Start an aliased application from shell passing relative path of a document

Your problem lies within your application. If you want to get the absolute path from a relative one, try this one in your application/script:

abs_path=$(readlink -m "$1")


Password failed error when connecting via xrdp (MATE desktop) Ubuntu 16.04

I had the same problem, there was a newer version rdp installed on my system via updates.  If you can roll back to the older version that should fix the problem.

I however found what I think is a better solution here:
https://netdevops.me/2017/installing-xrdp-0.9.1-on-ubuntu-16.04-xenial/

There was another fix reported here:
xrdp failed (problem connecting) when package was auto-updated

good luck


If Apache is running (check by using a browser to go to apache address), then try this to see if php is running:

  vi /var/www/info.php

<?php
phpinfo();?>

Call that file in a browser (e.g. http://ipapacheruns/info.php), it could be (e.g. http://localhost/info.php):


I think you don't have to add any PPA to the softwarecenter to install GIMP, because it should be present in the default software sources. As you are on Ubuntu 14.04 you might have added an experimental PPA, which needs some new packages. Delete the PPA, update and search for GIMP. Click on install.


Web is very slow after upgrading to Ubuntu 10.04

Is you connection slow only on firefox while browsing? Reason might be ipv6 lookup's witch first needs to fail before it trys to find ipv4 ones.

If that is case type about:config in firefox browser bar and set network.dns.disableIPv6 to true. And restart browser.


How to install LeapDroid Android Emulator?

Internally, we did all development on Linux, for each build, we make Leapdroid to work first on Linux, then build for Windows. What is missing is the packaging which we are working on right now. We should release a Linux version late in August.

Thanks,

(I am a member of the Leapdroid Team)


AFAICS, your modem is already doing the routing/gateway job between your LAN and the WAN.

If you want to set up a gateway on your Linux box, you need to configure and start some software to link the WAN to the LAN (iptables is fine). You probably need to change the configuration of your modem from router to bridge and use pppoe to connect your ISP directly from the Linux server (if your using a DSL connection). Then, the eth0 configuration will be fine and will probably work, BUT, this configuration should be set in ppp configuration, not directly in the interface (ppp will do this for you). For now, configuring eth0 like this makes absolutely no sense if the modem acts like a gateway.

It's very difficult to reply more accurately, because we know very little of your LAN and your Internet connection. More of it, this is not one hour job and it can raise many security issues, so nobody can cover the topic in a single forum thread. There are some good networking Howto around. I would strongly suggest you to read them first.

HTH


I got it to recognize the card using this ppa: https://launchpad.net/~albertomilone/+archive/broadcom

It has 6.30.223.30+bdcom-0ubuntu1~ppa1

Good luck


To change the splash screen or plymouth boot screen run:

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

and choose number corresponding to /usr/share/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth to set this as default.


You could also make a playlist and make an application play that in your startup applications.

For example, if I wanted to play playlist.m3u on startup using vlc media player, I could add this to my startup application like this.

Name: ZZ_PlayMusicOnStartup #(This can be named anything to your choice)*
Command: vlc /home/nits/playlist.m3u

And click Add


Ubuntu running slowly after installation and also hangs

after alot of research i got that it was unity that was causing prob.. atleast for me.. unity 2d 0r 3d it was making it slow.. now i am using cairo dock.. its light and hassle free.. no more issues of slow experience... everything else rox on ubuntu... wish all the games also supported linux.. so that u dont had to switch btwn windows n linux to play them... hope the day will arrive soon when i'll be playin nfs n all that stuff on linux.. :)


Unity on 13.10: Ctrl + Alt resizes the window. How to disable this?

I found a way to do this:

install compiz-config: sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager
Run CompizConfig Settings Manager from the dash
Disable the Grid plugin (Window Management section).

That's all. It seems, this plugin was causing this behavior somehow


According to this bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/italc/+bug/912884 there is no interest in upgrading iTalc to version 2 until Debian does. Also in that bug report is notice that Epoptes has replaced iTalc in edubuntu. Try that or you can build your own from source http://sourceforge.net/projects/italc/files/italc2/2.0.0/


How does one install NX Server or FreeNX on 11.10?

Thanks for the info, you did put me on the resolution of this incident.

So if you intend to run NX on a Linux distro which does not rely on standard gnome windows manager (gdm) such as Ubuntu from 11.X or such as myself a Mint Maya 13 (mdm for Mate desktop interface), you need to edit the NX node config file /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg and replace the type of default session launched when remotely login with Gnome type of session (which is specified at the client level when creating your connection script).

The problem I had came from the fact that by default, mdm is incompatible with gdm as they share objects. It is the same with Ubuntu session manager, I encountered the same problem before migrating to Mint.

I tried to instal gnome-core as suggested above, but it did not proceed as gdm install crashed (because it shares objects with mdm, same problem with Ubuntu BTW). So I ended up putting the following line in /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg :

CommandStartGnome = "/etc/X11/Xsession mate-session"

instead of the standard

CommandStartGnome = "/etc/X11/Xsession gnome-session"

And now I can login with NX on my Mint Maya with my mdm desktop. Perfect!!

It must be the same with Ubuntu distro Windows manager (I don't know its name)

Don't foget that this is only valid if you select in your NX client a session type Unix / Gnome. You may also be able to select a Unix / Custom and put the startup line pointing toward the default session of your distro. I should give it a try.

Good luck!!


You should change vfat to ntfs in your fstab file.

And make sure you have an ntfs driver installed (e.g. ntfs-3g).


How to share printer form ubuntu desktop to other ubuntu desktop

First you should note Ubuntu 12.10 is outdated and no longer supported by Ubuntu, so you should upgrade to some supported Versions such as 12.04LTS or 14.04LTS or non LTS such as 14.10 and 15.04

Now I'm answering since this would be applicable for all Ubuntu versions. And this since your domain only contains Ubuntu, if some Windows you need samba.

The Print Server is the Ubuntu computer that is directly connected to the printers.
On the server machine (the one the printer is attached to), open System -> Administration -> Printing (If the menu item does not exist you need to add system-config-printer to the menu). . This will open the Printer Configuration window.

Select Server in the menu bar, and then Settings. This will open the Basic Server Settings window.
Check the second box:
Publish shared printers connected to this server If this computer acts as both a Print Server and a client (it does need access to a printer connected to another computer), select also the first box, "Show printers shared by other systems".

OK
Right click the printer and check the Shared option, if not checked yet
Check that users that you want to be able to use the printer are not excluded or allow printing for all others. See Properties>Access Control. The default settings may be set to "deny printing for everyone except ..."

PS: If you want to use it with Windows you should use samba
Full documentation and source from : https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NetworkPrintingWithUbuntu


Cannot open files with spaces in names by double clicking, but can from terminal

This is a common problem.

Generally, if I create a folder, and I want a space, I replace the desired space location with an underscore, like "New_Folder". This is especially true with source code folders.

If your problem only occurs with this one instance, just rename the folder. If it happens elsewhere too, then keep digging for a solution. Maybe it's a problem with the File Manager in Xubuntu.

Generally, in scripts, if you've already got "New Folder" in your path, you must either quote or escape the space, like:

~Escritorio/"New Folder"/dibujo.svg

~Escritorio/New\ Folder/dibujo.svg


On Ubuntu Touch, how can I download files from e-mail web clients?

Sign in to your email account from the browser app (instead of webapps or Dekko), you'll see an option to simply download the file (along with opening with another app if the file type is supported).

There is a feature request at Launchpad to include an option to download arbitrary file types from the webapps.


Email couldn't send to Ubuntu email server

Most email systems place a limit on the size of emails, and many times that limit is exceeded by email attachments. 10G is a typical limit. The error can come from your email server, or Yahoo's email server.

Assuming that you're running Postfix as your mail server, in terminal, go to /etc/postfix, and edit main.cf. Look for a line like mailbox_size_limit =, and message_size_limit=. These set limits for your email server. Zero means unlimited.

Or, using the postconf -d command in terminal will show your current settings. postconf -d | grep -i size will show the parameters that you're interested in. In my config (not a server), the defaults are:

mailbox_size_limit = 51200000
message_size_limit = 10240000

postconf -e 'message_size_limit = 10240000' sets it to 10G. Set it to something higher, if you wish.

You'll need to restart Postfix after changing these settings.


Unless you've done something inside Ubuntu to somehow limit it to 10Mbps, you can't. By default it will connect as fast as the card and the network will allow.

So either the card is only rated for 10Mbps (unlikely) or the network (be that the hub, switch, router, or whatever you're plugged into) is limiting you.

If you think I'm wrong (and I am occasionally), edit your question to let us know what hardware we're talking about.


ibus-mozc Japanese ime not show up in 18.04

Possible solution
Try to resolve your question with IBUS IMF and MOZC IME by:
sudo apt install ibus ibus-mozc mozc-utils-gui

(Let me know if this worked).
Alternative solutions:
Others japanese IMEs to substitute MOZC are:

Anthy: sudo apt install ibus-anthy.
KKC: sudo apt install ibus-kkc.
SKK: sudo apt install ibus-skk.

And to substitute IBUS as an input method framework (IMF) can be:

Fcitx: sudo apt install fcitx.

you will need to install all japanese IMEs again, like:

sudo apt install fcitx-mozc.
sudo apt install fictx-kkc.
sudo apt install fictx-skk.

A list of IMF can be found in List of input methods for Unix platforms and Linux input method framework brief summary.


Unity 8 Preview in 14.04 - Will it break anything?

The safest option is probably to install the unity8-desktop-session-mir. This should pull in any other packages it may need. You can see dependencies here:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/trusty/misc/unity8-desktop-session-mir

It shouldn't break anything. Being an Ubuntu package it should be somewhat tested to cause no unrelated issues.

Installing from source would probably be less safe, unless you really know what you are doing. The package option allows the software system to manage the files and easily remove them when needed.


How to avoid HDD spin up at system start? (Ubuntu from SSD)

I think you meant to say hdparm -s, not -B1, which asks APM compatible hard disks (which pretty much means only laptop ones) to automatically standby after a short period of inactivity.  Also Western Digital disks don't seem to accept the -s command to power on in standby, but have a jumper on the back you can use to enable it.

The kernel sd (scsi disk) driver starts the disk up the first time it is accessed, which happens during boot to scan the partition table. It also will restart the drive after resume from suspend by default, but you can disable that by writing 0 to /sys/block/sda/device/scsi_disk/*/manage_start_stop.

I usually do this and then manually suspend drives I don't plan on using with hdparm -y after a reboot.

My last motherboard bios would simply not detect the drives that powered on in standby, but my new Asus sandy bridge one is apparently "smart" enough to notice that the drive is in standby and start it up.


uninstall .deb installed through software center

Since Voxatron isn't one of the applications that was hand-picked to be displayed in the Ubuntu Software Center, it is classified as a "technical item" and will be hidden by default.

