How to install Ubuntu to Windows Vista with or without a usb?

I assume you want to wipe Windows Vista and replace with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
I can try and point you in the right direction based on some recent experience I have had:

Make sure you have a USB stick that is at least 2GB big.
Check your BIOS settings and make sure that it is set to boot from USB. It is important to make sure that the USB preference comes before the hard drive in priority.
Download the Ubuntu image at http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop. Make sure you pick 64-bit or 32-bit depending on your computer capability.
Download a program to burn the image to your USB stick. Look here for the one recommended by Ubuntu. Also see here for the link on the Ubuntu page.
Once the burn is complete, keep the USB stick plugged in and reboot Vista, for the last time!
Then follow the instructions during the boot up. Be patient, sometimes it can take some time depending on how fast your machine is.

Note: You may also want to be sure you have backed up all of your files that you want because the default installation will wipe your hard drive.

Hope this helps.


Why has my NIC got 2 IPv6 addresses as following?

A link-local address which is derived during stateless address auto-configuration (defined in RFC 4862) so that your computer can communicate on local networks without any information obtained from an external source (such as DHCP or IPv6 router solicitation/advertisement).

Unless manually configured, it is derived from the MAC address of the NIC in EIU-64 format (for Ethernet) and begins with FE80:: with a /64 prefix, and every NIC on a system will have one (by default).


You are misunderstanding the syntax of the printf command (which closely follows that of the underlying C function: see for example man 3 printf for full documentation).

printf takes a format string consisting of a sequence of format specifiers and other literal characters, followed by as many comma-separated arguments as necessary to fill the given format. In your command

printf "%s,%d,%0.2f%\n",c[i]"\t"a[i]"\t"100*b[i]/x"%"

you are telling it to expect 3 values (a %s, a %d, and a %0.2f) but are giving it a single, concatenated, string argument c[i]"\t"a[i]"\t"100*b[i]/x"%". Hence it will run out of arguments during the assignment.

What you presumably intended is

printf "%s\t%d\t%0.2f%%\n", c[i], a[i], 100*b[i]/x

(the tabs go inside the format string; the %% corresponds to a literal % i.e. prevents % from being interpreted as the start of another format specifier).


Creating a foobar.desktop file and a Wine app icon on the launcher

Desktop files contain a command to open an application. It is not much more than a textfile, with the extension ".desktop". Although you can store these files anywhere, and run it as a standalone link to an application (that is: if you make it executable), the default locations are:

`/usr/share/applications`

(globally) or

`~/.local/share/applications`

(locally).

What you need to do is paste the text in your post into an empty textfile (open gedit), and change the line:

Exec=sh -c "cd /home/USER/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/FOOBAR_FOLDER; wine foobar.exe"

What do you need to change?

Explanation of the sections of the line:

Exec=

This means: what comes after this will be executed if the desktop file is invoked. That is actually what would make the application start if you would run it in a terminal.

sh -c "cd /home/USER/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/FOOBAR_FOLDER;

this is telling the shell to go into the directory where the application is located (the backslash in /Program\ Files is to escape the space in the name of the Program Files folder, telling the shell not to stop at the space).

You should replace USER with your own username, replace FOOBAR_FOLDER with the name of the application folder. If you don't know, open your home directory, press ctrl+h to make the .wine folder visible (if it isn't already), and browse into the directory ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files to see the name of your application folder.

wine foobar.exe

This tells the shell to run foobar.exe with Wine. Replace foobar.exe with the actual application_name.exe.

Finally, your Exec= line should look something like (if RedNotebook is your application for example):

Exec=sh -c "cd /home/antortjim/.wine/drive_c/Program\ Files/RedNotebook; wine rednotebook.exe"

Then, after you have changed the line Name=Foobar into a more appropriate name, save the file as (for example) rednotebook.desktop

If you want to use the file as a starter on your Desktop, save it there as renotebook.desktop and make it executable. If you want to run it from Dash, move it into ~/.local/share/applications. After log out and back in, it will be available in Dash. You can lock it to the launcher then.


What is the Dialog Box used by the Ubuntu Server Installer?

Do you mean what's drawing the boxes? That should be Dialog


Wacom Intuos Pro PTH-451/K "Tablet not detected"

I received mine yesterday :) and like many others struggled to get it to work. But with lots of searching I've figured it out! Compiling the new wacom driver DID work.

I downloaded input-wacom-0.20.0.tar.bz2 from http://sourceforge.net/projects/linuxwacom/files/xf86-input-wacom/input-wacom/. I only needed to install build-essentials, but I'm not really sure if other 'essentials' were previously installed.

Before compiling it might be wise to backup the existing wacom.ko.

So, download, extract, in Terminal use ./configure and move the wacom.ko to the appropriate directory (which is clearly stated at the end of the compiling).

I can't stress it enough: Before compiling it might be wise to backup the existing wacom.ko.

If someone needs a step-by-step explanation, please let me know. But it really isn't that hard to do.


Lightweight browser with pdf/docx plugin

Actually I am Ubuntu User. I get pdf reader(Evince) for pdf documents and Libre office for docx documents by default. In xubuntu you should also be getting same default programs. I didn't understand why you specifically want to view them with browser when dedicated software for the same purpose is already available with the system.
Edit-
Well if you want to use browser anyway go for chrome. You can install and try this for office documents and this for pdf documents. Additionally you can search more extensions for the same purpose. Anyway you are still downloading documents for view. Though they will not store in your hard disk but downloaded for temporary view only.


Changed my display manager to lightdm-gtk-greeter. Now I can't login

Ok, this is what did the trick for me. I received this advice from someone else. When the system hung up I pressed Ctrl-Alt-F1 and got to a virtual terminal. Then, I issued the command sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm. That reset my display manager back to lightdm and I was able to sign in as normal. Everything works fine now.


I now have MS Livemeeting running Ubuntu 13.04 64bit and Firefox v26.
There were 3 key things I did:

Visit Ubuntu software Cente. Search for Java and Note. I already had Open JDK Java
7 installed but the 3rd component Webbrowser plugin and Iced Tea was not Installed so I installed this.  I then closed and restarted my browser (Firefox).
go to the URL for your meeting or To test your computer's compatibility with Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007 visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=90703.  You will need to select Allow or Run to by pass security warnings or enable popup window.

At this point the pop-up window may appear but may then sit there doing nothing
Final tip is to look for the Java plugin icon to the left of the URL in the URL Bar. Click on this and you will see a message about Iced Tea - select Continue Allowing.

Good luck


Restore typeahead in Nautilus (UbuntuGNOME)

Execute the following command in terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) to enable the typeahead feature in Ubuntu GNOME:

gsettings set org.gnome.nautilus.preferences enable-interactive-search true

This is set to false in Ubuntu GNOME by default, but set to true in Unity, which enables the type-ahead functionality in it.


Ubuntu 20.04 Failed to Set MokListRT: Invalid Parameter

You have to replace  shimx64.efi with grubx64.efi as follows:
sudo su -
cd /boot/efi/EFI/ubuntu
cp grubx64.efi shimx64.efi
reboot


Changing your mountpoint needs three actions: changing the entry in /etc/fstab (be careful), creating the directory where it should be mounted (if necessary, but in your case it possibly exists already), and you will probably want to change the partition label as well (if necessary), to have the right name appear in the devices overview in nautilus.

No need to say that you ALWAYS need to make backups before you change anything.

if it is a data only partion:

1. Edit the existing entry in fstab

Run in terminal:

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Lookup the entry with mountpoint: "stuff1", change it to "stuff" (check first if there is no entry with "stuff" already), do not touch the rest. In the line, you can see in what directory the partition is mounted (the section that ends with "stuff").

2. Create a directory to mount into

Create (if necessary) in the same directory a folder named "stuff", but as said, it probably exists already":

sudo mkdir /path_to_stuff/stuff

On next restart, you will find your documents in "stuff".

3. Changing the partition label:

There is a chance that you need to change the partition label. You can check that by looking in the device overview in nautilus. If that is "stuff" already, skip step 3. If not: the best is to do it with Gparted, which you will have to install. Open Gparted. In the partition overview, right-click on the partition with label "stuff1", choose "unmount". When it is unmounted, right-click again and choose "label". Rename it to "stuff". After renaming the label of the partition, close Gparted and run:

sudo mount -a.

Probably you will also have to rename the nautilus bookmark: open a nautilus window, from the menu, choose Bookmarks > Bookmarks. Rename the bookmark.


Upgrade vs Clean install without formatting

Well,

Firstly let me explain you what Upgrade means and what Fresh Install means.

UPGRADE -

Upgrade means your system will be updated to the newest resources,applications,libraries,Kernel versions and will have the latest Patches to various software BUT your data that was there in your /home folder will remain intact.

FRESH INSTALL-

Fresh install means your system will be updated to the newest resources,applications,libraries,Kernel versions and will have the latest Patches to various software BUT your data in /home will be completely lost because fresh install is nothing but installing a new OS.

Now,about your doubt about broken packages in upgrades,

This problem generally occurs when you upgrade online using the UPGRADE TOOL.

One way to avoid this is to burn an ISO immage on to a CD/USB making it bootable and then UPGRADING instead of INSTALLING FRESH

When you boot the CD/USB you have created and click on INSTALL on the first screen,next you will get a screen asking for -

REPLACE 11.10 WITH 12.04
UPGRADE 11.10 to 12.04
SOMETHINF ELSE

If you select the 2nd option,you will have the benefit of UPGRADING with very less risk of Broken Packages

Always remember to select to INSTALL 3rd PARTY SOFTWARE and UPDATE DURING INSTALLING when you start the install. This further reduces the risk of broken packages later.

I would recommend UPGRADE USING A LIVE CD over INTERNET UPGRADE or FRESH INSTALL

Needless to tell,backup all your data.

Hope the answer helps you.


Events subsequent to my post pointed to another damaged disk and not samba. The network connectivity problem appears to have been corrected with a recent update and serendipity masked the disk defect. Fsck confirmed the damaged disk and a lengthy and uninterrupted process across the network confirmed that connectivity is no longer a problem. So far so good.


graphical text editor that can filter text through shell commands?

With gVim, select the text, type :! and the command you want. The selected lines will be replaced by the output of the command.

An example:

Editing /etc/apt/sources.list:

Selected the text and pressed :! (the '<,'> in the command line is automatically added), with command awk '{print $3}':

The text was replaced with the output:

Of course, Vim's regex is powerful enough that I wouldn't use an external program (especially not sed, probably not awk) with it. Some care has to be taken with the commands - % with various suffixes is used to add information about the file (:!echo % prints the path of the file, for example), so you'll have to escape those.

