Essentially, having the user menu appear in the top bar instead of under the title bar of the application window is not supported in Gnome Shell, which is the default desktop of Ubuntu since version 17.10. This indeed in contrast to the Unity shell, where having that menu in the top bar (for supported applications) was a core feature.

The Gnome developers themselves probably will not have any interest in implementing the feature. They want to get rid of that user menu altogether. You will have noticed that Gnome applications like Files (nautilus), Evince (PDF viewer), Gedit (the editor) do not anymore feature such user menu. Instead, options are exposed through buttons in the header bar of the application.

In another answer to a similar question, the use of an extension Gnome Global Menu Extension is indicated. The answer, however, was not accepted. Indeed, it works (worked?) only for a limited number of applications. Moreover, the extension has not anymore been recently updated.

If you insist on this feature, you may need to consider using another desktop. The Mate desktop has very good support for such feature. Indeed, they have even a build-in mode to emulate the Unity desktop. Support for the global menu is actually relying on the efforts of the Unity team.

Another option is the KDE-desktop. Also that desktop has quite good optional support for a global menu.

In any of these cases, not all applications are supported, as applications in Linux can use different toolkits to render their graphical user interface.


Is a desktop needed to set up a private cloud?

Devstack is the simplest way to set up a private cloud without using a GUI, and the instructions are available at the OpenStack website.  You will need to make sure git is installed with sudo apt-get install git-core, [Download DevStack] with git clone https://github.com/openstack-dev/devstack.git whose repository contains a script that installs OpenStack and templates for configuration files. Then, start the install with
cd devstack; ./stack.sh


Can I set up a different password to login with?

You can create as many accounts as you wish. Log in as a non-admin user if you wish. For the most part this is not necessary as, unlike other OS, the admin account does NOT run with elevated privileges, it just has the ability to escalate privileges (using sudo).

See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

You can not easily do what you envision in Debian/Ubuntu, but you can with RHEL/Fedora using selinux. Selinux allows you to sign in a single account with privileges defined at login .

Be warned, although opinions may vary, selinux is not generally considered "easy" or user friendly.


Atom text editor is a native Ubuntu snap package in all currently supported versions of Ubuntu. Results of snap info atom:

$ snap info atom
name:      atom
summary:   A hackable text editor for the 21st Century.

Atom is a free and open source text editor that is modern, approachable,
and hackable to the core.

The Ubuntu Atom snap package does not have a proprietary license. The Atom GitHub webpage also describes Atom as a free and open source text editor. Atom is licensed under the
MIT License.

The atom-amd64.deb file has a file in it named copyright which contains a copy of the MIT License terms, yet when atom-amd64.deb is opened in the Ubuntu Software app it is mistakenly reported as having a proprietary license.

If Ubuntu Software is reporting the MIT license as a proprietary license this is a bug in Ubuntu Software, because the MIT license is a free software license. According to Wikipedia, the MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The MIT license permits reuse within proprietary software provided that all copies of the licensed software include a copy of the MIT License terms and the copyright notice.


I have installed Ubuntu and Windows 8.

First I installed Windows 8 and after this I installed Ubuntu,  but not inside Windows 8. I installed it on a separate partition and everything works fine.


Changing language when typing the password

option 1:

In the bar at the top of your screen, you should see a small box (probably white with a letter in it) select that and you should get a drop down for language selection. Select English.

option 2:

you may have a small circle with a man in it in the top bar. If so select that and select onscreen keyboard.

option 3:

Boot into safe mode and set the language in there to English and then reboot.

option 4:

Reset password in safe mode
How do I reset a lost administrative password?

After you login you should set up a keyboard shortcut to change the language of your keyboard How to switch language keyboard combination?


How do I stop this warning: "W: Duplicate sources.list entry cdrom://Ubuntu 11.10 _Oneiric Ocelot_..."

It might be worth trying the GUI tools that Ubuntu offers to see if they are smart enough to address the script that is overriding your changes.

This link addresses adding things like CD sources via Ubuntu's software manager, but I'm sure you can figure out how to use the instructions to remove it instead.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu


How can i make my .deb package replace a file in the system?

I do know that you can make a post install script, so it may be possible to use echo to write over it in the post install script (i.e. echo "Your settings here" > /etc/file.conf) The documentation is all here


How to make Bluetooth work on Thinkpad T410?

Transfering files to an Ubuntu system requires the Obex demon obexpushd to be up and running which is not the case by default. Which is a pity because it renders bluetooth file transfer useless for most users (Ubuntu should start the demon by default - at least if there is a bluetooth device present).

As for the keyboard - I couldn't pair it either. But I manage to use it anyway by:

hidd --search

The biggest drawback is that the connectin lasts unil reboot. One has to press the pairing key on the keyboard each time. Not good. Even worse - I do not know if the connection is encrypted. So I'd rather use the onscreen keyboard for password entry (especially in sensitive environments).


My Dell Inspiron 1501 wont connect to any network (wireless or wired)

well.. my inspiron 1501 has a broadcom card.. you probably have the same card..

Run these commands in terminal:

sudo apt-get purge bcmwl-kernel-source broadcom-sta-common broadcom-sta-source

sudo apt-get install b43-fwcutter firmware-b43-installer

Then unplug ethernet and reboot


phpmyadmin not working due to missing extensions

sudo apt-get install php-mbstring php7.0-mbstring php-gettext

or simply:

sudo apt-get install php-gettext

and then:

sudo service apache2 restart

This has been reported at this bug:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/phpmyadmin/+bug/1577482


Network is only available in recovery mode

I have exactly the same problem. I have a Dell Precision T7500 pretty much out-of-the box, with a Quadro FX 580 and a pair of 1T drives. At one point I was dual booting Win 7 and Ubuntu 11.10 with no problems. Then I upgraded to 12.04, and problems made the system unusable. I had modules crashing with the appropriate dialog boxes, when I rebooted, I would get stuck at a command line login -- which didn't work. Eventually I gave up, wiped out the partition and reinstalled 12.04. After the normal problems trying to get my video card to work I realized that the system acted the same way it had before. I.e., very slow, processes crashing; unusable. I finally got what appeared to be a usable system by wiping out the partition, doing a fresh install, and going in to recovery mode on the first boot. From there I ran fsck, started the network, and installed nvidia-current and did an update/upgrade -- which was extensive. But the system seemed normal when it came up. I installed and configured autofs and all was well. Until I rebooted, then I was back to the same problem. I found that all I had to do was boot to recovery mode, start networking, then resume boot and all was well. I tried booting without going through recovery mode and waiting several minutes (like 15-20 or more) to get a usable login prompt, but could only log in as a local user. I did a sudo -i and ran initctl list and found that many of the processes were still waiting. I also had no IPv4 address, though I did have a pair of legal global IPv6 addresses. I ran dhclient -- which took a very long time to run, and had another probably unrelated process die in the interim -- and  got an IPv4 address and the correct /etc/resolv.conf.  Syslog shows that many of the processes started by dbus failed to activate.

A Google search shows that this problem is not unique to Ubuntu, but also affects at least Red Hat and Debian, and has been for a year or more. Clearly the upstart/dbus mechanism is not quite ready for prime time.


you can try install ubuntu with unetbootin (make usb bootable) easily. you just run it after download without any installing and make your usb bootable with ubuntu .iso file.
then reboot your system and install it.


I'm not sure if this would help since this is a solution for those running ArchLinux, but if you've got nothing else to lose:

https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=193802

removing some files got it working for these users.


compiz put to next output does not work in all winsows configurations

I installed and tried Ubuntu 14.04 on my other laptop to look for differences and noticed that the apt repositories for compiz-plugins are outdated on 12.04 and lack some functionality relevant to this question, the new version has a put to previous output function that comes in handy for a 3+ screen setup. Also, by the new unity keybindings I experienced I can infer that at least someone in canonical is concerned about all these UI issues.

In spite of that, the grid continues to work exactly as you described and I confirmed on both my OS versions.

But I found a workaround:

Just before you send your window to the next output, "ungrid" it by semi-maximizing it to one side ctrl+super+lef or right and bam!, now you can send it and it wont spring back. (I use super+right and the switching feels like a breeze.)

It works on both 12.04 and 14.04

(Now, who knows... maybe this is one of those cases where the responsible developer will protest "it's a feature not a bug!" xD LOL)


Ubuntu 12.10 flickering with AMD Radeon HD 6625M

You could try editing the Grub boot menu. Look for "gfxmode $linux_gfx_mode". If you have this try changing it to "gfxmode 800x600" to force the boot resolution to a value which is more likely to work.

If you are having this problem on a laptop then for a quick fix try closing the lid to send it to "Sleep" then open it again after a few seconds to wake it up. You should then see the login screen.

For any newbies, I have posted a more detailed explanation of the steps required to modify this entry in your Grub menu at Screen flickering in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.


How to set a password for Ubuntu Cloud Images (ie. NOT use ssh)

You can first create a Virtual Machine (VM) image from virtualbox or vmware which already has a key pair. as you can control your virtualbox or vmware freely, you can get the key pair from the virtual host.

then import the keypair into your openstack.
upload this virtual machine image
create a instance(A) from this image
create a instance(B) from the cloud image with the keypair(uploaded from step 1) injected
open the console(in horizon) of instance A, now you can connect the instance B from A, because B has injected the public key from A
after logged in, you can set up the environment for instance B & change the configuration


Download translation from launchpad and compile it to use it in application

msgfmt -o lang.mo lang.po should do the work. Then you just need to replace current translation. dpkg -L gwoffice | grep "\.mo$" should help you locate needed files.


Encrypted home dir: Cannot login after sudo password reset

What you need is the passphrase you used when you created the encrypted user. That passphrase is not your password  ! Once you have found it, assuming you kept it, run :

ecryptfs-unwrap-passphrase

see more here


Following up on the comments above:

Because the admin group doesn't exist on your system we are assuming you are running 12.04. To be able to administer your system with 12.04 you need your user-id to be in the sudo group. I was able to add a user-id to the sudo group as follows.

Reboot using grub and select an entry for recovery mode.

Select the "root" option from the Recovery Menu. From the terminal that opens at the very bottom type:

mount -o remount,rw /

sudo addgroup your-username sudo

Then you can resume the boot by holding control and pressing "d" and select resume from the Recovery Menu.

As explanation, in recovery mode you come up with the root filesystem in read-only "error mode". The first command makes the file system writeable. The second command adds your-username to the sudo group.

