desktop environments including Unity. Source.

(I will add that Fedora and Arch, different distributions of Linux, often have the newer versions of GNOME more easily available by default)


Deleted Ubuntu partition, stuck with GRUB rescue without recovery disks or BIOS password

I had to take my laptop to a technician who reset the BIOS password.

GRUB should have a feature to at least let the healthy windows (if present) boot if it can't find Ubuntu.


Ok, since your question has several questions, lets answer them in order:

If you install the script nautilus-terminal that the expected behavior.
No, is not a bug.
Is not recommended that you do that. Better use the update manager, or run in another terminal.
It's already a feature.


How do I download the terminal application for Ubuntu 12.04 in Lubuntu 12.04?

The terminal that you get along with the LXDE package is lxterminal. To install the terminal application that generally comes along GNOME is gnome-terminal.

Installation:

Type in

sudo apt-get install gnome-terminal

in the lxterminal.

another good looking terminal that allows you to dropdown on pressing F12, looks fancy and comes handy is the guake terminal. Try it by typing :

sudo apt-get install guake

in the lxterminal.

And hope those are the last commands that you use in lxterminal


Unable to install Ubuntu 13.04 along side Windows 8 on Dell Inspiron 3521

I recommend you try installing my rEFInd boot manager, which will bypass GRUB. If you install it from Windows, be sure to keep the EFI drivers for x86-64, or at least the ext4fs driver. GRUB still seems to be unreliable on EFI-based computers, and fixing those problems can be very difficult, particularly if Boot Repair doesn't work.

If you prefer to stick with GRUB and Boot Repair, one thing I noticed in your output is this:

The boot of your PC is in Legacy mode. You may want to retry after changing it to EFI mode.
Do you want to continue?

Booting in EFI mode will make for a more reliable repair, although I doubt if booting in BIOS/legacy mode would cause the complete failure you've encountered. Unfortunately, how to force an EFI-mode vs. a BIOS/legacy-mode boot varies from one computer to another. Usually you can do it through the computer's own boot manager, which is usually activated by hitting a function key at boot time, but details vary greatly.

Another thing I noticed in your output is this:

chroot /mnt/boot-sav/sda7 apt-get -y --force-yes update
E: List directory /var/lib/apt/lists/partial is missing. - Acquire (2: No such file or directory)
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (2: No such file or directory)
E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root?

I'm not familiar enough with Boot Repair's internals to know precisely what's going on, but the last three words of this output ("are you root?") may be critical. In order to do its work, Boot Repair must be run as root. Some Linux emergency discs, such as Parted Magic and System Rescue CD, run everything as root by default. If you're using an Ubuntu disc, though, you may need to precede the Boot Repair command with sudo to launch it as root.

This message could also suggest a problem with your Ubuntu installation. It could be that something went wrong with the installation, thus causing these errors. If so, you might need to re-install Ubuntu from scratch.


You are running on an ARM processor. It's failing to load an i386 compiled binary into memory. You will need the ARM version of that binary, if there is one, to be able to run the program.


Is it possible to block a webpage using ufw?

You can block access to a port on a server with ufw. man ufw has a whole raft of examples but assuming it's enabled, it should be like this:

sudo ufw deny out to <<ip address>> port 80

I've just tested this against my own server and it works. Remember that port 443 is used for SSL so that might want blocking too.

Remember, this blocks the whole of port 80 on this server.

If you want to start filtering based on subfolders (allowing some paths but not others) you're going to need something that proxies the requests. A firewall doesn't look at the content, it looks at the connections. To a firewall, a request for /subfolder is the same as a request to /a-different-subfolder.

So what you're looking for is a transparent proxy that you can twist into nixing some of your traffic. Parental-control software is probably your best bet for a quick setup. Something like dansguardian certainly used to be popular and I would say it warrants exploration. More information is available on the wiki:

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


How to give access to LAMP server so that it can execute a ".cgi" or".pl" file which in turn executes a c program which controls a parallel port?

Try running a Python CGI server like this in the directory with the executable: python -m CGIHTTPServer, and calling it over HTTP. If it works, try switching users to the www-data user (sudo su www-data -) and try again. If it doesn't work, Python will show errors in the console.

You can try checking what groups your normal users belong to, and which users the www-data user belongs to. Most likely, the www-data user needs to be added to dialout and/or plugdev.


Are paid and proprietary apps being discontinued?

No. Why? Snaps.

There are two key points here. This paragraph from the announcement of inclusion of snaps in 16.04:

  Developers of paid apps have often been the most frustrated with
  having to manage dependencies and compatibility with various
  libraries, especially on older releases of Ubuntu. For this reason
  these applications are going to be migrated from debs to snaps by
  Autumn 2016. Canonical will work with the developer community to
  support that transition in the coming months with tools, training and
  documentation.

And one of the reasons why they replaced Ubuntu Software Centre with GNOME Software:

  “We are more confident in our ability to add support for Snaps to
  GNOME Software Centre (sic) than we are to Ubuntu Software Centre. And
  so, right now, it looks like we will be replacing [the USC] with GNOME
  Software Centre”, explains Ubuntu desktop manager Will Cooke at the
  Ubuntu Online Summit.

Related feature requests on:

GNOME's bug tracker
Launchpad


How to swap Alt-Tab to Ctrl-Tab - Ubuntu 18.04

Obviously damadam in the comments pointed to a more straightforward solution. You can change the keyboard combination directly under Settings - Keyboard, section "Navigation".

Below is the more "under the hood" approach which I first posted here. It allows you to have or keep multiple keyboard combinatons for the same action.

Open dconf-edit and change the keybindings for switch-applications from ['<Super>Tab', '<Alt>Tab'] to ['<Control>Tab']. You may need to install dconf-edit first because it is not installed by default.

Alternatively, you may use the terminal to change the setting:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-applications ['<Control>Tab']

To undo your changes from the terminal and reset to default, issue the command

gsettings reset org.gnome.desktop.wm.keybindings switch-applications


How can I install Likewise-open in ubuntu 17.04

UGH I hate that they stick that stupid info collection wall in front of you. Here is the URL to bypass their stupidity. Not sure why Terndon deleted this the first time. This is a direct link to the Powerbroker free install without having to give up all your personal info. It's not a protected link, it is not copyrighted and it is just a git link. Please do not delete it again. I am hoping this will help folks. I fell on the sword and gave up personal info to get this.

https://github.com/BeyondTrust/pbis-open/releases


Readline not compiled by default - Causing `require': no such file to load -- readline

The reason Ruby didn't automatically include readline support was most likely because you didn't have libreadline, and its development files, installed on your system. When you run ./configure it does an inventory of your system, and uses that data to create an "optimal" Makefile.

The easiest way to get libreadline, and its development files, is to install the package libreadline-dev.


How do I fix the HDMI/DVI display output with Intel HD 4000 Graphics in 12.04?

I downgraded the kernel to Lucid (10.02) kernel. (2.6.32) while running Precise (12.04).
That fixed the problem of DVI/HDMI.
Very likely, the problem is in one of intel related kernel modules.

I also tried xorg Lucid, which did not fix, and the tip or xorg, and did not fix.
So, it's kernel module related for sure.

You can add the Lucid to apt's source and downgrade the kernel to Lucid's 2.16 kernel. That should get you going.


As a sudo apt-get install linux-generic gives an enormous amount of errors, I would do the following:

Take a full data back-up (/home, /usr, /var)
Take a full system backup (Clone) OR Insert an additional hard drive
Insert the Server CD, reboot from CD and reinstall (on the new hard drive)
Re-install all applications
Mount the old partitions
Copy/restore the data from the old partitions to the new install


Dell Inspiron Duo crashes when I plug in my charger

Switching off ACPI seems to work as temporary fix:

Edit GRUB's config file by opening a Terminal window and enter :

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub

Change the line that starts with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to the following:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash clocksource=hpet acpi=off noacpi usbhid.quirks=0x00eef:0x725e:0x40"

Save the file and update GRUB with the following command:

sudo update-grub

All works perfectly now - plugging in and out of power. The usbhid.quirks part in the GRUB line is to help identify the touchscreen correctly.


"gnutls_handshake() failed" while downloading software

I made a silly mistake. I was using the wrong port number in apt-conf file for apt-get.
Once I changed it to correct port number the error got rectified!


How do I enable the source code repositories?

You can enable source code repositories by uncommenting (removing #'s) deb-src repositories from /etc/apt/sources.list.

sed -i '/deb-src/s/^# //' /etc/apt/sources.list && apt update

If you want to disable source code repositories, you can comment it back

sed -i '/deb-src/s/^/# /' /etc/apt/sources.list && apt update


Ubuntu Logo is not appearing during boot and shutdown

I solved it:

Here is what i did, if anyone out there having the same problem.

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
sudo update-initramfs -u

Then reboot


That manual is for 16.04.

I suggest installing VirtualBox-6.0 from VirtualBox site

Current build is here:
https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/6.0.4/virtualbox-6.0_6.0.4-128413~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb

If you specifically want the 5.2 version, there is an Ubuntu 18.04 build here

https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.2.26/virtualbox-5.2_5.2.26-128414~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb

Install it this way

wget https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/5.2.26/virtualbox-5.2_5.2.26-128414~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb
sudo dpkg -i virtualbox-5.2_5.2.26-128414~Ubuntu~bionic_amd64.deb
sudo apt install -f


Ubuntu 14.04 sound suddenly stopped working, reboot did not fix

Ubuntu wiki » PulseAudio » Resetting User Configuration:

  For some reason, pulseaudio's user configuration files can become
  corrupt(unsynced?) in some way, and deleting them (and forcing fresh
  ones to be generated) fixes a no sound condition. After using the
  command below, log out/in.

  Ubuntu 12.10/Quantal (and earlier)

rm --recursive ~/.pulse*; pulseaudio --kill

  Ubuntu 13.04/Raring (and later)

rm --recursive ~/.config/pulse; pulseaudio --kill


DIR_MODE has no effect on domain-joined user profiles in /home

I changed both 027 values in /opt/pbis/bin/config to 077 and also have UMASK set to 077 in /etc/login.defs and DIR_MODE in /etc/adduser.conf set to 0750 and EVERYTHING WORKS the way I want. Only the user that creates their home folder (and root of course) has access to the home folder. Awesome!