Note that the :! command without a range (or selection) does not replace any lines. With selected text, the '<,'> is automatically added when you type : to enter the command line.


I dont think there is a direct way to disable and re-enable the notifications.

However you could write two scripts which you could have on your desktop or a dock such as awn/docky etc.  The scripts would remove the execute permission from the executable that is run to display the notification.  You also need to kill the notification process that is running.

one script - lets call it "disableNotify" could have the commands

sudo chmod -x /usr/lib/notify-osd/notify-osd
killall notify-osd

the other script - lets call it "enableNotify" could have the commands

sudo chmod +x /usr/lib/notify-osd/notify-osd

Create each script as a text file in Text Editor

Give the script execute rights i.e.

chmod +x enableNotify
chmod +x disableNotify

The scripts will obviously prompt you for your password since it uses "sudo".  There are ways to prevent this but that is perhaps worth another question.


In Ubuntu 18.04 I am not able to open windows server machine with double \\ip address

If your question is referring to the use of a file manager, try entering smb://ip-address

(Add smb: before the slashes and you appear to be using the wrong slash)

In pcmanfm it looks like this

And in Nautilus like this (I press control-L and type it, but the string I typed in is replaced by "windows share...")


How do you set up a second Network Interface Card to connect to a network printer?

You can make topology like this

|------|
|  PC  |=========|--------|      |--------|
|------|         | switch |======| router |
                 |--------|      |--------|
                    |
|---------|         |
| printer |=========|
|---------|

Connect PC, printer and router on the same switch
Then configure you PC on this way

Edit /etc/network/interfaces

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

make conf on this way

auto eth1
    iface eth1 inet static
           address 192.168.x.x
           netmask 255.255.255.0
           gateway 192.168.x.1
           up ip addr add 172.16.x.x/24 dev eth1 label eth1:1

Every thing will work and you will have only one noc card on PC.

Solution 2

Like you say, you can add nic to PC and configure second card eth1 without gw and connect to printer. This solution aslo will work.

Solution 3

Simple connect printer to switch port on router and configure printer on the same network like PC but without gw. PC will communicate with printer through router.


Directory error when trying to create a new user

It looks like you have a directory already called shirley, so when it creates a new user it doesn't copy the needed files from /etc/skel, which is needed to run things.

Let's try removing the directory and doing it from scratch, but before you do, look in /home/shirley and make sure there's no data there that's important:

sudo deluser --remove-home shirley
sudo adduser shirley


This command really helps you try this

sudo dpkg --configure -a

If help then let me know


Samba min protocol SMB3, nmap report SMBv1

The smb-protocols nmap script checks to see which smb dialects are present on the Samba server.
client min protocol sets the minimum smb dialect that server can use to connect to another server not the minimum dialects that a client to this server can use.
By default the version of samba used in Ubuntu 18.04 sets the server min to NT1 ( smbv1 ) and the max to SMBv3.
If you want to restrict access to this server to SMB3 and SMB3 only you need to set the server min protocol:
server min protocol = SMB3

*Note: there are sub-variants to this dialect:
SMB3_00: Windows 8
SMB3_02: Windows 8.1
SMB3_10: early Windows 10
SMB3_11: Windows 10
By default SMB3 in smb.conf selects the SMB3_11 variant.*


mouse stuck after resumption from suspend

This is certainly a bug - I suggest you report it by pressing Alt+F2, entering ubuntu-bug in the box, and following the instructions from there.


What does it mean to make a bootable LiveUSB?

As the nature of question is more of layman (at least, that is what I understood), I would like to focus and attempt to answer in plain words rather than technically in order to solve questioner @holo gram's doubt.

What happens when a CPU is powered on?

As you may be knowing RAM or the Physical memory is the only place from where the CPU reads and executes instruction. But RAM is volatile memory, so when a CPU is powered on the RAM is empty.

So during this time from where does the instructions are loaded into RAM?
Its typically HDD.

But computer being a dummy machine how does it understands where in the HDD to look for the first instructions?

What is BIOS (Basic Input/Output System)?

BIOS is the program to start after you turn on your computer.
BIOS conducts a power-on self-test for all of the different hardware
components in the system to make sure everything is working
properly.
It searches and loads the boot loader program.
You can change the order of bootloader sequence i.e. it is part of
the BIOS.
BIOS looks into MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT (GUID Partition
Table) where it finds the actual boot loader program.
In LINUX its typically GRUB (Grand Unified Bootloader). A system can
have multiple kernel instances present, so in that case it will ask
you for which one?
BIOS is not only a program but also a firmware. i.e, this BIOS part
is hard wired in the motherboard chip.

Figure-1: A typical BIOS Chip.

Having this background, now the question is, "How to load an iso file from a "non-bootable" pendrive?"

Your primary question was "is it not enough to copy iso file into USB to boot?"

The answer is "yes, you can do" provided that you have to re-write BIOS program by yourself. Instead of BIOS looking for bootloaders, let BIOS do the job of a bootloader! In your case, iso file can be loaded directly from a pendrive just after copying! No problems, BIOS program can be made capable of doing this!

But what are the repercussions?

BIOS, hence forth, will never have the knowledge of whereabouts of
bootloaders because it does that job by itself.
Addition of bootloader code into BIOS makes it fatter and may not
fit into memory chip. Thus you are meddling with hardware too!
There will not be any boot record in hard disk because BIOS knows
how to boot. Hard disk will contain only programs and data.
If you have a dual booted desktop, BIOS loads only Ubuntu iso and
not Microsoft windows iso because it has no knowledge about that iso
file.
So you  will rewrite BIOS program again to incorporate windows iso.
This process will make BIOS program still fatter.
If you bring another new iso file tomorrow, then you will have to
sit and rewrite BIOS to incorporate that too!
Rewriting and making BIOS program bigger and bigger introduces bugs
and errors, thus chances are more for your computer to fail to boot
frequently.

So instead of meddling around BIOS program, it is always safer to have a compact bug-free BIOS program having knowledge restricted only to look for bootloaders. This makes it necessary to make your pendrive bootable using tools such as Rufus.

What is a bootloader in a "bootable" pendrive?

Bootloader is a program that resides in a tiny partition having around 300 MB size formatted in fat32 filesystem.

Your iso file will get attention of BIOS only when the following two conditions are satisfied:

There must be a bootloader present in the pendrive (this is possible
only if pendrive becomes bootable using tools like Rufus).
Your bootloader should precede over others in the order of sequence
of bootloaders in BIOS setup (refer figure-2). i.e. it should occupy
first in the priority list.

After your pendrive attracts BIOS's attention, BIOS approaches pendrive's tiny boot partition and loads bootloader. Then your bootloader subsequently loads your iso image.

  Therefore, if you simply copy an iso file in pendrive, then nothing will happen and remain there like a rock for ever! As mentioned above, your iso image should draw the attention of BIOS for action to start!

Figure-2: A typical BIOS setup with a sequence of bootloaders

Creating an UEFI bootable Linux USB stick

We will create a bootable USB stick with Linux by starting from a Linux distribution’s ISO. Since we want to create a USB stick that will be able to boot a UEFI system, we will require an ISO that can do this. The ISO requires a special EFI bootloader.

Make sure that you download the AMD64 version of the ISO! You can download this ISO from the following link:  http://releases.ubuntu.com/18.04/
To create the bootable USB stick from the ISO, we use the Rufus tool on Windows. You can download Rufus from official website https://rufus.akeo.ie and latest version is Rufus 3.4 whose size is 1 MB.

Procedure to prepare bootable USB stick for Bionic Beaver using Rufus:

Click “Select” in order to browse the location of Ubuntu ISO file and select the same.
Set “Partition scheme” to “GPT” which is the default partition scheme for UEFI computer.
Select “Target system” as “UEFI (non CSM).
Set “New Volume Label” as “Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS amd64”.
Select “File system” to be “FAT32 (default)”.
Set “Cluster size” to “4096 bytes (default)”
Enable “Quick format” and select “2 passes” as show in the screenshot below.
Make sure that Rufus hasn’t changed the partitioning scheme after you have selected the ISO.
Click Start button to prepare bootable Ubuntu USB stick.

Figure-3: Ubuntu 18.04.02 Bionic Beaver

Procedure to prepare bootable USB stick for Disco Dingo using Rufus:

Please follow suit the same procedure for Bionic Beaver as given above except for two changes step-1 and step-4:

Step-1: Browse for Ubuntu 19.04 LTS amd64 ISO file and select the same.
Step-4: Set “New Volume Label” as “Ubuntu 19.04 amd64”.

Figure-4: Ubuntu 19.04 Disco Dingo

When Rufus is ready, you will have your USB stick with a UEFI bootloader. Booting a machine with this stick allows you to boot Ubuntu 18.04.02 LTS live session so that you have access to all default Ubuntu utilities.
Ubuntu ISO files can be downloaded from the following URL: http://releases.ubuntu.com

How can I upgrade ubuntu using bootable USB?

You just need to access bios of your PC, and boot from bootable USB, then select "install Ubuntu"

Then a bunch of options will appear (see the image below). Select "upgrade ubuntu" . Done

Figure-5: Installation type


How to associate exe files with Wine on Ubuntu 20.04?

You need to install wine-binfmt.
Also copy wine.desktop to /usr/share/applications or to $HOME/.local/share/applications/. You will find wine.desktop in /usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop.
cp /usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop $HOME/.local/share/applications/

or
cp /usr/share/doc/wine/examples/wine.desktop /usr/share/applications/


scala is available to be installed using the software center.

Type "software sources" in the dash and open the application

and check if you tick marks as the following image:


How do I use my MIDI keyboard with Ubuntu?

Make sure to use JACK audio connection as shown


How do I add Update Manager to the Activities/Applications tab within GNOME Shell?

Try alacarte, install it using sudo apt-get alacarte.

It allows you to easily create links anywhere plus you can move/check the commands/edit the current links.


It's not just you! The update broke my sound too, Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS (64-bit), Dell Optiplex 760. But I got it fixed.

Try these menus: System Tools ... Preferences ... Sound, and make sure your sound isn't muted or turned all the way down. That's what seemed to work for me.

The "speaker-test" utility worked for me (e.g., it could produce sound), so then I tried the "sound recorder" accessory, which let me go to the sound preferences. What did not work: the AlsaMixer utility that runs in a terminal window. Everything looked great ... and I had no sound.

