How to recover files from a partition that was previosuly NTFS under Wndows but after Ubuntu installation had been converted to ext4? I had accidentally installed Ubuntu 13.04 on Windows 8 while trying to Dual Boot. I had a single partition(973GB) which had windows with NTFS filesystem. But by the accidental install of ubuntu the filesystem had changed to ext4.

When I tried testdisk, it showed me three partitions:

P EFI System (with very less data)
P MS DATA (the large disk of around 950GB. I think this partition has all the data)
P Linux Swap (same size as my ram)

Now when I tried searching, it showed that the partition MS Data cannot be recovered. I dont need the partition or the windows 8 back. I only need some of my important files that got deleted. Can  I recover these files? Please help.

You can still recover them by using photorec which comes with testdisk after you install it. Type in a terminal photorec and select the hard drive / partition you wish to analyze and the place where you want to store all recovered files (Should be a place not on the same hard drive you are trying to recover from).

Your same case has also happened to me. Trying to recover files from a previous NTFS or FAT32 partition that was formatted to Ext3 or Ext4. In the end it recovered all files we needed.

Keep Calm if you formatted all of your drive too.
just keep patience .
we'll be recover all of your files for sure, whichever you want ;) .
#Recover (images,videos,docx,spreedsheet,cpp,xmls,mp3,mp4 and 291 types of more file too ;) )
The previous answer from Luis Alvarado is absolutely correct, worked 200%  , i just explain it how to do in briefly.
You can recover old deleted files from any drive you want. Just keep patience and be cool ,good things takes times. you are in the right place ;)

i am new here so avoid grammatical mistakes and i didn't have
permission for posting images yet,(due to, no reputation earned yet) so i will provide links for useful
screenshots. please upvote if you found this post helpful.......that
was really something for me ;)

I can tell you in briefly one by one steps -

how to install photorec (testdisks utility) using terminal.

Choosing which drive or which specific partition you want to recover files from.

how to set destination/location where you want to save all of recovered files.

how to recover only selected type of files. for exmple say- you only wish to recover .png & .jpeg & .mp4 type of files.

after that,going through all above steps .finally, how to use photorec for start recovering deleted files from any drive

but before doing so,
i want to tell you a little fun moment happend with me,using this recovery software XD XD
must read :p
:D :D The very first time. Few months ago, When i was going to install lubuntu in my pc, i had erased all of my disk and installed lubuntu in my pc ,using erase all disk and freshly install lubuntu option in ubuntu installer.
That time, i didn't know how to use and make different partitions, so i performed installation of lubuntu twice or thrice just for making partition as i want (that time i am new user so, making partition is so confusing for me ) . This process erased and formatted all of my disks completely and installed lubuntu successfully everytime.
My pc has only one HDD and installed windows that time in it and has 2 partitions one say local disk C and another partition is named local disk D. so i thought that has 2 saperated disks for each. So i was formatted disk completely and happy , thinking that only (operating system disk) local disk c is going to be formatted.
but...   wait.... WHOOOOOAAAAAAA
All of my saved images,documents and all of files that are saved in local disk D went away in peace   :O
and in front of me :O
A BLANK , NEW , FRESHLY INSTALLED LUBUNTU WAS THERE.

hahaha, that was fun. XD XD

OK, so there you go-------------------------------------------------------------------

how to install photorec (testdisks utility) using terminal.

you can download it from terminal using this command.*
sudo apt update
sudo apt install testdisk

now, you have testdisk-utils installed in your system.
then type photorec in terminal hit enter and input your password then, photorec opened in your terminal.see below given image.
screenshot 1

how to set destination/location where you want to save all of recovered files.

see screenshot 1 this is now cuurently showing in your terminals.
Here all of your drive available in your system shows up,
there in my pc it is only one hard disk available.
(it is shows for choosing - which hard drive you wish to recovering files from. )
 using ^ up and down arrow choose which harddrive you want to select  and
     hit proceed.

now you have this type of screen see this screenshot 2
It shows how much partition you have, of that disk
step 2 left----------------
Now, we are going to 4th step for choosing specific files like images or docs etc for recovery. after that , we continue to step 2 for choosing which partition we select for recovery-

how to recover only selected type of files. for exmple say- you only wish to recover .png & .jpeg & .mp4 type of files.

by default, photorec selected all of the files type, that photorec has supported to recover. but, in my pc it has 291 types of files has available that photorec support so if i will continue with it . it takes a week or more for my pc to recover all of it.
so you have to choose only whatever file type you want to recover .you can select whichever files you want or You can All of 291 files too.... :p :p  (its all matter of time what kind of fast processor&RAM you have )
so, now you have currently this screen see screenshot 2
you have to use '>' right left arrow and go to option {file opt}
given below and hit enter .

now you have this screen screenshot 3
you can press 's' for selecting all/deselect all files and mark
your own choice files with help of '>' '<' key. (up/down arrow for scrolling)

after selecting files press 'b' for save setting then it says setting recorded
successfully.

then, again hit 'enter' to go to main menu.

now, you marked which files you want to recover.
Again, step 2 left--
, you have this screen see screenshot 2
now, we have to select which partition you want to scan for recovery.
(some partition has linux system files ,some has ntfs type of file system etc.)
i was formatted entire disk so ,i will choose 1st option "No partition
.........whole disk"  for scanning all of sectors to recover file from.

(using '<' arrow go back to 'search' position given below.) and then hit **Enter**
now you have to choose filesystem type where the file were stored -
see this screenshot 4
here ,i'll choose FAT/NTFS..... because earlier all of my disk are is in ntfs/fat... file system.

[ ext2/ext3 ] ext2/ext3/ext4 filesystem are used by ubuntu/linux OS

[ Other     ] FAT/NTFS/HFS+/ReiserFS/... filesystems are used by the windows

select whichever filesystem earlier you have,from which you want to recover.
or
if you have still doubt over it, you can choose both filesystem one by one and recover from both filesystem. By doing this process twice and select different filesystem.
now. currently i am going here with fat/ntfs filesystem and hit Enter.
now you have this screen see this screenshot 5
you had done. selected drive and partition for recover and what kind of file to be recover.

how to set destination/location where you want to save all of recovered files.

screenshot 5
curently you have this screen redirected to default location /home/user

you can change location/directory for saving recovered file in any
other drive .

press left arrow '<' twice and it go back to '/ directory' .
use up/down arrow and select 'media' in which you found your hard drive name .
goto wherever location you want to save files . lets say i m selected /media/arbaz/Arbaz directory in which i have created a folder named 'backup' to save files . go to that folder .
see this screenshot 6
thats it.
it is a location where it'll be saved

how to use photorec for start recovering deleted files from any drive

just click 'c' key, after reaching your location
and it'll start recovering.
see this screenshot 7
it maybe recovered more files, which was formatted more than 4 years ago too.
YUPP , that is true.same happened with me. files which i was deleted permanently from using windows will be back .though, i not needed but anyway.
it'll recovered 35000 jpeg files and more others in my pc.
Truely insane software
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It takes time depending upon your computer speed, processor&RAM and size of harddisk.
because of mine has 1.2 Ghz Dual core, 1 core-1 thread ,intel celeron cpu on date (24/10/2020) with 1 GB RAM, that's why it is soo slow showing 37 hour remaining :D
;p ;p don't be sad. XD its working excellent , and i do lot of practices on codechef with it daily and it didn't lag. Thanks to Lubuntu OS :D :D
XD Will be purchase new one soon.................hope so,one day... :D

Thanks for giving your valuable time to read
Must upvote if you recovered :D :D
for any issue comment, will be reply whenever possible.


Is there an alternative to the default lock-screen? I have a tablet PC that I'm running oneric on. One thing I don't like is that the default lock screen requires you to enter a password. Since this is a tablet, this means that it either needs to be connected to a keyboard, or I have to figure out how to get onboard to show up for the lock screen (caribou wont even start, and gok is messed up too). Even if I could do that, anyway, it's not what I want, since locking the screen is mostly to prevent erroneous input when I'm carrying it around (not for security).

Are there any alternative applications for the lock screen? Anything like the plethora of android lock screens that allow you to solve puzzles or push a particular widget in a particular way to unlock the screen?

You can also disable the password input if that 'd help - go to system settings > screen > and change "lock". The screen then simply switches on without requiring you to enter your password.

You could try xscreensaver (see How can I change or install screensavers?)

sudo apt-get install xscreensaver xscreensaver-gl-extra xscreensaver-data-extra

Now remove gnome-screensaver

sudo apt-get remove gnome-screensaver

Now start the xscreensaver configuration tool - from a terminal:

xscreensaver-demo

there you can enter the time until screen-lock.


Dual pane does not work in Thunar? I have Thunar 1.6.3 but dual pane (comes up with F3 in nautilus) does not work. How do I enable it? I only have tabs!?

Running UbuntuStudio 14.04

Thunar doesn't have this functionality, sadly instead they opted for tabs, you can open a new tab with CTRL+T, you can also drag files on tabs.


How to install pgAdmin 4 in desktop mode on Ubuntu How to install pgAdmin 4 in desktop mode? The documentation only details server mode.