Try searching for it again, then click "Show technical items" in the lower-left corner:

Even a mainstream web browser can suffer from this opt-out system of classification if it isn't part of Ubuntu's official repositories.


12.Ubuntu server credentials for Raspberry Pi

I downloaded the Pi 4 version an installed it on a Pi 4B and it worked fine. I believe the original problem was that it was installed on an mSATA drive rather than an SD card.


FreeMind won't run even with OpenJDK JRE installed

On Ubuntu 12.04/GNOME Shell with FreeMind 0.9.0 installed from the Ubuntu repository, this is what I got:
freemind
[warning] /usr/bin/freemind: No java runtime was found
[error] /usr/bin/freemind: Unable to find an appropriate java runtime. See java_wrappers(7) for help

java -version
java version "1.7.0_10"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_10-b18)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 23.6-b04, mixed mode)

sudo update-alternatives --config java
There are 2 choices for the alternative java (providing /usr/bin/java).

  Selection    Path                                     Priority   Status
------------------------------------------------------------
* 0            /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/bin/java   12        auto mode
  1            /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/bin/java       4         manual mode
  2            /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle/jre/bin/java   12        manual mode

Press enter to keep the current choice[*], or type selection number: 0

whereis java
java: /usr/bin/java /usr/bin/X11/java /usr/share/java /usr/share/man/man1/java.1.gz
ls -l /usr/bin/java
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 22 May 16  2012 /usr/bin/java -> /etc/alternatives/java

Actual Path:
ls -l /usr/lib/j*
/usr/lib/java-wrappers:
total 20
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1033 Apr  2  2011 get-classpath
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9122 Jan 12 15:42 java-wrappers.sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2302 Jan 12 15:41 jvm-list.sh

/usr/lib/jvm:
total 4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root   26 Sep  6 11:56 default-java -> /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-oracle
drwxr-xr-x 8 root root 4096 Dec 13 12:37 java-7-oracle

Troubleshoot:
"/usr/lib/java-wrappers/jvm-list.sh" has the below setting, which is correct path.

#va-wrappers(7) default runtime
__jvm_default="/usr/lib/jvm/default-java/"

The errors are coming from /usr/lib/java-wrappers/java-wrappers.sh, which doesn't seem to be loading the below from within its file.
# Import the list of JVMs
. /usr/lib/java-wrappers/jvm-list.sh

I changed it to:
./usr/lib/java-wrappers/jvm-list.sh

but it did not work.
Solution:
This is what worked after trial and error by adding the below in the /usr/lib/java-wrappers/java-wrappers.sh file, under where it is trying to find,
if [ -z "$JAVA_HOME" ]; then, at line 90 in vi for me.
#DIRS=""
        # Added 2013-01-12 not being found from jvm-list
        DIRS="$__jvm_default"
        #DIRS="/usr/lib/jvm/default-java"

I commented out DIRS="" variable and changed it to
DIRS="$__jvm_default"

or
DIRS="/usr/lib/jvm/default-java"

Both of them worked.


Sure you can do that as long as you have enough space for the new ISO. But honestly, I think that is quite paranoid. ;)

And believe me, your live system that does not matter. Otherwise it would not be genuine and therefore a bad live system.


Toshiba Satellite P755-S5269 keyboard backlight doesn't work

Try adding the keys:

acpi_osi=linux
acpi_backlight=vendor

to the grub linux line at the "quiet splash" location.
If that works, edit them into the /etc/default/grub file on the
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT line (when it works after typing it in at the grub prompt):
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi_osi=linux acpi_backlight=vendor"

Make sure eco mode if off as well as the BIOS setting for backlight is ON.  Try the media key for illumination (above function keys if present) , and also try the key shortcut Fn Z
Hope that helps.


xfonts-base should be enough to start the X server..

If you intend to run a Desktop Environment you have to install some extra fonts.


Can I put two chrome (different users) on my launcher?

It is quite simple to do this in Windows but not the same in Ubuntu.

For Ubuntu, I found two ways. Personally I recommend method 2 because you don't need to install anything. It also allows you to access the second profile from "Activities" (Ubuntu) without using any commands.

Please note that either way you choose, you have to know YOUR_PROFILE_NAME.

YOUR_PROFILE_NAME is normally Default for the first profile you created. The second profile is named Profile\ 1. The third is Profile\ 2, and so on (You can also give custom names for profiles). You can identify which profile is currently loaded by opening chrome://version inside Chrome and looking at Profile Path.

Follow Filippo's answer but change the Command to:

google-chrome --profile-directory=YOUR_PROFILE_NAME

Put this code in any text editor and name it anything .desktop.

#!/usr/bin/env xdg-open
[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Icon[en_US]=google-chrome
Exec=google-chrome --profile-directory=YOUR_PROFILE_NAME
Name[en_US]=Chrome-YOUR_PROFILE_NAME
Name=Chrome-YOUR_PROFILE_NAME
Icon=google-chrome

Right-click the file. Open "Properties". Go to "Permissions" tab. Click Allow executing file as program.

You can keep the .desktop file in ~/.local/share/applications/ so that your Application Launcher can locate it easily. Now simply press super and search for Chrome-YOUR_PROFILE_NAME (value given for Name), you will find the second profile appearing in the search results!


Stegseek is a lightning fast steghide cracker that can be used to extract hidden data from files. It is built as a fork of the original steghide project and, as a result, it is thousands of times faster than other crackers and can run through the entirety of rockyou.txt (a well-known password list with over 14 million passwords) in under 2 seconds.

StegCracker is a steganography brute force utility to uncover hidden data inside files.

StegCracker requires Python 3.6 or later and the steghide binary to be installed. Python 3.6 or later is installed by default in Ubuntu 18.04 and later.
 sudo apt install steghide -y

To install the program, run the following command:
 python3 -m pip install --user stegcracker

To update the program, simply pass -U to the installation command.
 python3 -m pip install --user stegcracker -U --force-reinstall


DropBox tray icon/indicator on XUbuntu not working

I fact, this solution, found in many places, was nearly the good one, but didn't worked for me... till I have the idea to make a very small modification : put something inside the quote, like "DROPBOX" ! (in fact, any text could certainly be ok).

open /usr/bin/dropbox in an text editor (using sudo). For example on XUbuntu :

sudo mousepad /usr/bin/dropbox
after the line import os, add this line :

os.environ['DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS'] = "DROPBOX"
save, then restart DropBox, or log out/in.

As far as I understand it, this prevents DropBox to find the system notification area, where it doesn't work, and forces it to directly use the main panel, where it works.


Ubuntu 20.04 - PC overheats and shuts down

If you have tried different distros it’s probably not Ubuntu, it’s probably the hardware. Does it run like this on other OSs?


Installing wireless adapter drivers from CD (no ethernet connection...)

You probably can't. As you've already seen, the install.sh can't be made executable on the CD as it is a read-only medium. You need read-write-execute.

Next, the install.sh needs other files that are in the folder with the install.sh, so you'd need to drag and drop the entire folder to any convenient place, your desktop, for example.

Even when you do this, the install.sh actually compiles source code. Compiling requires linux-headers which are included in recent Ubuntu versions but not some older versions. You also need a package called build-essential which is a meta package of other packages.

Finally, many of the driver discs are too old to be useful; that is, they were built for kernel version 2.8 or some such, and will not compile on kernel versions 3.xx and 4.xx.

I suggest you identify the device from the command:

lsusb

Post the result and let's see if we can help you.


If you don't export, then the environment variable will only be visible locally. Exporting makes them available to other programs and shells you might launch (from that shell).


Error when formatting flash drive: read-only

Maybe wipefs failed because the USB flash drive is mounted. Run lsblk to check whether the flash drive is mounted, and run this command to unmount it if needed:
sudo umount /dev/sdb1

Then try to format the flash drive in GParted again.


How can I free up unused disk space without root access?

If installed on your distribution, you can use baobab to explore the files. Start it from the terminal and a nice GUI appears with information of your file system. You can also browse your file system to identify what files you want to delete.

Other tools you can try if installed:

filelight
gdmap
k4dirstat
jdiskreport

Or also du -shx ./* | sort -h


Difference between rm executable >>dev/null and rm executable

rm executable

simply deletes the file executable from the current directory.

rm executable &> /dev/null

does the same, but it runs the command with output and error streams redirected to the special file /dev/null.

That means you will not see any messages in the terminal. The /dev/null file they are redirected to instead is a virtual character device which simply swallows all incoming data like a black hole.

Output redirection to /dev/null like this is often used in scripts where you don't want the user to see possible output of the contained commands.


Ubuntu 18.04 after installing NVIDIA graphics drivers still getting lag

OK now i can say this is 95% solved,

∘ 1/  The real problem comes down to Refresh Rate and Sync Rate of the Nvidia card and the screen(s)

‣ With nvidia-prime then there is no possibility of vsync yet - arghhhh

With Nvidia's drivers for linux and"Optimus" cards they left out the simple code to do this to save resources for the masses - STUPID!!!!!

‣ Get PRIME Synchronization on Optimus

Solution (now for none specific Nvidia Drivers - AWESOME!)

To check if it (Synchronization) is set or not set use this command:

sudo cat /sys/module/nvidia_drm/parameters/modeset

∘ It should say "y" for modeset=1, which means it is synchronized at 60 fps (I believe) for your Monitor.  ...  ex. HDMI-1-1, or  eDP-1-1

∘ If Not - Create a new file in  /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-drm-nomodeset.conf

sudo gedit /etc/modprobe.d/nvidia-drm-nomodeset.conf

∘ and make sure the following line is present;

  options nvidia-drm modeset=1
    ∘ after Update Intramfs and Reboot

sudo update-initramfs -u
    • reboot

ALSO reducing Swappiness may help
to lower swappiness also (if you have lots of RAM)...

∘ To check the swappiness value (default=60)

  $ cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness

sudo gedit /etc/sysctl.conf

‣ Search for vm.swappiness and change its value as desired. If vm.swappiness does not exist, add it to the end of the file like so:

  # sharply reduce Swappiness inclination

  vm.swappiness=1


How do I delete ubuntu entirely and then install Windows 8 from an ISO I have on an SD card?

Note: Do you have a Windows 8 Product key? Windows 8 now requires the product key at the start of the installation. Unlike XP/Vista/7 where you had a certain trial period after it was installed. You won't be able to proceed with the installation without the product key.
If you do then it's pretty easy to erase Ubuntu.

Boot from the Windows 8 LiveUSB.

Go through the standard installation steps (Regional settings, Entering Product Key etc.) until you see this screen:

You'll want to choose Custom:Install Windows Only (Advanced). This option will allow you to erase the current (Ubuntu) partitions that are on your hard drive.

Delete all the partitions that are in the list. (Note: This will entirely get rid of Ubuntu as you requested. This includes any pictures, music, documents etc that you had in Ubuntu.)

If you deleted them correctly you will see one partition labelled as Unallocated Space

Select this partition and click Next to continue with the standard Windows 8 install.