Best wishes, and let us know how this goes for you.


switching to new user limits console capabilities

auto-complete (and history) is part of the bash shell. You can change to the bash shell for that user with.

sudo chsh -s /bin/bash $USER

Or for any other shell you like: change the /bin/bash.

From man useradd

  s, --shell SHELL

  The name of the user's login shell. The default is to leave this
             field blank, which causes the system to select the default login
             shell specified by the SHELL variable in /etc/default/useradd, or
             an empty string by default.

So you could have used:

useradd -g sybase -d /opt/sybase sybase -s /bin/bash

more /etc/default/useradd

# Default values for useradd(8)
#
# The SHELL variable specifies the default login shell on your
# system.
# Similar to DHSELL in adduser. However, we use "sh" here because
# useradd is a low level utility and should be as general
# as possible
SHELL=/bin/sh


You are right. At the moment there is no such functionality in the official nvidia driver for linux to offload some applications on the gpu and the rest uses the integrated graphics. You can, however switch between the graphics cards with prime-select. But you have to log out and log into the system which is not feasible. There is an old project called "bumblebee" which also made some changes to nvidia drivers to allow for such a "render offloading" but it doesn't seem quite active anymore.

Recently I have looked into the topic and it seems that nvidia is finally working on a solution to allow "render offloading" of applications in linux. There was some license issues in the past but they have now been resolved.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=GLXVND-Offload-Improve-1.21

This feature may be implemented in the next iterations of the driver versions. So you should be fine by then.

Also see this thread where Aaron Plattner one of the lead devs from Nvidia gives some updates on the current status

https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/957981/linux/prime-render-offloading-on-nvidia-optimus/3


Is it possible to prevent Brave Browser from asking for keyring access?

Check How to disable the "unlock your keyring" popup?
There's many ways.
I choose mine: remove gnome-keyring, I don't need it:
apt remove gnome-keyring


How to fix kcmshell5 error: Could not find module bluedevildevices (bluedevil is installed!)

It turns out that I had caused the issue when I symlinked kcmshell4 to kcmshell5 as a workaround for a bug in another program. I restored kcmshell4, and now when I launch bluedevil-monolithic, all of the menu options work.

Bluetooth config is still not showing up in the panel or system settings, but that is a topic for another question.


Will I keep my programs, like PowerPoint, Word, Excel, iTunes, etc?

If you install Ubuntu, you can install it alongside Windows. That means, whenever your computer starts, you will be greeted by a selection that asks you whether you would like to start Windows or Ubuntu.

You can also, however, remove Windows upon installing Ubuntu.

In the first case, all of your programs are kept exclusively on Windows. There is no synergy between the Ubuntu and Windows installation. That means no files or programs are shared between the two operating system. You can access files that are on the Windows system from Ubuntu per default. Windows requires you to install a driver (ext42fd) to be able to access Ubuntu's files.

In the second case, all programs and files are lost. You will need to back up your files before making the switch. Programs can never be transferred. So if you have Word on Windows, it cannot be moved to Ubuntu. First, because Word doesn't exist for Ubuntu (we have LibreOffice Writer). Second, because if a Word for Ubuntu existed, it would be incredibly different from the version for Windows under the hood.

So, if you install Ubuntu, you will have to reinstall programs that you currently have on Windows. If the program doesn't exist for Ubuntu, you will have to find an alternative program that functions approximately the same. So instead of Word, you would have Writer. Software like Skype, however, has both a Windows and a Linux version. This differs per piece of software.

If you decide to switch back to Windows after a while, and you had taken the approach of removing Windows, you will have to reinstall Windows entirely and reinstall all programs you had previously had. So if you have Word now, wipe Windows, install Ubuntu and reinstall Windows, you will have to install Word again.


With secure boot disabled, is there long term vulnerability to malicious code (on 14.10 and 15.04/Win multiboot setups)?

Your question is built upon the false premise that there are such things as "safe" and "unsafe" practices. There aren't. There are only relative measures of safety -- practice A may be more safe than practice B, but calling practice A "safe" is misleading at best.

With that in mind, Secure Boot, as the name implies, was designed to increase safety. We could debate how effective it is at doing this, but even if you're very skeptical of it, activating Secure Boot is unlikely to decrease safety, and there are at least theoretical benefits to activating it.

Ubuntu supports Secure Boot, in the sense that Ubuntu ships with a signed Shim program so that the OS can boot with Secure Boot enabled. As doug notes, Ubuntu's GRUB will boot an unsigned kernel, but that's only one possible menace to security -- a computer with Secure Boot disabled will boot any old EFI binary, even one that doesn't rely on GRUB or the Linux kernel in any way. Such a binary could be malicious, so if somebody were to install on your computer, as part of the boot process, a program that writes a megabyte of random data to random sectors on your disk with every boot, you'd be in trouble. Such a program need not rely on GRUB or a Linux kernel; it could be a standalone EFI application. Secure Boot would stand at least a good chance of blocking such a malicious program.

The change to GRUB being discussed for 16.04 will make Ubuntu work a bit more like Fedora -- with that change, Ubuntu's GRUB will launch only signed Linux kernels, not unsigned kernels. This should not make it any harder to launch Ubuntu unless you're using your own locally-compiled kernels, since Ubuntu already ships with signed kernels. In either case, with Secure Boot enabled, you need to use Shim to launch GRUB, and Ubuntu ships with a suitable Shim binary. This change, like Secure Boot, will increase safety, but will not make Ubuntu "safe" in any absolute sense.

As a practical matter, I don't know how common EFI pre-boot malware is. Such tools certainly exist for BIOS, and I've heard of demonstration programs for EFI, but I don't know if they're common "in the wild." Even if they're uncommon today, though, they could become common tomorrow, so protecting yourself makes sense. This protection takes many forms, no one of which is adequate by itself. Secure Boot can be part of that protection, as can virus scanners, firewalls, good account security practices, etc.

If you install Ubuntu properly on a system with a functioning Secure Boot system, you shouldn't even notice that Secure Boot is active -- at least, not unless or until you want to do something like compile your own kernel or use a boot program other than GRUB. Your comment that you had to adjust your "BIOS" (really EFI) settings to enable BIOS/CSM/legacy support suggests you either have a broken EFI or you did things the hard way. (There are still a lot of pages that give very bad EFI installation advice.) My own Web page on Secure Boot provides background information and practical advice on how to use it (or how to disable it). You may also want to read my page on EFI-mode Linux installations and Adam Williamson's blog post on how EFI works for more background information on EFI-mode booting generally. With a proper understanding, EFI-mode booting with Secure Boot active is not hard to handle.


User does not exist when resetting WSL password

Following @steeldriver's suggestion in the comments, I switched the default distro for WSL via the command line in windows. This allowed me to use passwd <username> and reset my password.


Dual Boot Ubuntu 18.04 on SSD and Windows 10 on HDD

what I suggest you do is to have a single unit where to install the operating systems.
So choose whether to use an SSD or an HDD, once chosen creates a USB with ubuntu to format the disk and with GParted creates two partitions one for ubuntu and one for windows. Then use the USB with ubuntu to install it (very important to have the UEFI bios), once installed ubuntu go to this link (https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php) to download the version of windows that you interest. Create the key with Windows 10 from ubuntu using UNetbootin. Once the USB has been created with Windows, start the computer from that USB key and when it asks you where to install windows choose the partition for windows 10 created previously with GParted. Once installed Windows 10 restart your computer and you should see the grub.

I hope I have helped you


Too much memory usage by Java in Lubuntu

You can run JVM with args -Xms{amount_of_memory} and -Xmx{amount_of_memory}.

Where Xms is a minimal amount of memory that will be used upon start JVM and Xmx - max amount that can be reached by JVM

M and G can be used to specify Megabites or Gigabites respectively.

java -Xms1024M -Xmx2048M - will start JVM with 1 Gb memory usage and allow to grow up to 2 Gb


Why was Amarok removed from 19.04 repositories?

All applications that do not use the Qt 5 toolkit are being removed from Ubuntu (and Debian).

See https://wiki.debian.org/Qt4Removal (contains a list of qt4 packages and their status in relation to qt5) and specific to Amarok there is a bug report https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/amarok/+bug/1757590 about removing it.


How do I create a custom slideshow as a background?

DesktopNova is ones for changing background with some specified folder.
To install desktopnova, Visit  https://launchpad.net/desktopnova/+download


Install only bash from trusty on old distributions (to be save from Shellshock vulnerability)

The main reason we do not recommend running old unsupported releases is that they will not automatically get security fixes.

For bash releases 10.04 LTS, 12.04 LTS, and 14.04 LTS only will get a security update und upgrading.

Adding a random ppa to an old release may introduce even more severe security issues in case you do not know the maintainers of this ppa. In addition, many ppa will often also not offer packages for old unsupported releases.

However you can always downlaod and install any package from it's Debian package, which is available for download from official ressources. Only in case debendencies can not be resolved from a newer release to an old release we can not do so. For bash it should be safe to download and install from a newer downloaded Debian package, as dependencies are the same in new, and older releases (but possibly not in very old releases).

From the link below select your release on top of the page (preselected for trusty), then select your architecture (amd64 or i386) at the bottom of the page for downloading a Debian package of bash from security.ubuntu.com.

Packages Ubuntu "bash"


ubuntu 14.04 touchpad settings disappeared on dell latitude e5530

I have had this same problem on multiple occasions except on my System76 Serval
Professional laptop.

It appears to be a bug a temporary solution to fix it is normally to restart Ubuntu.
I don't know of any other fixes but to report the bug if possible or wait until a bugfix.


To me it sounds like you're seeing the key-interrupt screen at the bottom (person / key prompt that allows a more advanced user to do more involved installations).

I would recommend you look, instead, at a live-CD/live-DVD option as I did.  On a USB install, I had all kinds of issues.  Once I used a DVD, it was no longer a problem and I've been loving 13.04 ever since.


Upgrade to 20.04 from 19.10 isn't available

I found this note in How To Upgrade Ubuntu To 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa - LinuxConfig.org

  PLEASE NOTE
  Upgrades from 19.10 will not be enabled until a few days after 20.04's release. Upgrades from 18.04 LTS will not be enabled until a few days after the 20.04.1 release expected in late July 2020. There are no offline upgrade options for Ubuntu Desktop and Ubuntu Server.

I have to wait some days. Hopefully works!