For pgAdmin 4 v4.21 on Ubuntu, according to the download page:

Install dependencies, create a virtual environment, download, install & configure

Using Python2.x

sudo apt-get install virtualenv python-pip libpq-dev python-dev

cd
virtualenv pgadmin4
cd pgadmin4
source bin/activate

pip install https://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/pgadmin/pgadmin4/v4.21/pip/pgadmin4-4.21-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Using Python3.6 (Preferred to avoid encoding related issues)

sudo apt-get install virtualenv python3-pip libpq-dev python3-dev

cd
virtualenv -p python3 pgadmin4
cd pgadmin4
source bin/activate

pip3 install https://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/pgadmin/pgadmin4/v4.21/pip/pgadmin4-4.21-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Configure

Override default paths and set it to single-user mode in the local configuration file:

nano lib/python2.7/site-packages/pgadmin4/config_local.py

For Python3.x:

nano lib/python3.6/site-packages/pgadmin4/config_local.py

Write:

import os
DATA_DIR = os.path.realpath(os.path.expanduser(u'~/.pgadmin/'))
LOG_FILE = os.path.join(DATA_DIR, 'pgadmin4.log')
SQLITE_PATH = os.path.join(DATA_DIR, 'pgadmin4.db')
SESSION_DB_PATH = os.path.join(DATA_DIR, 'sessions')
STORAGE_DIR = os.path.join(DATA_DIR, 'storage')
SERVER_MODE = False

Run

python lib/python2.7/site-packages/pgadmin4/pgAdmin4.py

For Python3.x:

python3 lib/python3.6/site-packages/pgadmin4/pgAdmin4.py

Access

Access at http://localhost:5050

Exit

Exit with Ctrl-C

Run again

cd ~/pgadmin4
source bin/activate
python lib/python2.7/site-packages/pgadmin4/pgAdmin4.py

For Python3.6

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/pgadmin4
source bin/activate
python3 lib/python3.6/site-packages/pgadmin4/pgAdmin4.py

Make a shortcut

touch ~/pgadmin4/pgadmin4
chmod +x ~/pgadmin4/pgadmin4
nano ~/pgadmin4/pgadmin4

Write:

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/pgadmin4
source bin/activate
python lib/python2.7/site-packages/pgadmin4/pgAdmin4.py

For Python3.6

#!/bin/bash
cd ~/pgadmin4
source bin/activate
python3 lib/python3.6/site-packages/pgadmin4/pgAdmin4.py

Now you can just run it with a simpler command:

~/pgadmin4/pgadmin4

Python3 users

Replace [x] in Python3.6 with your respective version.

Conflict with pgAdmin 3 configuration

pgAdmin 4 will not start in the environment where pgAdmin 3 was previously installed and used because of incompatible configuration in the .pgadmin directory. The simplest solution is to either clear that directory or tweak config_local.py to point to a clean new .pgadmin4 directory.

Finally, pgAdmin team created an apt package for pgAdmin4
It is supported on:

Debian 9 (Stretch), 10 (Buster)
Ubuntu 16.04 (Xenial), 18.04 (Bionic), 19.10 (Eoan), 20.04 (Focal)

Now to install it you have to setup the the pgAdmin 4 offical repository, then you can install it
Setup the repository
Install the public key for the repository (if not done previously)
curl https://www.pgadmin.org/static/packages_pgadmin_org.pub | sudo apt-key add

Create the repository configuration file:
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb https://ftp.postgresql.org/pub/pgadmin/pgadmin4/apt/$(lsb_release -cs) pgadmin4 main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgadmin4.list && apt update'

Install pgAdmin4
You can install both Desktop and Web modes:
sudo apt install pgadmin4

For Desktop only:
sudo apt install pgadmin4-desktop

For Web only:
sudo apt install pgadmin4-web

Source: https://www.pgadmin.org/download/pgadmin-4-apt/


How can I gain ownership of a partition which mounts on boot up please? Ubuntu 14.04 LTS I'm a relative newbie. Ive done a bit of systems editing but only by copying scripts and seeing if they work - ie trial and error

I've created a ext4 partition. Gparted confirms (mount point: /media sda2, /mnt/sda2) (label: disk2) and  says it is mounted but when I open it up and try to open a folder in it, I get an msg saying I dont not have permissions to view contents.

When ubuntu 14.04 starts up its says disk not ready or not present
so I press s for skip

I want to have full access to the disk and its contents - can you help pls?
if you start writing scripts, pls give examples and explain what each parameter means.

Thank you for your consideration.

/|\
paul c burr

ubpaul@ubpaul-NC10:~$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda3 during installation
UUID=079d07e4-d4c2-4c81-81dd-454b870dd9bb /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# swap was on /dev/sda2 during installation
UUID=28e06dd5-f4e6-4e91-8d50-9f93b8863fbb /home/ubpaul/disk2 auto sw,x-gvfs-show,x-gvfs-name=Disk2 0 0
/dev/sda2 /mnt/sda2 auto nosuid,nodev,nofail,x-gvfs-show 0 0
UUID=6e692a08-9b12-4e0a-94f4-209a864d819b /media/sda2 ext4 defaults 0 2

Unable to access “Disk2”

Error mounting system-managed device /dev/sda2: Command-line `mount "/mnt/sda2"' exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sda2,
       missing codepage or helper program, or other error
       In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
       dmesg | tail  or so

Many many thanks for all the input - Im truly grateful.

I've managed to resolve all the issues about accessing and mounting "Disk2" etc

I edited fstab thanks to Maythux and commented out the offending lines. Special thanks to user5570 for your patience with my ignorance.

/|\
paul

A normal user can not have full access to an ext4 partition, unless you have became root with sudo command.

I guess that you tried to open lost+found folder. This one is a possible duplicate: link. It is somthing like "System Volume Information" in Windows.

You should try to create a directory. It should work with the default mount options.


Problem with NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000 Hi!

Is this card working with Ubuntu. Is there any driver? When I installed Ubuntu 12.04 there was a black screen.

Thx, Akitoru

To install the driver, follow these instructions:

Boot into recovery
Run sudo apt-add-repository ppa:ubuntu-x-swat/x-updates && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install Nvidia-current in a Terminal
Reboot
Profit!

If you cannot boot into GRUB, boot into a live CD
Open a Terminal
Run sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install boot-repair && sudo boot-repair
Choose the recommended repair
Follow the instructions
Reboot
Follow the instructions to install the Nvidia drivers.


How to free the Print key I would like to use the Print key for my own purpose. By default, it is bound to various screenshot functions.

I tried the following, which did not work: [System settings] [keyboard] [shortcuts] [screenshots]. There I disabled all Print variations with Backspace. Closing the app and reentering shows me that all these functions are disabled. What strikes me as odd is that the regular Print function is listed twice:

However, the key Print (also according to xev it's that key) still produces a screenshot.

Edit: And here is what xev says:

~/Pictures$ xev|grep keycode
    state 0x0, keycode 36 (keysym 0xff0d, Return), same_screen YES,
    state 0x0, keycode 107 (keysym 0xff61, Print), same_screen YES,

For some reason I do not understand fully, this problem has been solved in the last days. Most probably due to an update of 12.04.

Try:

gconftool-2 --get [location]

to see what is holding on to that key.


How to tell Chrome what to do with a magnet link? Right now Chrome throws its apron over its head and calls Firefox, which opens the link with rtorrent.  What do I need to do to eliminate the Firefox step?

Chrome (or Chromium) protocol handling works differently than in Firefox.  Firefox basically keeps track of all that itself, which is why you can configure protocol handling (like magnet links) in the Applications part of the Preferences.  Chrome, however, relies on xdg-open.

There are a couple things that you need to do before xdg-open will handle magnet links properly.

Find the name of the desktop file of the program you want to handle the magnet link.  Let's suppose the program is Transmission.  It (like usual) has its desktop file in /usr/share/applications/ and in fact, by perusing the listing of the directory, I find that my version of transmission is actually the gtk version, so its desktop file is called transmission-gtk.desktop.
It's possible the desktop file is messed up.  So you can check that /usr/share/applications/transmission-gtk.desktop contains the lines:

Exec=transmission-gtk %U
[some lines omitted]
MimeType=application/x-bittorrent;x-scheme-handler/magnet;

Note the %U in the Exec line.  It's absolutely necessary.  The MimeType line should look as above.
Now for the essential step to tell xdg-open to open magnet links using Transmission.  In the terminal, type:

xdg-mime default transmission-gtk.desktop x-scheme-handler/magnet

(Step not necessary if you use Gnome, KDE, Xfce, or LXDE) Lastly, xdg-open assumes you are running one of the standard desktop environments:   gnome, kde, xfce and lxde.  If you are not, xdg-open will not work on magnet links.  As suggested on the Arch wiki, you can simply modify /usr/bin/xdg-open.  At the end of the file, you'll find a portion that starts with:

detectDE
if [ x"$DE" = x"" ]; then
   DE=generic

change generic to one of gnome, kde, xfce, or lxde.  I chose xfce since I actually have an Xfce session that I've configured and use on occasion.

The downside to this approach is that if xdg-open gets updates, you'll have to redo this.  The Arch wiki suggests another approach that avoids this flaw (but has its own downside).

Warning: The choice in the last step is more important than it might seem.  Picking lxde did not work for me!  In xdg-open, the helper function open_lxde relies on pcmanfm (lxde file manager) and something is wrong with either the code in open_lxde or perhaps it's pcmanfm's fault.

I mixed few answers (that unfortunately didn't work for me) and came up with something that made it work like a charm!
It worked on Linux Mint 16 under XFCE, anyways.

Make backup of xdg-open under /usr/bin, open your xdg-open with sudo and then make open_xfce() function exactly like this:

open_xfce()
{
    if (echo "$1" | grep -q '^magnet:'); then
        gnome-open "$1"
    else
        exo-open "$1"
    fi
}

It's dirty and you need to edit it every xdg-open update, but hey, it works!