I need to cd into directory with spaces `-bash: cd: too many arguments`

You may also wrap your folder path in quotes. Try:

cd "new folder"


open terminal and type following command

sudo grub-install /dev/sda

this will write a MBR and install grub
by the way grub is a boot controller which allows you to boot to multiple os
for more info read this

Can't boot without Flash Drive plugged in


Cheese seems having some bugs.

Try Guvcview

http://www.iasptk.com/ubuntu-ppa-repositories/18693-install-guvcview-gtk-uvc-viewer-to-ubuntu-1204-via-ppa-

Guvcview aims at providing a simple GTK interface for capturing and viewing video from devices supported by the linux UVC driver, although it should also work with any v4l2 compatible device.

Install Guvcview to Ubuntu via ppa

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pj-assis/ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install guvcview

For skype try this ppa

http://www.iasptk.com/ubuntu-ppa-repositories/17253-ubuntu-1204-skype-40-ppa

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:upubuntu-com/chat

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install skype


Updated Nvidia graphics driver, now won't make it past the boot screen

On 12.04 Latest - tested, steps should basically apply for previous.
If it doesn't work, add the output from fdisk -l and mount from recovery console in your question and I'll edit my answer to address it.

Boot to recovery console
Select root shell

mount

Should give you some output, you're looking for the one that has on / type in it.

/dev/sda7 on / type ext4 (rw,errors=remount-ro)

You need to remount it read-write:

mount -o remount,rw /dev/sda7

Now we need to find the driver to uninstall:

jockey-text --no-dbus -l

Don't worry abound the error messages, you want the last two lines
One of them should read something like:

xorg:nvidia_current - something (Proprietary, Enabled, In use)

or

xorg:nvidia_current_updates - something (Proprietary, Enabled, In use)

You want whichever one is Enabled

jockey-text --no-dbus --disable=xorg:nvidia_current
sync
init 6

It should reboot you in to a GUI now using the noveau open source driver.


How to install rtorrent on Ubuntu 12.04?

You should just run

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install rtorrent

from the console.


Unable to activate Workspaces ccsm / dash / dconf ubuntu 13.04

I managed to get my workspaces back :D

Solution is:

1.- Export your compiz config thru ccsm (if you lack of it just sudo apt-get install ccsm).
2.- Find the [core] section.
3.- Set the amount of workspaces with:

s0_hsize = 2
s0_vsize = 2

4.- Import your config back to compiz.
5.- Enjoy your workspaces.

This has to be done this way because ccsm lacks of some settings... this is one of them.


1 - Open Terminal

2 - Copy & Paste Command:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

3 - Press Enter

4 - Type in your username

5 - Press Enter

You have not just installed the Ubuntu Restricted Extras, one part of that is Flash.

Ubuntu Restricted Extras

To install Java, please follow the instructions:

Easy Linux Tips: Installing Java


How to set disk quota for multiple users within a single disk partition

Answered by @Flint:

Take a look at Using 'quota' for disk limits

Basically you need edquota util from quota package (apt-get install quota) to set up disk quote for users.

Please mark as answered.


Re-run an application script when it crashes?

Try this:

while true; do xterm && break; done

Applications have exit status codes so that if something exits fine it returns zero... And if something went wrong, it throws out another number. This allows people to hook in and find out the exact issue. This is what the other answer is doing.

&& just checks that the previous command was a zero-status exit and if it was, breaks the loop. If it crashes, it'll throw out something other than 0 and the && ... clause won't trigger; it'll simply loop back around and run xterm.


Due to the bug described here, I had to patch and recompile the xserver-xorg-core package using Chris Wilson's patch.

Here's how I did it:

Download the source and patch for the xserver-xorg-core package.

mkdir src && cd src

apt-get source xorg-server

cd xorg-xserver-x.xx.x/randr

wget -O- "https://bugs.freedesktop.org/attachment.cgi?id=94929" > randr.patch

Patch xrandr:

patch -p1 < randr.patch

At

File to patch:

type:

rrcrtc.c

Install build dependencies:

sudo apt-get build-dep xserver-xorg-core

Install more build packages:

sudo apt-get install build-essential devscripts fakeroot

Compile the package:

cd ..

debuild -us -uc -i -I

Install the new package:

sudo dpkg -i xserver-xorg-core_x.xx.x-x.deb

Restart your DE and xrandr should now scale perfectly!


Installation Epson L4150 printer (scanner) driver

By using the network plug-in, you can connect to a scanner that is directly attached to the network.
Please note that scanning over the network is only supported in a client/ server setup.
Scanners directly attached to the network are not supported.

Connect the scanner to the network and set the IP address.
For information on how to set the IP address, refer to the user manual shipped with your scanner.

Please edit /etc/imagescan/imagescan.conf file by using root privileges as below.

Example:

[device]
net.udi = networkscan:esci://[IP address]:[Port number]
net.vendor  = Epson
net.model   = DS-XX00
net.name    = My Network Scanner
vendor : Vendor name on Main Window.
model : Model name on Main Window.
name : If you want to change the display name, specify this item.
If this item is not specified, vendor+model is displayed.

*[Port number] must be set to 1865
*vendor / model / name = optional items

exp) When the IP address is xxx.yyy.zzz.www, specify as follows.
net.udi = networkscan:esci://xxx.yyy.zzz.www:1865

Launch Image Scan v3.
If it identifies the scanner on the network properly, it will work without any problems.
At this time, if multiple scanners are connected, select the appropriate scanner as well as local connection.
See “6.4.3. Select scanner”


Triple Display setup - cursor flickering

I have had a similar issue on Elementary OS and now again on Ubuntu 18.04 where there is a black block behind the cursor. On Elementary I managed to find a workaround by loging out and in again after every reboot. A bit annoying, but at least it got my triple monitor setup working, which I haven't been able to do on Ubuntu 18.04 yet.


XPS13 7390 wireless stopped working on 19.10 after update yesterday

I was in the same situation, and i saw that despite the successfull upgrade to 19.10, the kernel was still on 4.15 !

So i just made :

sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-generic

And boom ! It worked !


You have to follow Ubuntu documentation located at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Ksplice and then use commands from it to get key added

sudo wget -N https://www.ksplice.com/apt/ksplice-archive.asc
sudo apt-key add ksplice-archive.asc


How to set the launcher hide delay time?

This seems to be hard coded into the Unity source.  See here on line 32:

const unsigned int HIDE_DELAY_TIMEOUT_LENGTH = 400;

The actual hide function is further down at line 63:

void LauncherHideMachine::SetShouldHide(bool value, bool skip_delay)
{
  if (_should_hide == value)
    return;

  if (value && !skip_delay)
  {
    _hide_delay_timeout.reset(new glib::Timeout(HIDE_DELAY_TIMEOUT_LENGTH));
    _hide_delay_timeout->Run([&] () {
      EnsureHideState(true);
      return false;
    });
  }
  else
  {
    _should_hide = value;

    _hide_changed_emit_idle.reset(new glib::Idle(glib::Source::Priority::DEFAULT));
    _hide_changed_emit_idle->Run(sigc::mem_fun(this, &LauncherHideMachine::EmitShouldHideChanged));
  }
}

I'm not sure if there's a way to flag the skip_delay argument either.  You may want to file a bug report with the Unity team to see if you can get them to allow this variable to be customized. Otherwise you may have to patch and compile Unity yourself.


What program can I use to open .mld (recorded webcam) files?

Try VLC, it can play almost any file video or audio.

    sudo apt-get install vlc


Libparted complaining about GPT signatures on disk

If you prepared a "live" boot disk by using dd to copy a .iso file to a USB flash drive, then the disk uses a Frankenstein's Monster sort of partition table, and GParted will produce a warning message like that if you launch it on the USB disk (or without explicitly specifying another disk). Thus, this warning may be normal, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's also not a bug, because the disk partition table is, as I said, a monstrosity by design. If this is the case, you should ignore the problem and do not try to use GParted to modify the partition table on /dev/sdb (as noted in the warning), although you can use GParted to modify the partition table(s) on other disk(s).

OTOH, if you prepared your boot disk with a tool like Rufus or UNetbootin, the partition table should be more normal. Also, if /dev/sdb is a regular internal hard disk rather than a USB flash drive, then the warning you're seeing could indicate a serious partition table problem. I can't offer more specific repair advice because the warning doesn't present the details I'd need to diagnose the issue. You might want to consult my page on repairing GPT disks for some general guidance on this topic, and post back with more details if you think you've got a real problem.


This seems to be a KDE/Qt bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdegraphics/+bug/425297
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=176999
http://bugs.kde.org/180051

Shortly ( http://bugs.kde.org/180051 ):

  Description From Nicos Gollan  2009-01-08 19:02:22

  There needs to be some way to have persistent printer settings. From
  looking around on the web, it seems like:

  KDE 4 wants to use whatever Qt provides
  Qt does not seem to provide any useful printer settings tools

There are patches but you need to compile the Qt-libs to use them. Or use non-KDE programs ( Comment #17 From C W J Lemmens  2009-11-20 11:44:47 ):

  For our non-KDE programs (firefox, openoffice and some older stuff)
  I found a perfect replacement for "kprinter" : gtklp !! Take a look
  here : it solved more than half of my problems :
  http://gtklp.sourceforge.net/


When new strings to be translated will be available on Launchpad for the next release?

Ubuntu release schedule, hasn't reach the User Interface Freeze. It's counter productive allow people to translate stuff that latter on will get modified.
Remember that most of the strings are already translated from the previous release (less than two months ago, at December 9) so only the new strings that gets added (which can change) and the changed strings (from upstream) will get translated.

The user interface must be stabilized at some point, so that documentation writers and translators can work on a fixed target that doesn't obsolete screenshots or documentation.
After the user interface freeze (UIF), the following things must not change any more without approval of the release team and notification (usually via email, with a link to the mail in your exception bug) to the documentation and translation teams.


It appears that ubuntu-desktop & other important packages (gnome-applets, gnome-session) would get removed by removing wine that way.