Best VNC / remote desktop software for assistance

If you're planning on providing assistance to someone who is not very computer savvy, TeamViewer is going to make your life far easier. Yes, it is a closed-source commercial product – but the magical sensation you feel when establishing a connection using only an ID number makes it all well worth it.

For a while you might think you can pull off carefully setting up a VNC server and the required firewall/NAT rules to be ready for future support sessions, but it won't do you any good the day that your friend in need of assistance has changed their network setup or broken their server configuration by following some Hoary Hedgehog how-to.

It's pretty hard to get this part wrong:

With most of my clients, I don't even have them try to install TeamViewer. Session initiation looks like this:

At teamviewer.com/download, click the button beneath "TeamViewer QuickSupport".
Click Run.
Read me the ID and password.


The phone does track the major 6 month releases, but in addition there are updates planned basically every 4 to 6 weeks. These updates provide both bug fixes and new features. The Ubuntu community makes the updates and the manufacturers are involved in the validation process.

The length of time a particular phone receives updates will likely vary based on the device

We plan to avoid fragmenting by making updates available for all supported devices at or around the same time. This assumes the proper agreement by the manufacturer or carrier.


Can't redirect stdout of `alsactl monitor`

The problem is that since alsactl doesn't terminate until you forcefully terminate it, the buffered output cannot be written to the file, because this is something done after the command has terminated its execution.

You can force the stdout of alsactl to be line-buffered and hence to be redirected immediately after each line of output using stdbuf:

stdbuf -oL alsactl monitor > outputfile


How do I stop the default folders from being reset if they're in an SSHFS location?

If you want to relocate the Documents, Pictures, etc. directories, you can use xdg-user-dirs-update.  The syntax is xdg-user-dirs-update --set TYPE /path/to/directory.  Type is one of "DESKTOP DOWNLOAD TEMPLATES DOCUMENTS MUSIC PICTURES VIDEOS PUBLICSHARE".  The configuration is stored in ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs.  If you manually edit that file, changes will take effect after a restart.

(Old answer preserved for the record.)
If you're mounting the home directory somewhere other than /home/thomas, you can use usermod to tell the system to look for your home directory elsewhere:

usermod -d /sshfs/thomas thomas

Substitute /sshfs/thomas with where the sshfs home directory is being mounted.


How do I to make a second monitor work as second desktop?

You're looking for MultiseatX.  It's documented here.

It's a little dated and doesn't include LightDM.  It does have directions for KDM and workarounds for GDM.


Malware and Backdoor detection Shell Script

You ask about 3 different things...

Root kits;
Backdoors;
Malware.

Root kits

Most root kits use the kernel to hide themselves and they are only visible from within the kernel.

If you want to know how to find them why not use the power of open source and install rkhunter and see how they do it? You can find the source here.

Besides that CERT has a thorough explanation on what to look for when dealing with root kits. Highlights from the link:

Examine log files for connections from unusual locations or other unusual activity
Look for setuid and setgid files (especially setuid root files) everywhere on your system

find / -user root -perm -4000 -print
find / -group kmem -perm -2000 -print

Check your system binaries to make sure that they haven't been altered.
Examine all the files that are run by 'cron' and 'at.'
Check for unauthorized services.
Examine the /etc/passwd file on the system and check for modifications to that file.
Check your system and network configuration files for unauthorized entries.
Look everywhere on the system for unusual or hidden files (files that start with a period and are normally not shown by 'ls').

Most of these you can do from command line.

Also worth reading:

https://serverfault.com/questions/158691/how-to-check-if-a-linux-server-is-clean-from-rootkits-backdoors-botnets-etc

Backdoors

The problem with backdoors is that they generally are flaws in software that get abused. The basic set of rules...

immediately install security updates when you're notified;
do not install antivirus, as you really don't need it in Linux; unless you share files with Windows
enable the firewall (sudo ufw enable) without further tweaks;
stick to the official repo's as much as possible, and only deviate from them when strictly necessary and with much caution;
keep Java (both openJDK and Oracle Java) disabled by default in your browser, and only enable it when needed;
use Wine with caution;
and most important of all: use your common sense. The biggest security threat is generally found between keyboard and chair.

Worth reading:

What to do regarding BackDoor.Wirenet.1
https://serverfault.com/questions/171893/how-do-you-search-for-backdoors-from-the-previous-it-person
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9417739/how-to-find-out-backdoor-in-php-source-code
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/35944/how-can-i-find-the-malicious-backdoor-codes-without-knowing-the-last-modified-da
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/32645/how-can-i-detect-backdoors

Malware

Scan /etc/hosts for weird IP adresses and host names. If you look at these:

Google.com redirect malware on FF
Ubuntu vulnerable to malware sites?
Popup Malware “openadserving.com”
Chrome Popup Malware "openadserving.com"?

either a browser extension or an alteration to /etc/hosts is the cause.

Also a good read is:

Where can I look for malware that may have been installed on my machine?


Unknown Micropohne can hear unknown person (weird)

Open a Terminal and type this command:

arecord -l

It will list all your audio recording devices.

If you want to see playback devices:

aplay -l

Devices are displayed like this:

card 0: <name of the card>, device 1: <hardware device>

This example shows device hw:0,1


How to sync/upload lossless music to iOS/iPod devices using Ubuntu?

They can play it and should support it. However, I think there is a bug in the latest rhythmbox: Rhythmbox transcoding ALAC files on the fly when syncing ipod (and I don't want it to!)

You can also use Clementine to do the job. No sync capabilities, but you can add the music manually with rhythmbox. (and I can confirm it works with apple lossless, as this is the reason I'm using it over rhythmbox at this moment)


interrupting rsync created broken directory

you might need to unmount the filesystem and fsck it to fix this.

It looks like a you have a zombie process clinging on to that folder preventing it from being deleted.

rebooting should also clear this and allow a filesystem check if its needed.


How to permanently change a specific bash shell color?

A rather general method is to use ANSI escape sequences. It should work in text screens as well as most linux terminal window emulators.

See this link for details,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANSI_escape_code

Example 1: White text on black background

echo -e "\0033[37;40m###############\0033[0m"

Example 2: Black text on greyish white background

echo -e "\0033[30;47m###############\0033[0m"

Example 3: Using the variables inversvid, greenback and resetvid

inversvid="\0033[7m"
resetvid="\0033[0m"
greenback="\0033[1;37;42m"
echo -e "$inversvid Now it is inverse colours $resetvid"
echo -e "$greenback Now it is greenback colours $resetvid"

Variables, that I use in bash shellscripts, and that you might find useful:

You can create modified variable to perform what you want, for example to get a background colour where all text is visible.

inversvid="\0033[7m"
resetvid="\0033[0m"
redback="\0033[1;37;41m"
greenback="\0033[1;37;42m"
blueback="\0033[1;37;44m"

If you use gnome-terminal, which is part of standard Ubuntu desktop, you can use the dropdown menu

'Edit -- Settings' and the tab 'Colors'

to modify the colours until all text is easy to read.

Most terminal emulators have similar menus. xterm has command line options for this purpose.


SD/MMC card detected by the kernel but no block device created

The device you are looking for is /dev/mmcblk0p1


How to fix usb stick so I can format it with gparted

Use diskpart utility in Windows.Log in to windows as Admin User. Plug-in your pendrive into pc.

  Open command prompt in windows by 'ctrl+x' then press A (Run As Admin) Or you can type cmd in search bar and right click it then select run as administrator.
  type 'diskpart' in cmd.
  type 'list disk'.
  See output should be disk 0 (your internal hdd) and disk 1 will be your pendrive (see its size also for confirmation).
  type 'select disk 1'.
  type 'online' if you see status offline in list disk command.
  type 'clean'.
  type 'create partition primary'.
  type 'format fs = fat32 quick'

And you're done. Hope it help. If not then inform me.


Is it possible to Flash BIOS to F.34 Intel via Ubuntu?

I am not sure about F.34 or whatever version you have, but usually there are no programs to update BIOS from any Linux. Just yesterday I updated one BIOS. I had to make a bootable DOS key and put the programs for flashing and new version on the key to do it.


The official repos already have the HWE 4.8 kernel. The package is called linux-generic-hwe-16.04-edge.

Starting from 16.04.2 the HWE updates will be "rolling". See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Kernel/RollingLTSEnablementStack

Nothing is announced regarding X.org update changes.

I do not see any X.org packages yet. Maybe this time the Canonical maintainers decided not to update it in HWE, because it causes lots of trouble in some cases.

But it is possible that xserver-xorg-lts-yakkety will appear in a while too.


How to add 'Volume up, muted' keyboard command?

The sound notification you can disable it in the Sound preferences:

There isn't still an easy way to disable certain sound events. But you can use direct commands to the alsa server to do this:

amixer set Master 10%+ ## Increase the volume by 10%
amixer set Master 10%- ## Decrease the volume by 10%
amixer set Master toggle ## Sets mute on and off

Then you can create the shortcut hitting the + sign in the keyboard configuration. For people wondering why I didn't used pulseaudio, was because I don't use pulseaudio.

Pulseaudio requires more work, like:

 pactl set-source-mute 0 toggle
 pactl set-source-volume 0 +10
 pactl set-source-volume 0 -10

"This should work" for most of cases.


Canon MB2320: Scangear works, but simplescan and xsane don't find scanner

Canon does not develop SANE drivers for their scanners but they provide an own solution scangearmp for basic scan functions. This will of course not allow using SANE backends such as simplescan or xsane.

For many PIXMA scanners there is a SANE implementation sane-pixma but I could not test if these work or can be made working with the Canon MAXIFY series.

It appears that the MAXIFY series of scanners are not yet supported by SANE. Therefore we will have to use the proprietary Canon application until somebody develops a SANE driver for them.


How about alt + F2 & type killall opera - this will close down Opera, and all it's subprocesses probably.

When you re-start it, if it behaves like Firefox it will resume with all it's tabs retained. (I don't use Opera - so this point I'm not sure of).

If it refuses to die, use sudo killall -9 opera which is more heavy-handed but should do it.

If you know the process Opera is using to play, you could just kill that - more subtle!


Unable to Launch League of Legends using PlayOnLinux

The main problem is the new launcher so this is what works for me:

Using Wine 2.6 for League of Lagends

Open the Wine Versions Manager > Tools > Manage Wine Version.

Install Wine 2.6.

Set Wine version to 2.6 for League of Legends.