If you need any help with the standard Windows 8 install see here for a detailed guide.


Ubuntu gets stuck in a login loop - 16.04, 18.04

After using CTRL-ALT-F1 to login to a console session, I found my home directory was replaced by a README.txt and a file that pointed to a nonexisting directory /usr/share/ecryptfs

The solution to fix this was to reinstall the ecryptfs-utils with
sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-utils
and reboot.


windows 7 hard drive crashed; Loaded Ubuntu from USB, can't find files that were on win 7 desktop

Could this be a permission issue? Did you try listing the contents of your desktop folder via "sudo ls " in the terminal?


How to disable screen and powersaving during Video Playback

There is an app called caffeine that solves this for you:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:caffeine-developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install caffeine

Caffeine's launchpad page


No sound (dummy output) on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS with external speakers

Thanks. I've played around a little and could fake what you've got: a dummy monitor only.
So I achieved that by playing around with the pavuControl, which is the GUI to pulse audio.
If all profiles are turned off, you won't have any sound, so I've turned them on again:

Now my list-sources is much longer. So install pavucontrol, ignore the Gnome sound settings and try to fix your sound. Because your card should work.
In addition check if your pulseaudio is running:
systemctl --user status pulseaudio

and take a look at the logs:
journalctl | grep pulseaudio

Since the latter command displays the whole log, check the date, it might start from some months ago.


High CPU usage without a process to blame. What is [migration/x]?

I found the cause of the migration chaos.

A little while ago I was getting frustrated with gnome-do not staying alive. So I wrote this in my start up entries:

bash -c "while true; do gnome-do; done"

Turns out rather than running once that just keeps trying to spawn over and over and over again. I guess gnome-do forks out rather than blocks.

I found this by just going through every user process I have and nuking it. It wasn't using any CPU itself but it looked fishy.


How do you delete the altternate version of notes in Everpad?

I answered this here:  https://github.com/nvbn/everpad/issues/340

It is not the ideal way but here it is:

I was able to remove the alternate versions by going to /home/username/.everpad

Opening up everpad.5.db in an SQL lite database browser (on ubuntu from software center) and manually deleting the extra note records in the notes table.

If you have a lot of alternate notes then I would suggest running an sql query by finding out which note is the one you want to keep then deleting all notes of that name that do not have the id of the one you want to keep. Make sure to back up the database file first in case you make a mistake.

Example:

DELETE FROM notes WHERE title="title of note" and id !=5;

From the looks of the db design you can also delete all alternate versions across all notes with something like this:

DELETE FROM notes WHERE conflict_parent_id>0;

Hope that helps.


Ubuntu 18.04 - Mounting additional HD & FSTAB errors

as noted in a comment- @guiverc, white-space is also a delimiter, and so is a comma...

so the right answer ( or- my mistake ) is

UUID=3edefcc8-04fb-449b-9e72-9bda7e443f65 /home/guy/newHD ext4 defaults,x-gvfs-show 0 0

so - use comma, without white-space


How do I install additional drivers for the Intel HD3000 graphics card?

The HD3000 driver is built in to the kernel/Ubuntu and no separate drivers (apart from regularly updating Ubuntu) are required.


Install Ubuntu package, php7.0-sqlite3 missing

Try sudo apt-get install php-sqlite3

The package was kept this way during the migration to prevent any issues with sqlite3 going past 7.1


You can force an incremental backup by using the command line tool duplicity.

man duplicity states that it supports the command

 incr <folder> <url>
               If this is requested an incremental backup will be performed.
               Duplicity will abort if no old signatures can be found.

If you have deja-dup set up to back up from many different folders this might be a clumsy or unworkable action (I am not a sophisticated duplicity user). However if you are just backing up home or something simple it could work for you.

Consult man duplicity for more info.


Can I apply a GTK+ theme to the latest version of GDM? if so, how? (specific to ubuntu 16.04)

Try editing /etc/gdm3/greeter.dconf-defaults

You can restart GDM by running sudo systemctl restart gdm3

Note that running that command will immediately end all of your graphical logged in sessions so save your work first.

Source: /usr/share/doc/gdm3/README.Debian


Why does Ubuntu 11.10 start and shut down so slowly?

The problem is the links /etc/rc0.d/S35networking and /etc/rc6.d/S35networking.

I've reported a bug in Launchpad.


Caja only shows images and icons preview when root

Please open the file manager or Caja then show the hidden files by pressing Ctrl+H and check this directory /home/YOUR_USER/.cache .. you will find that the folder "thumbnails" is owned by root not by YOUR_USER!

you can fix that with terminal :

sudo chown -R YOUR_USER '/home/YOUR_USER/.cache/thumbnails'

that would fix the permission issue and the thumbnails will be shown up normally :)


Windows 8 & Ubuntu 12.04 Dual Boot Menu Does Not Load

As I read it, GRUB isn't appearing at all when you boot; the computer is booting straight into Windows. If so, you probably need to use the Windows bcdedit program from a Command Prompt window started with Administrator privileges:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} path \EFI\ubuntu\grubx64.efi

Be sure to type that command precisely. Note the difference between slashes (/) and backslashes (\), and note that the curly braces ({bootmgr}) don't denote a variable; type them as-is.

Note also that GRUB is not part of Windows, so its appearance doesn't change with Windows 8. Windows does come with its own boot loader, but AFAIK, on UEFI systems, it's really only useful for selecting between different Windows installations; it can't redirect the boot process to another OS. If you want a graphical boot manager, look into my rEFInd, which can redirect to the Windows boot loader (which will boot Windows directly) or to GRUB (which can boot Linux automatically or present its own menu, depending on its configuration). With 3.3.0 and later kernels, rEFInd can boot them directly, bypassing GRUB; but Ubuntu 12.04 ships with 3.2.0 kernels, so you'll need to upgrade your kernel if you want to use rEFInd without GRUB.


try this code using terminal

sudo mount.cifs -o username=(windows user name) //(Windows PC IP)/(Windows share folder name) /(Ubuntu share folder path)

after that it will ask sudo password and then User password. for User Password you have to type Windows PC User password. and it will mount Windows shared folder in to your Ubuntu Shared folder. after that if you need to un-mount the shared folder you can follow

sudo umount -a -t cifs

code and it will un-mount windows shared folder from ubuntu folder. if it fails try

sudo umount -a -t cifs -1


Networked Epson WF-2760 Scanner not detected in 64-bit 16.04.2

Well, color me embarrassed. The problem I had was that I didn't p-roofread enough. I had the epson2.conf setup with net 192.168.1.11, instead of 192.168.128.11. I looked at it so many times, I just didn't see it, I guess.

So here's the whole monte for getting the Epson WF 2760 working as a network-attached device.

Install the drivers at http://support.epson.net/linux/en/imagescanv3.php?version=1.3.18 by running the install.sh script as root. Edit the file /etc/sane.d/dll.conf to uncomment the line "epson2". Edit the file /etc/sane.d/epson2.conf to include the line

net <your device's IP address>

Start your scanning program.

Thank you to the community for all the help!


there is a tutorial right here:

It's official. Try it and tell us when did you stuck


How to make an internet server as firewall using ubuntu 11.10

It's not ubuntu, but it is debian derived.  You might have a look at Untangle.  Seems like it's exactly what you want with less complexity than putting in a bunch of command lines and it has a manual.  Their official website is here.


It seems that the problem was with Firefox itself rather than Ubuntu. I suppose Firefox must have been updated after the upgrade to 17.10.

I had a look at Mozilla's instructions for when Firefox can't open websites while other browsers can and disabling IPv6 did the trick. Using the page loading time plugins from this answer on SO to measure performance, Firefox and Chrome now have similar loading times, even if the latter is often slightly faster.


Have you tried restarting it?
service bluetooth restart
I had the same issue after the new upgrade, though status was showing active, but bluetooth wasn't working..


My guess is that you extraction of ISO to USB went wrong. Do it again, with different application. Ubuntu CD ISO images are not CD images, but hybrid images. If you write them to USB stick as CD images, you get crap. All you need is a one-to-one copy of ISO on USB, no loaders, no syslinuxes, nothing else.
On linux one would use dd to do it

dd if=[ubuntu.iso] of=/dev/[sda-z] bs=4M


HDMI is not working with Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS

I don't have a fix for you but I had a old Dell desktop, I decided to put 17.10 and Kodi on it to use as a media server. I got 17 installed did the first reboot after taking out the USB drive and got a black screen. Fig it was driver's and used the built in vga connection. I messed with driver's and downloads for hours. Somehow during that install and reboot my almost new Nvidia GeForce 610  video card got fried, so I put in a Nvidia 833 card in. 2 days later it was dead. I now have to use built in VGA and 16.04. and it's fine.


Double title bars/ Two title bars appear in Ubuntu 20.04

You can disable the secondary header as stated here by using:
gsettings set org.gnome.Terminal.Legacy.Settings headerbar false

Log out of your session and log back in for the setting to take effect.
I'm on ubuntu 20.04 LTS and it's works for me
PS: I noticed this after the installing of gnome-flashback


How can I print to two printers of the same model without having to reconfigure the model each time?

Alright, I found out that it's not possible normally. Because every DeviceURI must contain serial number of the printer. You can't just remove the serial number part from DeviceURI

here you can read official answer to the question: http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.printing.cups.general/29486

  This is not supported directly by CUPS, but third-party add-ons may be
  able to provide this functionality.

But I couldn't find any such add-ons.

Here are the possible solutions from me:

Solution 1

You can create your own backend: http://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Using_Your_Own_Backends_to_Print_with_CUPS#A_careless_backend_for_a_single_USB_printer

however this didn't work for me..

Solution 2

Use UDEV rules. So whenever printers connects you would rewrite the printers.conf and the DeviceURI to the newly connected one. This worked for me, but wasn't reliable.

Solution 3
You can try to write your own addon to CUPS. f you are a programmer
http://cups.org/documentation.php/api-cups.html


Gparted can't create partition table because flash drive is read-only

TL;DR ~ Just use Ubuntu's startup disk creator and write the Windows ISO directly to the USB, also do sudo dmesg and if your USB shows up then it isn't broken, in which case the table is just not created.

This is a rabbit hole that can spiral down into several other rabbit holes and you'll be dealing with more than just your immediate problem. So I'll attempt to help you as much as I can because I've walked down that road before.

First, I'll explain something quickly.

Disks can have different partition tables, sometimes MSDOS, sometimes GPT, on which you can create additional partitions.  There's a difference between the overall table and how its formatted. For example, you can have an MSDOS table, which you then partition into several partitions on that table. The table pretty much dictates how to find information on that drive. In the case of bootable USBs, many times they just use an ISO writable USB and wipe the table you initially had, which makes it seem broken if you're not aware of it.
In your attempts to do this, you probably wiped the table and now you're trying to create a new table, probably while struggling with other issues, like it being mounted. So always remember that you can't work with drives while they're mounted.

So to add more information.