To reinstall them from a terminal, run sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop


Repeated Installation Failure on 19.04 and 18.04.2 - Troubleshooting advice?

Random crashes, i.e. hardware stability problems like this (which is what I gather from what you write is the issue here) can be related to hardware timing. Try resetting your system's BIOS setup to "safe" values. Most BIOS setup programs have either "fail-safe" factory defaults or a "safe" set of pre-set values. If that doesn't work, your hardware is the most likely culprit. Some Asian hardware manufacturers cut corners in a major way, but in such a way that Windows still runs most of the time, and that's all they care about.


xdg-open file.dvi

xdg-open will open any file with its default application. As a bonus, you can close the terminal without killing the application.

Since xdg-open is quite a long name, I put an alias for it in .bashrc:

alias open='xdg-open'


I believe that the  ... in the .../src are meant to indicate the path to the source files. It sounds like you compiled it properly from the top level directory of the distribution and it works so the full paths signified by the ... were unnecessary, or it's .. and not ... in which case .. indicates one level up from the current directory.


Why is Ubuntu Mate 16.04 runs hotter than Windows 7 on my Core2 and ATI Mobility Radeon 3xxx laptop?

If your main concern is CPU/GPU heat control, you can install TLP:

sudo apt install tlp tlp-rdw

After installation run sudo tlp start and reboot.

TLP provides AMD Radeon GPU power management (KMS and DPM), this is probably what you need.

You will see reduced heating after installation and reboot. However, it may take a few days to get the full effect of TLP.

TLP provides power management and longer battery life as well.

Please read more about TLP here.


Add/remove keyboard layout by console command

I found what was that. It's a naming issue. Arabic langugage must be ('xkb', 'ara') NOT ar. Strange, that there is a difference from setxkbmap notation.


Vim will not show you the print dialog box. Instead, you can print to a PostScript file, open it in a PostScript viewer and print from there.

To print to a PostScript file from Vim:

:hardcopy > myfile.ps

You can also convert PostScript to PDF using ps2pdf:

ps2pdf myfile.ps


Fixed,

  apt-get install xdp-user-dirs
  apt-get install glib_networking


Enabling keyboard backlight on Sony VAIO on Ubuntu 19.10

I found it.
Open nautilus first with

sudo nautilus

Navigate to

/sys/devices/platform/sony-laptop

There is a file called kbd_backlight

Open it, there should be a 0 or a -1. Edit it to just leave a 1.
Done. I replace for a 0 and save, backlight instantly turns off, change again to 1 and instantly on. No reboot needed.
Hope it helps.


following the instructions under Ubuntu Desktop Installation on this wiki page https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DesktopExperienceTeam/ApplicationMenu will get you global menu on maverick


how to remove other linux os and stay with ubuntu only

Try this:

In a Ubuntu session, open a terminal,Press Ctrl+Alt+T

Run it:

sudo -i
apt-get update
apt-get install --reinstall grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common grub-common
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda
grub-install --recheck /dev/sda
fdisk -l

By fdisk identify the Fedora partitions, are suppose /dev/sda7 and /dev/sda8, continue running:

umount /dev/sda7
umount /dev/sda8
gparted

In gparted, select the hard disk, delete Fedora partitions y and to create a new, file system ext4, You can mount wherever you want in /media, /mnt, /home/user/.

Close gparted and run:

sudo update-grub


Multiple User Account bit-torrent client

OpenSeedbox seems to match your requirements, but more like a server rather than a client.


For me, when I connect to a Windows share (call it muru-pc) on Windows by \\muru-pc, I can connect on Ubuntu using:

smb://muru-pc

So, in the Files (Nautilus) app, you can try connecting to smb://servername.edu. To do this, press CtrlL to get to the address bar, type the address and press Enter.


Java Plugin crashes on the latest kernel

Just a quick update to let everyone know that the issue is fixed on kernel 4.10.0-26.


Numpad disables after logging into unity

Adding the command numlockx on to Startup Applications
Some commands break if you add them to startup applications, because the command needs a fully loaded desktop to run successfully, and Startup Applications runs the commands too early.
If the command
numlockx on

works once you are logged in, I am pretty sure it is a matter of timing to make it work as a startup application. You can add a little break to make it work.
Since Startup Applications creates a .desktop file in ~/.config/autostart to run the startup command, you need the "regular" syntax to add a complicated command (including the break) to be used in a .desktop file, which is in this case:
/bin/bash -c "sleep 15&&numlockx on"

Possibly, you need to play a little with the sleep 15 to optimize.
Edit
An alternative method to run the command at startup is mentioned here, but the result is the same.
EDIT
If your startup procedure (-time) is unpredictable for some reason and/or the numpad is set to off repeatedly by some process during startup, you can make sure it works correctly by adding the script below to your Startup Applications
It keeps an eye on the Numpad, to be set on during the first minute after startup (log in):
#!/bin/bash

n=1
while [ "$n" -ne 60 ]; do
if [ "$( numlockx status )" != "Numlock is on" ]; then
  numlockx on
fi
sleep 1
n=$((n+1))
done

Add to Startup Applications: Dash > Startup Applications > Add, add the command:
/bin/bash /path/to/script.sh


How to expand the disk space in Ubuntu 18.04 in VMware Workstation Player running in Win 10 Host

This should be easy to fix. The key to it is you need to boot into a live environment and work on your root partition while it is not mounted. You don’t need sda2. Try the following:

Backup any data you cannot afford to lose
Assuming you have an Ubuntu iso file place it in the VM CD drive and boot the VM from the iso as if you are installing.
Choose Try Ubuntu.
From the live environment run GParted.
Delete sda2. You should now unallocated space to the right of sda1
Expand sda1 to fill all the unallocated space. sda1 should now be 40GB.

There are plenty of YouTube videos that show how to use GParted if you’ve not used it before.
Good luck


New Distro 15.10 Wireless No Longer Works

I would like to reference this page on help.ubuntu.com.

Provides information on troubleshooting wireless network.

https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/net-wireless-troubleshooting.html


Ubuntu 18.04 OpenVpn client cannot route properly

Your problem sounds similar to mine (openvpn stopped workng (for me) after upgrade from Kubuntu 14.04 to 18.04)

Adding the following lines to my client.ovpn file solved the problem in my case.

script-security 2
up /etc/openvpn/update-resolv-conf
down /etc/openvpn/update-resolv-conf


What Flash version does my Firefox 42 on 15.10 run? 19.0.0.226 or 13.1.2

You have 19.0.0.226 flash version installed.

Trust the Adobe site. Other sites detect Linux and give wrong results.

Pepper flash was never supposed to be run in FF. It is installed using a plugin, that reports an outdated version.

There is no reason to update the plugin version every time you update Pepper flash.


Open Nautilus (that's the proper name for "Files" btw) - or any file manager - as root: gksudo nautilus in the terminal (replacing nautilus with a different FM if you wish). Then, navigate to /usr/share and right-click gnome-shell, go to permissions, and make sure you have permissions to edit it. Try that


How to get and copy a too long output completely in terminal?

You could send the output to a file: command > file.txt (where command is the command you want to run and file.txt is the file you want to save it to) and then view it with gedit file.txt.


Set up a Serial-to-Ethernet Converter With a Virtual Serial Port

OP has brought another device:

  That was a typo. Fixed now. I came to the conclusion that this device requires a kernel driver (that doesn't exist), so I ended up getting another device - a Moxa Nport 5250A Serial Device Server, which has drivers for 2.4-2.6 kernels. It seems to be working well. I'm sure the original 3one data device would have worked if they actually wrote a driver for it.


Black frame around screen after HDMI connection failure

I figured it out finally, I removed the .nvidia-settings-rc file on my home directory and the problem was fixed :)


This error is usually related to a missing fstab file. Probably you delete it by accident or something.

Boot from a LiveCd/Usb and mount the partition with Ubuntu. The root partition (if you have separated /home and /root partitions).
You can see in which partition Ubuntu is installed with this command

sudo fdisk -l

search for the Linux system with id: 83

Then connect and search for the fstab.

This is an example if your Ubuntu root partition is on /dev/sda2.
Open a terminal and

sudo mount /dev/sda2 /mnt
cd /mnt && cat etc/fstab

If the result is similar to "/etc/fstab: No such file or directory" then you must create another /etc/fstab file.

If the fstab file opens , then check there for mistakes (you made) in the UUID's... etc.
You can see the current UUID's with the command sudo blkid

If you were prudent and you have a fstab.bak (backup) file then you can easily restore it with this command

sudo cp /mnt/etc/fstab.bak /mnt/etc/fstab

Good Luck.

EDIT due to new info

Boot from a Live CD/USB of Ubuntu. Same architecture (32bit or 64bit) as your corrupted system. Then follow this procedure to chroot to your corrupted system. The chroot procedure ends with sudo chroot /mnt command.

After chroot successfully full update your system with following commands

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

sudo not needed here, because you are already root.


How can I remove scope from Ubuntu phone home screen?

The scopes view is the home screen. You cannot remove it and replace it with your background image. The background image is only used for the lock screen. It is a design decision.

I suggest you contact bq support and explain that you are unable to set the background.


The error that you are getting is:

dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/cuda-cublas-9-1_9.1.85.3-1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/local/cuda-9.1/lib64', which is also in package cuda-cudart-9-1 9.1.85-1

The "trying to overwrite" error implies that you have conflicting packages in your system.You can try overwriting the package (can be a bit risky)

sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/cuda-cublas-9-1_9.1.85.3-1_amd64.deb You need to remove that package

If that doesn't fix it, you can remove the package and re-install it

sudo dpkg -P cuda-cublas


The package is available in 18.04 LTS repository from universe pocket.

You have to add the repository with:

sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get update

And then install the 64-bit library with:

sudo apt-get install libcgal13

If you know that application is 32-bit - use additional command:

sudo apt-get install libcgal13:i386


Black screen after installing NVIDIA drivers 390, 410, 415 for GeForce 1050 TI

You have to load the proprietary Nvidia drivers from initramfs.