Before Launching Game

Go to ~/PlayOnLinux's virtual drives/LeagueOfLegends/drive_c/Riot Games/League of Legends/RADS/system.
Edit user.cfg like this:

disableP2P = true
leagueClientOptIn = no
replayPopUpShown = yes


Try using ebook-convert ~/.config/calibre/custom_recipes/(your recipe) test.epub --test -v -v in a terminal and see if any error or warning messages are produced.


Ubuntu and w10 can't boot after installing second hard drive

Sounds like your boot priority is not set correct. Go into BIOS and change the SSD or Ubuntu boot loader (newer bios versions might say that). to option #1.


Can't shutdown or Reboot system Ubuntu 14.04LTS (HP X360)

I have a similar laptop and haven't had this trouble thru a couple Linux installs. You should look into making sure everything is updated and installed via the usual:

sudo update && sudo upgrade

You can also add in sudo dist-upgrade if apt-get keeps a few system packages back.

Short term I would try this command to see if you can shutdown via terminal.:

sudo poweroff

as sudo Shutdown has never worked for me.

For a long term fix we need more information on the Error you get, and laptop specs possibly using lshw


How to browse windows network in ubuntu 13.10?

assuming you have installed samba,

on the command line, you can explicity list all shares on a given host  with this command

smbclient -L <hostname> -U cashew

-U is the username option

This command might be helpful, when nautilus might not list all hosts and shares that are in fact available.

Connect to a SMB share with

smbclient //server/share -U user

Enter you user password.

You can connect directly with

smbclient //server/share -U user%password

but your password will show on the screen (less secure).

Once connected you will get a prompt that looks like this :

> smb: \>

Type "help" , without quotes, at the prompt for a list of available commands.


How to make the default setting of Lite-On Ethernet off?

Open the Wired Connection settings panel, and uncheck Connect automatically.


How can I block traffic over wifi before the VPN connects?

I would try the following with iptables, in this order:
# Allow dhcp
sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 67:68 --sport 67:68 -j ACCEPT

# Allow outbound VPN traffic
sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -p udp --dport 1194 -d 0.0.0.0/0   -j ACCEPT"

# DROP all outbound WIFI
sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -i wlan0 -j DROP

In office and home network you will have to run:
# Accept all outbound traffic
sudo iptables -D OUTPUT -i wlan0 -j DROP

There might be an iptables extension which will filter using WIFI SSID or some other router identifier, but I am not familiar with any
NOTE: you might need to update the ovpn remote port and/or WIFI network interface name


The SIMS is great with Play-On-Linux

http://www.playonlinux.com/en

To get the latest developement version, open a terminal and type:

git clone https://github.com/PlayOnLinux/POL-POM-4

For the Oneiric version

Type the following commands:

wget -q "http://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_oneiric.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install playonlinux

For the Natty version

Type the following commands:

wget -q "http://deb.playonlinux.com/public.gpg" -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo wget http://deb.playonlinux.com/playonlinux_natty.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/playonlinux.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install playonlinux

DEB file


This problem has been around for quite some time and is considered a bug already.

There's a swift solution to this though:

sudo touch /etc/pm/sleep.d/wakenet.sh

sudo chmod +x /etc/pm/sleep.d/wakenet.sh

sudo gedit /etc/pm/sleep.d/wakenet.sh

Enter the following script:

#!/bin/bash
case "$1" in
thaw|resume)
nmcli nm sleep false
;;
*)
;;
esac
exit $?
Save

It's working now on my Dell XPS 15 9530 running Ubuntu 15.04 and Ubuntu 15.10. :)

(Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2182128&p=12830153#post12830153)


plug the USB in, and run in terminal:

$ lsusb > 1

unplug the USB, and run:

$ lsusb > 2

And follow by this:

$ diff 1 2

What output do you get?


which process cleans /tmp under systemd on 18.04LTS? (answered here, no duplicate)

In older ubuntu releases that would be upstart, specifically /etc/init/mounted-tmp.conf
It would still using TMPTIME from /etc/default/rcS (but is commented by default). You may need to set those yourself to suit your needs.
But you pointed out ubuntu doesn't use those anymore.

so on case of systemd you're looking for:
/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/tmp.conf
as described on:
http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/bionic/man5/tmpfiles.d.5.html


Why is there an inconsistency in base64 output?

You are encoding (slightly) different strings:

$ echo 'bmVvNGo6QE4=' | base64 --decode | od -c
0000000   n   e   o   4   j   :   @   N
0000010
$ echo 'neo4j:@N' | od -c
0000000   n   e   o   4   j   :   @   N  \n
0000011

echo adds a trailing newline character. This leads to differing encodings.

Use printf instead, whose output specification is more exact:

$ printf '%s' 'neo4j:@N' | base64
bmVvNGo6QE4=


I ended up finding the answer to this. I cloned the repository from git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-bionic.git, copying over the config from my /boot directory and building as follows.

$ git clone git://kernel.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ubuntu-bionic.git
$ cd ubuntu-bionic
$ cp /boot/config-<something> .config
$ make oldconfig
$ make -j4 deb-pkg
$ cd ..
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb


Rename files adding their parent folder name

In a small python script, renaming files recursively (folders as well as sub folders):

#!/usr/bin/env python3
import shutil
import os
import sys

dr = sys.argv[1]

for root, dirs, files in os.walk(dr):
    for f in files:
        shutil.move(root+"/"+f, root+"/"+root.split("/")[-1]+f)

How to use

Copy the script into an empty file, save it as rename_files.py
Run it with the directory as an argument:

python3 /path/to/rename_files.py /directory/with/files

Note

As always, first try on a sample!

Explanation

The script:

Walks through the directories, looking for files.
If files are found, it splits the path to the file with the delimiter "/", keeping the last in the row (which is the parent's folder name) , to be pasted before the file's name:

root.split("/")[-1]

Subsequently, move the file to the renamed one:

shutil.move(root+"/"+f, root+"/"+root.split("/")[-1]+f)


apt-get issues, Python-related packages not fully installed or removed

This answer for another question, solved the problem I was having.

The root cause of the problems is a corrupted Python package, trying to reinstall the packages with the following commands:

sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -f --reinstall libpython2.7-minimal python-configparser


You can use hciconfig to do that.

First manually connect your mouse as you usually do, then open a terminal and run hciconfig -a to retrieve its name. It should be something like hciX where X is the number of your device. You can either use hcitool scan, it should give the name as well.

Once this is done, you can force the bluetooth device detection by running

sudo hciconfig <name_of_your_mouse> reset

In order to do that automatically at every boot, you want to edit /etc/init.d/bluetooth and append the magic line at the end of the file : hciconfig <name_of_your_mouse> reset. Then save, reboot, and it should work forever.

Also make sure that your mouse is plugged in at boot time. If you plug it in after booting you will have to manually detect the mouse again.

Hope this helps.


Is it possible to have single wi-fi device switch between client and hotspot modes?

A similar script is discussed here -> GIYF (Google is Your Friend)


XAMPP installed as root. How to choose a different user?

You usually need to enter your password (or sudo to root) in order to install things, and xampp won't be any different. It's completely normal to do that. Root privileges are needed to install services that start at boot, etc. It doesn't necessarily mean the programs / services will run as root unless they've been designed to do so. I don't think you've put yourself in any danger.


Missing account at start after change userid

You can do the following in order to return everything back to the previous stage:

Create boot-able Ubuntu on USB DOK
Boot your computer with the USB DOK
Login as root
Mount your hard-disk (as user root from the USB DOK Ubuntu)
Assuming that computer hard-disk located at /dev/sda1

sudo mkdir -p /mnt/hdd
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/hdd

Revert the changes you made to the files (can be find under /mnt/hdd)
umount the hard-disk using:

sudo umount /mnt/hdd
Power off the computer
Remove USB DOK
Power on your computer


As you are using cron I suppose you start your script at regular intervals. Each run modifies a result file.

So the script can do the following at its start:

check if the result file exists (i.e. this is the first run)
if it does not, then create it
calculate the start time of the preceding run
check if the modification time of the result file is newer than this
start time
if it is not it means the last run has not yet finished, therefore
the script exits without doing anything

The first two items are there to get the process running. If you don't include them the first run will do nothing as it is waiting for a non-existing predecessor to finish.


How do I exclude a specific extension from recursive file copying?

You don't specify in your question if it is a requirement to preserve the directory structure in the copy or if you just need a copy of the files. To simply copy all the files not named *.data you could use this:

find . -type f ! -name '*.data' | xargs cp -t ../destination_dir/

On the other hand if you want to preserve the directory structure you could use something like this:

for file in `find . ! -name '*.txt' | sed 's/^.\///'`; do if [ -d "./$file" ]; then mkdir -p "../destination_dir/$file"; else cp "./$file" "../destination_dir/$file"; fi; done

Not sure if there is a simpler way to do this but this command does the following:

Find all files and folders in the current directory or it's subfolders not matching *.data then for each:

Test if the file is a directory if it is make a matching directory under destination dir, or if it is a file it copies it to the destination instead.

Edit: Adding shell script version:

#!/bin/bash

# Disable shell glob expansion within the script
# Required to stop bash from expndinging the glob in $1
set -f

for file in `find . ! -name $1 | sed 's/^.\///'`
  do if [ -d "./$file" ]; then
    mkdir -p "$2/$file"
  else
    cp "./$file" "$2/$file"
fi
done


Black Screen while triyng to install Lubuntu 20.04

Edit the kernel boot parameter to include :
acpi_osi=! <--This should work just fine.
You may include: quite, splash, nomodeset
Do not use acpi=off. It may work at first but give you problems later.


Hi! I updated my laptop but I shut down accidetally causing for the update to be incomplete. Now, my laptop doesn't work properly. What to do?

Once you have turned-on your laptop, you press

    ctrl+alt+f1

keys, and then login and then run the update command.

   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get upgrade
   sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

First line

This line is used to update your repositories list, your servers latest available packages details will be downloaded.

second line:

Reads your package list and updates your system if any new packages were available.

Third line

It upgrades if your disk has got any updates.

so, First you need to run 1st line and 2nd and the 3rd line.(Separately)
After completing your update you 'restart' your laptop, by typing

    reboot

If you wish to switch to graphical desktop while you are in virtual terminal (ctrl+alt+f1), then press

    ctrl+alt+f7

That's it.


VNC Server Missing and UFW disabled and iptables empty after update?