Type sudo dmesg. If the USB shows up, then your USB isn't broken. If not, it's broken.  dmesg is a low level Linux command that'll show all of your hardware activity.
Make sure it's unmounted. You can either do this from command line using sudo umount or you can also do that from gparted.
If you don't know, there is a difference between partitions and the table itself.  Historically, most devices were MSDOS-formatted, but the new standard is GPT.  Whatever the case, you have to create the table itself before you can create partitions on it.  You can also do this from gparted by clicking on the device and creating a new table.  After that you'll be able to create the partitions. Once again, make sure you've unmounted it.
If what you're doing isn't working from gparted, then do it from the command line. Use dmesg or fdisk -l to find the USB name, then use umount to unmount it, then use mkfs -t ntfs /dev/* to format and create the partition itself.  But don't just copy what I wrote here, research more on that command and make sure to format it correctly.

Another very important thing to consider is this: UEFI is a new standard for consistency among disks and most new disks come out with GPT tables by default.  So even if you did everything correctly and it "works", if your BIOS is set to secure boot it will only recognize GPT formatted USBs and it won't recognize it if it's MSDOS.  So also just make sure about that. Either disable secure boot and boot it in MSDOS, or enable secure boot and make sure it's formatted in GPT.

I'd like to add additional information based on what you're trying to do, because I've been down this rabbit hole of bootable USBs and it can get complex with trying to work with Windows. You mentioned using unetbootin, so I can only assume you're trying to create a multi boot USB, otherwise just use the Ubuntu startup disk creator and write the ISO directly to your USB.

If you just want to create a single bootable USB, then just follow the instructions on the Microsoft site, they are pretty straight forward. But seeing that you're using unetbootin I can only assume that you're trying to create a USB with multiple operating systems. If that's not the case, then either just follow the Microsoft instructions or just download the ISO, open it and just copy its contents to the USB and it'll be bootable.
After spending days on figuring out all of this myself, I tried every tool out there, but none of them really worked on creating multiboot USBs with Windows, at least not from Linux. In the end this is what I did.
I created an MSDOS partition table on the USB, then I created 2 partitions on it, one for different Linux installations and one for the Windows installation.
After you've done that use multibootusb, or whatever, to install any Linux distributions to the first partition. Then open the Windows ISO and copy the contents to the second partition.
After that edit the grub menu entries and chainload to the second partition, find the menu entry for Windows and change it to something like this:

menuentry Windows {
    insmod ntldr
    search -n -l Windows -s
    ntldr /bootmgr
}

This way you can chainload from your first partition to your second partition with Windows on and you can create a USB booting anything. You can read up more on chainloading but the concept is that you're trying to add a menu entry to your grub menu that will boot from the second partition, the one containing Windows.

Important note: Please know that this is only for MSDOS and won't support GPT partitions, so make sure to format them in MSDOS.  I couldn't find a way to chainload from MSDOS to GPT even trying to combine syslinux and grub, so make sure the partitions are in MSDOS.

Hope that helps.


How to completely remove pure-ftpd-mysql from Ubuntu Server 12.04.2?

I have solved my own issue. Though i would not recommend this, After all the un-install processes failed, i eventually gave in and manually located all the remaning files that had anything to do with pure-ftpd and removed them all manually, this then allowed the removal to complete.

Using Webmin file manager I did a search for everything that matched pure-ftpd, pure-ftpd-mysql and pure- and deleted them all. There were about 66 files still remaining.

I have since managed to successfully re install pure-ftpd


I was doing my grub recovery in legacy mode when I changed mode to UEFI mode. I made a bootable device in the MBR Partition scheme and FAT(32) file system mode by using Rufus and I recovered normally by using live Ubuntu boot manager . After recovery, I again switch UEFI mode to legacy mode and everything worked fine.


Ubuntu 16.04 - New install shows strange failed message

With the LiveCD install boot-repair (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair) and run it. Or you can try chrooting into the installed system and installing GRUB manually, there's a good amount of info about that on the internet.


This is a common misunderstanding; I got confused the first time I ran these tests, too. But there's nothing to worry about; despite the scary-sounding terms, the results are totally fine (don't believe me, though -- read the "Assessment" column and the test summaries at the top of the window).

The "Worst" column simply lists the worst allowable value for that specific test, and has nothing to do with your hard drive's actual results (which are all good -- again, see the "Assessment" column next to each test).

Likewise, "Pre-fail" and "Old Age" in the "Type" column simply tell you what kind of test it is -- those terms don't say anything about your hard drive unless it actually failed one of those tests (which it didn't).

If you want to see what the results window looks like for a drive that actually failed a test, see this question: Read Error Rate is more than 5000... Do I need to replace my Hard disk? ... notice the big, red, bold SELF-TEST FAILED message.

But your results show that your hard drive is totally OK and there's nothing to worry about.


No longer able to move messages in Thunderbird using HUD in Ubuntu 14.04

Please check if any of your background aplication intercept alt as a hotkey. It can also be system key, I'm not familiar with Ubuntu keyboard shortcuts since I'm using Xubuntu and this thing differs. Alt can probably affect your windows movement.


Is there a common use case documentation available for Unity?

Several of the options you have mention are something that can be found in any desktop environment like the option to switch between open applicacions (ALT-TAB, CTRL+ALT+LEFT ARROW...)  but others are new to unity. For what i have found there is no guide yet, only a couple of helping documents. Right now this are the ones oriented to unity:

Introduction to Unity - http://design.canonical.com/2010/06/introduction-to-unity-launcher/

Unity Gestures - https://docs.google.com/View?id=dfkkjjcj_1482g457bcc7

But i have to add that Unity MIGHT not be the default for Ubuntu 11.04. Today i got a letter saying that the technical board in Ubuntu will be talking about if they should go with Gnome 3 or Unity so this might be good news for Gnome users until Unity gets better or until they fuse the work from unity to Gnome, making it much more better and not dividing the work between two good groups.

For me this are the best news ever if they do get Gnome 3 as default. It will save me from explaining a lot of people some of the changes in unity at the university.

UPDATE - Well here is the same information i got about MAYBE Ubuntu 11.04 using Gnome 3 as default - http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=OTMwMg


Updated laptop from 16.10 to 18.04 LTS, Stuck at /dev/... clean, ***/*** files, ***/*** blocks

I recently had the same problem with a system that had an AMD gpu and have seen recommendations from people using Intel's integrated GPUs to remove drivers.

So I booted up into recovery mode and removed AMDs GPU drivers and voila it worked.


How to make a custom boot-up splash animation

The startup splash is displayed by Plymouth in Ubuntu. There is an extensive documentation on Plymouth scripting and creating custom plymouth themes in Ubuntu wiki.


Steps Connect another monitor to your computer
Set up an additional monitor
To set up an additional monitor, connect the monitor to your computer. If your system does not recognize it immediately, or you would like to adjust the settings:

Open the Activities overview and start typing Settings.
Click on Settings.
Click Devices in the sidebar.
Click Displays in the sidebar to open the panel.
In the display arrangement diagram, drag your displays to the relative positions you want.

Tip- The numbers on the diagram are shown at the top-left of each display when the Displays panel is active.

Click Primary Display to choose your primary display.

Note: The primary display is the one with the top bar, and where the Activities overview is shown.

Select the resolution or scale, and choose the orientation.
Click Apply. The new settings will be applied for 20 seconds before reverting back. That way, if you cannot see anything with the new settings, your old settings will be automatically restored. If you are happy with the new settings, click Keep Changes.

Check this link might help you - https://help.ubuntu.com/stable/ubuntu-help/display-dual-monitors.html


Trying to install android-file-transfer Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic

There is a problem with the packaging of the PPA for Bionic. You can instead use Artful PPA to install Android File Transfer on Ubuntu 18.04. (Same version, 3.2-1 as of the time of writing)

First add the PPA to your sources:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 0BB4A1B2FA1A38EB
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/samoilov-lex/aftl-stable/ubuntu artful main"

Make sure to run a sudo apt update to load the new packages, then install android-file-transfer the usual way:

sudo apt install android-file-transfer


Is it possible for Ubuntu 12:10 to re-install my lost Windows 7 Home 64-bit,? If possible which are all the steps to do it?

As a straightforward solution and if you want to keep an Ubuntu installed, I suggest the following:

use the windows iso together with the licensing key you have, burn it
to a dvd and install as usual on your ssd... leave some room for
ubuntu though (10-15gig would be sufficent to play a bit with it now
and then)
use the ubuntu live cd to install Ubuntu on the empty space. at the
end of the installation ubuntu should take care of installing a
bootloader and giving you the option to either startup windows or
linux
if using dell's recovery dvd it might be possible that it creates a checksum of your system and if something did change hardware wise, won't install because of licensing issues
additionally: you can always use a ubuntu live cd to access data of a windows installation that doesn't boot anymore, if you didn't
choose to use BitLocker encryption.. after bootup of the live cd you
should be able to browse through your "windows data" by just clicking
on the partition you installed it to in the file browser

hope this helps!


Can Not Create NFS Share on Additional Drive

I omitted "no_root_squash" from /etc/exports file which now reads:

/media/tim/big1    192.168.1.181(rw,sync,no_subtree_check,no_root_squash)

The drive is now mounted in my virtual machine.


Firstly, an easier way of mounting is to use:

mount -t auto /dev/sdb /media/usb-drive

This way you are spared the magical incantations of specifying a partition type.

Secondly, you may have errors on the drive and/or the partition table may be damaged. This happened to me when using dd to erase the first MB of a USB on /dev/sdd and I accidentally used /dev/sdb. This wiped out the first 1 MB of my second hard disk containing the MBR (Master Boot Record) and partition table.

TestDisk can be downloaded here and has versions for Windows and Linux. It goes through every byte of your hard drive to analyze what partition type it is and rebuilds the partition tables. I used TestDisk to successfully recover all my data.

From the website, TestDisk can:

Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
Fix FAT tables
Rebuild NTFS boot sector
Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
Fix MFT using MFT mirror
Locate ext2/ext3/ext4 Backup SuperBlock
Undelete files from FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2 filesystem
Copy files from deleted FAT, exFAT, NTFS and ext2/ext3/ext4 partitions.


Media player keyboard shortcuts keep breaking

For me it helped to close the Chromium Webbrowser.
Re-opening it does not prevent the button from working then.
I previously had a shortcut configured on the key for rhythmbox-client --play-pause in the keyboard system settings, and removed it.
The keyboard system settings is not detecting the play/pause button any longer for keyboard shortcuts (it does not assign it anew), the button still works.

Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS
uname -a Linux box 5.4.0-67-generic #75-Ubuntu SMP Fri Feb 19 18:03:38 UTC 2021 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux


As Doug has pointed out Audacity has the ability to easily import Opus files under Ubuntu 17.04 and also the ability to export as Opus with a small work around. To illustrate:

1. Importing Opus Files with Audacity

Audacity easily imports Opus files either by:

Drag and drop the Opus files directly onto the main Audacity window
File --> Import --> Audio from the Audacity main window

This has tested without flaw on my installation of Audacity 2.1.2 under Ubuntu 17.04.