When you continue the boot, or somehow reboot, your user-id will be able to use the sudo command as normal. Once you have sudo privileges you can add another administrative user and see what groups they are in, and then you can add your account to those groups, too.


Send all local mail to a single external e-mail

This can be accomplished via virtual regexp (/etc/postfix/virtual-regexp)

/.+@.+/ someone@somewhere.com

then in main.cf:

virtual_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/virtual, regexp:/etc/postfix/virtual-regexp

and the mapfile:

postmap /etc/postfix/virtual-regexp

That should do the trick for all local mails (otherwise you must specify all addresses on virtual)


Ubuntu 16.04 New/old bluetooth headset problem with sound

Having the same problem, I found this python script who seems to work for everyone.

It will disconnect the device not working, update the profile to the good parameters and reconnect the device.

It's working fine, but I'm still waiting for an update of bluez.

Here's the link: https://gist.github.com/pylover/d68be364adac5f946887b85e6ed6e7ae

Let me know if you run in any troubles.


Unable to get profont to work on Ubuntu 16.04

Follow these steps to get them installed:

Download the fonts from here
Run sudo rm /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf to remove that file, in my case I simply moved it to ~/
If you look in /etc/fonts/conf.avail you will see these files:

70-force-bitmaps.conf
70-no-bitmaps.conf
70-yes-bitmaps.conf

a. Most are linked to files in the /etc/fonts/conf.d directory files.
b. So we create a symbolic link to 70-yes-bitmaps.conf from /etc/fonts/conf.d with a file named 70-yes-bitmaps.conf

sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-yes-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-yes-bitmaps.conf

Extract and double click on the font files and a window will open and install the fonts.
Move the extracted font folder to ~/.fonts or /usr/share/fonts as you wish
Set up the permission on the folder == 755, and the fonts files == 644
Run sudo fc-cache -f -v

Note: Warning

Bear in mind though, that there was a good reason to discard bitmap fonts, as it made all sorts of havoc with applications like firefox.
You can be more prudent by mimicking the behaviour of terminus, and explicitly allowing a specific bitmap font to load instead of a few dozens.

Read: /etc/fonts/conf.d/README

UPDATE

Steps:

Remove the previously added symbolic link, if the first install process was followed else ignore and move to steps two.
Move the fonts into /home/$USER/.local/share/fonts directory
Make sure the owner is you
Remove the 70-no-bitmaps.conf file:

sudo mv /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-no-bitmaps.conf ~/

Create another symbolic link in /etc/fonts/conf.avail:

sudo ln -s /etc/fonts/conf.avail/70-force-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/70-force-bitmaps.conf

Run sudo fc-cache -v -f
Open the location in step 1 and double click on the fonts and they will install automatically.
Open Unity Tweak Tool ( install if not installed) and check to see it's installed:

Source:

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=7143817

https://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=792471


Investigating what keeps changing my php version (apache mod_php)

Install the version you want
If you want that package version not to change.
Put the package on hold:

echo "<package-name> hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

Remove the hold:

echo "<package-name> install" | sudo dpkg --set-selections


Is it possible to rename files selected by ls?

First, I have to note, parsing ls is generally not recommended. Its output is meant for human consumption, and this solution will fail for some legitimate file names (like those which contain newline characters, for example)

With that said, the simplest solution does seem to be using ls (as find does not offer a sort-by-modification-date option). For this, you can use pipes and the xargs command to execute the final rename.

In short:

ls -1t | head -n5 | xargs -I {} rename 's/ /_/g' {}

This uses your original command almost exactly, but with xargs to do the final completion. xargs will take in a number of newline-separated arguments, and pass them all to a single rename command.

Caveats

This should work - but parsing ls is fragile. This breaks for file names which contain the newline character; using a command that's meant for parsing like find would be much better.

However, I don't know how to sort by last modification date with find. If someone else knows how to do this, you'd probably end up with something like:

find . -mindepth 1 -maxdepth 1 -print0 | sort <???> -Z | head -z -n5 | xargs -0 rename 's/ /_/g'

If <???> were a valid argument, this command chain would tell find to output files in the current directory separated with a NUL character, and then sort, head, and xargs would all accept this as the deliminator rather than a newline - making the whole process much more consistent. Feel free to comment or edit this if you know how to do this, and want to replace the ls answer with this bottom part.


Ubuntu Wiki BuildYourOwnKernel Questions

The linux-raspi-5.4.0 source directory has two directories, debian.master and debian.raspi. The BuildYourOwnKernel instructions suggest adding +test to the version number in debian.master/changelog. This doesn't work. However, adding +test to the version number in debian.raspi/changelog does. My kernel works as required and uname -a displays 5.4.0-1013-raspi #13+test.
Many thanks for all the comments.


Yes, it can, but unless you notice any new problems, your system is probably OK.
You should still try to avoid doing this in the future.  You could experience problems if the system shut down in the middle of writing some file.
It's hard to say exactly how any problem might manifest because it really is a factor of what exactly got interrupted and whether or not the interruption caused any negative effects.
Thankfully, you don't really need to worry too much about services and daemons as they are pretty resilient and they mostly get refreshed during boot anyway.
If you're curious you can check your system logs to see what was taking place before you forced shutdown.


Will Adblock Plus work with Ubuntu 13.10?

Assuming that you're referring to the ad block add-on for Firefox. Well, I'm quiet confused as to which you're referring to as apps.ubuntu.com; but I just had a quick look installing into my Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (with the latest Firefox 27.0 version) which seems working fine.
If I'm not mistaken; Add-on support will effect only the web browser but not the operating system (correct me If I'm wrong). Also on the add-on download itself says that it support from Firefox 17.0 and later (as seen below); (that leads me to say, it should work for firefox version 17.0 and later)

Screens from my system


GRUB/bootloader and hard disk lost after update to Ubuntu 17.10?

don't rush out and buy a replacement SSD - something might be going on here.  Have been working on getting an older Toshiba nb205 (updated with a 500 gb SSD) resetup with Lubuntu.  Have wiped and installed Lubuntu several times in the last few days and an install of 17.04 boots just fine.  Load 17.10 and it locks up after a terminal screen listing a few details about the drive.  Go back to 17.04 - works fine.


You seem to be missing a package. Try installing it via:
sudo apt-get install libjpeg62


Try unplugging the USB cable and plugging it back in. This might trigger detection.

I have Lexicon Alpha with Kubuntu system (and Win7 dual boot). Linux and Windows does not detect the stupid sound card on login, I must manually unplug the USB cable and plug it again to detect the card, everytime!


Problems after installing the “New Hardware Support is Available”

Warning to you.  I accepted the hardware firmware update and thereafter it killed my wifi.  It removed my wifi driver and did not replace it.  I have since been able to restore my wifi (search on "hardware firmware" to find my problem titled "Latest hardware firmware update kills wifi" to see my solution). I suspect the firmware update is not really necessary.


Home Icon Quicklist can not be added to Unity dock

Removing this line and readding to the dock seems to have fixed the problem:

OnlyShowIn=GNOME;

You can also edit this line as follows:

OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;


Basically? Yes. Good on backing everything up right away as that's the correct course of action! Get everything off the drive and decommission it.

When this happened to me, I immediately purchased new drives but not before turning off the computer that was using it as a primary boot drive. I then used a liveCD to boot up and used ddrescue to recover the disk. I didn't lose anything other than a lot of time!

I also replaced the drive with a RAID 1 array, which I recommend looking into if you can afford it, as I wasn't interested in losing that much time being down again.


HDD in external USB enclosure doesn't show

With your disk taking 850ma, and the case taking something, you are at or over the limit of USB3 power supply (900 ma).  I'd use an external USB 5v power supply on the case (the round hole), to supply the necessary power.  Possibly a Y USB connector (two USB3 A male to the micro B) would enable the necessary power to be drawn off two USB 3 ports on the computer, but that may depend upon how things are wired up inside the computer.


When logged into the virtual machine, find the virtual Box menu (usually at the bottom center), Navigate to "Devices >> Install Guest additions". It has the shortcut key host+D

This will ask to download the .iso CD image.
Select Yes, and once the download completes it it will ask you if you want to install the same.
Select Yes again, and let it install.
Restart the Virtual machine, if needed.

Enjoy!


The fact that all the browsers you tried experience crashes seems to suggest that your environment has some problem rather than a specific browser. Seeing that your PC is equipped with nvidia hardware, perhaps a video driver issue?

Did you install the proprietary nvidia driver? The default "nouveau" driver is getting better, but from my experience is still far from being as stable as the one provided by nvidia. To check/install the proprietary driver type "Additional drivers" in the dash (Windows key).

The next thing I would try would be to disable all the installed Firefox add-ons, as the errors you are getting seems to be coming from Ubuntu's Unity integration add-on to Firefox. From within Firefox, type "about:addons", and then go to the "Extensions" tab. From there, disable anything that has "Ubuntu" or "Unity" in it. If it still crashes, try disabling every extensions. At last, you could try clearing your Firefox profile by issuing the following command (while Firefox is closed):

mv ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla_bak

Good luck!


RTL8101E/RTL8102E not working with ubuntu 14.04. HP G61

I have a Dell Inspiron 3521 Laptop.
After update from Ubuntu 12.04 LTS to Ubuntu 14.04, I had the same problem with my eth0 network card (an RTL8101E/RTL8102E).  Using lspic (list PCI devices) to show the devices in the machine, with:

lspci -nn

06:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller [10ec:8136] (rev 05)

(It was not present at ifconfig command)

I download the driver from Realtek to my Desktop folder from: driver's page

Then I untar the file and open the path to a terminal and install it with:

$ cd Desktop
$ tar xvvf r8101-1.025.00.tar.bz2
$ cd r8101-1.025.00/src
$ make clean modules
$ sudo make install
$ sudo depmod -a
$ sudo modprobe r8101
$ lsmod |grep r8101
r8101                 153264  0
$ /sbin/ifconfig -a
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 74:86:7a:5d:c6:01
          inet addr:192.168.1.4  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::7686:7aff:fe5d:c601/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:368426 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:258622 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:347809708 (347.8 MB)  TX bytes:143626976 (143.6 MB)
          Interrupt:47 Base address:0x4000

For me it worked ....

Edited to remove superfluous commands that would cause no action in example, and to add sudo usage where appropriate.


Will the software center offer an option to donate?

This feature is planned for 11.10:

October 2011
We plan to implement donations for non-commercial software projects.


How to stop receipient's signature being removed when replying to email in Thunderbird?