Desktop does not show when I installed nvidia drivers! The desktop does not show after I installed nvidia experimental drivers. I tried nvidia simple proprietary drivers, and they did not work either.

Here is how it looks. This is not cropped or any thing. This is how it looks, after the installation of the drivers the desktop resolution decreased from 1440x900 to 1024x768

The desktop only shows desh and panels when I use the open source drivers.

Is there any way to fix this so I can get better performance?

I had the same thing happen.  Here is how I fixed it:

Switch to a terminal Ctrl+Alt+F1.
Login as your username.
Install linux headers:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic

Uninstall nvidia driver - this depends on which version you installed :

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current

or

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-current-updates

or

sudo apt-get remove nvidia-experimental-304

Reinstall nvidia driver

sudo apt-get install nvidia-current-updates

When you do this, it must say something like:

Building initial module for 3.5.0-17-generic
Done.

If it says

Module build for the currently running kernel was
skipped since the kernel source for this kernel
does not seem to be installed.

then the problem will not be solved. Do not believe the message.
It is not asking for linux-source to be install, it does only want
the headers but you must install the specific -generic headers for
your kernel. Run:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`

It will not work with just linux-headers-generic or linux-headers-3.5.0-17 (for example).
If it successfully installs, restart the computer :

sudo shutdown -r now

This should allow the kernel module to compile and install properly.  It did for me!

I did this:

sudo apt-get autoremove fglrx --purge

Worked great.


Ubuntu 12.10 Dell/Broadcom BCM43142 driver install trouble I am having trouble getting my Wireless to work on Ubuntu 12.10.  My laptop is a Dell 3520 and the wireless chipset is Broadcom BCM43142 pci.id [14e4:4365] rev 1.

The below question looks similar to my issue and I tried it but it didn't work:

Dell Inspiron 5720 Wifi (Broadcom BCM43142, Ubuntu 12.10)

When I try to sudo dpkg -i wire*.deb I get the below message:

  Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
  kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

When I grep for my installed headers using dpkg --get-selections | grep headers I see that I have:

linux-headers-3.5.0-17
linux-headers-3.5.0-21
linux-headers-3.5.0-21-generic
linux-headers-generic

Any idea what the issue is?

I checked if the wireless-bcm43142-dkms package got installed and it looks like it is when I do: dpkg --get-selections | grep bcm.

Please try:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall linux-headers-`uname -r`

Those backticks are on the left side of my US keyboard on the same key with ~. After the headers for your currently running kernel are reinstalled, try again:

sudo dpkg -i wire*.deb

please install the newest bcmwl-kernel-source:

http://launchpadlibrarian.net/128735877/bcmwl-kernel-source_6.20.155.1%2Bbdcom-0ubuntu0.0.1_amd64.deb


Installed ubuntu from USB but it won't boot I have just installed ubuntu. When I turn on my computer is says "no bootable device." When I boot my computer with my USB drive plugged in, it boots to a "grub>" prompt. How can I get my computer to boot to ubuntu off of my HD?

you partition scheme looks like EFI mode active. to be sure you can shut off legacy mode in system settings;

Boot from the USB and in grub type "c" to get a command prompt

type:

  linux (hd1,2)/vmlinuz root=/dev/sda2
  initrd (hd1,2)/initrd.img
  boot

if you get initramfs rescue mode -- enter your password then startx
you should now have a desktop.

Open a terminal and type:
sudo install-grub
sudo update-grub
sudo update-initramfs -u

reboot and see what you get

EDITS: changes to reflect your particular hardware setup


Error while updating my system 16.04 LTS When I am using following command to update my system, I got an error from dpkg,how to rectify that,

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

linux-signed-image-generic depends on linux-image-extra-4.4.0-24-generic; however:
  Package linux-image-extra-4.4.0-24-generic is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package linux-signed-image-generic (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of linux-signed-generic:
 linux-signed-generic depends on linux-signed-image-generic (= 4.4.0.24.25); however:
  Package linux-signed-image-generic is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package linux-signed-generic (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 linux-image-4.4.0-24-generic
 linux-image-extra-4.4.0-24-generic
 linux-image-generic
 linux-generic
 linux-signed-image-4.4.0-24-generic
 linux-signed-image-generic
 linux-signed-generic
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Follow this answer. I had the same problem and after delete lilo helps me
Apt errors since upgrade to 12.04


How to edit pdf metadata from command line? I need a command line tool for editing metadata of pdf-files.

I'm using a Aiptek MyNote Premium tablet for writing my notes and minutes on this device, import them later and convert them to pdf automatically with a simple script using inkscape and ghostscript.

Is there any command line tool to add some categories to the pdf's metadata, so i can find the pdf later (e.g. with gnome-do) by categories?

Update: I tried the solution with pdftk and it works, but it seems that gnome-do doesn't take care of pdf-metadata. Is there a way to get gnome-do to do that?

Give exiftool a try, it is available from the package libimage-exiftool-perl in the repositories.

As an example, If you have a pdf file called drawing.pdf and you want to update its metadata, Use the utility, exiftool, in this way:

exiftool -Title="This is the Title" -Author="Happy Man" -Subject="PDF Metadata" drawing.pdf

For some reason the Subject entered ends up in the keywords field of the metadata in the pdf file. not a problem in some cases, even desirable, however, this may be problematic, evince and the nautilus metadata previewer do not show this but Adobe Acrobat viewer and PDF-XChange viewer does.

The program will create a backup of the original file if you do not use the; -overwrite_original switch, this means a duplicate will exist in the folder where the updated pdf is. From example above; a file named ; drawing.pdf_original will be created.

use the overwrite switch at your own risk, my suggestion is not to use it and script something to move this file to a better location just in case.

This is in the act library so you can edit PDF metadata from the command-line here as well.
$ npm install @lancejpollard/act -g
$ act update input.pdf --title foo --author bar --subject baz -k one -k two

You can also set -p publisher, -c creator, -t0 created date, and -tn updated date.


How to transfer music to a Windows Phone device? I recently bought a Nokia 620. Ubuntu 13.04 does recongize it and is able to mount it. Music files transferred through the file explorer don't show up at all in my phones media player. Trying to do it with Rhythmbox makes it crash. I have found that Clementine is able to do the job. However, transferred tracks lose their "artist" tag for some reason.

So here comes the question: What program you use to transfer music on you WP device? Or do you do it through Windows?

WP devices use the MTP protocol. Have you tried using Nautilus with the GVFS MTP plugin?

There is a step-by-step guide on how to install and setup an up-to-date GVFS MTP plugin using a PPA in Ubuntu 12.04 and later at http://www.webupd8.org/2013/01/upgrade-to-gvfs-with-mtp-support-in.html.

Try disabling password on Windows phone. It has worked for me. You can enable your password again once you're done transferring the files.


Recording video with audio from webcam? I've tried cheese and wxCam and both of those record the video fine, but there is no audio in the videos. How can i record a video from my webcam with audio as well?

I had a similar problem with cheese (that is, video was fine, but no audio).

I tried out guvcview based on this answer. This didn't work either, but then I remembered something about USB 3 ports not working with devices like webcams sometimes, so I moved it to a USB 2 port.

Everything worked in guvcview just fine then. The webcam appeared as a new audio device ("USB Audio"). guvcview seems like a neat little application, with a lot of options for how to record from the cam.

(I tried cheese again to see if it was purely the USB 3 port as the cause, but it still didn't work.)

Try changing the API input on gucview to pulseaudio. That just worked for us.


Help me win this war! History:

The map: I have a dual-booted laptop, Windows 7 alongside Ubuntu
14.04. For Ubuntu, I have a separate partition, which stores my data.
The enemy: sudo chown -R hadoopuser /, which literally took down
my entire base.

Current state:

I installed Ubuntu again, overwriting my old installation. However the partition with the data is still there, I can see the data, but I can not for example create a folder there, since the message "you are not the owner, so you cannot change these permissions." appears at the bottom of the folder. From properties, I can see that the Owner is user #1001.

Next move?

Act like Alexander The Great: Assault the data partition, kill the user #1001, or at least make negotiations, so that I, user gsamaras can use this partition as a place to save my documents, etc..

OR

Act like a Spartan: Annihilate the data partition and extend
Ubuntu's partition, so that it will take over that space.

What would you suggest me to do? It will be very helpful if you could point on how to implement the suggestion you made.

I found this question "You are not the owner..." message when trying to access folder, but I cannot relate.

I am just using the names of these Ancient warriors, because I am Greek.

Open a file manager and click on the partition to mount it. Then, run the following command to gain full ownership of the partition and all contained files:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER /media/$USER/*

or,

sudo chown -R gsamaras:gsamaras "/media/gsamaras/a6cd1464-abf1-4a7b-b4a2-61f584d4cb32"

I don't if this will work in your situation but whats the harm in trying right ?

why not create a user with the same name and uid as that hadoopuser

sudo -i
#adduser -u 1001 hadoopuser

then try to access
if didn't wroked which is the way it should
become root

sudo -i
#chmod 666 foldername/
#chmod 666 foldername/*
#chown -R yourlocaluser:yourlocaluser foldername/


Disable autostart for a service without uninstalling? How can I disable autostart for a service without uninstalling?  For example, I'd like to leave tomcat installed, but I don't want it turning on every time I restart.

This should do the trick:

Open terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T) and enter the following command:

sudo update-rc.d tomcat disable

Basically update-rc.d will modify existing runlevel links for the script /etc/init.d/tomcat by renaming start links to stop links.