2. Exporting Opus Files with Audacity

Audacity can export as Opus but does not have the capability to directly export as Opus or to use the conventional 'Custom FFmpeg Export' setting.

Instead go to:

File --> Export --> External Program

and change the Command options to something like the following:

And to make copying and pasting a little easier here is the command line:

ffmpeg -i - -c:a libopus -b:a 128k "%f"

And this should give you the results you are after...

Notes:

Audacity: Exporting to an External Program sends audio via a command-line to an external application, either for processing or for encoding as a file.


A power outage indeed can, when it is happening on the wrong split-second where it is being written to, cause significant damage to the file system of the drive. There may be significant corruption of the file system to the extent that sometimes, reformatting is required. In the worst case, there could be damage to the electronic components of the drive.

‣ Check whether your drive is seen as a device:

sudo fdisk -l

‣ If the drive does not appear, chances are there is hardware failure. As user Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen outlined, you may try mounting the drive itself into another enclosure. If the drive also does not respond at that point, it will need to be replaced.

‣ If the drive appears, see whether the partition(s) on it are listed or not.

‣ If not, then the partition table may be damaged. If no data recovery is needed, you will then need to try repartitioning the drive to bring it back to use (parted or with graphical tools such as Gparted or Disks). If you need to recover data, your best bet is to consult a data recovery service, although you could try to recover the partitions yourself using the testdisk tool.

‣ If the partition table is still intact, then check and repair the file system(s)

sudo fsck /dev/####

You can see the device name(s) of the partition(s) in the output of sudo fdisk -l. After this, the file system should be accessible again and should be coherent.


Did you try the mouse options on System > Preferences > Mouse? There you can specify if you are left or right handed. You can also try looking for the Linux drivers for your touchpad, if they exist.


Why do 14.04 updates of Linux 3.13.0.151 and 3.13.0.153 not boot

This could have any of a number of causes.

Have you checked if your disks have enough space? The auto-update feature in Ubuntu 14.04 tends fill up disks (and /boot in particular) with old kernels  behind your back if you're not careful.

df -h / /boot

And you can check for old kernels to remove using

dpkg -l linux-image* linux-headers*

Just make sure you don't remove the working one :P

If /boot has enough free space, you can update the initramfs images of the installed kernels:

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

And you can also try to trigger a grub update:

sudo update-grub


Ubuntu LTS16.04 - packages libglib2.0:0:i386 and libkeyutils1:i386 missing

Resolved by adding the i386 architecture.
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-0:i386
sudo apt-get install libkeyutils1:i386

Hopefully this will of use to someone in the future.


VLC not showing subtitles (Ubuntu 16.04 gnome)

After whole night of research and trying different things ... reinstalled ubuntu.


How to Move All Files From Drive A to Drive B? (Ubuntu Server)

Do not use NTFS for a drive used only on a Linux machine. Use EXT4, btrfs, XFS or some other file system made for Unix. NTFS is a good file system - for Windows. The Linux support is not perfect, and many features desirable in a Unix FS is not in place either in the FS or in the Linux implementation. First thing you should do is to change the file system.
Do not mount a filesystem at a directory with spaces or special characters. Sure, it works, if you consistently know what you're doing. But chances is that you'll spend time figuring out why it doesn't work because you forgot to escape that special character in some config or similar.
For 300GB, it will take a 1-2 hours to copy the data. Simply use sudo cp -arv /mnt/old_backup/* /mnt/Home\ Storage\ \#1 and watch it finish.


How does Ubuntu run without Wubi Root file

A Wubi install makes use of loopback mounts.  Essentially it mounts your Windows file system, and then treats a file within that file system (your root file) as a block device.  This basically means that rather than reading the blocks of the file system from a partition directly, it looks at the layout of the file in the other file system to locate each individual block.  It isn't running the system out of RAM.

It then performs some gymnastics to make the loopback mounted file system appear as the root, and your Windows file system appear somewhere below the root.

As a general rule, you should not modify the backing file for a loopback mount, since it can confuse the file system driver that is referring to that file.  It would seem the actions you took were not enough to cause these problems though.

On UNIX systems, once you open a file for access it is still possible to read it without causing problems.  Consider the following short Python example:

import os

with open('oldname', 'w') as fp:
    fp.write('content')
with open('oldname', 'r') as fp:
    os.rename('oldname', 'newname')
    print(fp.read())

As with your loopback mounted file system, we can still read the content after moving the file.  We can see a similar effect when removing a file:

with open('newname', 'r') as fp:
    os.remove('newname')
    print(fp.read())

While the file name is removed, the actual content sticks around until the last open file descriptor is closed.  The loopback mount can be thought of as a file descriptor for these purposes.

Copying the file is also unlikely to confuse the loopback mount (since it is just reading the original), but is not necessarily a good way to perform a backup.  It takes a while to read through a large file, so by the time you've got to the end of the file the start might have been modified.  So if you try to use the copied file as a disk image, it may appear to be corrupted (although that corruption may be fixable with a file system check).

If you want to back up your system, I would suggest either using the backup tool included with Ubuntu, or booting to Windows and copying the disk image there (since Ubuntu is not running, there is no chance of the disk image changing while you're copying it).


On a brandless RF remote, many buttons do not work with XBMC

I don't know if you are still having issues with LIRC, but I found a device that acts as a IR Receiver and works without using LIRC. It is called FLIRC and you can set it up with an easy GUI. I would recommend using the full keyboard layout and you should be able to map every button on your remote to a keyboard command supported by XBMC. It is about $25, but it is flawless and solved all of the issues I had trying to set up LIRC, map buttons and even the problem I was having with my remote causing my TV to power cycle. I recommend it to everyone I know, I wish I would have taken a chance on it when I first stumbled onto it 6 months ago.


Click the Settings button in the upper-right corner of the screen
Select "System Settings".
Click "Text Entry". It may also be labeled "Language & Text" or "Keyboard Layout"
Click the "+" button beneath the list of installed keyboard layouts.
Choose the layout that you want to add to Ubuntu.
Click [Add] to add it to your list of layouts.
Note the keyboard shortcuts. The "Switch to next source" and "Switch to previous source" shortcuts allow you to quickly cycle through your enabled layouts. You can select each one and set a new shortcut if you'd like.
Change your layout. After enabling the keyboard shortcuts, you have two ways to change the keyboard layout:  Click the Language button in the Ubuntu menu bar and select the layout you want from the list. OR Press the shortcut you assigned to cycle through layouts.

Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Change-Keyboard-Layout-in-Ubuntu


It isn't apache 2 or appach2 it's apache2. So try the below  command to install the apache2 package:

sudo apt-get install apache2


Wireless connection intermittent on 12.04

So the Rosewill has an RT2760 chipset. After doing some research, I went to synaptic and installed the following package:

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-cw-3.3-precise-generic package

and then rebooting.

Many thanks for this solution go to user Chili555 at the Ubuntu forums. I am re-posting here in hope that it helps somebody else.


How to properly install ubuntu so it will boot on laptops designed for Windows10?

I would install the Ubuntu 16.04 seeing it will be here in just a few weeks it will save you some time later.

Your best bet maybe booting from a USB drive if your machine is older

I'm not sure what specs you have on that machine but it will help us help you better.


Actually using rsync over MTP/usb

It's easier than everyone is saying, first notice that when GVFS mounts the MTP mount it'll be available under. You can force this by opening the phone up in a graphical file-browser (thunar/nautilus/etc)

/run/user/$UID/gvfs

go in there. Assuming you have one mtp device, this should work:

$ cd /run/user/$UID/gvfs/mtp*

Find where you want to transfer the files too, and then rsync them to it

$ cd SanDisk\ SD\ card/Movies/

$ pwd # prints "/run/user/1000/gvfs/mtp:host=%5Busb%3A003%2C096%5D/SanDisk SD card/Movies"

$ rsync --verbose --progress --omit-dir-times --no-perms --recursive --inplace ~/Videos/ ./

Rsync options

--inplace: I highly suggest using --inplace without which mtp may want to copy the file a new, and then rename it to the old one. That may result in copying the file to the SD card twice: once for the mtp transfer to the SD card, and another time because the MTP driver may not support (mv), it may (cp/rm) under the hood to be safe.
read man rsync for a description of --verbose, --progress, --recursive but they're pretty self-documenting.
--omit-dir-times --no-perms are required because mtp doesn't support that.


How to combine multiple text files of different lengths and multiple columns by a column

If all of the columns in all of the files are in the same order, then just concat them together with >>:

for x in {1..60}; do
    # These flags for tail just cut of the top line, which is your headers
    tail -n 2 Sample_$x_blah.txt >> Sample_master.txt
    # and the double carat makes the output append^
done

If not, then you can write the translations in awk sort of like you had above, i.e.

$ cat Sample_1.txt
col1,col2,col3,col4 #etc
$ cat Sample_2.txt
col4,col3,col2,col1
$ cat Sample_1.txt > Sample_Master.txt # no translation needed
$ awk '{print $4","$3","$2","$1 }' Sample_2.txt >> Sample_Master.txt

But with 60 files, that would be more work than- something like writing a python script using python's csv lib...


The application graph2dot is not available as part of Artful Aardvark's FFmpeg package. However it is pretty straightforward  to build your own copy using the following few steps. (My suspicion is that graph2dot is reasonably FFmpeg-version agnostic but we will use the same major version of FFmpeg that comes with Artful, to be sure...)

1. Compile & install graph2dot:

Open a Terminal window and run the following single command:

sudo apt-get install build-essential yasm && \
mkdir $HOME/graph2dot_build && cd $HOME/graph2dot_build && \
wget https://www.ffmpeg.org/releases/ffmpeg-3.3.7.tar.gz && \
tar xvf ffmpeg-3.3.7.tar.gz && cd ffmpeg-3.3.7 && \
./configure && make -j 4 && \
make tools/graph2dot && sudo cp -v tools/graph2dot /usr/local/bin

2. Test the installation:

Now you can test your copy as follows:

andrew@illium~$ graph2dot -h
Convert a libavfilter graph to a dot file.
Usage: graph2dot [OPTIONS]

Options:
-i INFILE         set INFILE as input file, stdin if omitted
-o OUTFILE        set OUTFILE as output file, stdout if omitted
-h                print this help
andrew@illium~$

This has been tested by me on a fresh Artful Aardvark 17.10 VM and should work perfectly on your system as well.

3. Clean the build area:

After testing remove the build directory and its contents:

rm -rfv $HOME/graph2dot_build

And have a great day :)

References:

FFmpeg Filters Documentation: graph2dot: How to use graph2dot now we have it installed!
Video Production Stack Exchange: Installing graph2dot: Detailed installation and usage directions.


May I suggest using shared folders? Then you can put the fasta files on your host machine and access them from both host and guest.