/etc/initramfs-tools/modules

# List of modules that you want to include in your initramfs.
# They will be loaded at boot time in the order below.
#
# Syntax:  module_name [args ...]
#
# You must run update-initramfs(8) to effect this change.
#
# Examples:
#
# raid1
# sd_mod
nvidia
nvidia-drm
nvidia-modeset
nvidia-uvm

You could also check the content of /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-graphics-drivers.conf, should be something like this:

options nvidia-drm modeset=1
blacklist nouveau
blacklist lbm-nouveau
alias nouveau off
alias lbm-nouveau off

Make sure to update initramfs.
sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

To work around bug with still black screen on typing password, try the following:
edit /etc/default/grub
change the two lines to be like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

apply it with running sudo update-grub

Reboot, and hopefully enjoy!


How to get full Conky transparency in KDE 4.11?

On my Kubuntu 13.10 installation, I got transparency working by doing 2 things:

appropriate settings in .conkyrc (see below)
Changing the compositing type from 'XRender' to 'OpenGL 3.1' in KDE System Settings > Desktop Effects > Advanced

The "magic" combination of options in my .conkyrc that work are:

own_window yes
own_window_title conky
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_type normal

Note that as long as you use the argb options, you do NOT need to inlude own_window_transparent

if you include only own_window_argb_visual without own_window_argb_value,  then own_window_transparent functions as expected.


How can I connect to my machine which is connected to internet via dsl?

Go to the web administration page of your gateway, and search for "port forwarding" or "virtual server": the gateway need to forward packets to a given port, say port 22, to your particular internal IP address.

I suppose you can select the service from the list, ssh should be there. Then insert the internal IP of your machine in the "Server IP address" text field.

For services not in the list you should select "Custom server", I suppose the dialog will change to let you put in the port number.

For dyndns, your gateway could have the support (see the help or doc of the gateway) or you can use some software on your host to inform dyndns of external IP changes.


I found the reason.
The reason was a double IP address.
Once I changed the IP address everythng works fine.


You can do this by setting the skip_taskbar hint on the window directly. For example, with wmctrl:

wmctrl -r "Window title" -b add,skip_taskbar

The window will be hidden from the window switcher, the dock, and the overview. You can get back to the window using Ctrl+Alt+Tab ("Switch system controls" in the Keyboard Shortcuts menu).

Curiously, Mutter also tracks the skip_pager hint, but never uses it.

Sources:

Original Metacity bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=106249
Relevant commit in Mutter: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/commit/d5a484479f43026f50a23f6453208dff158455bd


Problem: System will freeze and show graphical glitches ever so often.
Reason: My graphic card is not suitable for the open source Nouveau drivers.

Solution:

Download the correct driver for your card via Nvidia site (Mine was 340 for 9600GT)
sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf and add the line blacklist nouveau to the end of the file.
Reboot your system.
Enter tty (Ctrl+Alt+F1)
Type sudo service lightdm stop (this will close your desktop)
Give permissions to the nvidia driver like so: sudo chmod +x NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.58.run
Run the file like so : sudo ./NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-340.58.run and follow instructions.
After all is done and well type sudo service lightdm start
Go back to desktop (ctrl+alt+F7)


The Wiki article you pointed to is not a currently implemented spec - it's a suggested guide for developers of features that should be implemented and how they should be implemented.

  This is the design specification for Notify OSD. If you are a software developer looking for advice on making your software compatible with Notify OSD, see NotificationDevelopmentGuidelines.
  This specification contains some issues not yet resolved. Your feedback is welcome at NotifyOSD/Comments.

This will likely be implemented in the future, for now it's rough going when the queue piles up.


Touchscreen calibration with dual monitors (NVidia and xinput)

I now (on 13.04) had a similar problem but xinput map-to-output did help, if I do things in the right order.

xinput map-to-output tweaks the "Coordinate Transformation Matrix".
xinput_calibrator sets "Evdev Axis Calibration" and is completely unaware of "Coordinate Transformation Matrix".  It also always opens stretched to the full available output area.

This means that you must run xinput_calibrator on a single screen.

xrandr --output <non-touch-output> --off
xinput map-to-output <touch input device> <touch-output>
(to reset "Coordinate Transformation Matrix" in case you've touched it before).
Calibrate with xinput_calibrator.
You should now have well-calibrated touch on the single screen.
(My touchscreen was initially way off — X/Y swapped, Y inverted — so I had to run this twice, with --misclick 0.  I believe that's a property of my touchscreen, unrelated to the dual monitor situation.)
Re-enable the second screen.
xrandr --output <non-touch-output> --on
Do map-to-output again.


focal-preinstalled-server-arm64+raspi.img.xz fails to boot due to missing initrd.img and vmlinuz files

Thanks for the feedback. I posted the issue on the Ubuntu Forums. For completeness the answer is to use the new 20.04 beta release version rather than the focal daily release version. The beta release does have the missing files (initrd.img and vmlinuz).


windows guests on ubuntu virtualbox not starting

Yesterday I did a manual update of Ubuntu. When I tried again today to start my Windows guest system, it worked! Which proves that the Windows system was not corrupt, but that there was a problem somewhere with Ubuntu. Unfortunately I don't know how it was corrected.


In Ubuntu - using the Image Viewer (eog)*, you can just

put all of the Images of your slideshow in one directory
open the first one
press F11 to put it into full screen

Hit the spacebar to advance to the next one

or
press F5 to have a full screen slideshow that advances automatically

Go to Edit → Preferences → Slideshow to set the time

For this to work, make sure the names of your images are correctly sorted in alphabetical order. You could, for example, name them 01.png, 02.png and so on.

You will also want to make sure the images have the correct aspect ratio for your screens.

As far as portability is concerned, you can just right click your Slideshow Directory and select "Compress" to create an archive, then take it with you on a USB Stick.

*: It will work the same way if you're using Shotwell.


How to add Battery Level indicator on Xubuntu 20.04

Right click in the dashboard, go to "dashboard", "add new element" .
Then search a "indicator power" or something similar
(as i don't use english, names  may be different)
You may need installing  xfce4-indicator-plugin and indicator-power packages


How do I retrieve the public key from a SSH private key?

I've found the answer on Server Fault: Create a public SSH key from the private key?
The option -y outputs the public key:
ssh-keygen -y -f ~/.ssh/id_rsa > ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub

As a side note, the comment of the public key is lost. I've had a site which required the comment (Launchpad?), so you need to edit ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub and append a comment to the first line with a space between the comment and key data. An example public key is shown truncated below.
ssh-rsa AAAA..../VqDjtS5 ubuntu@ubuntu

For keys that were added to the SSH Agent (a program that runs in the background and avoids the need for re-entering the keyfile passphrase over and over again), you can use the ssh-add -L command to list the public keys for keys that were added to the agent (via ssh-add -l). This is useful when the SSH key is stored on a smart card (and access to the private key file is not possible).


Sudo validate (sudo -v) asks for password even with NOPASSWD

If you have a newer version of sudo, you may also need to configure verifypw

Defaults verifypw = any

You can read the docs, but basically this means that if you match any NOPASSWD line it doesn't ask for a password. The default is all which means you have to match all the groups and the user with NOPASSWD to skip the password.

So if you're user is also in the root or wheel or sudo groups and they don't say NOPASSWD, then it'll ask.


messed up bootloader while dual booting Windows 10 and Ubuntu 18.04

Unfortunately, this is very common.  Perhaps you can follow the instructions for boot-repair at this website
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

Then you will have a huge list of grub choices.. You can remove them the easy way by installing grub customizer  (google how to install it).


How can I cut the margin of a PDF or djvu file for optimal booklet printing?

My favorite tool to crop PDF files is BRISS java program available here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/briss/


Being told to update apache due to Vulnerabilities

You can check the changelog for security patches:
http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/a/apache2/apache2_2.4.18-2ubuntu3.15/changelog
Look there and see if the fixes have been applied.


Your permissions are probably incorrect to the socket:

$ sudo chown root:lxd /var/lib/lxd/unix.socket
$ lxc list


Can I reuse other OS /home directory for Ubuntu?

There could be some problems with dotfiles (files that start with dots and are normally hidden), but no, there shouldn't be any new file that you need to create for Ubuntu to work normally.


How to ENABLE paste in terminal with (middle) mouse button

IMO easiest method is to install gpointing-device-settings

sudo apt-get install gpointing-device-settings

You then 'use wheel emulation'

gpointing-device-settings looks as in image.

try this it may help you out.


Fresh install of 13.10 - left with no dash nor apps - only blank magenta wallpaper

The issue you are describing sounds like the Unity 3D desktop is not working. This could be because your hardware is not powerful enough for it or another issue with graphics.

I would try an install of Lubuntu 31.10: http://www.lubuntu.net/

-or-

Ubuntu 12.04.3 and use Unity 2D by slecting it at the login screen by clicking the icon in the top right of the login box: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop


Pac ssh manager on Ubuntu 14.04 does not work

I could fix it by forcing PAC to use my system library instead of the embedded one by removing all Vte.so* files from PAC:

find /opt/pac/ -name "Vte.so*" -exec rm {} +


Nautilus file manager is a project of Gnome.

Here are the files you want : http://ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/GNOME/sources/nautilus/


Re-install a set of deb files on another machine without re-downloading

Yes, you can simply copy the files to the other machine and they will not need downloaded again.  You might use scp to copy files over the network if you have an ssh server installed.


Error while running 'modprobe -v usb-storage' during 16.04 install

I had multiple boot options for the same usb stick. I had previously selected the usb stick with UEFI and found another option for the same device in the boot menu without UEFI which did not cause the same issue when trying to install.


I think this is almost the same question as here: How to create a restricted SSH user for port forwarding?

The solution there is very comprehensive and should be also applicable for your problem.


Disable kernel modules:

modprobe -r pn533 nfc

Restart the pcscd daemon:

sudo service pcscd restart


Lubuntu 11.04 uses gnome-power-manager. Therefore you can use gconf-editor to change various settings.

Try installing gconf-editor:

sudo apt-get install gconf-editor

then run the editor

gconf-editor &

navigate to this part of the tree and change the suspend options to whichever action you want - use the values as described at the bottom hand right corner of the screen.


Ubuntu 14.04 used too much processor after latest updatest

I had a similar issue in my laptop. Installing the following solved my issue. Probably you'll also resolve your overheating. 2 things to solve your issue.