For upstart jobs, you need to disable service like this (e.g. mysql):

$ sudo -s
# echo "manual" > /etc/init/mysql.override
# exit

or using this one-liner:

$ echo "manual" | sudo tee /etc/init/mysql.override > /dev/null


How to WRITE to ext4 partitions on windows? I've tried many of the answers found here. Even the ones that supposedly could write to the SD card, won't work. When I eject the card and put it again the file is like it was before the write.

So how to write to SD cards in windows? I just need to edit a text file with notepad++.

You can use Ext2fsd. It is kind of driver that you install in Windows:
https://sourceforge.net/p/ext2fsd/code/ci/master/tree/


How get hp-setup to install printer? I am trying to install and use Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop without Windows.  I have an HP Laserjet 1020 printer but can't get it to print.  The printer looks like it is installed but won't print; not even a test page.  I am on a page that says, "This printer REQUIRES a downloadable driver plug-in.  Use hp-setup to intall the printer, and to download and install the plug-in."
It appears that I have the printer installed but how do I get the plug in I need?  The message above did not give a name for the plug=in.

Did you use HPLIP?
http://hplipopensource.com/hplip-web/downloads.html
you may also try to type "hp-setup" in terminal.

How ever this is worked:

Switch ON Printer and Connect to your Laptop/PC
Ctrl + Alt + T to open terminal
run using the following commands :

sudo apt-get install hplip
sudo apt-get install hpijs-ppds
sudo hp-setup -i

See commands / processes appear on the screen.

sreenatha@sreenatha-Inspiron-5570:~$ sudo apt-get install hplip
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
hplip is already the newest version (3.17.10+repack0-5).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 11 not upgraded.
sreenatha@sreenatha-Inspiron-5570:~$ sudo apt-get install hpijs-ppds
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  printer-driver-hpijs
Suggested packages:
  hplip-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  hpijs-ppds printer-driver-hpijs
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 11 not upgraded.
Need to get 389 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2,392 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
Get:1 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 printer-driver-hpijs amd64 3.17.10+repack0-5 [296 kB]
Get:2 http://in.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/universe amd64 hpijs-ppds all 3.17.10+repack0-5 [93.4 kB]
Fetched 389 kB in 2s (199 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package printer-driver-hpijs.
(Reading database ... 334612 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../printer-driver-hpijs_3.17.10+repack0-5_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking printer-driver-hpijs (3.17.10+repack0-5) ...
Selecting previously unselected package hpijs-ppds.
Preparing to unpack .../hpijs-ppds_3.17.10+repack0-5_all.deb ...
Unpacking hpijs-ppds (3.17.10+repack0-5) ...
Setting up printer-driver-hpijs (3.17.10+repack0-5) ...
Setting up hpijs-ppds (3.17.10+repack0-5) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.8.3-2ubuntu0.1) ...
Processing triggers for cups (2.2.7-1ubuntu2.7) ...
Updating PPD files for hpijs-ppds ...
Updating PPD files for hpijs ...
sreenatha@sreenatha-Inspiron-5570:~$ sudo hp-setup -i

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.17.10)
Printer/Fax Setup Utility ver. 9.0

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

(Note: Defaults for each question are maked with a '*'. Press <enter> to accept the default.)

--------------------------------
| SELECT CONNECTION (I/O) TYPE |
--------------------------------

  Num       Connection  Description
            Type
  --------  ----------  ----------------------------------------------------------
  0*        usb         Universal Serial Bus (USB)
  1         net         Network/Ethernet/Wireless (direct connection or JetDirect)
  2         par         Parallel Port (LPT:)

Enter number 0...2 for connection type (q=quit, enter=usb*) ? )0*
error: Please enter a number between 0 and 2, or "q" to quit.

Enter number 0...2 for connection type (q=quit, enter=usb*) ? 0

Using connection type: usb

Setting up device: hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1020?serial=S44NWQ2

------------------------
| PLUG-IN INSTALLATION |
------------------------

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.17.10)
Plugin Download and Install Utility ver. 2.1

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

warning: It is not recommended to run 'hp-plugin' in a root mode.

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.17.10)
Plugin Download and Install Utility ver. 2.1

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

(Note: Defaults for each question are maked with a '*'. Press <enter> to accept the default.)

------------------------------------------
| PLUG-IN INSTALLATION FOR HPLIP 3.17.10 |
------------------------------------------

  Option      Description
  ----------  --------------------------------------------------
  d           Download plug-in from HP (recommended)
  p           Specify a path to the plug-in (advanced)
  q           Quit hp-plugin (skip installation)

Enter option (d=download*, p=specify path, q=quit) ? d

-------------------
| DOWNLOAD PLUGIN |
-------------------

Checking for network connection...
Downloading plug-in from:
Downloading plug-in: [\                                   ] 0% Receiving digital keys: /usr/bin/gpg --homedir /home/sreenatha/.hplip/.gnupg --no-permission-warning --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 0x4ABA2F66DBD5A95894910E0673D770CDA59047B9

error: Unable to recieve key from keyserver
Do you still want to install the plug-in? (y=yes, n=no*, q=quit) ? y

----------------------
| INSTALLING PLUG-IN |
----------------------

Creating directory plugin_tmp
Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing HPLIP 3.17.10 Plugin Self Extracting Archive................................................

HP Linux Imaging and Printing System (ver. 3.17.10)
Plugin Installer ver. 3.0

Copyright (c) 2001-15 HP Development Company, LP
This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
This is free software, and you are welcome to distribute it
under certain conditions. See COPYING file for more details.

Plug-in version: 3.17.10
Installed HPLIP version: 3.17.10
Number of files to install: 42

You must agree to the license terms before installing the plug-in:

LICENSE TERMS FOR HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) Driver Plug-in

These License Terms govern your Use of the HPLIP Driver Plug-in Software (the
"Software"). USE OF THE SOFTWARE INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY
DOCUMENTATION, IS SUBJECT TO THESE LICENSE TERMS AND THE APPLICABLE AS-IS
WARRANTY STATEMENT. BY DOWNLOADING AND INSTALLING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ARE AGREEING
TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THESE TERMS, DO NOT
DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL THE SOFTWARE ON YOUR SYSTEM.

1. License Grant. HP grants you a license to Use one copy of the Software with
HP printing products only. "Use" includes using, storing, loading, installing,
executing, and displaying the Software. You may not modify the Software or
disable any licensing or control features of the Software.

2. Ownership. The Software is owned and copyrighted by HP or its third party
suppliers. Your license confers no title to, or ownership in, the Software and
is not a sale of any rights in the Software. HP's third party suppliers may
protect their rights in the Software in the event of any violation of these
license terms.

3. Copies and Adaptations. You may only make copies or adaptations of the
Software for archival purposes or when copying or adaptation is an essential
step in the authorized Use of the Software. You must reproduce all copyright
notices in the original Software on all copies or adaptations. You may not copy
the Software onto any public network.

4. No Disassembly. You may not Disassemble the Software unless HP's prior
written consent is obtained. "Disassemble" includes disassembling, decompiling,
decrypting, and reverse engineering. In some jurisdictions, HP's consent may not
be required for limited Disassembly. Upon request, you will provide HP with
reasonably detailed information regarding any Disassembly.

5. No Transfer. You may not assign, sublicense or otherwise transfer all or any
part of these License Terms or the Software.

6. Termination. HP may terminate your license, upon notice, for failure to
comply with any of these License Terms. Upon termination, you must immediately
destroy the Software, together with all copies, adaptations and merged portions
in any form.

7. Export Requirements. You may not export or re-export the Software or any copy
or adaptation in violation of any applicable laws or regulations.

8. U.S. Government Restricted Rights. The Software has been developed entirely
at private expense. It is delivered and licensed, as defined in any applicable
DFARS, FARS, or other equivalent federal agency regulation or contract clause,
as either "commercial computer software" or "restricted computer software",
whichever is applicable. You have only those rights provided for such Software
by the applicable clause or regulation or by these License Terms.

9. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW,
HP AND ITS SUPPLIERS PROVIDE THE SOFTWARE "AS IS" AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND
HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL OTHER WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR
STATUTORY, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WARRANTIES OF TITLE AND
NON-INFRINGEMENT, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES, DUTIES OR CONDITIONS OF
MERCHANTABILITY, OF FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND OF LACK OF VIRUSES ALL
WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE. Some states/jurisdictions do not allow exclusion of
implied warranties or limitations on the duration of implied warranties, so the
above disclaimer may not apply to you in its entirety.

10. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. Notwithstanding any damages that you might incur,
the entire liability of HP and any of its suppliers under any provision of this
agreement and your exclusive remedy for all of the foregoing shall be limited to
the greater of the amount actually paid by you separately for the Software or
U.S. $5.00. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL
HP OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL,
INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS OR CONFIDENTIAL OR OTHER INFORMATION, FOR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION, FOR PERSONAL INJURY, FOR LOSS OF PRIVACY ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY
WAY RELATED TO THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE, OR OTHERWISE IN
CONNECTION WITH ANY PROVISION OF THIS AGREEMENT, EVEN IF HP OR ANY SUPPLIER HAS
BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND EVEN IF THE REMEDY FAILS OF
ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. Some states/jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or
limitation of incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or
exclusion may not apply to you.

Do you accept the license terms for the plug-in (y=yes*, n=no, q=quit) ? y

Done.

------------------------
| DOWNLOADING FIRMWARE |
------------------------

Downloading firmware to device hp:/usb/HP_LaserJet_1020?serial=S44NWQ2...
Firmware download successful.

Done.

---------------------
| PRINT QUEUE SETUP |
---------------------

warning: One or more print queues already exist for this device: HP-LaserJet-1020.