It would help us if you would specify what OS your host is (I am guessing Windows, but which? 7, 8, 10?), and the Ubuntu version on your VM.

Also make sure you have the Guest Additions installed.


Can not boot from Live USB on Toshiba Satellite Click mini

it could be your usb stick, I had one that would appear to work perfectly except it wouldn't boot from it. Try a different one.

Only wanted to comment but can't.


Ok this one isn't properly supported in the kernel yet but a fairly easy fix

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/0rmgeve2ibrh1u1/bluetooth-3.16-2.tar.gz
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/f503f6r686riiow/fw-105b_e065.hcd
tar -zxf bluetooth-3.16-2.tar.gz
cd bluetooth-3.16-2
cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config
cp /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/Module.symvers Module.symvers
make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$PWD modules
sudo modprobe -r btusb && sudo cp btusb.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/bluetooth/
sudo modprobe btusb

Then I need to see what it expects to see the firmware file named, so add the result of dmesg | tail -15 so I can edit this answer

Now that we know what the firmware needs to be named cd ~ and sudo cp fw-105b_e065.hcd /lib/firmware/brcm/BCM43142A0-105b-e065.hcd and then

sudo modprobe -r btusb
sudo modprobe btusb
echo btusb | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

And the dmesg | tail results should change and bluetooth should work properly

After a kernel update, bluetooth will likely stop functioning, then you need to

cd bluetooth-3.16-2
make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$PWD clean
cp /boot/config-$(uname -r) .config
cp /usr/src/linux-headers-$(uname -r)/Module.symvers Module.symvers
make -C /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/build M=$PWD modules
sudo modprobe -r btusb && sudo cp btusb.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel/drivers/bluetooth/
sudo modprobe btusb

And you should be going until the next update


How To Completely Remove KDE Plasma Desktop

Remove Kubuntu

Paste this command into the terminal:

 sudo apt-get remove akonadi-backend-mysql akonadi-server akregator amarok amarok-common amarok-utils apport-kde apturl-kde ark bluedevil cdparanoia cdrdao cryptsetup docbook-xml docbook-xsl dolphin dragonplayer freespacenotifier gnupg-agent gnupg2 gpgsm gpsd gstreamer0.10-qapt gtk2-engines-oxygen gtk3-engines-oxygen gwenview ibus-qt4 icoutils jockey-kde k3b k3b-data kaccessible kaddressbook kamera kate kate-data katepart kcalc kde-baseapps-bin kde-baseapps-data kde-config-gtk kde-config-touchpad kde-runtime kde-runtime-data kde-style-oxygen kde-wallpapers-default kde-window-manager kde-window-manager-common kde-workspace kde-workspace-bin kde-workspace-data kde-workspace-kgreet-plugins kde-zeroconf kdegames-card-data kdegraphics-strigi-analyzer kdelibs-bin kdelibs5-data kdelibs5-plugins kdemultimedia-kio-plugins kdenetwork-filesharing kdepasswd kdepim-kresources kdepim-runtime kdepim-strigi-plugins kdepimlibs-kio-plugins kdesudo kdm kdoctools khelpcenter4 kinfocenter klipper kmag kmail kmenuedit kmix kmousetool knotes konsole kontact kopete kopete-message-indicator korganizer kpat kppp ksnapshot ksysguard ksysguardd ksystemlog ktimetracker ktorrent ktorrent-data kubuntu-debug-installer kubuntu-default-settings kubuntu-desktop kubuntu-docs kubuntu-firefox-installer kubuntu-netbook-default-settings kubuntu-notification-helper kubuntu-web-shortcuts kvkbd kwalletmanager language-selector-kde libakonadi-calendar4 libakonadi-contact4 libakonadi-kabc4 libakonadi-kcal4 libakonadi-kde4 libakonadi-kmime4 libakonadi-notes4 libakonadiprotocolinternals1 libassuan0 libattica0.3 libbluedevil1 libboost-program-options1.46.1 libcalendarsupport4 libcln6 libclucene0ldbl libdebconf-kde0 libdlrestrictions1 libdmtx0a libencode-locale-perl libepub0 libeventviews4 libfile-listing-perl libflac++6 libfont-afm-perl libgadu3 libgif4 libgpgme++2 libgps20 libgrantlee-core0 libhtml-form-perl libhtml-format-perl libhtml-parser-perl libhtml-tagset-perl libhtml-tree-perl libhttp-cookies-perl libhttp-daemon-perl libhttp-date-perl libhttp-message-perl libhttp-negotiate-perl libibus-qt1 libilmbase6 libincidenceeditorsng4 libindicate-qt1 libio-socket-inet6-perl libio-socket-ssl-perl libk3b6 libkabc4 libkactivities-bin libkactivities6 libkalarmcal2 libkateinterfaces4 libkatepartinterfaces4 libkblog4 libkcal4 libkcalcore4 libkcalutils4 libkcddb4 libkcmutils4 libkde3support4 libkdeclarative5 libkdecorations4 libkdecore5 libkdegames5a libkdepim4 libkdepimdbusinterfaces4 libkdesu5 libkdeui5 libkdewebkit5 libkdgantt2 libkdnssd4 libkemoticons4 libkephal4abi1 libkexiv2-10 libkexiv2-data libkfile4 libkholidays4 libkhtml5 libkidletime4 libkimap4 libkio5 libkipi-data libkipi8 libkjsapi4 libkjsembed4 libkldap4 libkleo4 libkmanagesieve4 libkmbox4 libkmediaplayer4 libkmime4 libknewstuff2-4 libknewstuff3-4 libknotifyconfig4 libkntlm4 libkonq-common libkonq5-templates libkonq5abi1 libkontactinterface4 libkopete4 libkparts4 libkpgp4 libkpimidentities4 libkpimtextedit4 libkpimutils4 libkprintutils4 libkpty4 libkresources4 libkrosscore4 libksba8 libkscreensaver5 libksgrd4 libksieve4 libksieveui4 libksignalplotter4 libktexteditor4 libktnef4 libktorrent-l10n libktorrent3 libkunitconversion4 libkwineffects1abi3 libkwinglutils1 libkwinnvidiahack4 libkworkspace4abi1 libkxmlrpcclient4 liblastfm0 libloudmouth1-0 liblwp-mediatypes-perl liblwp-protocol-https-perl libmailcommon4 libmailtools-perl libmailtransport4 libmessagecomposer4 libmessagecore4 libmessagelist4 libmessageviewer4 libmicroblog4 libmpcdec6 libmsn0.3 libmuonprivate1 libmygpo-qt1 libmysqlclient18 libnepomuk4 libnepomukdatamanagement4 libnepomukquery4a libnepomuksync4 libnepomukutils4 libnet-http-perl libnet-ssleay-perl libntrack-qt4-1 libntrack0 libokularcore1abi1 libopenexr6 libotr2 libphonon4 libplasma-geolocation-interface4 libplasma3 libplasmaclock4abi3 libplasmagenericshell4 libpolkit-qt-1-1 libpoppler-qt4-3 libprison0 libprocesscore4abi1 libprocessui4a libqalculate5 libqapt-runtime libqapt1 libqca2 libqca2-plugin-ossl libqgpgme1 libqimageblitz4 libqjson0 libqrencode3 libqt4-designer libqt4-help libqt4-qt3support libqt4-scripttools libqt4-sql-mysql libqt4-test libqtassistantclient4 libqtglib-2.0-0 libqtgstreamer-0.10-0 libqtscript4-core libqtscript4-gui libqtscript4-network libqtscript4-sql libqtscript4-uitools libqtscript4-xml libqtwebkit4 libreoffice-kde libreoffice-style-oxygen libsocket6-perl libsolid4 libsolidcontrol4abi2 libsolidcontrolifaces4abi2 libsoprano4 libstreamanalyzer0 libstreams0 libsyndication4 libtag-extras1 libtaskmanager4abi3 libtemplateparser4 libthreadweaver4 libtimedate-perl liburi-perl libvirtodbc0 libweather-ion6 libwww-perl libwww-robotrules-perl libxml2-utils libxss1 libzip2 muon muon-installer muon-notifier muon-updater mysql-client-core-5.5 mysql-common mysql-server-core-5.5 ntrack-module-libnl-0 odbcinst odbcinst1debian2 okular okular-extra-backends oxygen-cursor-theme oxygen-icon-theme partitionmanager phonon phonon-backend-gstreamer pinentry-gtk2 pinentry-qt4 plasma-dataengines-addons plasma-dataengines-workspace plasma-desktop plasma-netbook plasma-scriptengine-javascript plasma-scriptengine-python plasma-widget-facebook plasma-widget-folderview plasma-widget-kimpanel plasma-widget-menubar plasma-widget-message-indicator plasma-widget-networkmanagement plasma-widgets-addons plasma-widgets-workspace plymouth-theme-kubuntu-logo plymouth-theme-kubuntu-text polkit-kde-1 printer-applet python-kde4 python-pyudev python-qt4 python-qt4-dbus python-sip qapt-batch qapt-deb-installer quassel quassel-data rekonq sgml-data shared-desktop-ontologies software-properties-kde soprano-daemon system-config-printer-kde systemsettings tasks-icons update-manager-kde usb-creator-kde userconfig virtuoso-minimal virtuoso-opensource-6.1-bin virtuoso-opensource-6.1-common xsettings-kde && sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Source http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/pureubuntuprecise


Why the PHP software is not getting updated to the latest stable released version?

The latest version of PHP in Ubuntu 12.04 is currently 5.3.10-1.

Given that you have 5.5.20-1, you clearly are using a third party PHP package, rather than the Ubuntu one.

With Ubuntu you can choose either to run the version supplied with Ubuntu, or run a third party package.  You seem to be doing the latter.

Probably the best choice of PPA for PHP is this PPA as it is maintained by the same team that maintains PHP packages in Debian.

If you're using a third party PHP package, then for any queries regarding when updates will be available, you should see that package maintainer.


You have two, unrelated errors. The first one is that the file /usr/bin/nodejs, which belongs to package nodejs, seems to be broken. Uninstalling and/or reinstalling that package may fix the issue.

The second is that you have enabled a repository which no longer exists. You need to remove that repository from your list of repositories, either through whatever GUI tool you are using or by removing it from your sources.list.


How can I move files from my pen-drive to a directory present in / using GUI?

root is owner of /, so that means you need to use sudo to get rights for copying into /.

Since you want to do it in graphical interface, you need to open-up Nautilus from terminal:

sudo nautilus


Trying to scroll in terminal produces : 64;65;15M65;65;15M65 output instead


Gnome Classic loading instead of Gnome 3

I am new to Ubuntu and I also had problem using Gnome 3 shell under ATI driver. But i found a solution with AMD APP SDK Developer installation.

http://developer.amd.com/Downloads/AMD-APP-SDK-v2.6-lnx64.tgz

It is developer version but the difference from catalyst 11.11 & 11.12 is in fglrx. Its fglrx version is 8.93.10 while the others have 8.92. I no longer have any problem with Gnome 3 shell. But it adds an annoying "AMD Testing Use Only" logo to right bottom corner.