Note that while I didn't encounter any issues on my laptop running Ubuntu 14.04 with intel_pstate enabled and from what I've read, it works for others as well, it might not work properly for you so use it at your own risk and only enable it if you know how to disable it in case something goes wrong!

1. Enable Intel P-state:

Type in the terminal sudo gedit /etc/default/grub
Find the Line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" and modify
it as GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash intel_pstate=enable"
Save and exit gedit. Now type sudo update-grub in terminal and wait the grub to update
Reboot and test

To test:
Try running cpupower frequency-info and you'll get some output similar to

analyzing CPU 0:
  driver: intel_pstate
  CPUs which run at the same hardware frequency: 0
  CPUs which need to have their frequency coordinated by software: 0
  maximum transition latency: 0.97 ms.
  hardware limits: 1.20 GHz - 3.30 GHz
  available cpufreq governors: performance, powersave
  current policy: frequency should be within 1.20 GHz and 3.30 GHz.
                  The governor "performance" may decide which speed to use
                  within this range.
  boost state support:
    Supported: no
    Active: no
    25500 MHz max turbo 4 active cores
    25500 MHz max turbo 3 active cores
    25500 MHz max turbo 2 active cores
    25500 MHz max turbo 1 active cores

To change the profile of CPU running run this: sudo cpupower frequency-set -g powersave

Replace powersave with performance if you require more performance. (There is no performance issue for me. I am in power save mode)

2. Install Thermald

just run the command sudo apt-get install thermald

This will start automatically

Always google the stuffs before you install to know more about it

Hope this solves your issue. All the best.


remove 12.04 which installed by wubi and install 14.04

Solution:

1) Back up your data

2) Place Ubuntu 14.04 on flash drive, hard disk, cd, etc using unetbootin or YUMI
   (preferrably YUMI)

3) Select your device from boot menu

4) Run and select "Install Ubuntu"

5) Select "Erase disk and install Ubuntu"


And the answer seems to be:

\r_ignorefastpath 0

Now I get really smooth graphics all the time.


Booting loop after installation of Ubuntu

Diagnosis

I'm not sure how you got to where it is now, but your current configuration is unworkable for booting Windows. It should be repairable, but there are several options for this, and I can't say which will be easiest. To help you understand what's going on, here's my list of observations:

You have two disks:

/dev/sda is a 223.6 GiB GPT disk with two partitions, both of which are Windows-related. The partitions cover all but about 0.5 MiB of the disk but do not include the all-important EFI System Partition (ESP), which is needed for booting any EFI-based computer in EFI mode. The fact that the disk is GPT means that Windows will boot only in EFI mode from this disk.
/dev/sdb is a 931.5 GiB GPT disk with five partitions, all of which are Linux-related. The partitions cover the first ~220 MiB of the disk, so a lot of it is unallocated. One partition is a BIOS Boot Partition, which can be part of a BIOS-mode boot of Linux from an EFI disk, and this appears to be set up correctly. This will not help in booting Windows. There's no sign of an ESP on this disk.

BIOS-mode GRUB seems to be set up correctly; the GRUB MBR code resides where it should, there's a BIOS Boot partition, and there's a grub.cfg file. My suspicion is that the system is not booting because the firmware is not set to boot in BIOS/CSM/legacy mode from the hard disk or because it's set to boot from /dev/sda, not from /dev/sdb. (The firmware's disk identification will not match these Linux names, though.)

In some sense, you should not have been able to get to this condition, since Windows should not have installed to the disk it's on without also creating an ESP. Chances are you either accidentally deleted the ESP or you converted /dev/sda from MBR to GPT form. How you got to where you are will affect what recovery path is easiest, which is why I can't say what will be the easiest repair.

Recommendations

There are quite a few options for repairing this setup. Broadly speaking, you could:

Start again -- After fixing boot-mode issues (see below), you could wipe everything and start from scratch. This is a reasonable option, and may be easier than attempting a repair of the current installations, if these are fresh installations of both OSes. OTOH, it's very important that you understand your boot modes, as noted below, before you attempt a re-installation; otherwise you're likely to end up in the same hole again.
Convert from GPT to MBR and install BIOS-mode boot loaders -- You can use my gdisk to convert both disks from GPT to MBR, as described here. With that done, you could re-run Boot Repair, which might finally get things running. OTOH, you might also need to install a BIOS-mode boot loader for Windows. I'm not sure of the exact procedure for this, and you should ask about it on a Windows forum. This approach is most likely to work if you did a BIOS-mode install of Windows to begin with and accidentally converted /dev/sda from MBR to GPT. (This can happen if you use gdisk and don't know what you're doing.) This approach is less likely to be optimal if you installed Windows in EFI mode originally (which would include if the computer came with Windows pre-installed and you didn't re-install it), since in that case there will be no hint of a BIOS-mode Windows boot loader on the system.
Install EFI-mode boot loaders for both OSes -- You can create an ESP (which is easy enough; a ~550 MiB ESP will easily fit on /dev/sdb and install EFI-mode boot loaders for both Windows and Linux. When booted in EFI mode, Boot Repair will do this for Linux, but you'll need to ask on a Windows forum for instructions on installing an EFI-mode boot loader for Windows. (Note that instructions you find on the Web might or might not be appropriate for installing an EFI-mode boot loader. Older instructions, in particular, often assume a BIOS-mode boot.) If you go this route, it's best if you disable your CSM.

It's possible that you wound up in this mess because you enabled your Compatibility Support Module (CSM). (I believe the boot mode you mentioned is "CSM + UEFI," not "CMOS + UEFI.") See this page of mine for information on the CSM and why it can create problems. (I strongly recommend that you read that page!) In brief, a CSM enables a modern EFI-based computer to boot older ("legacy") BIOS-based OSes. This can be useful, but if used inappropriately, it can create all manner of troubles. Disabling the CSM requires entering your firmware setup utility and adjusting one or more options, which might be called "CSM," "legacy boot support," "BIOS boot mode," or something else entirely. (Sometimes you'd set the "boot mode" to "EFI only" or "UEFI only," for instance.)

With the CSM disabled, the computer should boot only in EFI mode, which simplifies things and makes it harder to dig yourself into a hole. People often enable the CSM when they shouldn't because they've created boot media that boot only in BIOS mode; but enabling the CSM then leads them to install in BIOS mode, when an EFI-mode install was in fact more appropriate. In other words, instead of enabling the CSM, they should have fixed their boot media -- a topic that's covered in detail on my page on the CSM.


How to configure the Marvell 8897 pcie as an access point?

Some version of the uaputl binary (like the one bundled with Steam Link) loads domain configuration file from a relative path config/80211d_domain.conf. Missing of this file from current directory causes the utility to exit with error.

The file 80211d_domain.conf required can be extracted from package distributions of uaputl. Note that the current version (1.12) on GitHub loads the file from an absolute path /usr/share/uaputl/80211d_domain.conf.


Why is Karmic (9.10) neither available from "releases" nor from "old-releases"?

We're waiting for a new machine with some more storage to come on line (should be within next couple of days).   As soon as its available,  Karmic images will be back.


The answer from Hannu was correct, the following steps helped me to solve the problem:

I physically removed the other disk
I got the UUIDs like Hannu described, thx !!!
I remounted the device, because it was mounted as read-only
I edited the fstab with the UUIDs
Then I was able to boot
I updated and reinstalled GRUB

Now it boots again
P.S. Still this is the second time a grub-update broke my computer, they should really improve the strategy


Clean install to Saucy reduces to low-graphics mode and flickering mouse cursor

Have you installed Bumblebee? Usually it solves the nvidia graphics issues in a "smooth way".

And here is something about the mouse cursor


How can I stop GDM on Ubuntu 18.04 Desktop in order to install NVIDIA Driver?

Ubuntu has been using systemd for a while now.  This worked for me.

sudo systemctl stop gdm3


Why do I see AMD/ATI graphics driver updates when I have an Intel card (gma500)? What should I do with them?

They are simply drivers that are installed. Ubuntu ships with as many Open Source drivers as feasible by default, and this includes some drivers for various video, sound, and other devices which you may not have. It is perfectly fine to update them, or if you wish to free up a small amount of disk space, it is also safe to remove the AMD/ATI video driver packages.

You can remove the xserver-xorg-video-radeon and xserver-xorg-video-ati packages to remove the AMD/ATI drivers.


Once you get to the recovery menu choose


You should put your scripts in ~/bin, but, if you MUST keep the scripts in ~/Documents, simply add ~/Documents to your PATH in your ~/.bashrc, like this:

PATH="$PATH:$HOME/Documents"


What does this command do: top -bHn 1 -u mail?

From man top

   -b : Batch mode operation
        Starts top in 'Batch mode', which could be useful for sending
        output from top to other programs or  to  a  file.   In  this
        mode, top will not accept input and runs until the iterations
        limit you've set with the '-n' command-line option  or  until
        killed.

   -H : Threads toggle
        Starts top with the last remembered 'H' state reversed.  When
        this  toggle is On, all individual threads will be displayed.
        Otherwise, top displays a  summation  of  all  threads  in  a
        process.

   -n : Number of iterations limit as:  -n number
        Specifies  the  maximum  number of iterations, or frames, top
        should produce before ending.

   -u : Monitor by user as:  -u somebody
        Monitor only processes with an effective  UID  or  user  name
        matching that given.

So it means operate in batch mode (-b), toggle thread display (-H), for a single iteration (-n 1), showing only processes belonging to user mail (-u mail) : basically an one-time snapshot of the current threads belonging to mail, more or less equivalent to ps -Lfu mail


type code in terminal and write Avant Window Navigator instead of application name

dpkg -l | grep "application name"

for an example to learn chromium;

burak@stat:~$ dpkg -l | grep "chromium"
ii  chromium-browser                              32.0.1700.102-0ubuntu0.13.10.1~20140128.970.1 amd64        Chromium browser
ii  chromium-browser-l10n                         32.0.1700.102-0ubuntu0.13.10.1~20140128.970.1 all          chromium-browser language packages
ii  chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra                  32.0.1700.102-0ubuntu0.13.10.1~20140128.970.1 amd64        Extra ffmpeg codecs for the Chromium Browser
ii  unity-scope-chromiumbookmarks                 0.1+13.10.20130723-0ubuntu1                   all          Chromium bookmarks scope for Unity

You can see the code which starts chromium in the second line "chromium-browser"

Have a nice day :)


The package slidewall is only available using the extra repository (or ppa), and only on precise. Installation method:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 3E5C1192
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise main" >> \
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/extras.list'
sudo apt-get install slidewall

Sources:

http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/extras/precise/main/base/slidewall
http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/ppa/extras?dist=precise


Brightness of screen to dark, no regulation possible

You're looking for Screen under System Settings.