Would you like to install another print queue for this device (y=yes, n=no*, q=quit) ? error: User exit

Done.


How can one enable double-tapping to zoom in Firefox? I want to have a double-tap zoom functionality (like on Android or iOS devices) in my Firefox web browser using the left mouse button. Is it possible to change some browser settings in order to get it to work?

Have you tried firefox extensions? This one, for example has shortcuts that late you zoom

zoom-page


How do I check if a package comes preinstalled with Ubuntu or if I installed it myself? I'm writting instructions for someone else, and I want to know if I need to include a couple apt install commands in my snippet to make it completely copy/paste-able on a fresh Ubuntu installation.

How do I see if a given program was included with my Ubuntu installation or if I installed it myself later?

They're running the same Ubuntu version as me, so I don't need to know if the program only started being pre-installed in a certain Ubuntu version.

The easy way to determine if a package is installed by the Ubuntu Desktop Installer is to check if it's included in the ubuntu-desktop metapackage. That's the metapackage that defines what the installer will install:

You can see the list of immediate dependencies using the command: apt depends ubuntu-desktop.

But what if your package is not listed among the immediate dependencies? You can easily find out by testing the package with apt.

For example, let's simulate the removal of nautilus (the Gnome file manager). We will, of course, use the --simulate flag; there is no need to destroy our system to answer this simple question. You can see below that removing nautilus also results in the removal of ubuntu-desktop. This is conclusive proof that nautilus is installed by the Desktop Ubuntu installer:

$ apt remove nautilus --simulate
NOTE: This is only a simulation!
      [...]
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons nautilus nautilus-share ubuntu-desktop
  ubuntu-desktop-minimal
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 5 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Remv ubuntu-desktop [1.440]
Remv ubuntu-desktop-minimal [1.440]
Remv gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons [19.10.2-1]
Remv nautilus-share [0.7.3-2ubuntu3]
Remv nautilus [1:3.34.1-1ubuntu1]

Let's expand on that example in two ways. Let's move down the dependency tree and try to remove a sub-dependency (nautilus-data). We do this by changing from remove to autoremove. Also, let's use grep to reduce the output. You can see below that this is an effective way to test any (sub-)dependency of ubuntu-desktop anywhere in the chain of dependencies. The nautilus-data package is installed by the Ubuntu Desktop Installer:

$ apt autoremove nautilus-data --simulate | grep ubuntu-desktop
  session-shortcuts tree ubuntu-desktop ubuntu-desktop-minimal
Remv ubuntu-desktop [1.440]
Remv ubuntu-desktop-minimal [1.440]

Let's look at the case with the opposite result. chrome is NOT a dependency of ubuntu-desktop. It was installed sometime later. Removing it WON'T remove ubuntu-desktop:

$ apt autoremove chrome --simulate | grep ubuntu-desktop
(No output)

I don't think there is any script or program that does what you want.  About the only way to tell is to run the Ubuntu live USB and see if there are any programs not on it.  A few programs do not get installed, like gparted, it is on 'live' but not on installed version.  Have seen a few questions like this.


UBUNTU 16.04 ERROR INSTALLING GRUB My computer has Windows 10 installed, and when I try to install Ubuntu 16.04, it does not detect Windows 10, nor does it detect Windows 10 in my partitions list.

On the final step of the installation, it shows me this error.

grub-amd64-efi

Later, I run the LiveCD in "Try Ubuntu", and I paste this command in the terminal sudo fixparts /dev/sda, and sudo fdisk -l it does not work.

Help me please.

The solution for dual boot Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 is a bit tricky because it is somewhat hardware dependent.

See this link for detailed answer and general explanation.
See this link for the question in case above link is invalid.

For my particular case, I have a Samsung Series 9 (2011) with Windows 10 installed. No other OS,but my Windows 10 has 4 partitions (pictured below). This PC requires F2 for setup, and no F10/F11 options for boot menu. So the only configuration change in setup is "UEFI Boot Support" which limits the possible solutions to my problem.

The solution for me was to keep my Windows 10 install, and shrink partition to make room for Ubuntu 16.04 install.

First press F2 for setup and change boot priority to make Primary SATA HDD and Windows Boot Manager last. Now it will allow me to boot into USB Live. Boot order in image is not correct so do what works for you, so it's okay if my ordering does not match your own.

Use a 16.04 USB Live, and start the installation process.

Select "Something Else" when asked if you want to format whole disk in the "Installation Type" menu.

Now you are in the manual partition page for the mounted drives. I only have one drive which is called "sda"

Above Image Shows that I kept my Windows 10 install and made free space for the Ubuntu 16.04 which requires Ext4 file system.

After install restart, and press F2 for setup and change boot priority to have primary SATA HDD and Windows Boot Manager at the top; respectively. This was not the end, but you should try it to see if it may be for your case. I had to go a few steps further.

Went back into USB Live installation and used a tool called Boot-Repair

Redo Ubuntu 16.04 install, but change Device for boot loader installion from (pictured above):

  /dev/sda

to

  /dev/sda1

Restart and run Boot-Repair again with recommended option.

Final change setup boot priority to have SATA HDD and Windows Boot Manager at the top.

A combination of installing Grub and boot loader a few times allowed the installation to work, and allow Grub to be selected first.

Note in the image below that sda1 is windows recovery, and sda2 is Windows Boot Manager.

LAST STEP: Match boot priority in setup as pictured below.

SATA HDD
Windows Boot Manager
ubuntu (make it last)

Below is a picture of disk utility software output (Disk Management) to show general partition scheme with Windows 10, Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and Swap Area. All 3 OS are accessible.

Below is my current GRUB, and yes it is a bit messy. I did advanced option on Boot-Repair to get Windows Boot Manager to be selected automatically. Current GRUB setup is a messy layout due to multiple install attempts and use of Boot-Repair utility

I have Windows 7, and after installing Ubuntu 16.04, I never saw the Windows option in GRUB.

Running this command worked for me:

sudo update-grub


Unable to boot or install ubuntu on an Alienware M17x R3 laptop Neither can I install Ubuntu 11.04 64 bit nor can I just run the OS from a USB drive. It just shows a blank screen when I try to run it, and when I try to install it, the screen just flickers with rainbow colours.

I need some linux on it, what other distribution is known to work on these machines? I would be most comfortable with ubuntu if there is a workaround.

I had the same problem with my HP tx2000, I downloaded the alternate installer and it worked. it should let you at least install ubuntu.

If you still get a black or flickering screen after the installation, try changing the boot options:

If the menu doesn't appear and boots straight into Ubuntu, restart and press the Shift key until the menu appears.
Select the Ubuntu default kernel (usually the first option) and press the E key to edit.
Go to the end of the line that contains the kernel (starts with linux/boot/vmlinuz) by pressing End.
type nomodeset
Press Ctrl+X to boot

If that doesn't work, try using the option acpi=off.

Once you boot into Ubuntu, make sure you have internet connection. Ubuntu will detect and show you in a window the hardware that requires restricted (i.e not open source) drivers. It will then download and install them.

Try using 11.10 of Ubuntu.  They seem to have fixed the issue with the video.  I'm not sure but I think the issue was related to the Hybrid SLI video mode that the Alienware has.  I'm running Ubuntu 11.10 as I write this on an M17x.  Good luck. :)


How do I get the latest Java JRE version? I have Ubuntu 14.04 and I need the latest version of Java JRE to run certain games but I have the old version and I do not know how I can update it. I tried downloading it from https://java.com/download but I couldn't rub the downloaded file, Also tried looking at other people's questions but I couldn't really understand them.The error I get is "the application requires a Java runtime environment 1.6.0"
Here's a screen shot of the error:
http://i.imgur.com/y6yMcXJ.png

WebUpd8

Webupd8 offers a ppa on Launchpad which offers Java installers for all current Ubuntu releases.

PPA description:

Oracle Java (JDK) Installer (automatically downloads and installs Oracle JDK7 / JDK8 / JDK9). There are no actual Java files in this PPA.

More info (and Ubuntu installation instructions):
- for Oracle Java 7: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/01/install-oracle-java-jdk-7-in-ubuntu-via.html
- for Oracle Java 8: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/09/install-oracle-java-8-in-ubuntu-via-ppa.html

Debian installation instructions:
- Oracle Java 7: http://www.webupd8.org/2012/06/how-to-install-oracle-java-7-in-debian.html
- Oracle Java 8: http://www.webupd8.org/2014/03/how-to-install-oracle-java-8-in-debian.html

Important!!! For now, you should continue to use Java 8 because Oracle Java 9 is available as an early access release (it should be released in 2016)! You should only use Oracle Java 9 if you explicitly need it, because it may contain bugs and it might not include the latest security patches! Also, some Java options were removed in JDK9, so you may encounter issues with various Java apps. More information and installation instructions (Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Debian): http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/install-oracle-java-9-in-ubuntu-linux.html

In case you need Java 8 - simple do as follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

Have you already tried to install openjdk-7-jre?

sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jre


Disable On-screen Keyboard 18.04 at all times I can't disable the on-screen keyboard after a fresh install of 18.04. I have a Dell XPS 13 that is equipped with both a touch screen and keyboard. I use the touch screen regularly to switch between windows, but every time I touch a window I now have this useless on-screen keyboard pop-up.

I've disabled the screen keyboard in the universal access settings menu. I've also installed the caribou blocker program for firefox (which only works some of the time). I'm running gnome v 3.28, where this issue was supposed to be fixed.

Any ideas on what else I can try to get my touchscreen back?