This behavior is actually by design.  The "-- " (dash-dash-space line) is the "signature cut line" and is placed by conforming mail clients (e.g., Thunderbird, Gmail, etc.) for precisely the reason that they can be trimmed automatically from responses.

Some background: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signature_block

I believe they originally came out of Usenet circles, and the idea was that if someone had posted to a list, the signature was already recorded and seen by subscribers.  Since bandwidth was at a premium (is still, worldwide), cutting it would not needlessly waste time, space, and money.

As far as actively including it when replying, I don't know of a way.  Either trawl the Thunderbird extensions, or hire someone to build one for you.


Can I get application changelogs using the terminal?

aptitude changelog package

Under natty and newer you should also be able to do:

apt-get changelog package


Its a bit confusing with all the ways to install.
I think I have found the wiki...
http://wiki.celtx.com/index.php?title=Installation#For_Linux
it looks like you need to move the extracted files into the /usr/local
mv Downloads/Celtx /usr/local
run this to install
sudo /usr/local/celtx/celtx
and thereafter use it like this
 /usr/local/celtx/celtx

For further reference:
is it a folder that you had from an archive file with a configure file?
--> in this case hopefully there is a readme or an install file in the top of the directory. if you "cd Downloads/name(e.g celtx-xx)" there should be one of these. usually it will tell you to do these commands in the directory
./configure
make
sudo make install

but do whatever it says

Or did you download a file that ends in .deb ?
this kind you can double click and it will try to open the package manager for you


FTPing inside of a ksh script, get part not working

You should be able to use a here document to pass commands to the ftp session's standard input:

$FTP -v "$HOST" << EOF
lcd "$WORK_FILE"
get RetriesExceeded.csv
quit
EOF

The EOF string can be replaced by any arbitrary word to denote the start and end of input.


GUI based options: Advanced Archiving "Zip 7z etc..."

For Linux, The default Archive manager, File Roller is present; Which is really efficient and comparable to the performance of 7zip under windows.

On the official download page of 7zip, you may also find alternatives for Linux (approximately in the middle of the page).

You may also run your windows softwares inside Ubuntu using the Wine Software.


Yes, every Linux distribution, including Ubuntu, has a directory

/tmp

Every user has write access right in this directory, hence can create files inside it. Those files are not kept forever - content of the /tmp directory is deleted after each system reboot.


No sound 20.04 with Intel Corporation Device 02c8

I had the same problem. All I need to edit a line in /etc/default/grub to be:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="snd-intel-dspcfg.dsp_driver=1"

Then you run
sudo update-grub


g77-3.4 installed from Hardy repositories but

Install cook from the standard repository. You don't need to install packages from hardy repository.

Open a terminal and execute this command below:

sudo apt-get install cook

Hope this will solve your problem.


cli can't find folder that is right there

The preceding / is the problem.  It's looking in your root instead of in your home directory.

Try:

rmdir ~/.config/stacer

Since it's in your home directory, sudo is probably unnecessary.


vim - make a mapping applicable only if the file name contains specific characters

Yes, you can do that with vim's autocmd command, by putting something like the following in your .vimrc file:

autocmd BufRead,BufNewFile /path/* map <buffer> <c-J> gqip

That will cause the map command to be executed whenever you start to edit a new (because of the BufNewFile event) or existing (because of the BufRead event) file that matches the pattern. Since the pattern contains a / it will be matched against the entire path of the file, if it didn't it would be matched against only the base name of the file. Using the <buffer> argument to the map command will apply the mapping only to the current buffer.

You can use :help autocmd to get additional information on defining autocmds, including the available events and details of the patterns that are supported.


Is it safe to install LibreOffice alongside OpenOffice.org?

Yes absolutely. Considering you are using ubuntu and openoffice.org is installed by default, the libreoffice installer will install under the /opt directory thus not interfering with Oo installation.


wget security.ubuntu.com not working on ubuntu

Run

sudo apt-get update

and then please post any errors.

If there are no errors, use sudo apt-get install followed by the package name again.

If you want to download something from the Ubuntu archives use apt-get download without sudo and followed by the package name to download whatever package you need to your current directory.


Yes, I noticed that too! I'm surprised they forgot something as important as that.

Install CompizConfig Settings Manager:

To open terminal hit Alt+Ctrl+T and run following commands:

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

Or search for compizconfig-settings-manager in Software Center and install from there.

Then go to System Tools > Preferences > CompizConfig, if you can't find System Tools, look for CompizConfig Settings Manager in Unity Dash.

Go at the very bottom where it says Windows Management

Put a check-mark in Application Switcher

That should fix it.

Go to System Tools > Preferences > CompizConfig or search forCompizConfig Settings Manager in Unity Dash. Then,
Windows Manager-Application Switcher. click on Next window-alt-tab click it.
click on ''Grab key Combination'', here actually use alt+tab, & it will grab it.
OK


Ok, solved it.

After installing pavucontrol

sudo apt-get install pavucontrol

the list of output devices showed me that my current HDMI output device was unplugged.

Switching to the Configuration tab in pavucontrol allowed me to select the only digital output device that the system said was plugged in.

After selecting that one, everything worked like a charm.


No ethernet connection on ubuntu server 18.04 on DELL Power Edge T300

Networking in Ubuntu server edition, versions 17.10 and later, is handled by netplan.

In order to set up netplan, you’ll need to know the interface name for your ethernet connection; it will probably be ens140 or eno1 or enp3s0 or some such.

Check again:

ifconfig

Or else:

sudo lshw -C network

In the latter case, it will be shown opposite ‘logical name.’ Here is a sample from my machine:

*-network
       description: Ethernet interface
       product: Ethernet Connection I217-LM
       vendor: Intel Corporation
       physical id: 19
       bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0
       logical name: enp0s25
       version: 04
       serial: 68:f7:28:ae:83:47
       capacity: 1Gbit/s
       width: 32 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       <snip>

So, in my case, I would use the interface designation enp0s25.

Next, edit your netplan file:

sudo nano /etc/netplan/01-netcfg.yaml

Amend the file to read:

network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd
  ethernets:
    enp0s25:
      addresses:
        - 192.168.100.40/22
      gateway4: 192.168.100.1
      nameservers:
          addresses: [8.8.8.8,8.8.4.4]

Of course, substitute your exact details here. Spacing, indentation, etc. are crucial. Proofread carefully. Save (Ctrl+o followed by Enter) and close (Ctrl+x) the text editor.

Next:

sudo netplan apply
sudo ip link set enp0s25 down
sudo ip link set enp0s25 up

Did you get the requested IP address?

ip addr show

Can you ping?

ping -c3 8.8.8.8
ping -c3 www.ubuntu.com

If you get ping returns, you are all set.


Make sure you are using the NVidia proprietary driver. Then installing nvidia-opencl-dev and nvidia-opencl-icd-xxx where xxx correspond to the driver version you are running should be fine. That worked for me on 16.04


Allow only network connections but not connect to internet

You can use the ip command for setting up routes. You basically need to remove your default route. At make sure you have a route entry into your local network.


Can't get the right resolution for external monitor

For Samsung Syncmaster S24B750

Source:
https://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Modeline_Database
and
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/LS24B750VSG/ZA (manual)

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier  "SAMSUNG"
    HorizSync   20-200
    VertRefresh 30-120
    ModeLine "1920x1080@60" 148.50 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 +hsync +vsync
EndSection


Inside virtual box, the guest os (in your case, Ubuntu) will see only the virtual drive you created to install Ubuntu. If you want to access files on other drives, you can use shared folders to do so.

For information on how to use shared folders, look here for Linux guest, and look here for Windows guest.


Can I ignore files by pattern in deja-dup (Backup)?

You can edit the exclude list like:

gsettings get org.gnome.DejaDup exclude-list
# remove comment to execute
# gsettings set org.gnome.DejaDup exclude-list ['path1', 'path2']

Source: https://answers.launchpad.net/deja-dup/+question/280954

I tried to add patterns like '**/.git' and '**/build' into that list, like this:

gsettings get org.gnome.DejaDup exclude-list > exclude-list
gedit exclude-list
gsettings set org.gnome.DejaDup exclude-list "`cat exclude-list`"

But to me it seems like the **'s were not passed to duplicity.
So instead I ended up doing seaches like

locate "/home/*/.svn"
locate "/home/*/build"

and added them to the exclude-list manually


Is there a way to disable livepatch witch I have already uninstalled ubuntu?

Nope. You should have done that before removing Ubuntu.

See How to disable livepatch tokens remotely and Can I take a computer off of Ubuntu Livepatch?

From that topic I would believe you can add more than 3 though (but it is likely only 3 can be active at the same time). Or that the number is not enforced ;)

You probably need to contact service support to be sure.


Installing ppa gnome 3.18 themes problem

You can use sudo to gain root permissions.

In General
Assuming you’ve downloaded the Paper theme* and extracted it to the folder ~/Downloads/themes/Paper

cd ~/Downloads/themes
sudo cp -rf Paper /usr/share/themes

Hardy Theme by MariuxV?
If the theme you’re using is this one then it’s a little more complicated since there are multiple different kinds of themes and profiles in that file. The one that is probably useful for you is in the GTK folder inside the archive file.

So if you extracted the archive to ~/Downloads/themes/Hardy-Mariux 2.0…

cd ~/Downloads/themes/Hardy-Mariux 2.0/GTK
sudo cp -rf "Hardy-Mariux 2.0" /usr/share/themes

To install any of the other customisations you’d need to look at the readme.txt file in the top folder of the extracted archive.

Another Option
I notice that the basic theme is also available as a .deb file.

Assuming you downloaded it to ~/Downloads/themes/hardy_theme_debian_package_by_mariuxv.deb…

cd ~/Downloads/themes
sudo apt install hardy_theme_debian_package_by_mariuxv.deb

You could also right-click on the file in a file manager and choose Open With Software Install to install it using Ubuntu Software Center.

* Just an example—Paper theme has a PPA.


Video flickering in full screen mode only in chrome and chromium. firefox works fine. intel hd4000, external monitor via hdmi

Heyy, usually this problem occurs if you have increased your display size to more than 100%. Go to display settings and revert back to 100% scaling. It should work


Where are the default crontab instructions kept?