Is the 64-Bit version of Ubuntu only compatible with AMD CPUs?

There is a slight misunderstanding here. AMD64 refers to the architecture of the processor. As AMD's X86-64 extension prevailed in the "64-Bit format war", it is named after them; just like people used to call all PCs IBM-PC-compatible.

The gist of the matter is: You can install AMD64 software on both AMD and Intel processors, as long as they support that type of architecture (Don't worry, almost all processors released in the last 5 years do). So just go ahead and install Ubuntu using the 64 bit iso.

Finally, if your CPU has PAE enabled, you can access more than the limited "4G" of RAM using 32-bit processors.

See also:

What are the differences between 32-bit and 64-bit, and which should I choose?
Difference between the i386 download and the amd64?


Apache Newbie Confused - Can't make directory listing work

Remove index.html. The directory index is displayed only if an index file does not exist.


I installed Ubuntu-MATE 18.04(.2 i think) only recently & had the same error when I tried adding xubuntu-desktop.  My history  (command history) on that box shows I then used

sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop xorg xubuntu-core

before moving onto different things. I was surprised by the error, but sorry i didn't explore why  (it was a x86 tablet with crap keyboard; I was going to ssh into the box later from a real desktop & look but forgot).

Please note: I started with Ubuntu-MATE meaning I had 'universe' already enabled, Ubuntu does not have 'universe' repository enabled by default - so it must be enabled first. Refer https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu if you don't understand repos, but Ubuntu 18.04 LTS contains all 5 year supported code from 'main', where as flavors contain community-supported code (3 years support generally for LTS) from 'universe' too.

With both desktops loaded, you can select at the login screen which you want to use today. There are pro's & con's with multiple desktops (multiple programs that do the same thing, larger updates, more complex menu) but I use it very often and like it.


Why do I get "permission denied" errors with Python easy_install?

The answer is very simple, just run sudo easy_install.

However, if for some reason you don't want to do that, it's also possible to install Python packages in your home directory. The process is described in details in this article, and involves modifying the PYTHONPATH environment variable.


How to keep GNOME panel transparent even when app is maximized in Ubuntu 18.04?

I had the same issue with that extension. So, I went to the source of the problem.

The steps I took:

Open the terminal.
Navigate to ubuntu.css.

cd /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme

For security I copied ubuntu.css.

sudo cp ubuntu.css ubuntu_css.txt

just in case I screwed up the file.
Open ubuntu.css in an editor.

sudo vi ubuntu.css

Search document for panel.solid until you should see /* panel color */.

/* panel color */
#panel.solid {
background-gradient-direction: vertical;
background-gradient-start: #58554d;
background-gradient-end: #3f3e39;
text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9);
}

For security I commented out background-gradient- css options by using /* */ so that I could keep the original code.
Add a new line and typed:

background-color: rgba( 0, 0, 0, 0.1);

Save the file and restart the computer.

The completed code looks like this:

#panel.solid {
 /* background-gradient-direction: vertical;
  background-gradient-start: #58554d;
  background-gradient-end: #3f3e39; */
  background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1);
  text-shadow: 0px 0px 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.9);
}


[   26.993526] NVRM: Your system is not currently configured to drive a VGA console
[   26.993530] NVRM: on the primary VGA device. The NVIDIA Linux graphics driver
[   26.993532] NVRM: requires the use of a text-mode VGA console. Use of other console
[   26.993534] NVRM: drivers including, but not limited to, vesafb, may result in
[   26.993536] NVRM: corruption and stability problems, and is not supported.

Did you see that? System does not have proper nvidia driver. It's running in VGA mode. That's why system is not responsive. Open jockey-gtk (default installed), it will automatically show perfect driver for your graphics card. Install it from there. And also remove your existing driver first.


Ubuntu fails to complete package install using Snap

The snap installed is trying to install your package (Spotify), but for some reason has failed. Please find the Change ID for the failed install with the command

snap changes

In the list which follows, you will find one line which leads off with a number, and ends with Install "spotify" snap.

Halt the failed install with the number found (let's pretend it is 123)

(please replace 123 with the number you find).

sudo snap abort 123

If the command executes successfully, then you will then be able to retry installation. Should reinstallation fail, please reboot your system and retry.

If other Snap packages are also hung up, use the

sudo snap abort nnn

command (where nnn is the number from the list generated by snap changes) to clear them as well.


My solution for this would be to partition the HDD with 4 partitions,

1 bootable partition for your Ubuntu partial install (type 83 formatted as ext3, ext4  or whatever flavor you like...) mount at /

2 partition (type 83, formatted same as #1) mount at /usr

3 partition (type 6,7,b,c (whichever DOS type file system you want, formatted as MSDOS) mount at /home#

4 partition (type 82 formatted as linux swap) mount as swap.

With this setup, Linux will mount the /home (/dev/hdd3) as an MSDOS filesystem and not care. Windoze will now recognize the /home directory as a MSDOS filesystem and be able to mount/read/write to it.

Hope this works for you!


16.04 LTS date format in browser and apps

This solved it for me. So if anyone has the same problem hope it helps.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/159950/changing-short-date-format-in-ubuntu


Rhythmbox plugin code for hot key not working - why?

I have no Knowledge about the plugin your using.

However Ubuntu has another solution for this:-)

Go to: System>Preferences>Keyboard Shortcuts

right at the top under "sound" you can set action keys including a next track, play, pause, volume down, etc.


Ubuntu installation: "file systems with errors" message

Lets first check your file system for errors.

To check the file system on your Ubuntu partition...

boot to the GRUB menu
choose Advanced Options
choose Recovery mode
choose Root access
at the # prompt, type sudo fsck -f / or sudo fsck -f /dev/sda2
repeat the fsck command if there were errors
type reboot

If for some reason you can't do the above...

boot to a Ubuntu Live DVD/USB
open a terminal window
type sudo fsck -f /dev/sda2
repeat the fsck command if there were errors
type reboot


G-parted, Need help expanding my home partition

I would recommend using a GParted LiveCD from here. AFAIK you cannot change a partition that is currently mounted.

And about the resizing. You can always remove space from one partition and move it to the left or right side of the partition. That way you can move a free space from the very left to the very right.


Ubuntu 18.04: Couldn't load SIP module qgis

I found a solution for my problem so i answered to my question to someone stuck in my situation:

According this page on Stack Overflow:

  PyQt in PyPI is not compatible with the installed Qt

So I removed pyqt5 using pip3:

pip3 uninstall PyQt5

and installed PyQt5 from apt:

sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5

Now Qgis seems to work correctly.


I assume those steps relate to grub, not grub2. With grub2, the file structure has changed, so there are no more stage file in the grub directory. In this thread, under #13, you will find a description how to restore grub2 from a LiveCD. EDIT2: It has the following steps (credits drs305):

Boot the Ubuntu Live CD (Try without installing).
From the Desktop, open a terminal - Applications, Accessories, Terminal.
Determine your normal system partition - sudo fdisk -l (That is a lowercase L).

If you aren't sure, run df -Th. Look for the correct disk size and ext3 or ext4 format.
Mount your normal system partition:

  sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

If you aren't sure if you mounted the correct partition, once it's mounted run "nautilus /mnt" to inspect the partition. If it is the correct partition, you should see the normal Ubuntu folders such as /bin, /boot, /etc, /home, etc
Example: sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
Note: The partition to mount is normally the partition on which Ubuntu was installed: sda1, sdb5, etc. If you have a separate /boot partition, use the device on which the /boot partition is located. Grub 2 works best when installed in the MBR of the drive to which BIOS boots. Also remember that you mount the partition (including the number) in this step, but you do not include the partition number when you run the "sudo grub-install" command later.
Note: GRUB 2 counts the first drive (X) as "0", but the first partition (Y) as "1"

Only if you have a separate boot partition:

  sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/boot

with sdXY being your /boot partition designation.
Reinstall GRUB 2:

  sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sdX

Do NOT include the partition number.
Example:

  sudo grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

Note: Substitute the device on which Ubuntu was installed - sda, sdb, etc. Do NOT specify a partition number.

Unmount the partition *:

  sudo umount /mnt

Note: If you mounted a separate /boot partition, unmount it first:

  sudo umount /mnt/boot

Reboot.
After reboot: Update the grub menu using sudo update-grub

Here's another description. Good luck!

EDIT1: Some more information is also available in the Ubuntu Wiki on grub2.


chmod +x xampp-linux-1.8.3-5-installer.run will grant the file executable permission.

Then ./xampp-linux-1.8.3-5-installer.run will execute the .run file.

You might have just entered xampp-linux-1.8.3-5-installer.run into the terminal without the ./, which does nothing usually


700 denies all access to users other than the superuser (eg root).

It would effectively deny anybody running an application as a normal user, or even logging in.  Applications (eg in /usr) and their configuration (in /etc) and data (in /var) need to be accessible by the user that is going to run those applications.

For any file that it is important to be inaccessible to regular users, that permission will already be set.  Do not try to re-invent the security features already built into the operating system.


Freeze when resuming from screensaver or monitor-sleep-state

Still just a work-around, but I did a kill -9 on the compiz process and the gnome-session process respawned it and after a brief wait while things were redrawn,  everything carried on as before.


How do I make VLC play a HEVC video properly?

To see is problem in plug-in reinstall it then run that file.
If you want to convert video to MP4 use OpenShotVideoEditor you can download it in your ubuntu software center. Open that video with it then go
File/Export video... then choose which format you want to convert and press ok. If you need more help text me.