This is a bug, reported here in the GNOME bug tracker.


Can't install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 16.10 I was following this instruction https://askubuntu.com/a/765458/490870

duke@ostrov:~$ sudo apt install mysql-server-5.6
[sudo] password for duke:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mysql-server-5.6 : Depends: initscripts but it is not installable
                    Depends: sysv-rc (>= 2.88dsf-24) but it is not installable or
                             file-rc (>= 0.8.16) but it is not installable
                    Recommends: libhtml-template-perl but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
duke@ostrov:~$ sudo rm /var/lib/mysql/debian-5.7.flag
rm: cannot remove '/var/lib/mysql/debian-5.7.flag': No such file or directory

I am also using Ubuntu 16.10, and the default version of mysql-server in my computer is 5.7 and it's working fine.

Try following commands:

    sudo apt-get install -f
    sudo apt-get purge mysql-server-5.6
    sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install mysql-server-5.7

If you still get broken packages error, try sudo dpkg --configure -a to fix it. This might be also helpful for you to fix broken packages.

(PS: This may not work, I put my answer cause I don't have enough reputations to comment, Hope it can help you!)


Initramfs error whenever booting Ubuntu after booting windows I've got a dual boot of Ubuntu with windows and Ubuntu and occasionally I use windows for things that I need to do and every time I seen to do that, it causes an initramfs error which says
Error: no pointer back to namespace node in package 0000000
I know the basic fix to this sudo update-initramfs -u which works temporarily but then the error comes back every time I boot windows then Ubuntu.
Is there a permanent solution to this problem? I know it can be ignored but it is concerning and annoying to put up with. Thank you

in Ubuntu
Do these commands:
sudo update-initramfs -c -k $(uname -r) # we create a new ramdisk
reboot # we reboot the computer
in BIOS
Disable Secure Boot.
in Windows
We disable fast boot and hibernation:

boot into Windows
open the Power control panel
choose change what the power buttons do
choose change options that are unavailable
uncheck fast startup
close the Power control panel
open an administrative command prompt window
type powercfg /h off
type chkdsk /f c:
approve to run chkdsk at next reboot
reboot into Windows to let chkdsk run on drive C:


Safe to install this Xerox printer driver on Ubuntu 13.04? As the title says, is it safe for me to install this driver for a Xerox WorkCentre 7835 Printer on my Ubuntu 13.04 installation?

Because when I try to install them it says something about a bad package quality. I really don't want to break my Ubuntu setup.

Here is the driver

Here is the log

i'm not sure where I found them on Xerox's site but I usually just download the .ppd file instead of the .deb package.  During the install of the printer when it asks for a driver or ppd file, i point it to that.

It looks like the main complaint about the deb is that the files should be owned by root instead of whoever it leaves it as.  That might be an easy post-install fix.

http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2010/04/view-and-extract-packages/ will tell you how to get the files out of a deb so you can examine them more closely in a safe directory.

The other errors:
E: XeroxPrtDrv: bad-package-name
E: XeroxPrtDrv: package-not-lowercase
E: XeroxPrtDrv: maintainer-address-missing Xerox

don't sound at all like a real problem.

The only one that does sound like a problem is:
E: XeroxPrtDrv: malformed-deb-archive found 4 members instead of 3
According to http://lintian.debian.org/tags/malformed-deb-archive.html
that is a serious problem.  I suspect the deb won't even work.  You probably need to contact Xerox and let them know they have a malformed-deb-archive problem with those packages.

Under Ubuntu you should follow the following rules:

(1.) Try just connecting the printer.

Unlike Windows (XP, 7, 8, etc.), you do not normally need a driver. You may need a driver for some unusual function or lesser known brand/model, but most printers can just be plugged in.

(2.) Look on the forums, for advice.

Some simple configuration may solve any minor issue, after step 1.

(3.) Only use drivers from 'trusted' sources.

If you found the vendor / drivers site from a Google search (or equiv.), AND it does not warn you of malware (for that site), see what they recommend.

Some random driver found on the Internet (often with an installer app.) can not always be trusted.

Always read all install instructions carefully. Make sure they are for you version (release, 32bit or 64bit, etc.) of Linux.

If you have tried all that, ask a question here ..

Your original question would be best answered by trying it (the driver) for you, but we would also need the same model / brand printer for that.


Ad-hoc network (hot spot) created in Ubuntu is not detected by android phone I created a hot spot via network > wireless > use as hotspot.

Other laptops successfully detected the hot-spot,could connect and use it without any problem.

But no android phone could detect it.! I tried with many android phones but none could.(I found out that even an ad-hoc created in windows is not detected by any phone)

So is there anything wrong i am doing(rather i am not doing anything actually other than clicking on the "use as hotspot" button..but still..)? or is that the network cannot be shared with phones? and if not,how can i share it with phones?

I think Android doesn't support ad-hoc networking.

Please follow this tutorial to make the adhoc connection in ubuntu , act like a wifi hotspot .

We are using hostapd for creating the hotspot .
to Install , type :   sudo apt-get install hostapd

Copy the below config to a  hostapd.conf in ur home folder .

replace the password with yours.

interface=wlan0
driver=nl80211
ssid=MyAP
hw_mode=g
channel=11
wpa=1
wpa_passphrase=MyPasswordHere
wpa_key_mgmt=WPA-PSK
wpa_pairwise=TKIP CCMP
wpa_ptk_rekey=600

Then , simply create an adhoc connection and issue sudo hostapd hostapd.conf in the terminal .

For detailed explanation :

http://shaer.me/blog/2012/08/how-to-enable-ad-hoc-connection-on-your-android/


Edimax EW-7811Un wifi adapter not working on Ubuntu 14.04 LTS I have installed Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64-Bit and have a Edimax EW-7811Un wifi adapter. I have tired to get it to work but have no luck.

when I run lsusb command I get:

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 7392:7811 Edimax Technology Co., Ltd EW-7811Un 802.11n Wireless Adapter [Realtek RTL8188CUS]

iwconfig shows that nothing is being read or connected:

eth0      no wireless extensions.
lo        no wireless extensions.

I have tired numerous forums and tutorials but cant get it to work, dont know what I am doing wrong.

Can someone give a clear step by step method to get this to work?

uname -r: (Kernel Version)

3.16.0-34-generic

This has been reported to work:

sudo apt-get install linux-headers-generic build-essential dkms
git clone https://github.com/pvaret/rtl8192cu-fixes.git
sudo dkms add ./rtl8192cu-fixes
sudo dkms install 8192cu/1.10
sudo depmod -a
sudo cp ./rtl8192cu-fixes/blacklist-native-rtl8192.conf /etc/modprobe.d/

Reboot

(Source)

The drivers from https://www.edimax.com/edimax/download/download/data/edimax/global/download/for_home/wireless_adapters/wireless_adapters_n150/ew-7811un didn't work for me on 20.04. The make file was giving me errors.
After some time searching I found https://github.com/SonelSA/rtl8723bu_realtek which fixed it for me.
To install:
git clone https://github.com/SonelSA/rtl8723bu_realtek
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe -v 8723bu


where are the apt indexes stored and can they be removed? I am performing an apt-get update prior to installing some packages:

Get:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com trusty Release.gpg [933 B]
Get:2 http://archive.ubuntu.com trusty-updates Release.gpg [933 B]
...
...
Get:23 http://archive.ubuntu.com trusty-security/restricted amd64 Packages [40 B]
Get:24 http://archive.ubuntu.com trusty-security/universe amd64 Packages [58.0 kB]
Fetched 20.0 MB in 2min 57s (113 kB/s)

As can be seen above, apt-get has fetched 20.0 MB of indexes.  After the apt-get update and the apt-get install mypackage, I would like to clean up all caches to minimise the disk space used.

Question 1: Where are the apt package indexes stored on the file system?

Question 2: How can I safely remove the indexes?

NB: all of the following was tested on Ubuntu 14.04.

Up front: don't remove any directories, just files inside of the directories. Also make sure no apt-related processes are running (or could get auto-started during your cleanup).

/var/cache/apt/archives/*

The files in /var/cache/apt/archives, i.e. the downloaded packages, can be cleaned using apt-get clean. This is the method that is linked in the other answer.

/var/cache/apt/*.bin

As long as you ensure that no apt-related process is running the index files /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin and /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin can also be cleaned out. Unless they are leftover, there should not be any other files that would match /var/cache/apt/*.bin, but you can remove them using that pattern as long as no apt-related process is running.

The next run of apt-get update will regenerate these files.

Unfortunately this question asking about the index files was closed as duplicate, although it isn't a duplicate at all.

/var/lib/apt/lists/*

You can also remove the cached package lists, but might want to leave the lock file untouched.

Yes, the file lock can also be removed, provided no apt-related processes are running or would start during cleanup. But I mentioned that already once or twice.

Rationale

I wondered about this possibility to be able to create a template archive to use for creation of containers (LXC, Docker). In such a case you usually want to trim down the system as much as possible before packaging.

Turns out it is harmless to remove the files. In my particular case I can be sure no apt-related processes are running, as the "system" - after the chroot part finishes - isn't actually running.

Potential apt-related processes

cron-apt, but also unattended-upgrades and similar would be examples apt-related processes that you don't want to run during a cleanup.

Have a look at /var/cache/apt folder. Both the index files and downloaded package files reside there. For cleanup, you can check an older question thread here
.


Software to help filling out PDF that is not a form I have one of those really annoying PDF's that has spaces that when printed create a form to fill out by hand, but the author has not actually made it a "PDF form".