The text actually appears to be built in to the crontab.c source code rather than read from a file at execution time:

        if (add_help_text) {
                fprintf(NewCrontab,
"# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.\n"
"# \n"
"# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line\n"
"# indicating with different fields when the task will be run\n"
"# and what command to run for the task\n"
"# \n"
"# To define the time you can provide concrete values for\n"
"# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),\n"
"# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any')."
"# \n"
"# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system\n"
"# daemon's notion of time and timezones.\n"
"# \n"
"# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through\n"
"# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).\n"
"# \n"
"# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts\n"
"# at 5 a.m every week with:\n"
"# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/\n"
"# \n"
"# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)\n"
"# \n"
"# m h  dom mon dow   command\n" );
        }

        /* ignore the top few comments since we probably put them there.
         */

The variable add_help_text is non-zero if crontab fails to find an existing spool file for the user:

log_it(RealUser, Pid, "BEGIN EDIT", User);
(void) snprintf(n, MAX_FNAME, CRON_TAB(User));
if (!(f = fopen(n, "r"))) {
        if (errno != ENOENT) {
                fprintf(stderr, "%s/: fdopen: %s", n, strerror(errno));
                exit(ERROR_EXIT);
        }
        fprintf(stderr, "no crontab for %s - using an empty one\n",
                User);
        if (!(f = fopen("/dev/null", "r"))) {
                perror("/dev/null");
                exit(ERROR_EXIT);
        }
        add_help_text = 1;
}


you can run Ubuntu in a virtual box but dual booting is much preferred as it gives a full desktop experience
anyway, if you decide to run it in virtual box then you need virtual box(obviously), a minimum of 20 gig of free space,latest Ubuntu iso(download it from the official site or a torrent 32bit preferable as you are installing it virtually but if you have a lot of ram go on and grab a 64bit  ) and a minimum of 2 gb ram on the host i.e your windows
now open the virtual box
 click new > give a name > select ubuntu from drop down menu > select ram of 700mb or more but not more than the half of actual size of your ram > next > select create new virtual hard drive or disk> vdi > dynamic > 20gig > create
now you'll see ubuntu or whatever name you gave on the panel,select it
select settings > storage select controller ide select empty and on the right side you'll find a small cd icon click the cd icon and select "choose a virtual cd disk"
and navigate to the place where you downloaded the iso
select the iso and click ok and ok again in settings window now you'll be at the beginning of the virtual box select start and follow the instructins on screen


Installing Go on Ubuntu - "The program 'go' is currently not installed"

gedit /etc/profile

Add the below line,

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/go/bin

Then source the /etc/profile,

source /etc/profile

Logout and login back.


Remove bitlocker encryption using ubuntu

I want to remove the decryption... I want to decrypt my drive so that i don't have to use dislocker tool every time I need to access my drive. Kind of like turning off bitlocker permanently.

That's similar to re-formatting any drive with a new filesystem, but to keep the files there are a few more steps:

Copy the files somewhere else (in this case using Dislocker). This is an excellent opportunity to make a backup copy too.
Format the partition with a filesystem of your choice (ex. using mkfs.ext3, etc). If you still wanted encryption, LUKS works well for linux partitions, or there are other options too for folder/files,  ArchWiki has a good overview.
Copy the files back onto the partition.

I don't think any in-place Bitlocker encryption removal tool exists that could do it all at once, and it would have a high risk of data loss should something go wrong anyway.


The swap partition serves a couple of purposes.

It serves as 'backup' RAM. That is, should your computer run out of RAM, it will use the swap area as a temporary source of more memory. More specifically, it will 'swap' unused items from the RAM into the swap area in order to leave spare space for the applications that need it at that instant. This is not ideal as the data transfer rate to the hard drive is significantly lower than that to your normal RAM. In practice this means its much slower to retrieve information from the swap area.
It is used when the computer hibernates. Hibernation involves taking an image of the RAM in its current state (like an ISO represents an image), and saves it to the swap area. It then reloads this image when the computer restarts.
To be most useful, the swap area should be at least (RAM * 1.5) although more is recommended. For example, on my system with 3gb of RAM, I have a swap area of 7.2gb.


I see default Ubuntu Desktop changed after two other DE installed

Using multiple DE at the same time can cause conflicts... you can read this to understand what I mean...

And the extra applications that you see after installation of the other DEs, they most possibly have come with the DE; a DE usually have some default bundle of programs/applications for various purposes. For example KDE has a bunch of applications installed by default- Ocular for reading Documents, Gwenview for viewing images and so on...


How do I delete local address book contacts?

If you have Evolution installed in gnome, you have actually two pieces of software: the Evolution client, and the Evolution Data Server (EDS which is package 'evolution-data-server-common' ). The latter allows the contacts to be shared between various other address books (like in Thunderbird and Gnome).

If you are not using evolution at all, you can uninstall it. EDS should be kept (it is not uninstalled in this process), so that other applications can also use it. You can also keep (or you can disable it if you want) the EDS contact integration add-on in TB. Since you are able to sync your mobile contacts with ubuntu, then you should notice under your TB address book a group 'contacts' which is updated automatically since you have EDS integration.

You can give more details in your question about the applications you have running regarding contacts.


Which application does the vi command open?

It is vim-tiny: "Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor - compact version".

I did this on 13.10:

user@ubuntu:~$ which vi
/usr/bin/vi
user@ubuntu:~$ which vim
user@ubuntu:~$ ls -l /usr/bin/vi
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 ago 13  2013 /usr/bin/vi -> /etc/alternatives/vi
user@ubuntu:~$ ls -l /etc/alternatives/vi
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 17 dic 20 04:39 /etc/alternatives/vi -> /usr/bin/vim.tiny
user@ubuntu:~$ apt-cache search vim.tiny
vim-common - Vi IMproved - Common files
vim-tiny - Vi IMproved - enhanced vi editor - compact version
user@ubuntu:~$ dpkg --get-selections | grep vim
vim-common                  install
vim-tiny                    install

As you can see, vim is not installed (empty output), vi is a symlink to /etc/alternatives/vi (see alternatives mechanism), which is a symlink to /usr/bin/vim.tiny, which belongs to package vim-tiny.


The installation process of Ubuntu does not see Windows XP system

Have you already installed Ubuntu? Normally Ubuntu would find your XP and add it to the boot menu automatically if you choose to install Ubuntu to different partition(alongside). Just letting you know, Ubuntu does not show that you have Windows XP distinctively, it can although show you all partitions of your hard drive at one of the very beginning screens of the installation process. On one of your partition XP might exist , so just select or add(create) the new partition to install Ubuntu to. Ubuntu is like others Linux distributions - it is very good at being installed alongside with any Windows.


How do I enable Middle mouse button emulation in 12.04 LTS?

GUI solution
Install the package gpointing-device-settings
Description-en: configuration tool for pointing devices
 GUI tool for setting pointing devices. Currently it can configure mouse type
 device (mouse, trackpoint etc.) and touchpads.
 .
 For mouse you can configure middle button emulation, wheel emulation and
 scrolling.
 .
 It can enable and disable touchpad, or scrolling on it as well as additional
 parameters like palm detection, locked drags, tapping and scrolling.
 .
 It is a successor of GSynaptics.

Console/terminal solution #1
Alternatively, try this:
gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.peripherals.mouse middle-button-enabled true

The alternative solution might require the installation of gnome-settings-daemon package.
Console/terminal solution(s) #2
Using synclient command you can view your synaptics touchpad options.

Run synclient and see what variables you have available.

You can set/change the synclient options using this command: syclient var=1 (where var is the variable you wish to change and 1 the value)
Read the manual page about each variable: http://manpages.ubuntu.com/synaptics

What worked for me
Instead of figuring out how to press both buttons of the touchpad, keep/press two fingers on the touchpad and click on the left click button of the touchpad with a third finger. This emulates a middle button by default.
What worked for the original poster
a) Setting the TapButton variable works for the two fingered tap
b) If you still want to click both buttons and produce a middle button emulation, execute:
synclient EmulateMidButtonTime=100

EmulateMidButtonTime allows you to change the time required to produce a middle button (allowed time period to click both buttons). 100 means 100 milliseconds (ms).
You may set it to even higher values, such as synclient EmulateMidButtonTime=500 (500ms).


Create a snapshot/Backup of my Amazon Ubuntu Instance

I'll go ahead and assume you mean ec2 only by the tags on your question.

If you are using an EBS root image, this is as easy as ec2-create-snapshot. You'll get a block device which you can attach to another machine and copy anywhere. Its important to note that these are in the same availability zone as the instance, so don't rely on the snapshot alone for surviving an availability zone going down.

If you are on an ephemeral drive (sometimes called the "instance storage"), you will need to do it the old fashioned way, by copying all the data off your instance. One lightning fast way to do this is to use something like s3cmd to sync all your data into an S3 bucket. You can get the s3cmd tool in the s3cmd package.


"FAT-fs: IO charset iso8859-1 not found" error while mounting FAT Drives

Apparently, your kernel somehow has problems (maybe a bug). Since there is an updated version available, install it (version 3.11.0-13-generic)

sudo apt-get install linux-generic

now reboot in your new kernel.


Re-initialise GRUB for non-bootable UEFI zfs 16.04 installation

Largely cribbed from the ZFS installation instructions at https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/Ubuntu-16.04-Root-on-ZFS, here are the steps I used to get my system working again.
boot-repair did not work.
Step 1: Prepare The Install Environment
1.1 Boot the Ubuntu Live CD, select Try Ubuntu Without Installing, and open a terminal (press Ctrl-Alt-T).
1.2 Optional: Install the OpenSSH server in the Live CD environment:
If you have a second system, using SSH to access the target system can be convenient.
$ sudo apt-get --yes install openssh-server

Set a password on the “ubuntu” (Live CD user) account:
$ passwd

Hint: You can find your IP address with ip addr show scope global. Then, from your main machine, connect with ssh ubuntu@IP.
1.3 Become root:
# sudo -i

1.4 Install ZFS in the Live CD environment:
# apt-add-repository universe
# apt update

(ignore errors about moving an old database out of the way)
# apt install --yes debootstrap gdisk zfs-initramfs

Step 2: Discover available ZFS pools
2.1 Check if ZFS pools are already imported
# zpool list
# zfs list

2.2 If it says "no datasets available" then skip to Step 3. If either of those commands brings up a list of pools, we need to export the zfs pool so we can mount it in a different directory so we can chroot to it
# zpool export rpool

Step 3: Chroot into ZFS pool
3.1 Import pool to non-default location. The -N flag (don’t automatically mount) is necessary because otherwise the rpool root, and the rpool/root/UBUNTU pool, will both try to mount on /mnt
# zpool import -N -R /mnt rpool