It took me a while but I figured this one out and am currently VNC'ing into my ubuntu 12.04 box again from my ubuntu 12.04 desktop machine.  Here's what I had to do.

ufw (uncomplicated fire wall) and iptables are not persistent.  So upon reboot all the trouble I took to only enable my desktop and laptop to log in remotely were disabled.  Then I found my .xsession-errors file to be > 32GB and I could not log in remotely using VNC.  So the first thing to fix is disable remote logins.  Then make iptables reload at boot and enter in the rules to block everybody but my local ip addresses for vnc.

To disable remote logins we search for remote and select Desktop Sharing.  Then disable Allow other users to control your desktop and disable Allow other users to view your desktop.  Reboot.  Now no one else will be allowed to try hacking in while we fix this.

To make iptables persistent using the terminal cntrl alt t.
sudo apt-get update
and then
sudo apt-get install iptables-persistent
Select yes to save both ip4 and ip6 current table rules.  We'll save them again after testing the new ones out.

First check your existing INPUT rules to see if you want to keep them.  Copy them down if your not sure.
sudo iptables -S

Steps to delete existing INPUT rules.  I only changed my input rules.
sudo iptables -F INPUT

Entered in my current INPUT rules.  You will need to change your address ranges for your local system.  Also note that I am not enabling port 22 for SSH tunneling.  I'm using VNC on my local network. I still have to verify that my router does not retransmit my VNC traffic out to the Ethers.  It might retransmit on my wireless and I'll have to verify that WPA2 encryption keeps me safe from the neighbors.

sudo iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT  -m comment  --comment "Enable Loopback::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT  -m comment --comment "Enable Already Established:"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -m conntrack --ctstate INVALID -j DROP -m comment --comment "Disable Invalid Packets::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p icmp --icmp-type 8  -d 192.168.1.100  -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable Local Ping::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80   -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable Website::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable MySQL Server::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 137  -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable Samba Share::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p udp --dport 138  -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable Samba Share::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 139  -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable Samba Share::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 445  -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable Samba Share::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5800 -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable VNC Input::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 5900 -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable VNC Input::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 6000 -m iprange --src-range 192.168.1.64-192.168.1.127 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT -m comment --comment "Enable VNC Input::"
sudo iptables -A INPUT -j DROP -m comment --comment "Drop Everything Else::"

You will need to change the above rules based on what you are doing.  For instance we're running Apache2 website on port 80, and mySQL, and Samba, which you may not need.  There is a lot written on iptables and I'm not an expert.  After setting this up and testing that everything you need still works we'll update iptables-persistent.

But first ad rules for ip6.  First see what rules you have that you might want to keep.  Write them down if you don't know.
sudo ip6tables -S

Delete existing ip6 INPUT rules.
    sudo ip6tables -F INPUT

Add new rules.  Mine are simple I only allow loopback and drop everything else. Someday when we're using ip6 we might need to change these.

sudo ip6tables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT  -m comment  --comment "Enable Loopback::"
sudo ip6tables -A INPUT -j DROP  -m comment --comment "Drop Everything Else::"

Note to print your rules out I use either sudo iptables -S or sudo iptables -L --line-numbers.  For ip6 rules we use sudo ip6tabls -S or sudo ip6tables -L --line-numbers

Lastly after verifying we like the new rules we save them.  Otherwise reboot and your old rules are reapplied and you get to start over.

`sudo service iptables-persistent save`

Now its safe to re-enable remote control using Desktop Sharing Preferences.  Search again for remote, select Desktop Sharing, then Allow other users to view your desktop, Allow other users to control your desktop.  I recommend require confirmation, and a password, and disable automatically configuring UUPnP router.  Then Always show notification icon.

Lastly we should do something with our 32GB .xsession-errors file.  Note after the reboot it might be renamed to .xsession-errors.old.  You can check from the terminal ls -l .xs* will list any files starting in .xs and show you how big they are.  rm .xsession-errors.old will get rid of the file.  But then you loose the ip addresses of the guys trying to break in.  Which I might want to know some day.

Lastly vnc runs using vino-server.  From the terminal, cntrl alt t, the command ps aux | grep vino will list /usr/lib/vino/vino-server if it is running.

I don't know yet if I've broken something else we need.  And probably won't know until then.

Good luck.  (Just in case you are reading this next century and still think its relevant.  Today's date is May 18,2016. I'm working with Ubuntu 12.04.05 LTS.  We have less than a year left before having to update.)


Download YouTube videos from start of batch to end of batch that is part of a playlist

Playlist

youtube-dl -f FORMAT -ciw --output '%(title)s.%(ext)s' --playlist-start NUMBER-START --playlist-end NUMBER-END <url-of-playlist>

...where <url-of-playlist> is replaced by the URL of the playlist, replace FORMAT with any available video format, for example 18, NUMBER-START is the number of the video in the playlist to start downloading first, and NUMBER-END is the number of the video in the playlist to download last.

Channel

If a channel has more than one playlist, click on the first playlist and download all the videos in the selected playlist using the above command. Then repeat for each playlist in the channel.

Explanation

-f, --format FORMAT
    video format code. The -F option (capital F) displays all available video
    formats for a video link. Example: youtube-dl -F <url-of-video>

-c, --continue
    force resume of partially downloaded files

-i, --ignore-errors
    continue on download errors, for example to skip unavailable videos
    in a channel

-w, --no-overwrites
    do not overwrite files

Convert all the video titles to lowercase

youtube-dl -f FORMAT -ciw --output '%(title)s.%(ext)s' --playlist-start NUMBER-START --playlist-end NUMBER-END <url-of-playlist>
find -type f -exec rename 'y/A-Z/a-z/' {} +

Explanation

--output '%(title)s.%(ext)s'
    output file name(s) as the name of the video, followed by a dot character and the video's extension

find -type f
    Find all files.

y/source/destination/
    Transliterate the characters in the pattern space which appear in source
    to the corresponding character in destination.


There are a lot of tools out there that allow you to recover data from a hard drive that was either deleted by accident, or overwritten. Of course these tools are rarely 100% effective, depending on the age of the drive, and the number of passes of data that have overwritten the target data. Based on your description of the issue, it sounds like it essentially formatted your drive, and then wrote over it once, with the new OS. If that is the case, it's actually fairly easy to obtain that data again. Some tools that are available include EaseUS and Recuva. I've used the paid version EaseUS in the past to recover pictures on a drive that had been reformatted by Windows attempting to do a system recovery, and was able to succesfully pull about 90% of the pictures off of it. A lot of these offer "free" versions but usually limit the amount of data that can be recovered. You can look over this LifeWire article on free software as well and take your pick.
Good luck! Perhaps next time you'll read a little more carefully before formatting a drive. ;)


If you want to use the latest from KDE you could use KDE Neon instead of Kubuntu, which is Ubuntu LTS with the latest KDE.

You can get KDE Neon at: https://neon.kde.org/

There are two different versions to choose from.

A User Edition, featuring the latest officially released KDE software on a stable base. Ideal for everyday users.
A Developer Edition, featuring pre-release KDE software.


This looks to be a widely-reported issue.  Assuming you don't see the option to set your color mode to additional bit-depth as it suggests, you could try a few suggestions from around the web, as many users reported different 'fixes' for each individual.

Attempt to modify your xorg.conf:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1122085.html
(appears to fix most complaints - look for the 'vboxvideo' addition)
Updating all of our software to the newest packages:
https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=10904
(Most would assume you've already tried this, but is worth mentioning)
They also discuss the 'vboxvideo' driver addition in here.
Disabling the message: https://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=24273
(assuming nothing fixes it, and you're focused on automation)


How do I uninstall the Ubuntu Studio desktop package?

Copy and paste the complete line below (adapted from Xubuntu instructions here):

sudo apt-get remove gnome-desktop-data gnome-system-tools gnome-time-admin  gthumb gthumb-data gtk2-engines-pixbuf indicator-application-gtk2 indicator-messages-gtk2 indicator-sound-gtk2 libconfig-inifiles-perl libdigest-crc-perl libencode-locale-perl libept1.4.12 libexo-1-0 libexo-common libexo-helpers libfile-listing-perl libfl-dev libfont-afm-perl libgarcon-1-0 libgarcon-common libgdome2-0 libgdome2-cpp-smart0c2a libgegl-0.0-0 libglade2-0 libgnomevfs2-0 libgnomevfs2-common libgnomevfs2-extra libgoffice-0.8-8 libgoffice-0.8-8-common libgsf-1-114 libgsf-1-common libgstreamer-perl libgtk2-notify-perl libgtk2-trayicon-perl libgtkmathview0c2a libgtkspell0 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 libid3tag0 libido-0.1-0 libilmbase6 libio-socket-inet6-perl libio-socket-ssl-perl libjavascriptcoregtk-1.0-0 libjpeg-progs libjpeg-turbo-progs libkeybinder0 liblaunchpad-integration1 liblink-grammar4 libloudmouth1-0 liblwp-mediatypes-perl liblwp-protocol-https-perl libmailtools-perl libnet-dbus-perl libnet-http-perl libnet-ssleay-perl liboobs-1-5 libopenexr6 libotr2 libots0 librarian0 libsexy2 libsocket6-perl libtagc0 libthunarx-2-0 libtidy-0.99-0 libtie-ixhash-perl libtimedate-perl libunique-1.0-0 liburi-perl libvte-common libvte9 libwebkitgtk-1.0-0 libwebkitgtk-1.0-common libwv-1.2-4 libwww-perl libwww-robotrules-perl libxfce4ui-1-0 libxfce4util-bin libxfce4util-common libxfce4util4 libxfcegui4-4 libxfconf-0-2 libxml-parser-perl libxml-twig-perl libxml-xpath-perl libxss1 lightdm-gtk-greeter lp-solve m4 plymouth-theme-ubuntustudio python-configobj python-glade2 python-gmenu rarian-compat screensaver-default-images sgml-data shimmer-themes thunar thunar-archive-plugin thunar-data thunar-media-tags-plugin thunar-volman ttf-droid xfburn xfce-keyboard-shortcuts xfce4-appfinder xfce4-cpugraph-plugin xfce4-datetime-plugin xfce4-dict xfce4-indicator-plugin xfce4-mailwatch-plugin xfce4-netload-plugin xfce4-notes xfce4-notes-plugin xfce4-notifyd xfce4-panel xfce4-places-plugin xfce4-power-manager xfce4-power-manager-data xfce4-quicklauncher-plugin xfce4-screenshooter xfce4-session xfce4-settings xfce4-systemload-plugin xfce4-taskmanager xfce4-terminal xfce4-utils xfce4-verve-plugin xfce4-volumed xfce4-weather-plugin xfce4-xkb-plugin xfconf xfdesktop4 xfdesktop4-data xfwm4 xscreensaver xscreensaver-data xscreensaver-gl xubuntu-icon-theme ubuntustudio\* && sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop && sudo /usr/lib/lightdm/lightdm-set-defaults -g unity-greeter


The files you are trying to copy are symbolic links that just points to other files.
Your usb drive is formatted with FAT32 which do not support symbolic links, so you can not place one on the drive.