Sort of, there's a typo (you need install in your installation line). You also don't need to remove ubuntu-desktop and I certainly wouldn't do this until you're happy with what you've got. Here's what I would do:

Install Xubuntu task

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop^

Log out, log back in, selecting Xubuntu/Xfce as my interface
Chill out for a few days. See that things still work. There will be too many applications (eg there will be both GNOME's and Xfce's default applications available but you want to make sure you'll have everything you need when you remove GNOME/Unity/Whatever.
Clean up.

sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get autoremove # removes dependencies of ubuntu-desktop

Note: we need to install Xubuntu task (xubuntu-desktop^) to avoid bug 1754872 with meta-package.


Can I remote control my Ubuntu laptop from an Android phone without using the Internet?

There is a way to do it and its free.

1) Install any VNC server from the list like
TightVNC, UltraVNC, TigerVNC, or RealVNC, although encryption is not supported with the latter.

2) Create a hotspot and connect your laptop and your Android phone in the same network.

3) Install bVNC Secure VNC Viewer on your Android phone.

The bVNC app is a VNC viewer.It can also emulate a touchpad or let you use Android as a mouse with support for touchscreen gestures. You can save sessions, zoom and scale the Linux desktop on the Android screen, and share the text in the clipboard between Android and PC.

And EnjoY.. !!!!!!!


Why are these characters written to the terminal during clear?

They are what is known as an "ESCape sequence", and are the character sequence used to tell the glass keypunch that your terminal session is emulating (according to your $TERM environment variable) to "clear screen".

ESC [ 3 ; J ESC [ H ESC [ 2 J is picked depending on the value of your TERM environment variable. (echo $TERM). If $TERM doesn't match the kind of terminal you're using, clear will pick the wrong string.

What is your $TERM? What kind of terminal?

For example, I'm typing in to a Gnome Terminal ( Ctrl Alt T on my Ubuntu 14.04 graphics login) and

$ echo $TERM
xterm-color
$ clear | od -bc
0000000 033 133 110 033 133 062 112
        033   [   H 033   [   2   J
0000007
$ clear

clears my screen silently.

When I'm logged in to a Ctrl Alt F1 session, my $TERM starts as "linux", and is set to xterm-color by my ~/.bashrc

Start with reading man tput;man terminfo, and read the man pages mentioned in their SEE ALSO sections.


Can't connect to smtp.gmail.com on port 465 or 587

I had similar problem, VPS machine without firewall and with same error as you listed. I contacted support of VPS provider and it turned out they had one more firewall that was wrapping my machine. So they enabled port 587 on that firewall and everything was working smoothly.


create a .tar file of all latest files in the directories

A python solution to do the job completely. It creates a tar.gz file from the latest files of all sub directories of a given directory.

The script

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import os
import time
import tarfile

files_dir = "/path/to/directory/with/subdirectories"
targeted_file = "/path/to/latest_files.tar.gz"

latest_files = []
# get the latest files of all sub directories
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(files_dir):
    for dr in dirs:
        dr = root+"/"+dr
        filelist = []
        for item in os.listdir(dr):
            file = dr+"/"+item
            if os.path.isfile(file):
                filelist.append((file, os.stat(file).st_mtime))
        filelist.sort(key=lambda x: x[1])
        if len(filelist) != 0:
            latest_files.append(filelist[-1][0])
# write to latest_files.tar.gz
tar = tarfile.open(targeted_file, "w:gz")
for file in latest_files:
    tar.add(file, arcname = file.split("/")[-1])
tar.close()

Copy the script into an empty file, set in the head section of the script the directory, containing the sub directories (files_dir =), and the path to the tar.gz file (targeted_file =), and save it as get_latest.py.

Run it by the command:

python3 /path/to/get_latest.py

What it does

The script first lists all (sub-) directories. Within the sub directories, it lists the files, sorts them by modification date and adds the latest ones to the "master" list, to be included in the compressed file.

To set the number of versions to include

To give the answer a more universal character, below a version of the script in which you can set the numbers of (latest) versions to include in the compressed file. If the number of set versions (versions =) exceeds the actual number of files in a folder, all files are included.

The script

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import os
import time
import tarfile

files_dir = "/path/to/directory/with/subdirectories"
targeted_file = "/path/to/latest_files.tar.gz"
versions = 1

latest_files = []
# get the latest files of subdirectories
for root, dirs, files in os.walk(files_dir):
    for dr in dirs:
        dr = root+"/"+dr
        filelist = []
        for item in os.listdir(dr):
            file = dr+"/"+item
            if os.path.isfile(file):
                filelist.append((file, os.stat(file).st_mtime))
        filelist.sort(key=lambda x: x[1])
        if len(filelist) != 0:
            for item in filelist[-versions:]:
                latest_files.append(item[0])
# write to latest_files.tar.gz
tar = tarfile.open(targeted_file, "w:gz")
for file in latest_files:
    tar.add(file, arcname = file.split("/")[-1])
tar.close()


How to Install multiple Ubuntu Operating Systems with Shared Boot Partition

As you described you have created separate partition, it is fairly possible to install multiple Ubuntu operating systems and use  which ever you want.

While installing Ubuntu just chose the last option Do something else and select the partition in which you want to install Ubuntu. Best thing is that you can chose same Swap partition for all Ubuntu installation.

After finishing installation you may need to use Boot-Repair a very good package to fix/built Grub related issues.

Hope you can understand from this short description.


Upgrade to Ubuntu 20.04 - Removing ppas not possible

As before you upgrade Ubuntu ,you have to remove unnecessary and corrupted packages . I have resolved issue by following commands:
apt list --upgradable
sudo apt autoremove
sudo do-release-upgrade -h
sudo do-release-upgrade -d -f DistUpgradeViewGtk3


Where do the files downloaded/created in persistent mode get stored?

They are indeed installed on the pendrive. The casper-rw file resides on the pen drive's file system. From what I have seen it is usually an MS FAT file system of some kind. The casper-rw file, itself, is a block of disk space, formatted as a Linux EXT file system--so it's a file system within a file system. To see inside when you aren't running Ubuntu from the pen drive you have to set up a loopback device and then mount it.

casper-rw file -> loopback device -> mounted file system of changed and new files

casper-rw is mounted in a way that when you read a file, if it is on casper-rw you read it, if not you read it from the read-only files on the pen drive. If you write to the boot drive while it's booted, the file is written the the casper-rw file system. Therefore the casper-rw file system contains only new or changed files.

Unless you set up the loopback device and mount it you can't see the files you have changed.


Why can root still edit files with a permission of 0?

The chmod command use 4 digits represented as User-Owner-Others-Others, this last one are other users not in the file's group.
Each of these can have 4 (read) 2 (write) or 1 (execute), so chmod 0 file  do nothing.
If you enter man chmod you can see how it work with the numbers.

INFO ADDED BY @Richard Nixon-
 You can't remove permissions to the ROOT but what you can do is protect a file from ROOT, thus any action on this will be in vain. How to:
Enabled  -->  sudo chattr +i file
Disabled -->  sudo chattr -i file

If you read the /etc/passwd file you will see that the ROOT have a UID of 0.
If a user have more UID, less permission (access to critical files, programs and more) will have. You can change the UID of a user incrementing or decreasing its permissions. So in this way you could change the permissions of another user to ROOT. How to:
Edit /etc/passwd file with sudo vipw -s and equalizes the user permissions with the ROOT (fist on the list).

More information about the passwd file here and for vipw command type man vipw.


How to add evolution contacts to libreoffice in vivid (possibly libreoffice-evolution issue)

It is really annoying that Ubuntu does not ship LibreOffice with libreoffice-evolution support. I hope they will fix this bug.

There is a workaround and the credit goes to NoOp:
You have to install the non-Ubuntu LibreOffice (LO) from the main download page or the archive along to the Ubuntu-LO (no need to uninstall the default Ubuntu-LO):

Download the .deb versions of LO (include the help file .deb):  https://www.libreoffice.org/download/
Download the DEB-version. If it is not the correct one, choose “change?” Change System, Version or Language". Pick your architecture (32 bit or 64 bit): "Linux (deb): x86 or x86_64". I'll use 32bit for this explanation, but the procedure for 64bit is the same.
Note: I will use US English, but you can use any other language.
Download both Main Installer and Help.
Extract the .tar.gz files. Easiest way is to open Nautilus, right click on the .tar.gz and select "Extract here". That will extract the files to their own folders (with the correct permissions):
Open gnome-terminal and cd to the /DEB folder:

cd /home/<path?/LibreOffice_4.4.5.1_Linux_x86_deb/DEBS

(remember I'm using 32bit & US english as an example)
Mine is located here, so I'll use that as an example: /home/gg/tempdir/LibreOffice_4.4.5.1_Linux_x86_deb/DEBS/
Now install LO. Note: this will install LO in the /opt directory, and will have no affect on your Ubuntu installation.

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Now do the same for the help files:

cd /home/<path>/LibreOffice_4.4.5.1_Linux_x86_deb_helppack_en-US/DEBS

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Now modify the bootstrap destination so that your standard LO doesn't affect your Ubuntu LO install:

gksu gedit /opt/libreoffice4.4/program/bootstraprc

Change this line:

UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/libreoffice/4

to

UserInstallation=$SYSUSERCONFIG/libreoffice4.4/4

File|Save|Quit
The Ubuntu LO user profile gets installed to: /home/<user>/.config/libreoffice
So we put the 4.4 standard profile here instead (create a new folder with the folder name libreoffice4.4):
/home/<user>/.config/libreoffice4.4
Now start standard LO to ensure all is working:

 /opt/libreoffice4.4/program/soffice

Make sure it's working. Also check to see if your Address data sources are working: Database|Connect to an existing database|check to see if you have Evolution, Thunderbird etc.
While it is up and open, open the Ubuntu LO to ensure that you can run both in parallel/side-by-side. If all is working OK for you, create a menu item/icon so that you can use the standard LO.