3.2 Mount the root system
# zfs mount rpool/ROOT/ubuntu

3.3 Mount the remaining file systems
# zfs mount -a

3.4 Bind the virtual filesystems from the LiveCD environment to the new system and chroot into it:
# mount --rbind /dev  /mnt/dev
# mount --rbind /proc /mnt/proc
# mount --rbind /sys  /mnt/sys
# chroot /mnt /bin/bash --login

Note: This is using --rbind, not —bind.
Step 4: Re-initialise EFI partitions on all root pool components
4.1 Check the wildcard gets the correct root pool partitions:
# for i in /dev/disk/by-id/*ata*part3; do echo $i; done

4.2 Add an entry for /boot/efi for each disk to /etc/fstab for failover purposes in future:
# for i in /dev/disk/by-id/*ata*part3; \
      do mkdosfs -F 32 -n EFI ${i}; \
      echo PARTUUID=$(blkid -s PARTUUID -o value \
      ${i}) /boot/efi vfat defaults 0 1 >> /etc/fstab; done

4.3 Mount the first disk
# mount /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk1-part3 /boot/efi

4.4 Install grub
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi \
      --bootloader-id=ubuntu --recheck —no-floppy

4.5 Unmount the first partition
# umount /boot/efi

4.6 Mount the second disk
# mount /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk2-part3 /boot/efi

4.7 Install grub
# grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/boot/efi \
      --bootloader-id=ubuntu-2 --recheck —no-floppy

4.8 Repeat steps 4.5 to 4.7 for each additional disk
4.9 For added insurance, do an MBR installation to each disk too
# grub-install /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk1
# grub-install /dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_disk2

Step 5: Reboot
5.1 Quit from the chroot
# exit

5.2 Reboot
# reboot


Ubuntu 18.04 Top Panel only on one monitor

Check out the Gnome Shell Extension Multi Monitors Add-On.

Just to mention it: A previous version of this post referenced to the Multiple Monitor Panels Extension, which isn't working properly in 18.04.


This is normal

Ubuntu, and Linux in general work differently from Windows. In Windows, partitions show up as C:\, D:\ etc. In Ubuntu partitions are mounted into empty directories or folders.

Automatically mounted partitions

Some partitions are mounted automatically when the system starts. This is governed by the file /etc/fstab. In your case, two partitions are mounted automatically, the / partition, also known as the system partition or the root of the file system. The other is is the /home partition. Once the /home partition is mounted, the home folder under the / partition becomes the /home partition. This partition has your Home sub-folder such as /home/username`. Anything you put in your Home folder goes directly into the partition.

In your case, the /home partition is mounted at the /home folder. When you installed Ubuntu, and assigned /home as the mount-point for the ne partition, the installation process set it up so that the partition is automatically mounted at that mount-point every time the system starts. That's why you don't see it as a mountable partition inside Nautilus, also known as Files app.

The partitions that are automatically mounted at system startup are governed by the file /etc/fstab. You can see the contents of /etc/fstab by opening a terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and entering the command:

cat /etc/fstab

If you see a line with /home in it, then your /home partition is mounted at that folder when the system starts. It has to be done this way. Otherwise you will not be able to use the partition as your /home folder.

Other partitions not mounted by default

You have two other Windows partitions. These partitions are not mounted automatically when the system starts. Your /etc/fstab file does not have any reference to these partitions. Therefore, they show up as drive icons on the left panel of the Files app. When you click on one of them they will be mounted on a temporary folder. Inside that folder, you will find all the sub-folders of that partition. To unmount such a partition, click on the Eject icon next to it on the left panel.

If you want to mount your Windows partition at system startup, you will have to create a mount-point folder (or select an existing empty folder) and edit the /etc/fstab file. For example, if I want a separate partitions for my music. I can create and format a partition. Let's call this partition /dev/sda6. In Windows, the partition is given a new letter name, such as E:\. This does not happen in Ubuntu. In Ubuntu you have to mount a partition to a folder so that you can use it. In my case, I want to mount this partition in the folder /home/myusername/Music. This Music folder already exists. If if didn't I would have to create this folder. Then I can mount (think it as assigning) this folder to this partition. This folder is then called the mount-point for this partition.

You don't have to do anything. Everything is working normally.

Hope this helps


How do I enable wireless on HP Pavilion dm1?

in terminal type:

sudo rfkill unblock all

dv2000 wireless button has some detailed erratic issue , i use this command always works
cheers


How to delete one out of two admin accounts?

The userdel command has a -f option to force delete the user, so typing

userdel -f *Name*

should delete it.

If that does not work, edit /etc/passwd with your favorite text editor. You should find something like

root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash
m:x:0:100::/home/m:/bin/bash

(there are many more entries) now search for the user you want to delete. Once found, change the first 0 to another number. This is the UID of the User, and the UID 0 represents root. Once changed you can just use

deluser *Name*

to delete it.


How can I launch portable firefox app as a separate application?

I am not interested in using different profiles for the one browser, as I like to have all three open at the same time.

There is no reason not to use profiles for the above reason. If you invoke the profiles with -no-remote. E.g. I have a profile called Bruni. If I invoke it with

firefox -P Bruni -no-remote

I can also invoke another profile. You can use .desktop files to make your life easier.

  Never use -no-remote to start the "default" profile (the one that is
  set to open without asking when you launch Firefox). That's because
  when you launch Firefox, for example, by clicking a link in your mail
  program, you will get a "Firefox is already running but is not
  responding" message if the default profile is already in use. The
  solution is to always start the default profile normally and launch
  all others with -no-remote. Then it will work.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_your_Mozilla_application_with_another_profile


Difficulties installing D-Link DWA-182 Drivers for Ubuntu

There is a Linux Driver only for hardware revision C and it includes an install script install.sh. You can download the archive and try to install it.

Install the prerequisites:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic

Unarchive it, then cd to the directory you extracted in and:

chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh


Should a Sheep Dip Machine use encrypted hard drive?

Drive encryption is designed to protect your data if someone gains physical access to your computer or hard drive. It's not designed to and will not protect from malware running on the computer, since decryption keys are in memory and all encrypted data is accessible while the computer is running.


I encountered a similar problem today and none of the usual fixes were working for me either.

I eventually was able to resolve it by right clicking on the desktop then clicking on "Open Terminal" then used the following command:

mv ~/.cache/compizconfig-1 ~/.cache/compizconfig-OLD

After doing that just simply typing the following brought the full unity desktop back:

setsid unity

Hopefully this might help you or other users suffering similar symptoms, seems there was some issue with the compizconfig cache perhaps a file became corrupted somehow not certain.


Set a password, yet it logs in without one

Easy:

Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of your screen:

Click System Settings, then Brightness & Lock:

Click the Lock switch until it goes into the On position and ensure the Require my password when waking from suspend is ticked.

Done! ;-)

If that doesn't work:
Create a new user on your system and see whether that user does work.  If that's the case (in the below example we'll use steam-gamer and steam-gamer2), just do the following:

Open the file manager

Browse to the /home/steam-gamer directory

Copy (don't move!) all the files from Downloads to /home/steam-gamer2/Downloads

Check you did a good job.

Now delete /home/steam-gamer/Downloads

Go back to step 3 and repeat for Documents, Videos, ...

After a couple of days to allow you to ensure you didn't forget to copy anything, just delete steam-gamer together with it's home directory by issuing the following command:
sudo deluser steam-gamer --remove-home


Ubuntu 14.04 LTS freeze when opening pdf in Mozilla

Don't open PDF in Mozilla. In Mozilla, go to preferences - Applications - PDF and switch action from "Preview in Mozilla" to some application - Evince or Adobe Reader or whatever it is now.


How do I list all the files affected by apt-get install command?

If it is after the installation, you can use debsums with each package that have been install to have the files contained in the packages.

If you want to know it before installing them, I don't know how to do it "easily".
It should be possible to determine what are the packages which will be installed, then do an apt-get download <packages>, and run debsums on each of those packages.

Another solution could be to version control the directories you want to monitor and after each installation, commit the changes to see clearly what changes have been made.

See etckeeper for an integrated solution of a version control of the /etc directory


Error when trying to install AMD drivers

Sometimes last version of the amd driver has problems to detect the GPU, try installing an older version from here


How to set a shortcut that alternate it's function conditionally?

Well, reading the topics that DK Bose and vanadium suggested and having done some more research to learning about bash script and Linux PulseAudio sound server, I came up with one solution:

We need to save the following script in a file (preferably in /usr/local/bin/, as explained here), mark it as executable (by run chmod +x over it) and then assigned it to a keyboard shortcut (optionally as explained here).

#!/bin/bash
sound_output=$(pacmd list-cards | grep "active")

if [[ $sound_output = *"analog-stereo"* ]]; then
  sound_output=hdmi-stereo
else
  sound_output=analog-stereo
fi

pactl set-card-profile 0 output:"$sound_output"
echo -e "PulseAudio sound server output set to $sound_output"

  Explaning:

  #!/bin/bash ensures that the interpreter for this script is bash, enabling extended syntax such as [[ ]].
  As cited here, the syntax $( ) is "command substitution". This runs a command and use it's output to compose the line action. This way we save the
  return of pacmd list-cards | grep "active" in sound_output
  variable.
  As explained here, the use of * in the condition turn it into a substring check.
  As answered here, pactl set-card-profile 0 output: [card-profile] is the command to switch the sound server output, as
  wished.


Type the following commands in a Terminal -

sudo apt-get clean

sudo rm /var/lib/apt/lists/*

sudo apt-get update

This will remove your lists and fetch a new copy of it.

Otherwise, as suggested by @edwardtorvalds, try to import all the missing gpg keys.


You could use rename

rename -n 's/\(U\)//' *.bin

This will delete the "(U)" part of the file name from all .bin files.

If you are happy with changes that rename will make then take out the "-n" option which is No Action, that only shows what files would have been renamed.


/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ priority - overrule configuration file?

Source: http://debian-handbook.info/browse/wheezy/sect.apt-get.html

Directories ending in .d
Directories with a .d suffix are used more and more often. Each directory represents a configuration file which is split over multiple files. In this sense, all of the files in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ are instructions for the configuration of APT. APT includes them in alphabetical order, so that the last ones can modify a configuration element defined in one of the first ones.

For example 60unattended-upgrades should overrule 50unattended-upgrades.