To know where the real files are open Nautilus (the file browser) right click on the file icon and select Properties, if it is a link, its Type will start with Link to, and its Link target will tell you where the real stuff is so you can copy them from their real location.


In general, you don't. If the owner of the PPA has made a meta-package, which depends on all the other packages in the PPA, then you would be able to install that package and it will pull in everything else.

In the case of the Backbox PPA you mentioned, this has been done via the backbox-meta source package, which provides the backbox-minimal, backbox-desktop, and backbox-server meta packages, which depend on different sets of packages in that archive. Assuming it is updated, and all three packages depend on everything else in the PPA, you can run sudo apt-get install backbox-minimal backbox-desktop backbox-server to install everything.


Here's a (very long) one-liner that returns all shortcuts from all active plugins:

for i in $(gconftool-2 --get /apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins|sed "s/\[\|\]//g"|sed "s/,/ /g"); do echo "# $i:"; gconftool-2 -a /apps/compiz-1/plugins/"$i"/screen0/options | grep "_key\|_button\|trigger_\|initiate\ \|panel_first_menu\|keyboard_focus\|execute_command\|show_launcher" | grep -v "Disabled\|=[[:space:]]*$" | sort; done; echo -e "\n# metacity overrides:"; gconftool-2 -a /apps/metacity/global_keybindings | grep -v "disabled\|cycle\|switch_panels" | sort; gconftool-2 -a /apps/metacity/window_keybindings | grep -v "disabled" | sort

Update: Above version now gets all non-empty/disabled keybindings (key, mouse, key+mouse) from all active plugins.

However, the value of the key X-GNOME-WMSettingsModule in /usr/share/applications/compiz.desktop makes Metacity override several Compiz keys. You will notice the italic labels in ccsm - that's when the value comes from Metacity and not Compiz.

As I found no easy way to fix this, I simply added all Metacity shortcuts to the end of the output.


No internet Capabilities on Lubuntu 17.04

I'm assuming that you have the deb downloaded.

Open a terminal and run:

cd /path/to/the/folder/the/deb/is/in
sudo dpkg -i realtek*.deb

This is assuming that you do actually need the Realtek driver.

You can't use Software install because of this bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1672424.


I would also recommend for a day or so you use this really really good guide which shows you how to use some of Unity's features to the maximum

It was created by Octavian Damiean and I have found it very useful. When you have memorised all of it ;) you can go back to your favourite wallpaper

Here is the link for it if the image does not work

direct link


Unity Launcher Crashes Computer When I have 2 instances of same program

I had the same issue and I solved it by :

Open Unity Tweak Tool
Press General
Restore Default

I really don't know what causes the problem
but that is what I did and somehow it worked well
for me.


How do I get Landscape to apply USNs to client?

I figured out what to do. Simply removing and re-adding the computer from Landscape fixed it for me, bizarrely enough.


Try installing it through command line.
Type this into the terminal:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager python-compizconfig compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compiz-fusion-bcop compiz-fusion-plugins-main compizconfig-backend-gconf

That's all one line and when prompted with [sudo] password type in your own password.
Hope that helps.

What are some of the issues with CCSM and why would I want to avoid it?


Why my ubuntu 16.04 LTS suddenly become very slow?

As the other answer, my solution was to disable SpeedStep on the BIOS. I found out that the my cpu was running slower. My CPU should run at 1800MHz, but is was running at 1000MHz. You can see the current CPU speed using several shell commands, e.g:

lscpu

or

cat /proc/cpu

It seems there was a problem with my charger and that made Ubuntu put the CPU into low consumption mode.


Bluetooth automatic mouse connection not working

OK To run at start up please, open start up applications from dash and choose new. Name it whatever you want and in the command box copy

sudo hidd --connect F0:65:DD:7D:EC:A0

Save it reboot, cross your fingers.


I had a similar problem on my mother's laptop. I'm guessing that you have a separate /home partition and want to use that with the clean install, right? If so, it's probably due to your user directory not having recognisable file permissions for the new system. If so, do this:

Clean install but instead of setting your new user as the original username, choose a (temporary) new one instead. This will allow you to boot into your desktop. Once you've done that, use the 'Users' app to create a new user with your original username and give it auto login. Then do:

cd /home
sudo chown -R youruser.youruser youruser

(swap youruser for the name you want) This will set your permissions properly. Now you can reboot into your proper user with all your settings, data etc.


How do I start applications automatically on login?

20.04 and later

If not yet done by default install gnome-startup-applications
Search and open "Startup Applications"

click add to enter the command including options of your application as you would run it from terminal (you may have to give in the full path if it runs from a non-standard location)

This will add a .desktop file in your ~/.config/autostart

14.04 and later

Open the Dash and search for "Startup Applications"

Now click on Add and give in the command to run the application. This can be found in Main Menu if installed (see below)

Using Main Menu (alacarte) to find the terminal command to run a given program:

Firstly open the program 'Main Menu' (type Menu in the Dash)

Now select the program which you want to add to startup and click on properties .

Now note the command for that program .

Non GUI approach
Advanced users may want to manually put a .desktop file in ~/.config/autostart to run applications after a user login. This may have following content:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=Application
Name=<Name of application as displayed>
Exec=<command to execute>
Icon=<full path to icon>
Comment=<optinal comments>
X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true

You may have to give this file execute permission.


Bitmeter started on server, can't connect remotely

I found it!
The address must be http://192.168.0.100:2605/index.html
http://192.168.0.100:2605/ alone won't do it.
They should put it their website.


Where can I get those tips back that appear during installation?

Better yet, they can take the Ubuntu online tour and see the OS and the programs tips and graphical usability of Ubuntu.


Since you have a dual GPU you should use Nvidia-prime or bumblebee to manage them both.

Bumblebee allows you to switch between GPUs at a cost of performance
Nvidia-Prime allows you to choose what GPU should he use.

you should try both to see if its fixed i would advice nvida prime first to force it using your nvidia.


you have first to deactivate the driver you installed from jockey, and then you can use ndisgtk if you have your wireless driver for windows this program will create a driver for linux starting from Windows driver

if it did not work you can see this for detecting you wireless card then download the driver from here

or finally if those did not worked try this
sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-installer or this sudo apt-get install firmware-b43-lpphy-installer in the command line


This works in Gnome 3.8.4, and should work later versions.

Set all the extensions you want to be on.
Then run:

gsettings get org.gnome.shell enabled-extensions

This should come up with something like

$ gsettings get org.gnome.shell enabled-extensions
['user-theme@gnome-shell-extensions.gcampax.github.com', 'status-area-horizontal-spacing@mathematical.coffee.gmail.com', 'CoverflowAltTab@palatis.blogspot.com']

Copy the output, and then run gnome-session-properties

Press add, and then enter the output of gsettings get org.gnome.shell enabled-extensions "['use... ...blogspot.com']" - However, as has been kindly pointed out, change get to set when entering in the command box, like in the picture below. PUT THE DOUBLE QUOTES IN, OTHERWISE THIS WILL NOT WORK (If not sure, test the command in the terminal first - if no feedback is given, it worked).

EDIT: For newer versions without gnome-session-properties, you need will probably need to manually make a .desktop file in ~/.config/autostart - some GUI tools may be available via Gnome Tweak Tool or similar.

For Example:

Then make sure that this is on:

Now, every time you login, it should run a command to restore all the extensions!

N.B. If you make changes to your activated extensions, this would need to be updated.

To automate this process, this script seems to work:

#!/bin/bash
active_extensions=$(gsettings get org.gnome.shell enabled-extensions)
autostart_file=$HOME/.config/autostart/restore-extensions.desktop
echo -e "Currently active extensions:\n\e[34m$active_extensions\e[0m"
echo -e "[Desktop Entry]\nType=Application" > $autostart_file
echo Exec=gsettings set org.gnome.shell enabled-extensions \"$active_extensions\" >> $autostart_file
echo -e "Hidden=false\nNoDisplay=false\nX-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=true\nName=Restore Extensions\nComment=Restore enabled extensions on login" >> $autostart_file
echo "Command to restore currently active extensions added to $HOME/.config/autostart/restore-extensions.desktop"
exit

Save the script to ~/.local/bin/extension-update, make it executable (either set it in the file's Properties window, or run chmod +x ~/.local/bin/extension-update).

Then every time you run extension-update, it will update an autostart file at ~/.config/autostart/restore-extensions.desktop (it will likely be different a different autostart entry if you created one manually as above, so if you created one manually you may want to delete that) - you can check in gnome-session-properties to make sure.


Can't run screen due to "cannot open terminal '/dev/pts/1' - please check" error

Turns out the problem was that I ssh'ed into the machine as root, then changed to the user kramer65 with su kramer65 and then tried to run screen, where screen can only be run by the user that logs in using ssh. So after I added kramer65 to the sudoers file with usermod -aG sudo kramer65 I could ssh into the machine as kramer65 and run screen with a big smile.


Terminal:

In order to install it you will need to add the gnome3 and gnome3-staging PPAs with (you will need to run these commands in Terminal, to launch Terminal press: CTRL + ALT + T):

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging
sudo apt-add-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update

Then run (to avoid problems):

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

And finally to install the package gnome-builder you will need to run (though you may want to restart your system after upgrading your system with the previous command):

sudo apt-get install gnome-builder

This is because the gnome-builder is only available in GNOME Shell 3.16 and above, however because of how Ubuntu GNOME is packaged it is currently not available in the repositories and only if you get these PPAs.

Though for this to work you will need to be on Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 as it will upgrade you to the next stable GNOME Shell version available to your system, and for 15.10 that is GNOME Shell 3.18.

GUI:

If you would prefer to use the GUI rather than Terminal though, search for Software & Updates in the Activities Overview:

Then go to the Other Software tab:

Click Add...:

Then enter deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3/ubuntu wily main, press Add Source, enter your password if prompted, then click Add..., and do the same for deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3-staging/ubuntu wily main:

After you then close the Software & Updates window it will ask you if you want to reload your sources or something like that, say you do. After that you will need to upgrade your system by launching the Software Updater:

And updating all the packages it tells you upgrades are available for.