To uninstall the non-Ubuntu LO you can use Synaptic:
- search for libobasis[version number] and mark all for complete removal
(it will also pull in and mark libreoffice[version]. And then apply.

or from the command line:

sudo apt-get -s purge libobasis[version number]

example if you have version 4.4 installed:

sudo apt-get -s purge libobasis4.4 libreoffice4.4

Note: use the '-s' option to 'simulate' the purge first, and if satisfied that all is well, remove the '-s' and purge:

sudo apt-get purge libobasis4.4 libreoffice4.4

now remove the left over /opt directory:

sudo rm -R /opt/libreoffice4.4


How do I share files with someone who does not have a ubuntu one account

There are two options here:

Place the files you want to share in a folder under ~/Ubuntu One.  Right click on the folder and pick Share... from the Ubuntu One menu.  Enter their email address in the resulting window and create the share.  The recipient will need to create an Ubuntu One account to accept the share.
Place the files under ~/Ubuntu One.  Right click on the file you want to share and pick Publish from the Ubuntu One menu.  A notification bubble will show up displaying the URL the file has been shared to.

While the second option requires less work on the part of the recipient, it makes the file available to the general public.  If you wish the files to remain private, pick the first option.  If the recipient does not use Ubuntu, they will still be able to access the files via Ubuntu One's web interface.


apt-get substitute MariaDB in place of MySQL

postfixadmin should work with MariaDB. It is a drop-in replacement. In $CONF[database_type] you would need to to configure 'mysql' or 'mysqli' and not 'mariadb'.

if postfixadmin keeps trying to install MySql you can try the --nodeps flag with apt-get or download and install the package using dpkg with the option --ignore-depends

Good luck!


GNUstep directory keeps being created when removed

TL;DR: In this case, the packages were uninstalled by a still-running instance of a program continued to re-create the directory. Examining the output of ps x revealed what program it was.

There are two major considerations here:

Did you remove everything you intended to remove?
Is it still running even though it has been uninstalled and the files deleted? (That can happen.)

1. Finding what was removed and what you still have, and removing packages.
It is useful to keep track of what actions you have taken (such as what commands you have run) to remove packages, as well as what packages have been removed. But even if not, you can look in the log files /var/log/apt/term.log, /var/log/apt/history.log, and /var/log/dpkg.log. Especially for recent package removals, it's easy to see what was removed. If you performed the removals by running commands in your terminal then they should also be in your shell's history, which in Bash you can examine with the history command (run help history for details), though that will just show what you commands you ran, not their effects.
To search for installed packages that contain a particular word, like gnustep, I recommend using:
apt list --installed '*gnustep*'

(When the word is something other than gnustep, replace gnustep with it.)
Note that, although apt's list action supports * as a globbing character, the remove and purge actions do not. Instead they treat it as a metacharacter in a regular expression (much as grep does), and people have sometimes removed vastly more packages than they intended and had to repair their systems. It's usually best to just pass the names of the specific packages you want to remove. But if, for example, you needed to remove all packages whose names begin with libgnustep, then you could run:
sudo apt remove ^libgnustep

(To remove conffiles too, you could use purge in place of remove.)
2. Uninstalled programs and libraries may continue running even once deleted.
Unless the removal scripts that are run when you uninstall a package include commands to terminate any running instances of the program(s) it provides, which is rare except for those that provide background services, or to terminate other programs that are using the libraries it provides, which is unheard of, the software provided by a package you have uninstalled may still be running even after the files have been undeleted.
A file may have one or more hard links, i.e., filenames. (Hard links should not be confused with symlinks.) When all of them have been removed, the file is actually deleted: its inode entry is removed and the storage locations on disk that stored the file's data are permitted to be reused. Except if the file is currently open. Then the file is preserved until it has been closed, which happens when the programs using it deliberately close the file or when they quit. Similarly, if the file you have removed is a program, the program will continue to run and the file will be preserved on disk until it has exited.
Therefore, when you uninstall a package that provides a program but the program is running, deleting the program does not automatically quit the program nor necessarily interfere with its operation (though it may, if it later opens other files it expects to be present). And when you uninstall a package that provides a library but some program is still using that library, the library temporarily continues to exist on disk and the program using it continues to run.
Rebooting is sufficient to cause the files to be removed because running processes don't survive a reboot. Logging out and back in may actually be insufficient, though it is often enough. However, if you must not reboot, or prefer not to, then you can try to figure out what program is running and exit it. In many cases, including the situation you experienced, that's the best way to proceed because it is faster and almost as easy as rebooting. But if you have trouble finding the process or otherwise don't want to bother, a reboot will fix it.
As a GNUstep program runs, it may read from and write to ~/GNUstep, and it may re-create it if it finds that it is not there. Although you could try to grep for specific GNUstep-related text in your list of running processes (see below), I suggest taking a more general approach:

Examine the output of ps x. You could also use the a flag--ps ax--to show processes by all users, but I suggest omitting it for starters because the process probably does belong to you so listing everything would likely only give you a bigger haystack. Since the full command line is sometimes useful, I suggest running ps x --columns=100000. Or just run ps | cat, because ps doesn't truncate when its output isn't a terminal. This is one of several situations where "useless use of cat" isn't so useless after all.
(You're unlikely to actually get lines that are a hundred thousand characters long--that's just a big number chosen to ensure lines don't get truncated. Going up by another order of magnitude makes ps say fix bigness error so that's why I've picked 100000.)

Check pstree. This shows all processes by default, and it visually shows their parent-child relationships. This is useful if it turned out that the process belonged to another user after all, or if it belonged to you but you happened to miss it when you looked through the output of ps.

When you ran that ps command (readers: this answer was written after the problem was solved based on a comment), you found that the still-running program was:
/usr/lib/GNUstep/Applications/GSSpeechServer.app/GSSpeechServer

The methods I described above aren't GNUstep specific--except in the sense that your running GNUstep applications are likely running as you and not as another user like root, but that's a common situation and not really specific to GNUstep. However, the typical pathname of a GNUstep program contains a .app directory since they are usually provided as .app containers. Even though the file is removed, ps still shows the name by which it was invoked, which often is an absolute path.
Thus, users who are looking for a GNUstep program, especially if they are running very many other programs and don't want to inspect the output of ps x, can try to find it by running:
ps x | grep '[.]app/'

(. in a regular expression matches any character. One way to match a literal dot is [.], and while there are other ways, I've picked that one because it causes your grep command line not to contain .app and thus not to be included spuriously in your results.)


Unable to access external HD using Chromium

A Linux user from another group suggested downloading Chrome and trying that.  Through Chrome, I was able to navigate to my external HD and access all the files.  With Chromium, the external HD never showed up in my navigation folder whatsoever.

So the solution is to just install Chrome.


Is there an alternative for vnstat network traffic monitor?

I realized vnstat will work properly even for interface wwx001e101f0000 but I had to do this:

sudo vnstat -u -i wwx001e101f0000
Error: Unable to read database "/var/lib/vnstat/wwx001e101f0000": No such file or directory
Info: -> A new database has been created.

And then set this in /etc/vnstat.conf

# default interface
Interface "wwx001e101f0000"

So the problem is solved.


Where to allocate space

Your comments have already cleared that you need to run gparted from a live session so that it won't be mounted when re-partitioning the drive.

Looking at your image, Ubuntu is installed on partition /dev/sda2.  That is also the partition where you are critically low in space.  So you should assign the unllocated space to that partition where it's needed.

What are exactly /dev/sda2, /dev/sda3, /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6?

Ubuntu only uses one partition as you thought.  However a default installation will make a swap partition for increased performance.  It's not a requirement.  Also, there is an option to separate partitions for specific folders.  People commonly create a separate partition for their home folder (/home).  This isn't a requirement either, but is done for convenience for the occasions for reinstalling Ubuntu or moving to a different system and being sure to maintain their personal space untouched.

/dev/sda2    - The root installation of Ubuntu
/dev/sda3    - A primary partition that can be devided into logical partitions.
               The logical partition functions just like regular partitions.  This
               overcomes the 4 partition limit of a MBR hard drive.
/dev/sda5    - A swap partition.  This is a partition that used to function as if
               it were RAM.  It allows RAM to be swapped to the hard drive, freeing
               up RAM for other tasks.
/dev/sda6    - Your Home folder.  Setup for your personal space.


Login screen switched to Gnome3 when i istalled other Desktop environement. Can't find how to make it go back to unity!

This is a simple one, you just gotta set lightdm as default.

Just run dpkg-reconfigure lightdm as root and choose lightdm as default dm.


Google Chrome touchscreen - right-click gets stuck

There are at least one possible solution that worked for me. :)

That problem could be solved for me with Chrome's --touch-devices command line parameter.

Determine X's input device id in a console by

xinput list

leading to

google-chrome --touch-devices=10

on my system.

To make Chrome always use this CLI flag, see:

How to set CLI flags for Google Chrome?

Chrome + Touchscreen + Unity (14.04)


What might be causing momentary system freezes?

Hard to know, I have seen this sort of problem with video drivers and less often even wireless drivers.

Which driver are you using for your nvidia card ?

See also : https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/Debugging


How do you actually configure DHCP in MaaS in Raring?

I think I figured it out:

Click on the unlabeled gear icon.
Under the Cluster controllers section, click the small grey edit button.
Under the Interfaces section, add or edit a network interface.
Set Management to Manage DHCP.


Why ubuntu has vi , emacs ,nano with os default?

Let's start with the two big ones:

vi is installed by default on almost all Linux (and other Unix) systems for many decades. This makes it something like the lowest common denominator, the editor every Linux/Unix user should at least know a little bit about in order to fix small problems (and install other editors if they want). As a result of its ubiquity it is used by many system administrators. Note that in most cases vi is actually vim (VI improved).
emacs has been around for almost as long as vi. Compared to vi it eats more system resources (although that isn't much of an issue anymore nowadays). In my experience, emacs is used less by system administrators, but more in the scientific world.

I would advise to learn at least one of these two editors, even though their learning curve is steeper than nano's. They've been around for ages and are extremely powerful. When considering which of the two editors to choose, please beware of the editor war. See also this unix.stackexchange.com post.

As for nano, it is a 'follow-up' from the pico editor, that was used by the pine command line e-mail program. nano is easier to use for users that are new to the command line (basically because it list the keyboard shortcuts at the bottom of the screen).