Unstable wireless on MacBook 2,1 with Ubuntu 11.10

I tried the following commands and was sceptical whether it would work. But it has been flawless and has solved my issues with my wireless on Macbook 2.1.

root@ubuntu:~# ifconfig wlan0 down
root@ubuntu:~# rmmod -f ath9k
root@ubuntu:~# sudo modprobe ath9k nohwcrypt=1

WARNING: All config files need .conf: /etc/modprobe.d/bad_list. It will be ignored in a future release.

root@ubuntu:~# ifconfig wlan0 up


Updated Kodi version to Krypton v17 on Ubuntu 14.04 lts.Now my screen goes haywire when I move cursor, inside Kodi program while full screen

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/kodi-old
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install kodi

nb. Please make sure to remove the other PPA's for Kodi, as they will conflict with this one.
How to return to Kodi 16 after Kodi 17 update


Connect the WD drive back into a Windows environment, and note which drive letter it's assigned. Then in an administrative command prompt window, type:

chkdsk /f x:

replacing the "x" with the assigned drive letter for the WD.

When you're done, make sure that you properly eject the drive from Windows, using the green USB icon in the system tray, before pulling the plugs.


Fail to log in after installing from windows 8

The probability is big that you have a typo in your password during installation. Solution: re-installation! ;)
Make sure you type the right keys depending on the localization of your keyboard (German keyboard, English keyboard, Russian keyboard...)


How to disable "This document has embedded..." pop-ups in Okular?

There does not seem to be a specific setting for this particular 'info' message but if you turn off all such messages you will achieve the desired effect.

Uncheck the following setting:

Settings -> Configure Okular -> General -> Show hints and messages

And all should be well! Below is a screenshot demonstrating the required setting on my own system:


The sftp protocol does have a keep alive features but they are not exposed in the filezilla client.

Still I don't believe such a setting should be necessary.
I'm failing to reproduce your problem. I have had a Filezilla connection open to my Ubuntu ssh server for over 20 hours without any disconnects.

So I believe that problem is network related. Do you connect to this machine through a firewall/ wobbly wifi? or has the machine got some kind of packet filtering software installed  and configured like iptables or fail2ban

It's seems more probable that this is the reason for your disconnects.


Turn a manually program start to automatically program start on boot

I see several issues here:

Code syntax errors your code should look like this:

[Unit]
Description=starts up the osrm service
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=daemon
WorkingDirectory=/home/christian/osrm/
User=christian
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/osrm-routed data/map.osrm

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

/usr/local/bin/osrm-routed appears to be a directory not an executable file.

Run file /usr/local/bin/osrm-routed to determine for sure but I think you can know that by merely changing into it.

Note: Don't know what type of program your trying to run so Type option could be Type=[simple|daemon|oneshot|forking|notify|idle]

More information:

https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/System_Administrators_Guide/sect-Managing_Services_with_systemd-Unit_Files.html

https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding-systemd-units-and-unit-files


It looks like blender in Ubuntu is missing ffmpeg. I have the same problem and the recommended solution is to download the binary version in the official site.

I did it and it worked for me. I'd also like to know how to make Ubuntu's blender package to work mp4 files.

Here is where I got the answer.


Bash Script that check if a database exist

I think return only accepts a numerical result. When I change it to echo I get the same output as you.

Using '\${1}' will pass the string ${1} to postgres, use '${1}' or '$1' (and hope that a user does not type some extra SQL to inject...)

Perhaps a different way without the need for sudo is to list the databases and grep the result:

function is_database() {
  psql -lqt | cut -d \| -f 1 | grep -wq $1
}

echo database:
read
if is_database $REPLY
then
  echo $REPLY exists
else
  echo $REPLY does not exist
fi


Add Malcolm Scott's repository using:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:malcscott/gimp-2.6

gimp depends on libpng12-0 which is not available in official repository of Bionic. You can download it from Xenial packages download page or direct download. Install it using;

sudo dpkg -i libpng12-0_1.2.54-1ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb

Now install gimp using

sudo apt install gimp


USB Flash Drive not Detected on 12.10 x64

I had the same issue. (USB was getting detected on windows)
Although USB drive was not displayed in the file explorer, it was still being detected on lsusb. steps below might work if you're positive on the lsusb part.

Take a back up of all the files on windows
Plug the USB back on ubuntu
Format using Disk Utility (Disk on 13.04)
Make sure you create a new partition

Hopefully, your USB drive will now be working fine.


How do I write an Indicator for budgie-desktop

budgie-desktop allows for widgets to be created for the panel to be written in Vala, C and Python.

It is a libpeas based API and the API is very straightfoward.  On GitHub there is an examples based project for Vala, C and Python.

Wrap a bit of code around Budgie.Plugin which extends do_get_panel_widget.  This function returns an instance of your widget
The widget extends Budgie.Applet
The widget/applet can be any GTK based container - typically a button

Have a look at the python example as this is the simplest to read.

All Peas type plugins consist of a .plugin file and the source.

For budgie-desktop, plugin can be installed in a global location or a local location.

For a local (per user basis), both the .plugin and all source files should be places in ~/.local/share/budgie-desktop/plugins/plugin-name

For global installation, the .plugin and source module should be installed in /usr/lib/budgie-desktop/plugins/plugin-name.  For data based files /usr/share/budgie-desktop/plugins/plugin-name is the correct location.

budgie-desktop v10.x supports panel widgets. Raven cannot be modified by additional widgets.

It is proposed that in a future version of budgie-desktop that additional widget types can be created.  What form these will take place will be only known as budgie-desktop evolves.


Deja-dup losing its mind every few days on 19.10

I was backing up to a flash drive and Deja Dup was having a lot of problems recently.

Not really sure what's going on if its some dependency and Deja Dup getting the short end from that or Deja Dup itself.

It did get worse for me after Deja Dup was updated so it feels like its Deja Dup at fault but I didn't really try to narrow it down. its difficult to say if I will though should the problem not go away with my new full backup and format of the drive then I probably will.


change GNOME 3.36 gdm3 lock screen (screen shield) font colour - what css selector to target in gdm3.css?

As an example, concentrate on the text "green" in the below content..
/* Screen Shield */
.unlock-dialog-clock {
  color: green;
  font-weight: 300;
  text-align: center;
  spacing: 24px;
  padding-bottom: 2.5em; }

In your case, the .gresource file you have edited is not used by the lock screen..
For the lock screen, which .gresource or css file is used, varies from your OS rather than simply gnome 3.36
See this answer for further information.


why `dpkg -l | grep package` is showing a package after being purged

Note the first two letters of the output of dpkg -l tor which says un

u: Unknown (an unknown state)
n: Not- The package is not currently installed

sometimes dpkg keeps such entries for references. To remove those problematic entries, run in terminal,

sudo dpkg --clear-avail

From man dpkg

--clear-avail
          Erase  the  existing  information  about   what   packages   are
          available.


How can I tell Ubuntu to do nothing when I close my laptop lid?

For 13.10 - 20.04.1:
To make Ubuntu do nothing when laptop lid is closed:

Open the /etc/systemd/logind.conf file in a text editor as root, for example,
 sudo -H gedit /etc/systemd/logind.conf

If HandleLidSwitch is not set to ignore then change it:
 HandleLidSwitch=ignore

Make sure it's not commented out (it is commented out if it is preceded by the symbol #) or add it if it is missing,

Restart the systemd daemon (be aware that this will log you off) with this command:

sudo systemctl restart systemd-logind

or, from 15.04 onwards:
sudo service systemd-logind restart

See also: Ubuntu Server 13.10 now goes to sleep when closing laptop lid
For GNOME Users:
If you are using GNOME (the default in 18.04+), then you can do this easily without changing system settings by using the "Gnome Tweak Tool". It can be installed from the Ubuntu Software Store (It is called GNOME Tweaks).  Or if you prefer the console: sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool
Run it after installing, then under Power, Turn off the setting to do nothing when lid is closed. I tested this on Ubuntu 18.04 and it works.


When Theme install I get an error:This script can not be ran with Administrative Privileges

First I would be extremely careful here. You should not need to run a script, let alone with root privileges, to install a theme.

I understand, scripts such as this can seem "easy" if you are new to Themes, but, this is how social engineering works as well.

Here is a great tutorial on installing themes:

Install themes and icons in Ubuntu 11.10

With that caution in mind, the error message seems to imply the script will elevate on it's own.

chmod a+x GUIInstall.sh
./GUIInstall.sh

If you have a problem with that, I would ask you pastebin the entire script and paste a link back here so we can both look at what it is doing and if it need to be modified in some way.

good luck.

EDIT: Added a snipit

if [[ $UID -eq 0 ]]; then
  echo "This script can not be ran with Administrative Privileges. The script elevates on its own. Please run the script with Standard User Privileges."
  exit 1
fi


What is the best way to use the mysql charm in Juju with dynamic database credientials?

You can create a new mysql charm with a new interface that can allocate dbs dynamically when requested and use that from your django charm, or deploy the projects as individual services.

Effectively the new interface for mysql would have the hooks allocate new dbs as requested by the connecting service, instead of creating them when the new service is related/connected to mysql.

Another alternative, fix your django projects to use table prefixes, which I thought they already did (or maybe that's app table prefixing with project).

Edit

The best solution might be to just use an admin interface relation, which gives you the root user on mysql and then you can create additional dbs as needed (pointed out to me on irc by clint) for all the django projects installed.


Where do I find username & password for newly installed 14.04 LTS

You can open up a terminal and use the command whoami to know your current username.

Once you know your user name you can follow this answer. This should reset your password and if you have any other problem please update your question according to it.


Why does "if [ 0 ]" execute the "then" statement in bash script?

[ isn't part of the if statement, it is a command that evaluates expressions. The [ 0 ] returns true because the form [ Expression ] always evaluates to 0. If you try if [ 1 -eq 2 ] the then statement will not run.

Check the manual page for more info.


While Ubuntu comes with open source drivers (otherwise you wouldn't be able to use your hardware at all!), you might want official proprietary drivers for gaming.

Assuming you're using a Nvidia card (since you mentioned Geforce), see the instructions here!

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/Nvidia#Installation

For AMD,

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/AMD


I try to install teamviewer12 in ubuntu 16.4

When you install a Debian package without using APT, the package may be corrupted due to dependency issues. open terminal (CTRL + ALT + T) and enter command below to fix this issue:

sudo apt-get install -f

And the run TeamViewer again.


I assume here that you're using a fairly recent AMD64 PC and Ubuntu release.

Make sure you have the appropriate development packages installed; for libXinerama that would be libxinerama-dev.