Once you have done that you may need to restart your system. And then you will be able to find the gnome-builder in the Ubuntu Software Center:

Which you can install by searching for it and then clicking the Install button, entering your password if prompt:


This could indicate a serious problem with your hard drive. Boot from an Ubuntu live cd/usb, start Disk Utility, select your harddrive and check your drive's health. Any number of reallocated sectors means that your drive needs to be replaced, the higher the number, the more urgent this is.


Where do I submit applications written for Ubuntu Touch?

DO NOT click on the My Apps tab at http://developer.ubuntu.com. This is the old application submission method.

Go to https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com/dev/click-apps/new/. This is the new app store for Ubuntu Touch. It should look like this:

You will need to submit your app as a click package, no need for complicated Debian packaging! Once uploaded, your app should be reviewed within a few hours and will then be published and be available for installation on any device running Ubuntu Touch.

Once you've submitted your app, you can track it by going to https://myapps.developer.ubuntu.com/dev/click-apps.

NOTE: Currently the Click App Store does not support selling apps. This will be added soon!

For more information about choosing a package name and developer namespace, see this question.

You can find more information about packaging Ubuntu Touch apps as click packages here.


What does dsfg as a part of package names mean?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_Free_Software_Guidelines

A package with 'dfsg'/'dsfg' suffix is one that has been stripped of any files
that doesn't follow the Debian Free Software Guidelines.

(From Debian mailing list: http://lists.debian.org/debian-mentors/2010/08/msg00169.html)


Suggest this workaround -

If you click the Home Folder icon on the Launcher.

Choose Edit Preferences - change the default view from Icon to List View.  Click OK.  This will set the default view for File Manager next time you open it.  Also make sure the "sort folders before files" is checked.

Click the magnifying glass.

Type part of the folder name in the search box displayed.

This will display all matches.

Double click on a folder with a matching name.

Similarly - you could right-click the Files & Folders lens (grey icon in the launcher) and choose either Audio or Folders.

Your cursor would automatically be on the search box, together with recently used Audio/Folders.  As soon as you type "j" for johnny cash, it will show that audio/folder name.

Remember - over time, the search engine will learn your search habits, so it will get better displaying the most recent audio/folders you use.

Keep an eye on this PPA - looks like the author developing possibly something more like what you want.


Need to reinstall boot loader on Dell XPS 13 (9343) - no dual boot

You nuked a bit too much and deleted your UEFI partition as well: UEFI firmware does not reside in the BIOS any more, but on-disk!

Use the Dell Recovery DVD to restore your system to a workable state, then follow this: Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI then shrink Windows to the minimum+20% allowed size and delete it after you haven't booted to Windows for a month or so! ;-)

Oh, and have a look here as well on how to make system back-ups...


How to extract RAR file containing files with Persian or Arabic name

While I was checking for information about different packages related t RAR archives, I Accidentally, noticed this:

$ apt show unrar-free
Package: unrar-free
Version: 1:0.0.1+cvs20140707-1
...
...
Description: Unarchiver for .rar files
 Unrar can extract files from .rar archives. Can't handle some archives in
 the RAR 3.0 format natively. Package "unar" can be used to extract those
 archives if installed.

So, as suggested in the last sentence, I tried unar and it perfectly extracted all the files.

It was interesting to not being about to find this valuable piece of information, anywhere else including in manpage of unrar-free

update:

The other way to extract such files is to use 7z. For this, p7zip-rar should be already installed.


Which 12.04 download should I choose for x86 based pc (32-bit) with an AMD processor?

It looks like the CPU doesn't have PAE support. ubuntu-12.04-alternate-i386.iso.torrent should do the job, although it's a text based installer. You could also install 11.10 and then upgrade to 12.04, or go with Xubuntu.


Can't start Ubuntu - Package power limit notification

Note:

  Power Limit Notification is a feature that was added to the Sandy Bridge processors from Intel. The notification does not indicate a
  problem, and should not be reported as a Critical-level message.
  The occurrence of the power limit notification is routine, and the system should not be reporting the messages. They can be ignored.

source: Linux - "Package Power limit" and "Core power limit" notifications.

Possible solutions are:

Upgrade kernel (or downgrade if upgrade not possible)
Clear PLN flag by adding clearcpuid=229 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT in /etc/default/grub then sudo update-grub
Set the machine's Performance Profile to Max Performance in the BIOS, if that setting is available

References:

Linux - "Package Power limit" and "Core power limit" notifications
Kernel 3.6.2 Power Regressions (Sandy Bridge)


Command with percent symbols not running in crontab

In /bin/date +%Y-%m-%d, you need to escape each % with \ according to this man page:

  The "sixth" field (the rest of the line) specifies the command to be run. The entire command portion of the line, up to a newline or % character, will be executed by /bin/sh or by the shell specified in the SHELL variable of the cronfile. Percent-signs (%) in the command, unless escaped with backslash (), will be changed into newline characters, and all data after the first % will be sent to the command as standard input.


I stumbled upon two possible solutions. In the Whisker menu, type "xfconf" and open the Settings editor, scroll down to "xfwm" on the left and then in the main table either

disable zoom_desktop – now you can alt+mousescroll on the titlebar of the window you want to be transparent

or

enable horiz_scroll_opacity – now you can mousescroll-sideways on the titlebar of the window you want to be transparent (I prefer this, that way I can still do alt-scrolling for zooming, should I ever need that)


Grub does not detect encrypted Ubuntu on second disk

What worked for me was to add a custom entry to grub menu that will load grub configuration of the second os.
This works for me on ubuntu 20.04.
Note: this approach directly loads grub.cfg from the second OS's boot partition.
This is different from chainloading another grub.  For this to work, grub used in both OS-es should be somewhat compatible, and both should identify disks by some unique identifiers like uuids.
Edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom to contain:
#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry 'Other - grub' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'other-<uuid of boot partition of secondary OS>' {
  if [ x$feature_platform_search_hint = xy ]; then
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root  <uuid of boot partition of secondary OS>
  else
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root <uuid of boot partition of secondary OS>
  fi
  configfile /grub/grub.cfg
}

You can get the uuids of all your partitions with
$ ls -l -a /dev/disk/by-uuid

Then update grub (all this is to be done from your first OS):
sudo update-grub

If this succeeds, you should have another menu entry when booting called "Other - grub", and when you select it, the entire grub configuration of the second OS will be loaded and you will be able to boot the second OS as if you have booted directly to the second hard drive.
My full notes on this topic are here.


There are a few things you can do to increase the efficiency of use of your screen real estate. Head to "Customize" ("hamburger" menu ☰ in the top right, then "Customize...")

Increase the density: on the bottom line, find the "Density" button. Set that to "Compact". That will render the UI elements of Firefox, among other the tabs, with minimum padding.

In the same area, unchecking the checkbox "Title bar" to remove the Firefox title bar.


How do I install the python pymorph module?

As @dufte has pointed out in his comment to the question, pymorph does not exist in the Ubuntu repositories. However, pymorph does exist in PyPI. The best way to install pymorph is to use pip inside a virtualenv; I would avoid using sudo pip because it is best to get apt manage your system packages and not let pip interfere with that. Assuming you are using Ubuntu 16.04 and Python 2, the code to install pymorph properly is:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install virtualenv
cd ~/<desired directory>  # cd to desired directory
virtualenv venv  # create virtualenv named venv for Python 2
source venv/bin/activate  # activate virtualenv
pip install -U pip  # upgrade pip
pip install pymorph

If you are using older versions of Ubuntu, replace apt with apt-get. If you want to use Python 3, replace virtualenv venv with virtualenv venv -p python3.


Upgraded from 16.04 to 18.04 now curl.so is missing

First I freshly added the ppa and reinstalled php7.1

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ondrej/php
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install php7.1

Than I installed php7.1-curl and voila all works perfectly fine again.

The problem was that I got old ppa version.


emacs when run from the Applications menu (via. desktop setting) doesn't load environment variables

.bashrc is not the right place to define environment variables, as you've discovered. This file is only read when you start an interactive shell (specifically, only when you start an interactive instance of bash, not of other shells). The environment is then inherited by the processes started from that shell (each process has its own environment, inherited from its parent process). So if you start a program directly from the GUI, it never had a chance to see these environment variables.

Define environment variables in ~/.profile or in ~/.pam_environment. Both files are read when you log in.

For more information, see Alternative to .bashrc and What's the best distro/shell-agnostic way to set environment variables?


In RUN you must to put a path to a script. See man udev:

  Add a program to the list of programs to be executed for a specific
             device. This can only be used for very short running tasks. Running
             an event process for a long period of time may block all further
             events for this or a dependent device. Long running tasks need to
             be immediately detached from the event process itself.

For examle, create a new script, let say hello.sh in /lib/udev with sudo -H gedit /lib/udev/hello.sh and put next lines inside:

#!/bin/bash

echo HELLO ! > /home/<username>/udev_test_log.txt

Change <username> with your user name. Save the file, close it and make it executable with:

chmod +x /lib/udev/hello.sh

Add a new rule in your /etc/udev/rules.d/01-my-first-udev.rules file like this:

ACTION=="add", RUN+="/lib/udev/hello.sh"


Ubuntu 13.04 not detecting operating system Windows 8

First, "fabric" is a flexible material used for making clothes, drapes, bedsheets, etc. Based on context, I suspect you mean "factory" or "default," not "fabric."

Second, you made things much harder for yourself by re-installing everything. You could have used an emergency boot disc like rEFInd's CD-R or USB flash drive image to get an OS or EFI shell booted, then used a utility like efibootmgr (in Linux), bcdedit (in Windows), or bcfg (in an EFI shell) to re-register your preferred boot loader(s) with the EFI. This approach requires a certain amount of know-how, but it's much easier than re-installing everything. You're well past the point where this remains an option, though. I mention it so you can keep less radical solutions in mind in the future.

Given where you are, it's not 100% clear to me precisely what's failing or why. I recommend you try the (poorly named) "something else" option when the Ubuntu installer gets to the point of asking how to install. That should enable you to re-size your existing partitions and create new ones for Linux. If the Ubuntu partitioner claims that your disk is empty, then that indicates a damaged partition table or leftover RAID data. I see no evidence of a damaged partition table in your Boot Info Script output, but I may have overlooked something.