I was wondering if there was any package that would help me fill out the form anyway.  I know that just about any PDF editor will allow me to type text onto a form, but I'm looking for something that specifically will help me with the following two issues:

Aligning multiple form fields vertically (left edge, e.g.)
Helping me get all of the text to be the same distance from the "line" at the bottom of the form field.

(also, if you know of webapps that would help with this, I will accept those answers as well.)

I advise you to check all available PDF creators/editors for Linux:

Creators

OpenOffice.org: an open source office suite with built-in PDF creation.
LibreOffice.org: an open source office suite with built-in PDF creation.
Xournal: an open source program that creates PDFs.
Inkscape vector drawing program that imports and exports PDF files.
Scribus: an Open Source program for professional page layout.

Editors

PDFedit: an open source program for viewing or editing the internal structures of PDF documents
PDF Studio: proprietary software for viewing and editing PDF documents
Pdftk: can merge, split, en-/decrypt, watermark/stamp and manipulate PDF files

and choose the one that fits into your problem

From your question I understand that you need to do it frequently or multiple times. I see the following solutions:

(EDIT) Another solution: use Xournal. Xournal allows you to annotate a PDF and creates a gzipped XML file with these annotations. You can edit or process that file at will, and then use Xournal to create a composite PDF that contains both the original file and the annotations. This is probably the easiest solution.

Edit the PDF document in a PDF editor of your choice and insert the form fields yourself (they can be transparent, so that you will not change the looks of the form).
Write a program that modifies the PDF -- this would be suitable for filling out a large number of forms. Many programming languages have libraries that can directly manipulate PDF files. This requires knowledge of PDF and programming, however.
Another solution for generating the forms in a batch-like manner, one that seems complex, but might actually be quite simple. Use the pdftops program to convert pdf to postscript. A postscript file is simple text, and postscript is easy to learn. In other words, you can manipulate PS files with any script that can just insert a few commands at the end of the file.


Unable to unlock encrypted Ubuntu 16.04 I checked the encrypted option when I installed Ubuntu 16.04 yesterday just to explore other features. The installation is very fresh.

When I boot my PC it asks for my password to unlock the OS. The problem is that I have no mouse pointer, and I'm not able to type anything. I click tab and it doesn't do anything. If I press Ctrl+Alt+f1 or f2 I get a black screen but I can't do anything from here. It shows the keyboard is working though.

I can get around this by doing a hard reset. (A hard reset is my only option at this point.) When I do a hard reset from the password screen, the computer boots to GRUB instead of Ubuntu, and then I select Ubuntu from the list, and then it accepts my password just fine and I can log in.

Can someone please explain to me why this is happening, and possibly how to fix it? I've installed Gnome Online Accounts, Nvidia video driver 367.44 (which was way too complicated), Firefox ad-ons, and Ubuntu Restricted Extras to get HTML 5 videos to play on YouTube.

If you're trying to unlock the OS, is this for your encrypted disk or the standard login screen? If you're prompted with something like the screen below, just enter your encryption passphrase.

You're not supposed to see your mouse cursor.


Gaming performance difference between Windows and Ubuntu What are the pros/cons switching from Windows 7/8 to Ubuntu?

I mainly develop software and play games.

I obviously don't play games on my laptop that's why I give Ubuntu a try. But the whole OS looks great and I recently discovered PlayOnLinux.

How big is the performance hit from Windows games?
What if the game supports DX11 and has tessellation, does PlayOnLinux translate DX11 to OpenGL?

From a 7+ year experience I can say the following:

I have tried Wine since around 2005-2006. Also tried Cedega (Dead for me after Wine 1.2 came out) and PlayOnLinux (PoL for short). I have also seen how the developing process in Wine under Ubuntu has been quickly catching up to the latest games. For Wine installation and configuration please see How to install and configure Wine?

Around 4 years ago if somebody came to me and wanted to change to Ubuntu, one of the questions they would ask would be: Can I play X game on Ubuntu?. If the answer was positive for that game the next question would be something along the lines of: Will it have the same performance?

4 years ago my normal answer was no in most cases. After Wine 1.2 and in this year 1.4 came out, I had changed my answer for several games and for the first time I was more on the positive side about telling a new user that they could actually play the game.

Cases like Deep Space 2 which is/was one of the latest games I could play. Alice in Wonderland (The new one I mean), The Sims 3, World of Warcraft, Amnesia and others. Even Skyrim could be played. This are games that demand powerful graphics and you can play them with little to no additional setups other than the normal install and play steps.

A quick way to know what games can or can not be played on Wine (In Ubuntu) can be found in the Wine App Database: http://appdb.winehq.org/ which holds more than 11000 games (Litte over 5000 about two years ago). This also includes information for most games about the performance, which is not the same for each game that can be playable on Linux. This helps in knowing if a game is playable and has the same confirmed performance over the same game on Windows.

Wine also offers something called Ranking which helps in determining what games can be played with less configuration and a bigger chance of them working out of the box. If you see a game with a Platinum ranking it means you have a 99% chance it will work out of the box with no problems at all, from start to finish. If you see one with the Gold ranking you might find yourself doing a little bit of configuring but at the end it will work out good. In most cases, Gold status will work out of the box. They show as Gold because they have not being updated with the latest Wine version. Of course if you have a game with the Garbage rank it means it will never work or will only work if Superman starts eating kryptonian cereal in the morning.

A couple of years ago the amount of Platinum games was less than 50. In August 2012 (First time I wrote this answer) you could find More than 1500 games out of which almost 200 were in the Latest Titles. Today there are more than 5800 Games of which more than 1800+ are Platinum. And this is only in the Development phase of the 1.5.x. I can only imagine the amount that will reach Platinum rating once 1.6 is released. The only need here is for more people to participate and test the games on Wine (If applicable) or Steam (Which is new right now).

With this in mind I will always recommend using the PPA from Wine found here . This is because the official ones like the 1.4.x series, after several months, are outdated when compared to the 1.5.x development series, which to me is very stable, has many improvements and solves many issues.

Simply run the following in the terminal: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Then run sudo apt-get update. Afterwards install the latest version (As of this writing it is the 1.5.23). To verify the version you have installed type wine --version in the terminal.

HOW BIG IS THE PERFORMANCE HIT?

Seeing as the Wine development is taking huge leaps (Specially in the DX10 and DX11 departments) and can say the following from experience:

Games like world of warcraft run much smoother in older PCs. They somehow use LESS MEMORY than in their Windows scenario and achieve better FPS in older PCs. This I tested in 8 PCs for friends that wanted to test out Ubuntu but also played WoW. All cases mentioned the same positive result. In the DX11 gxApi setup I actually could play WoW with very awesome graphics. But for best results OpenGL is better. This is not the same for high spec PCs where you can actually enjoy better graphics with the high end ones until Wine catches up to this graphic technologies.
Will games with DX10 or DX11 work out of the box. Right now the answer is NO, they will not. Will they work in the future, Yes. The speed at which Wine has shown to be inn development suggest it so. Specially for the latest games and DirectX 10/11 support.
The amount of games that are working out of the box (Great graphic games in this case) have exponentially grown in the last year alone. This gives you an idea on how things will look at the end of 2012 or beginning of 2013 for Wine. To give you a background idea, I played in Wine Deep Space 2, 3 days after it officially launched. I was not even thinking that it would work and here I was amazed how everything work great from the first time. I also managed to play Dishonored a day after release without any problems. Others like Portal 2, Skyrim and Trine 1 & 2 are playable with no problems.
Wine does not only focus on one app at a time but also on libraries or DLL. This means that if 100 games use X type of library, they will all benefit from a simple improvement made to it. This is why, when each update of wine comes out, it can change many things regarding one single fix. As an example we can still remember the famous small fix about Mouse and Audio that ended up fixing more than 100+ games.

PLAYONLINUX - PoL for short, works with Wine side by side. They try (in a very efficient way) to make it so that when you install a program/game it will work out of the box. they might use an old wine version that works perfect for a particular game or they might add some scripts, additional dlls or files to make the game work. PoL does not need Wine installed but it would be wise to have it install just the same. You can find the latest version in here.

For example installing a game with Wine might make you do several additional steps to make it work. With PoL is just one click away, PoL will take care that the game installs and works as it should by adding a layer that reads what program or game you are installing and running a script to make sure that all DLLs and additional components that application needs are installed (For example DirectX or .NET). That is what PoL is aiming at, for you to "Play On Linux". Note that it is based on the technology that Wine offers.  It actually updates itself rather fast in comparison to add new installer scripts.

Many of this apps can be found in the long list of supported apps.

With that said, PoL does not do anything out of this world that Wine does not have, for example translating DX11 to OpenGL. This would be more in the area of Wine.

What I would recommend as I normally do it, is to do some Testing with several games and help the Wine community with your feedback. By doing this you would be speeding up the process for that particular game to work correctly.

CODEWEAVERS CROSSOVER

This is similar to PoL but it is paid. You actually get a lot of support and there is even a neat Top List of most voted apps

STEAM

The move by Valve to offer steam on Linux (Specially in Ubuntu) just goes to show the potential Linux is having over gaming. I should also mention that Valve is not the only one looking into developing games for Ubuntu. Many other are also looking this way as an alternative to Windows (Specially Windows 8).

NVIDIA / INTEL / ATI

Even graphics card companies are focusing more and more on enhancing their performance on Linux. With the huge jumps we have had so far gaining after every update a significant performance boost.

UBUNTU

To top it off. The performance that Ubuntu has received over every version since Unity came out has been positive. For each new release, Unity has consumed less resources, has had less bugs and has improved performance to the point of becoming excellent for playing any games, based on Wine or native like Steam.