On Ubuntu 20.04 for amd64 the libs are installed in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu according to the filelist. You can check that with
$ ldconfig -p | grep Xine

Thus the adaption you need to apply is extending the LDFLAGS after you've installed the development package(s):
LDFLAGS = -L/usr/X11R6/lib -L/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu -lX11 -lXinerama -lfontconfig -lXft

If that still doesn't work, edit your question and add the appropriate details, and also which package and manual you're using as a basis for your efforts.


How do apt and wget find URI locations in the web and fetch files? How are these methods different?

I don't know the exact relation and interoperation of my PC, the proxy, the firewall, and the DNS server.
But I found that the cause apt was succeding in my case, and wget was not, is that I was missing a proper configuration of the proxy for wget.
When I added file ~/.wgetrc with
http_proxy = http://username:password@proxy:port
ftp_proxy = http://username:password@proxy:port
proxy_user = username
proxy_password = password
use_proxy = on

It started working. (Note it is somewhat insecure, as the password is stored in plain text... I wonder if there is any way to have wget ask for the password; or perhaps setting a global .wgetrc in a directory with the same level of security as apt.conf).
On the other hand, apt relies on /etc/apt/apt.conf, which was in place.
As for the questions:
Where are apt and wget looking for the information?

Part of the sequence involves setting the proxy.
apt and wget have different mechanisms for that, as mentioned above (I know one can set environment variables as well, and that would work at least for wget).
Can I force wget to use the same domain lookup as apt?

I conceive a caveman-way... parsing apt.conf and using that info for wget.
Perhaps there is something cleaner.
In the case it is a firewall who is letting apt succeed in knowing ip addresses and pulling files from the web, and precluding wget from doing that, can I somehow "channel" wget requests via apt?

In the light of findings above, this question is replaced by the previous one.


Difference between unity and ubuntu-unity-desktop?

The unity is a single package.

The ubuntu-unity-desktop is a meta-package. The unity is one of the its dependencies.

The difference would be features. You will get more features and applications with second package. It will install for example Nautilus and LightDM greeter. See complete list in the links above.

So I would recommend to install the meta package with

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-unity-desktop


17 January 2020

This answer is related due to the expiration of support for Trusty Tahr last May.

It is slightly different in that I decided I needed to reinstall gparted because I was getting segmentation faults when I tried to 'check & repair' a FAT32 partition created by gparted, so I issued the commands:

sudo apt-get remove gparted
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install gparted

The problem, as I understand it, is that apt-get update revised the local copies of the repository indices, indicating that apt should get gparted version 0.24.0-1 which is an upgraded version in the repositories and is the extended support version.  The problem is, you have to pay for extended support, and normal people simply upgrade to a newer long term release instead.  Therefore, you get the now familiar errors when apt tries to fetch the binary:

Err http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu/ trusty-getdeb/apps gparted i386 0.24.0-1~getdeb1 Temporary failure resolving 'archive.getdeb.net'
W: No priority (or zero) specified for pin
E: Failed to fetch http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu/pool/apps/g/gparted/gparted_0.24.0-1~getdeb1_i386.deb Temporary failure resolving 'archive.getdeb.net'

E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

A partial solution is to go to the gparted launchpad ppa:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gparted

Scoll down and click on the triangle next to Trusty Tahr 0.18.0-1 which is actually a little newer than the last LTS supported version of gparted.  Then scroll down under the heading package files and select a .deb file for your machine and click on it to download.

Now issue the command:

dpkg -i <your downloaded file>

This worked for me with the i386 architecture, the GUI starts and looks normal and gives information on installed volumes and partitions.  There are some font and format changes in the modal dialogs to emphasize warnings.  There are three caveats:

There are error messages in the console on start up about source id xx not found when attempting to remove it where 'xx' is a small integer.  These are GLib errors of the sort I have often seen over the years.  They are only visible when you start programs by command line.  They never have seemed to have any effect on function.
When I format and check a FAT16 partition on the thumb drive, the check tells me it has not been formatted correctly, with sizes differing from 'correct' as follows:

cluster size            16k ;   16k expected
number of clusters    64238 ; 64239 expected
FAT size        256 sectors ;   251 expected
If I select ignore, it offers to convert to FAT32, if I say no, gparted crashes with malloc(): memory corruption: ...
If I select ignore and convert, gparted crashes with Segmentation fault

When I format and check a FAT32 partition on the thumb drive,gparted reports the file system has 188686 clusters ; 188588 expected.   Selecting ignore causes a crash with malloc(): memory corruption: ....

In summary, the problems seem to be within gparted, libparted specifically during the expand to fill partition phase, and the slightly newer version merely giving more informative error messages instead of a rude segmentation fault (except in the one case).

If I format the thumb drive with gnome-disks instead, no option for FAT16 is given and formatting results in FAT32.  If you choose custom format and enter fat16, an error informing you that FAT16 is not supported results.  If I then check the gnome-disks FAT32 with gparted it crashes with malloc(): smallbin double linked list corrupted: ....

If I use gnome-disks and select the non-quick option (fill with zeros), and then check with gparted, it crashes with free(): invalid next size (normal): ....

These formatted partitions seem to work OK for storing data, even though gparted can't check them.  An installation of Clonezilla will not boot, which is a very handy tool for backing up prior to deleting the whole installation and installing the newest LTS release.

Now there are three possibilities:

The obvious one is that gparted can't check a FAT partition correctly.
It is also possible that gparted can't format a FAT partition, but it is unlikely that both gparted and gnome-disks are crippled, unless they use the same commandline tools.
It is possible there is some subtle defect in the thumb drive that makes it minimally functional.  Perhaps it requires a FAT16 partition, which gnome-disks can't create, and gparted can't create correctly.

Lastly I performed the Clonezilla installation on another thumb drive of unknown provenance, using the FAT16 partition that was already on it, presumably installed by the manufacturer.  That worked.  This does not clearly make the first thumb drive guilty.  I need to find a Windows machine and reformat the first thumb drive.  If the issues persist, it is the drive.  If that fixes things, it is a condemnation of gparted's ability to format a FAT partition, which is a little ridiculous for any software less than 10 years old, given the pervasive presence of these formats on bootable media.  Even FAT12 compatibility is required by the UEFI specification.

To answer criticisms of the original query more directly, there is nothing wrong with downloading and installing a program manually.  You do, however, enter into "dependency hell".  In Windows, programs are monolithic and self-contained, and therefore bloated and large.  The virtue is, they just work (well, mostly; an OS upgrade can break things).  With a package manager, programs are small and have dependencies shared with other programs.  If you see to it that all of the correct dependencies are installed, then things work.

The difficulty is, upgrades to a dependency can break a program dependent on it, so the program dependent on it needs to be upgraded.  Normally the package manager and the packagers resolve this hell for you.  If you try to go backward, you may also need to roll back libraries, which likely will break other programs.  If support ends, ideally the repositories are frozen, so whatever bugs remain, remain, but things are still usable.  If Canonical corrupts the repositories with inaccessible updates for paid extended support, then you are shit out of luck.

As for upgrading to a newer version of gparted, you can get one from the launchpad ppa, but now you enter "dependency hell" in the other direction, where the new version depends on newer libraries, and those newer libraries, if installed, likely will break other programs.  Worse still, if you do this, you will be unable to reinstall from the repositories since Canonical has corrupted them with extended support that is inaccessible.

As a final remark, it is a bit odious that Canonical uses the apt interface for its paid extended support.  This apparently precludes continued use of the previously supported but now obsolete repositories for software installation, as they are corrupted by updates that can not be accessed without fee.  This makes life quite a bit more difficult for those of us that are a little slow to go through the onerous process of backup, wiping the disk, and freshly installing a newer release.  I have found in the past that upgrading across releases never works well, it is better to start over with a clean disk.

This state of affairs certainly violates the spirit of the GPL.  It also violates the letter of the GPL in one way.  Canonical is, of course, at liberty to corrupt its repositories instead of freezing them, odious as that is, after all, they own the repositories.  The practice certainly casts a pall on Canonical's open source reputation.  But to cause a Debian package manager, namely apt to fail with mysterious error messages, in my opinion, violates the GPL.  Canonical should create a fork of apt, call it ept or better yet inept, that exclusively processes extended maintenance updates, while freezing the base repositories until phase out, for the benefit of the large individual user base that has given Canonical its fame.

I think my next system is going to be a pure Debian installation.  I've really had enough of Canonical.


Generally, I'd consider it a bad idea to remove a repo after installing a package from it -- doing so will prevent getting updates when they're available.


The default libinput touchpad driver installed in recent versions of Ubuntu does not have an option to adjust the two-finger scrolling speed. You can see that from the output of xinput --list-props <id> where <id> is the device ID of your touchpad as obtained from xinput list.
However, with the HP Probook 450 G1 you are lucky as a Google search seems to indicate that it has a Synaptics touchpad. For this, an alternative driver is available with more options.

Install the Synaptics driver as follows and it should already work (source):
sudo apt install xserver-xorg-input-synaptics

If it does not work yet, also follow these instructions to override the libinput touchpad driver explicitly.

Configure the option Synaptics Scrolling Distance with a command like the one below. <id> is the device ID of your touchpad as obtained from xinput list, and you have to play with the values for the vertical and horizontal scrolling distance at the end of the line to find the right ones for you. If you use negative values it will give you inverted / natural scrolling.
xinput --set-prop <id> 'Synaptics Scrolling Distance' 8 8

Once you found the right values, make them permanent using a solution from here.


Why does Ubuntu 12.04 have more stringent complexity requirements, and how to to remove them?

To decrease the minimum password length:

Open the /etc/login.defs file in your preferred text editor as a root user.

Change the PASS_MIN_LEN variable to the minimum number of characters for the password.

Save and close the /etc/login.defs file.


How do we disable ctrl-alt-del on Ubuntu 16.04?

In the systemd world, CtrlAltDel is handled by ctrl-alt-del.target:

ctrl-alt-del.target
   systemd starts this target whenever Control+Alt+Del is pressed on
   the console. Usually, this should be aliased (symlinked) to
   reboot.target.

To disable this target, do:

systemctl mask ctrl-alt-del.target
systemctl daemon-reload

This does not completely disable CtrlAltDel. Systemd has a feature where pressing that key combination more than 7 times in 2 seconds triggers an immediate reboot. I'm not sure how to disable it, but I find it useful.