Hopefully it will fix all your gnome 3 problems....


I'd use NFS and mount the folder with the file on server1 on server2 as a client.


change priority (nice value) of a program permanently

You will probably want to create a simple bash script along the lines of:

#!/bin/bash
sudo nice -n -20 uget-gtk

Or you could alias uget-gtk in your .bashrc file by adding:

alias uget-gtk='sudo nice -n -20 uget-gtk'


Stacked icons of network mounts on Desktop

I know two different, simple solutions:

1) start gnome-tweaks and disable the Mounted Volumes on the Desktop.

2) right-click on the desktop and click: Organize Desktop by Name
Then it will sort the desktop and it will no longer be on top of each other.


Can Rhythmbox sync to a subfolder of my Android phone?

Ensure that Mass Storage Device is switched on for your Android device.  This should make your Android visible to Nautilus.

Then, using your favourite text editor, create a text file called .is_audio_player  inside the root directory of the Mass Storage Device

Enter the following into the newly created file:

audio_folders=Music/
output_formats=audio/flac,audio/x-vorbis,audio/x-vorbis+ogg,audio/mpeg,audio/mp3,audio/x-aac

source


How do I open pcmanfm in a specific directory?

Entering pcmanfm /home/$USER/folder should successfully open the folder (it does on 12.04), and so perhaps there is a problem with your installation. You could reinstall pcmanfm, or try specifying the daemon mode when you open a folder:

pcmanfm -d /home/$USER/folder

The -d stands for daemon mode and not directory; you used to be able to use -t for new tab and -n for new window with pcmanfm, but those switches don't seem to work now.

The manpage doesn't list all the options, so to list them all run pcmanfm --help. One further option which might be of interest is the --display= option, but you shouldn't need to specify a display if you only have the one. (Your current display can be found with echo $DISPLAY). So, an example command running pcmanfm in daemon mode and specifying a display would be:

pcmanfm -d /home/mike/Videos --display=:0.0

Here are the other options found with pcmanfm --help, for version 0.9.10 (Precise):

Application Options:
  -p, --profile=<profile name>         Name of configuration profile
  -d, --daemon-mode                    Run PCManFM as a daemon
  --no-desktop                         No function. Just to be compatible with nautilus
  --desktop                            Launch desktop manager
  --desktop-off                        Turn off desktop manager if it‘s running
  --desktop-pref                       Open desktop preference dialogue
  -w, --set-wallpaper=<image file>     Set desktop wallpaper
  --wallpaper-mode=<mode>              Set mode of desktop wallpaper. <mode>=(colour|stretch|fit|centre|tile)
  --show-pref=n                        Open preference dialogue. 'n' is number of the page you want to show (1, 2, 3...).
  --display=DISPLAY                    X display to use


Transferring large files between an Ubuntu machine and a windows machine

This issue may be that you are mounting it as a filesystems etc, which is more complicated - using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) would be ideal for this, as it just transferring a file. To use it you first need to install a server (probably easiest on the Ubuntu machine)  - you can do that with:

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

You then need to edit the security settings so not anyone can log in - you can do this by running sudo nano /etc/vsftpd.conf, and replacing anonymous_enable=YES with anonymous_enable=NO. You may also want to set the write_enable entry,  depending on whether you want to allow files to be created over FTP or not. You can then save (Ctrl+O) and exit (Ctrl+X).

You then need to restart vsftpd (I think this is the right command...)

sudo /etc/init.d/vsftpd restart

You then need a FTP client (on the Windows machine) to access the FTP server - for Windows FileZilla is good, but is hosted on Sourceforge, which now sadly has many ad fake download links, and now has adware installers for some of the more popular apps12 (I don't think the version FileZilla_3.9.0.6_win32-setup.exe here has this issue (though it did - looks fine under Wine anyway)) - basically don't use the installer if it looks like this:

You can then enter the IP address and login details of the Ubuntu machine, and transfer the files.

NOTE: Note if you want something potentially more secure you can use SFTP - this can be done by using a SSH server on the Linux machine (using the openssh packages), and sftp in Filezilla.


Vmware shared folder not working in ubuntu 13.10

I upgraded 13.04 to 13.10 and was having the same "can't access shared folders" problem.
Edit:
Found the solution Here.
I had actually previously tried this, but in my previous attempts I was installing Vmware tools 9.2 from a previous version of Vmware.
I re-untarred the Vmware tools from the mounted CD Player | Manage | Re-install VMWare Tools... applied the patch, and ran the installer script in my case: ~/vmware-tools-distrib/vmware-install.pl.
I had to modify the fix.sh file in the link to point to my paths but once I did that, shared folders started working.


Prevent access to a folder in WINE (running on Lubuntu)

AppArmor should be able to do things like this. It's a access control layer that can add additional conditioons on user and processes. I've never used it before though so you might have some trial and error ahead of you.

There's a fairly thorough guide on all of this on the AppArmor wiki. You'll need to layer more and more on but here's a starting point.

/usr/bin/wine {
  #include <abstractions/base>
  #include <abstractions/user-tmp>

  audit deny /path/to/directory/**    rwx,
}

There's also a separate wiki page on Wine applications in AppArmor. Probably worth a read.


ubuntu-budgie-desktop is a meta package.

A desktop meta package is a master package that installs all related packages for a particular desktop environment.

In this case - all the packages related to Ubuntu Budgie.

So in addition to ubuntu-budgie-desktop you must also purge budgie-desktop.  This is the graphical environment itself and it will also remove the login session for budgie.

sudo apt purge ubuntu-budgie-desktop budgie-desktop

There are a few recommended packages also that are installed with ubuntu-budgie-desktop that will not be removed with the above command - but you can deal with those separately if you so wish.


Why aren't there any updates showing up?

You have to click 'Check' in Update manager And the enter your password .


Could you please verify the registered USB audio class etc. with the package alsa-capabilities with alsa-capabilities -l u and maybe see its setting the output format in pavucontrol. I have a cobalt which works perfectly on Manjaro.


how can I know what's drivers I need to install?

You can try something like this:

lspci -nnk | grep -e ":" -e driver

It will show you what drivers are in use.

As for making sure all drivers work as expected, just use the computer.


After upgrading from 12.10 to 16.04 can sign in but screen eventually freezes and breaks

I have an older AMD desktop. It seems that the (default) nouveau driver that is installed by Ubuntu does not work that well with an (old) AMD processor. Whether this problem is limited to my computer and this question or applies generically to other AMD computers, I do not know.

To fix this problem select one of the Nvidia (tested) drivers. This can be done by selecting: Applications --> System Tools --> Preferences --> Additional Drivers.


I reinstalled following these steps https://www.dionysopoulos.me/253-portable-ubuntu-on-usb-hdd.html and it worked ... but thanks anyway

  What you need

  An empty external (USB) hard drive. I used a USB 3 drive enclosure with a cheap 256Gb SSD. For those of you worrying about performance,
  the USB 3.0 port is faster than the maximum transfer rate of any SSD
  I've seen to this date.
  Ubuntu Linux bootable USB drive. Very easy to create using Rufus on Windows. I used a cheap, promotional flash drive. Reduce, reuse,
  recycle FTW.
  Windows System Repair Disc (a bootable USB drive with Windows recovery tools which you can make yourself) or a Windows installation
  or rescue CD-ROM / DVD-ROM. I used another promotional flash drive.

  Remember to take backups of all your critical files and folders before
  continuing. You are going to make changes to your computer. If it
  breaks don't cry, I warned you. Also test both your bootable media.
  Twice. You will need them both!

  Caveats

  Having a dual- or multi-boot system isn't as straightforward as it
  used to be a decade ago. Nowadays, in the interest of security,
  performance and backwards compatibility, there are many semi-hidden
  options and features which can get in your way. Given enough
  experience and patience you can work around them. Below is a selection
  of problems that got me moderately stumped along the way.

  Secure boot caveat

  I have only tested these instructions with Secure Boot turned off.
  Even though Ubuntu does support Secure Boot (it comes with signed
  bootloaders) I have no idea if my method uses the signed bootloaders
  or not. I suggest turning off Secure Boot if possible.

  FastBoot caveats

  Many boards come with some sort of "fast boot" or "boot optimization"
  options. For example, my Intel NUC has an option called Fast Boot
  which won't let me choose an alternative boot device at startup. It
  also has an option to support Intel Rapid Start Technology which does
  get in the way of booting to multiple OS. I had to disable both.

  It's worth noting that Windows 8 and 10 have an Fast Startup or Fast
  Boot feature. This feature takes some shortcuts when it comes to
  booting and also makes the NTFS filesystem remain in a dirty state,
  making it unwriteable from Linux. It's best to understand what it does
  and disable it if you plan on writing to your Windows drive from
  Linux.

  USB host controller caveat

  Some firmwares will present the USB host controller as UHCI (USB 1.1)
  at boot time. When Linux probes for an xHCI (USB 3) host controller
  during the boot process they will respond positively. At this time
  Linux loads the xHCI driver and the USB host controller resets itself.

  However, your root filesystem is inside a device attached to this USB
  controller. Therefore the controller resetting means that Linux can no
  longer communicate with the USB-attached hard drive. Therefore the
  Linux boot will hang forever without any further indication as to what
  went wrong.

  Most affected boards (including my Intel NUC) have an option to enable
  the xHCI host controller interface by default. Enabling the xHCI
  option in the BIOS fixes the hanging boot issue. If you are only using
  modern operating systems with USB 3 support (anything newer than and
  including Windows 8.1 and Ubuntu Linux 15.04) you can safely enable
  that option.

  Installing Linux

  Boot your computer from the Ubuntu Linux bootable USB drive. Remember
  that you may have to enter your computer's boot manager to do that (on
  my Intel NUC I have to press F10; on most other BIOS I've seen it's
  F9; consult your BIOS documentation).

  Install Ubuntu Linux regularly. When it prompts you about the disk
  layout choose Something Else and partition your external HDD the way
  you want. I chose to create a modestly sized root partition (about
  40Gb), a swap partition that's as big as the biggest RAM configuration
  I am going to be using this installation with plus one Gb (my
  computers max out at 16Gb so I made a 17Gb swap partition) and the
  rest of the disk went to a massive /home partition.

  Caveat: I chose to use btrfs which – as I learned along the way – makes things a bit more complicated down the line. For your sanity's
  sake I recommend using ext4. This guide assumes the use of btrfs and
  will point out the caveats with this approach.

  Fix Windows 10 boot

  Unfortunately the Ubuntu Installer assumes that you want a dual
  booting configuration alongside Windows. Therefore it adds itself
  (actually, the bootloader it uses, GRUB2) to your computer's UEFI
  configuration. This causes two problems. For starters, the external
  HDD is not portable as you cannot boot with it on another computer.

  Secondly, if you remove this external HDD your Windows won't boot.
  Bummer. We have to fix that.