I don't think it can be disabled. From the systemd manpage:

  SIGINT

  Upon receiving this signal the systemd system manager will start the
  ctrl-alt-del.target unit. This is mostly equivalent to systemctl start ctl-alt-del.target. If this signal is received more than 7
  times per 2s, an immediate reboot is triggered. Note that pressing
  Ctrl-Alt-Del on the console will trigger this signal. Hence, if a
  reboot is hanging, pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del more than 7 times in 2s is a
  relatively safe way to trigger an immediate reboot.

  systemd user managers treat this signal the same way as SIGTERM.


GNOME-shell using 15-30% CPU only on my user account

I have emptied the list of apps to be launch when beginning a session. After doing that I restarted and all is ok now.


Why Does My Emoji Picker ibus Key Combo Fail to Respond in Ubuntu 18.04 Bionic

This is a known issue with IBus. See here. The following workaround seems to work. In the ~/.xprofile file (create it if it doesn't already exist), add the following:

export GTK_IM_MODULE=xim
export XMODIFIERS=@im=ibus
export QT_IM_MODULE=xim
ibus-daemon -xrd

Then logout of the current session (or reboot) and log back in. The emoji key combo should be working. If it still doesn't work, change the combination using ibus-setup. It will open IBus preferences window. Go to emoji tab, click on the 3 dots … button next to 'Emoji annotation', and choose the desired combo. I prefer <Control><Super>e.


For a smooth transition to another host for Virtual Box virtual machines the following should be considered:

In case we had Guest Additions installed prefer to run the VM in the same or higher Virtual Box version release.

If we had installed the Extension Pack we should install this on the new host too.

Latest (and older) Virtual Box application releases can very easily be installed from the Oracle repository (also see this question for details).

To register the VM in the new host Virtual Box we need to first export the VM appliance as OVF to our harddrive or (recommended) to an external storage. Merge snapshots before exporting as they will not be preserved.

Then we can proceed with importing them to the new host.

Adjust paths to shared folders if defined.


Show content of huge txt/json file without extracting huge zip file

Ok the steps would be:

To get the name of the file in archive you wish to view it's content, list out the content (of the zip file ) with this command:

unzip -l file.zip

Now to view the first 100 lines:

unzip -c file.zip file/name_of_file_of_interest.json | head -100

Note:

This format

unzip -c file.zip file/name_of_file_of_interest.json

is needed, not

unzip -c file.zip name_of_file_of_interest.json

to get to the path to the file and this will be gotten when the command in step 1 is run.

Example:

File unzip -l wordpress-4.7.zip, produces

 ...
 0  2016-12-06 19:40   wordpress/wp-includes/Text/Diff/Renderer/
 5535  2010-02-19 02:25   wordpress/wp-includes/Text/Diff/Renderer/inline.php
 6813  2015-06-28 16:27   wordpress/wp-includes/Text/Diff/Renderer.php
12950  2015-06-28 16:27   wordpress/wp-includes/Text/Diff.php
14460  2016-12-02 08:11   wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php
34760  2016-12-01 03:19   wordpress/wp-includes/rest-api.php
23621  2016-11-21 03:46   wordpress/wp-includes/update.php
102116  2016-12-04 21:37   wordpress/wp-includes/comment.php
14066  2016-08-25 18:37   wordpress/wp-includes/class-wp-text-diff-renderer-table.php
2853  2015-12-16 10:58   wordpress/wp-config-sample.php

Now I want to see first 100 lines of the file wp-config-sample.php in wordpress-4.7.zip, so I do:

unzip -p wordpress-4.7.zip wordpress/wp-config-sample.php | head -100

More information:

Why use -p option:

 -p     extract files to pipe (stdout).  Nothing but the file data is sent to stdout, and the files are  always
      extracted in binary format, just as they are stored (no conversions).

A more elagant output would be with less

less wordpress-4.7.zip

# OUTPUT

    Archive:  wordpress-4.7.zip
 Length   Method    Size  Cmpr    Date    Time   CRC-32   Name
--------  ------  ------- ---- ---------- ----- --------  ----
       0  Stored        0   0% 2016-12-06 19:40 00000000  wordpress/
   16250  Defl:X     4157  74% 2016-11-29 06:39 2b3bf692  wordpress/wp-settings.php
    3286  Defl:X     1397  58% 2015-05-24 18:26 e732ef29  wordpress/wp-cron.php
    1627  Defl:X      799  51% 2016-08-29 13:00 d0339e89  wordpress/wp-comments-post.php
    5447  Defl:X     2006  63% 2016-09-27 22:36 888ccd8b  wordpress/wp-activate.php
       0  Stored        0   0% 2016-12-06 19:40 00000000  wordpress/wp-admin/
    2401  Defl:X      933  61% 2016-10-24 05:45 1e03d7a9  wordpress/wp-admin/link-parse-opml.php
       0  Stored        0   0% 2016-12-06 19:40 00000000  wordpress/wp-admin/js/
   12000  Defl:X     3291  73% 2016-09-13 07:03 77f8b8cb  wordpress/wp-admin/js/editor.js
    6224  Defl:X     2215  64% 2016-11-03 06:40 693a34f0  wordpress/wp-admin/js/user-profile.min.js
    1508  Defl:X      640  58% 2015-07-27 12:19 ee45bde7  wordpress/wp-admin/js/word-count.min.js
    5148  Defl:X     2010  61% 2016-11-17 19:28 2384dae7  wordpress/wp-admin/js/tags-suggest.js
    6842  Defl:X     2399  65% 2016-10-23 19:16 41742fcd  wordpress/wp-admin/js/tags-box.js
   17717  Defl:X     5102  71% 2016-07-05 14:37 93dfd6b0  wordpress/wp-admin/js/image-edit.js
   34299  Defl:X     7077  79% 2016-11-04 18:18 97b89baa  wordpress/wp-admin/js/updates.min.js
    4192  Defl:X     1539  63% 2016-06-08 23:37 b8c4c822  wordpress/wp-admin/js/postbox.min.js
   20983  Defl:X     6187  71% 2016-11-03 06:40 3aec32c2  wordpress/wp-admin/js/nav-menu.min.js
   25330  Defl:X     7009  72% 2016-11-03 06:40 43591b6e  wordpress/wp-admin/js/theme.min.js
    1502  Defl:X      707  53% 2013-11-14 06:40 4dc0acc0  wordpress/wp-admin/js/custom-header.js
   11462  Defl:X     4344  62% 2016-11-03 06:40 0aa95325  wordpress/wp-admin/js/press-this.min.js


You used type="raw" in the xml for the qcow2 image lubuntu.img. Changing it to type="qcow2" fixes the problem.


Brightness flickering on Lenovo Yoga 720 | Ubuntu 18.04

This may be caused by the adaptive brightness setting. I had the same issue. It's way too aggressive for my preferences.

Go to Settings > Power then turn automatic brightness off


Enter the bin subdirectory of your JIRA installation directory and execute the appropriate file. After this press enter then type the below,

start-jira.sh

To start JIRA using the service, you can execute the /etc/init.d/jira script.


Apparently, recent versions of Compiz won't bind the mouse wheel (buttons 4-7) for windows other than the desktop unless a modifier key is configured (SHIFT, ALT etc.).

This was even more restricted, so that no special mouse buttons were bound, but that was fixed about a month ago (see bug #1304877 for details). Now at least buttons > 7 can be used again. Buttons 4-7, however, are explicitly ungrabbed if the current window is not the desktop (see the diff of the commit linked in the bug report above).


I replaced my .bashrc file from my computer that runs OS X as they both have generally the same paths in the file.

Same thing with the crontab file. (I googled it and found a crontab file for Ubuntu 11.10).


Gvfs folder location in Ubuntu Mate 15.04

I had the same problem and VLC wouldn't play videos from a smb mount.  To solve this I installed gvfs-fuse - which was not installed by default.

sudo apt-get install gvfs-fuse

/run/user/1000/gvfs will contain your samba mounts after you install gvfs-fuse.  You will need to reboot after installing.

I added a bug report here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mate/+bug/1456803


Type '}ckage' is not known on line 2 in source list /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongo.list

It looks like you have a typo in a configuration file (/etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongo.list)

Since that is a third party repository configuration file you can resolve the problem by deleting that file, and then adding back the third party repository in question, or you can fix the typo by hand.

To delete the file:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mongo.list


It looks like this is happening because the third-party software source for Google Chrome was disabled when you upgrade from one Ubuntu release to another. Then the solution to this problem is to re-enable the software source, making sure it is configured for the Ubuntu release you are currently running, and then update again.

To do this, open the Update Manager. Click Settings... on the lower-left corner of the Update Manager window, to bring up the Software Sources window. Click the Other Software tab. Find the entries for Google Chrome (there will probably be two of them). They might say disabled on upgrade to _____ with _____ replaced by the codename of some Ubuntu release (e.g., precise). But they will not necessarily say that.

For each one, click on it and click Edit....

If the Distribution text box contains stable, leave it that way. This is how the Google Chrome software source currently works.

If you are doing this for a future versions of Chrome which might work differently, or for some other software, make sure the Distribution text box contains the codename (in all lower-case letters) of the Ubuntu release that you are currently running.

If you're not sure what that is, open a Terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T) and run the command lsb_release -c. That will tell you.

Thanks to Samik for pointing out that the current version of Google Chrome's software source does not use an Ubuntu release codename, but instead uses the general stable codename from Debian.

If the Comment text box contains just disabled on upgrade to _____, then you can go ahead and delete that text too.

Then click OK. Make sure to do this for both Google Chrome software source entries.

Enable these software sources by clicking the empty checkbox next to them.

Then click Close to quit out of the Software Sources window. You should now be able to update successfully.

(If this doesn't work, please leave a comment to facilitate further troubleshooting.)


Ubuntu Snappy Core 16.04 RPi3 - questions

I got my wifi setup working using network-manager. In essence:

# Install Network Manager using Snap
sudo snap install network-manager

# Turn on the WiFi interface
network-manager.nmcli r wifi on

# verify the WiFi is on
network-manager.nmcli r

# List the available network
network-manager.nmcli d wifi list

# Connect to a network
network-manager.nmcli d wifi connect <ssid> password <password>

# verify it is connected to WiFi
network-manager.nmcli c

That should be it. I put it together in gist.


How can I install Arial fonts to my Office within Wine?

PlayOnLinux provides a mechanism to install and modify "bottles" of wine-software.

One of these is the install Microsoft Fonts to a "bottle" - the picture below will give an idea of what to do.  Note - I dont have MS Office, but the principle still applies.