  Shut down your computer.
  Disconnect the Ubuntu HDD
  Boot from the Windows system repair disc USB drive (or a Windows installation or rescue CD-ROM/DVD-ROM).
  Select Repair your computer.
  Select the operating system and click Next.
  Choose Command Prompt.
  In the command prompt run

diskpart
sel disk 0
list vol

  Verify that the EFI partition is using the FAT32 file system. It will have a volume ID, let's say 99. Now we need to assign a drive
  letter to it. Back in the command prompt type:

sel vol 99
assign letter=z:
exit

  Now we need to fix the boot record. Again in the command prompt type:

z:
cd EFI/Microsoft/Boot
bootrec /FixBoot

  Finally, we need to re-create the BCD store which tells the Microsoft boot loader where to find Windows so it can boot it. From
  our trusted command prompt:

ren BCD BCD.old
bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-us /s z: All

  If this didn't work try:

ren BCD BCD.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd

  At this point exit the command prompt and shut down your computer.

  Create an ESP on the Ubuntu HDD

  A hard drive is not bootable with UEFI unless it has an ESP (EFI
  System Partition). An ESP is simply a FAT32 partition with a special
  flag that tells the EFI BIOS to look inside it for boot information.
  We have to create one on your hard drive.

  Plug in your external HDD and the Ubuntu Linux bootable USB stick.
  Boot with the Ubuntu Linux bootable USB stick using the option to try Ubuntu before installing.
  Open a Terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T)
  Run sudo fdisk -l to get a list of partitions.
  Identify from them the drive that has the Linux partitions, in my case /dev/sdb. I'll call it /dev/sd<b>X</b> from now on.
  Also identify the partition that contains the root filesystem. I will call it /dev/sdXY from now on.
  Launch GParted from the Terminal:

sudo gparted /dev/sdX

  Why not just click on GParted on your desktop? Well, I kept receiving errors about the Ubuntu Linux bootable USB stick because it
  was already in use. Of course it is, I am using it to run the computer
  off it, duh!
  Resize the first partition on disk to have another 200 Mb of free space after it.
  Create a new partition on the free space, changing the file system to fat32.
  Apply operations. You need to do that now for the next step to be possible.
  Right click the new partition.
  Click on Manage Flags.
  Set the boot and esp flags. This is what makes the partition "special" to the EFI BIOS.
  One more thing! Note down the the partition that contains the ESP filesystem. I will call it /dev/sdXZ from now on.

  Make sure the Ubuntu installation on the external HDD can see the ESP

  The new ESP on the external drive must be visible by the Ubuntu
  installation in the HDD. Otherwise GRUB2, the Linux bootloader, won't
  be able to update itself, making your system unbootable after the next
  kernel update at the latest.

  Launch GParted from the Terminal, as we saw above:

sudo gparted /dev/sdX

  Double-click the partition with your Linux root (/) filesystem on the external HDD
  Note down the UUID, e.g. 01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-4567890abcde
  Double-click the new FAT32 partition and note down the UUID, e.g. 0123-ABCD
  Close GParted
  Open a Terminal

  The process is different depending on the format of your root
  partition on the external hard disk.

  If you DID NOT use btrfs (e.g. you used ext4)

sudo umount /media/ubuntu/01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-4567890abcde
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt

  If you DID use btrfs

  If you DID use btrfs, you made your life complicated. We need to mount
  the btrfs subvolume containing the root partition instead of the
  entire partition. Otherwise you'll never be able to install GRUB and
  you'll probably lose an entire day, like me.

btrfs subvolume list /media/ubuntu/01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-4567890abcde

  This will give you a line with a numeric ID. Let's say 123. Note it
  down.

umount /media/ubuntu/01234567-89ab-cdef-0123-4567890abcde
mount /dev/sdXY -o subvolid=123 /mnt

  The rest of the instructions are common, no matter if used btrfs, ext4
  or something else

    sudo nano /mnt/etc/fstab

  There is a line with /boot/efi already in this file. Comment it by placing a # in front of it.
  Add the following line:

UUID=0123-ABCD /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1

  Install GRUB2 on the external drive's EFI System Partition

  Right now our external drive has an empty ESP. We need to put a
  bootloader in it to make it actually, well, bootable.

  First caveat: all the instructions you find on-line assume you are using a dual boot system with Windows or macOS. When you have an
  external drive it is critical that you use the --removable option in
  the last step. This installs the EFI bootloader under the special
  "fallback path" EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi in the ESP. Normally this not
  supposed to be used for permanently installed Operating Systems. It's
  the mechanism used by EFI BIOS to boot arbitrary external media.
  Technically, that's exactly what our external hard drive is: arbitrary
  external media!

  Second caveat: installing the bootloader is only possible from inside the Linux installation we want to boot. However, we need the
  bootloader to boot that installation, leading to a Catch-22 issue. The
  solution is to run the bootloader installation through a chroot jail.
  The actual caveat that got me stumped for a day comes from the fact
  that I am using btrfs (because it's so much better for SSDs!). btrfs
  has subvolumes. If you mount the entire partition instead of a
  subvolume the grub-install script can't figure out the mapping between
  paths and devices, therefore failing to install itself on the ESP,
  returning the cryptic error:

/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?).

  The error is misleading! /dev is mounted if you follow my
  instructions below. The actual problem, as I understand it, is that
  there is a discrepancy between the mounted device and the path to the
  chroot root. That's why I had you mount only the subvolume containing
  the root filesystem in the steps above. If you were not paying
  attention, you are not following the instructions step-by-step, you
  rebooted before this step or just came here directly looking for a
  solution to your problem about GRUB not installing look above for
  instructions on mounting the correct btrfs subvolume.

  We need to prepare the chroot environment. The ESP must be mounted in the correct place and we have to bind system mount point for some
  special trees (most notably /dev). Moreover, we will copy the
  resolv.conf file to let the chroot environment have network access
  should it need it.

mount /dev/sdXZ /mnt/boot/efi
for i in /dev /dev/pts /proc /sys; do sudo mount -B $i /mnt/$i; done
cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/
modprobe efivars

  Finally we enter the chroot environment and install Grub in a way suitable for a removable device (see the first caveat above).

sudo chroot /mnt
grub-install -d /usr/lib/grub/x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi/ --removable /dev/sdX

  Now your external HDD is bootable. Reboot your computer, select it
  from the boot media selection of your UEFI BIOS and you're done!


Is gnome-session-fallback viable long-term solution in 12.04?

Yes - it is a directly viable solution for 12.04.

You need to be aware that both gnome-panel and indicator-applet-complete (the key packages behind gnome-fallback) are part of the Universe repository.  Thus it is up to the community to maintain the integrity of these packages, not Canonical itself.

I would surmise that since the Ubuntu developers included the following, this already shows the commitment to this solution:

the backport for ubuntu indicators,
fix to include Compiz as the Window Manager by default

The question of "problem-free" is crystal ball-gazing - not something any of us can foresee.

For more information on how to revert to gnome-classic:

How to revert to GNOME Classic Desktop?

There are plenty of panel-based alternatives such as Cinnamon, XFCE & LXDE for you to consider as well.


LCD backlight keys on Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro

Don't know if this answers are sufficient - here are links :
A workaround in arch Linux - but backlight is here only explained at edge.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Intel_Graphics
And here is more detailed explanation concerning intel 945GM :
http://linux.die.net/man/4/intel
There beyond "Output Configuration" are the options of backlight.
As you can read there - brightness and backlight are two different things which can be adjusted.

xrandr --prop

delivers the current set datas.
Perhaps it is of matter if you install saucy-kernel 3.10 ( download it at ubuntu ) - only in case if you still use kernel 3.2.0-49 ? ( if this does not work, then you still have kernel 3.2.0-49 in your system to go back there ) :
http://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.10-saucy
So - don't know if Kernel 3.10 is necessary for below additions - you can test without danger after downloaded 3.10 suiting to your 64 or 32 processor :

sudo dpkg -i linux-*.deb

Sorry - now have seen that there is an extra package besides xrandr - it
is called xbacklight
It is not installed by default:

sudo apt-get install xbacklight
xbacklight -get

delivers the current set value.
According to man xbacklight you can set it with:

xbacklight -set (here decimal value in percent !)

There is a special brightness for xbacklight to be set with:

xbacklight -inc (here decimal value increases in percent !)

and

xbacklight -dec (here decimal value decreases in persent !)

lowers the value down again - in case value was set too high.
Is your question answered ? - Let me know !


What is the difference between integrated and discrete graphic cards?

Integrated graphics
Integrated or on-board graphics are built in to the motherboard or CPU. Integrated graphics use a portion of a computer's system RAM instead of their own dedicated memory.1 Integrated graphics are less powerful than discrete graphics, but conserve energy.
Discrete graphics
Discrete graphics deliver more processing power and a higher quality visual experience compared to integrated graphics, for use in applications that require a lot of computing power such as HD video content and 3D games.
The built-in ubuntu-drivers  terminal program can be useful in identifying the recommended proprietary discrete graphics driver, but it is important to understand that the results of ubuntu-drivers devices are sometimes wrong for some very new devices, and that is one of the reasons why open source graphics drivers are built-in in Ubuntu.
Hybrid graphics
Hybrid graphics software permits switching between integrated and discrete graphics based on how much processing power the running applications require. The right hybrid graphics software to install in Ubuntu is the software that is compatible with your computer's hardware.

Integrated graphics can be integrated onto the motherboard as part of the chipset and/or within the same die as the CPU1
1Wikipedia
Some AMD Ryzen CPUs do not have integrated graphics. You need a discrete GPU for Ryzen CPUs that don't have a G suffix.


When I manually start my own service it runs in the foreground, is this correct?

Don't use an init.d service. Write an Upstart job instead. Here's an example. Upstart will take care of keeping the program in the background, logging, etc.

Your service would be in /etc/init/mcp.conf, containing, for example:

start on runlevel [2345]
stop  on runlevel [016]

exec /usr/bin/mcp -d f -c /etc/mcp

Then you can do:

sudo service mcp start
sudo service mcp stop

And so on.


apt autoremove trying to remove essential packages

You are purging build-essential and some other essential packages for other dependencies.

So if you mark them to purge using apt it automatically also removes/purges all packages which depend on them!

I'ld recommend to never purge multiple packages in one command (unless you know what you're doing) but rather one by one. So you have more control over what else gets purged.

My guess it that very probably for some of the packages when you ran the first command to install it mentioned that they already have been installed before.

Of course you don't want to purge those that were installed before because this might cause other packages depending on them to be purged as well (as in your case).

For the linux-headers and linux-image packages as already mentioned in the comments it is usually save since apt recognizes that you have newer ones installed.


Startup Disk Creator not recognizing selected ISO in 13.10

Yes, It is irritating, that the .iso files are NOT being identified, certainly a bug.

Rename the .iso file to end with .img, and the usb-creator-gtk(startup disk creator) would identify it.

mv something.iso something.img