The performance many users have noticed in 12.04, then again in 12.10 and even more in 13.04 is just a small example of where Unity is heading and what kind of enhancements we can expect to receive, not only for Graphics performance but for a more general one. I for one have taken many evaluations over the resource usage and video performance since 11.10 and for each new version, specially since 12.04, the resource usage has started to drop significantly and the FPS count has gone up.

Tested a couple of days ago was Dead Space 3 & Dishonored with both DLC contents. I was amazed at the fact that both worked flawlessly and they detected my video card, CPU and memory correctly. I could select the highest possible video configurations and play perfectly.

UBUNTU PERFORMANCE

I have to tell you, when it came out, Unity was possibly the worst DE for gaming. It was bloated, heavy and crashed a lot. But it had an objective set forth and a way of working that was great for many productive tasks. The improvements over each new version brought many changes to the Unity DE to a point that for each new version, the end user could actually see many enhancements and performance fixes.

12.04 marked such an improved point where many end users that criticized Unity were overwhelmed by the functionality and the speed of Unity. It is from this version on that I will show some benchmarks that I feel should be pointed out to give an idea of how Unity stands in gaming. So Here are several links (Chronologically Ordered) about Unity's performance:

Ubuntu 12.04 - Unity 5.2
Ubuntu 12.10 (Before Compiz Upgrade) - Unity 6.4
Windows 7 Vs Ubuntu 12.10
Ubuntu 13.04 Beta - Unity 6.6
OS X vs 13.04
Windows 7, 8 vs Ubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 13.04
Ubuntu Performance from 8.04 to 13.04

I added the 2 Windows Performance links to prove a point. If you look at the benchmarks you will see that there are jumps between the performance in 12.10 and 13.04. Many fixes and enhancements done to Unity/Compiz have given Unity the edge when it comes to 3D.

And Note that all of this benchmarks are using Unity from the 6.x Series. The one in 13.04 right now is the 7.x Series. There are also some very awesome patches that will be arriving to 13.04 in the coming weeks that will further lower the memory usage, cpu usage
and boost the graphics performance. Additionally, here are some answer that will help you when Performance or Compatibility is an issue:

Any way to check the clock speed of my processor?
How do I install the Nvidia drivers?
Installing Ubuntu Alongside a Pre-Installed Windows with UEFI

UBUNTU STATS

But why so much focus from Steam and other companies. Well, many surveys have been conducted and in most (If not all) have shown that most Linux users, use Ubuntu or a derivative from it. As the latest G+ Poll shows, with a total of 14000+ votes so far, most users us Ubuntu (More than 50%) and most use the Unity desktop (More than 50%). This gives an idea to gaming companies where to focus, in what DE to work on and how to adapt their game to this emerging gaming platform.

TIPS - There are several tips I can leave for anybody that reads this related to Wine, Wine usage, configuration and hints in general for anybody new or old, this are:

How do I install Half-Life 1 and 2? - Covers Winetricks

Adjusting resolution for individual Wine programs - Handle several apps (Different Windows/Resolutions).

For some of the ones I can vouch that are working after testing them in at least 3 computers with the correct hardware requirements (Including updates and DLC) are:

Far Cry & Far Cry 2
Dead Island & Dead Island: Riptide
Dishonored
Hitman 1...4 (Blood Money)
Trine & Trine 2
GTA3, VC & SA
Dead Space 1...3
World of Warcraft
Elder Scrolls 3...5
Penumbra Collection
And many more...

Hope this helps and gives you an idea of how things are moving.

You can be lucky if the games run at all, most won't. Check the AppDB for details:

http://appdb.winehq.org/

Generally speaking, unless you use your computer just for a bit of browsing and email, you really don't want to switch to Ubuntu, you want to setup a dual boot so you have a Windows handly when Ubuntu just can't do what you want to do.


OSSEC HIDS reports "Interface entered in promiscuous(sniffing) mode" I have installed the latest version of OSSEC HIDS (2.8.1), and I keep now getting these email notifications from it:

OSSEC HIDS Notification.
2015 Apr 08 11:26:17

Received From: Bath-Towel->/var/log/syslog
Rule: 5104 fired (level 8) -> "Interface entered in promiscuous(sniffing) mode."
Portion of the log(s):

Apr  8 11:26:15 Bath-Towel kernel: [   93.311372] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

 --END OF NOTIFICATION

OSSEC HIDS Notification.
2015 Apr 08 11:26:19

Received From: Bath-Towel->/var/log/syslog
Rule: 5104 fired (level 8) -> "Interface entered in promiscuous(sniffing) mode."
Portion of the log(s):

Apr  8 11:26:18 Bath-Towel kernel: [   95.824941] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

 --END OF NOTIFICATION

OSSEC HIDS Notification.
2015 Apr 08 11:26:23

Received From: Bath-Towel->/var/log/syslog
Rule: 5104 fired (level 8) -> "Interface entered in promiscuous(sniffing) mode."
Portion of the log(s):

Apr  8 11:26:21 Bath-Towel kernel: [   99.353199] device eth0 entered promiscuous mode

 --END OF NOTIFICATION

So what does this mean and should I be worried about it?

OS Information:

Description:    Ubuntu 14.10
Release:    14.10

If you installed software that allows sniffing and get this when starting software like WireShark then:

Stop worrying!  You'll have a heart attack before your time!  ;-)
Promiscuous mode on a computer has nothing to do with catching nasty viruses like AIDS...  It just means that your network adapter will be able to read TCP/IP packets that are meant for other adapters.  (A.k.a. "sniffing" and that's a great tool to find obscure TCP/IP communication bugs)

1) Always worry...The hackers don't want you to pay attention to the logs and ethernet devices "mysteriously" turning on promiscuous mode for no reason.

2) Promiscuous mode on a computer has nothing to do with catching nasty viruses like AIDS...
- No, but the behaviour is a red flag and should be investigated. Ignoring tell tale signs like this and dismissing them is the lax security mindset that is plaguing so many businesses and institutions these days.

It just means that your network adapter will be able to read TCP/IP packets that are meant for other adapters. (A.k.a. "sniffing" and that's a great tool to find obscure TCP/IP communication bugs)
- It is...IF and I emphasize "IF" it is being done to troubleshoot and not capture packets for malicious intent like foot printing the network or capturing unencrypted messages (email, etc.).

Erring on the side of caution is much more preferable then ignoring potential security exploits.

As far as why this happened...the only thing I can think of is reviewing your system and application logs at around the time it happened and make sure it was something YOU did and not someone or something else.


VirtualBox Ubuntu 14.04 - Bridge adapter not working I'm having some troubles setting up my network connection using the Bridged Adapter configuration. I'm just starting with Linux and even if I was going through different forum discussions on the web, I'm still not able to make it work. NAT is working perfectly and I'm able to access Internet, while with Bridged Adapter the network result unreachable, altough I need it for the application I have in mind.

My setup is the following:

VirtualBox 5,
Host: Windows 10,
Guest: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

Here you could see in details my configuration

VirtualBox Network Config
Beside the RealTek, I could use also: Qualcomm Atheros AR946x Wireless Network Adapter. However the problem remain the same, since it seems I have no network working.

This if the ifconfig command:

    giulio@giulio-VirtualBox:~$ ifconfig
    eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:f5:87:2f
              inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fef5:872f/64 Scope:Link
              UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
              RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:88 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
              RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:24737 (24.7 KB)

    lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
              inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
              inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
              UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
              RX packets:161 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
              TX packets:161 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
              collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
              RX bytes:11409 (11.4 KB)  TX bytes:11409 (11.4 KB)

While /etc/network/interface looks like this:

      # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
      auto lo
      iface lo inet loopback

Here it is a screenshot of the  overall network settings. For the IPv4 settings I'm using AUtomatic (DHCP), while for IPv6 I've set "ignore".

I hope somebody could have a look and help me out, thank you!
Giulio

I have tried to make it work with bridged and after a lot of troubleshooting, it worked.

The primary issue was that my guest OS was sending packets with different MAC address compared to my host OS.

Thus the traffic was getting dropped at wifi gateway.

The solution was to change the MAC address in guest OS and have same MAC for guest as well as host OS.

Steps:

Power off the VM
Go to Settings->Network->Advanced and remove the mac address.
Check the mac address of host machine (ifconfig -a or ipconfig /all) and update the same in the option in step 2.
Save the settings and start the VM, it should work and internet should be reachable :)

First of all: Bridged config does not work with wi-fi.

So you can't bridge the Qualcomm Atheros AR946x to your VMs, but you can use the Realtek adapter, I can see that you're only showing the Ubuntu config and the VM config, but the matter may be with Windows.

I suggest you find how your Windows network is configured to make it work.

Maybe this can help you find the problem:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31922055/bridged-networking-not-working-in-virtualbox-under-windows-10


Installing windows after ubuntu is installed (need to create ntfs partition too) I prefer Ubuntu to work on, but for some applications for school, I need windows. I've done some research and have a few problems:

I only have one hard drive which is formatted as ext4, not ntfs. Many people say I have to use Gparted to create an ntfs partition to install windows on, the only problem is that I need to unmount my drive to do this, which isn't possible I think because I only have one. I thought about mounting my HDD as a slave on a windows laptop but I don't manage to partition it with windows partition manager, so I think I need some kind of tool. which one?
next problem I'll probably have is that I won't be able to boot ubuntu after installing windows because grub will be removed from my MBR. are there any good guides around here? I've used some kind of tool before, but it crashed my whole HDD so I had to fully format it.

Create a live usb/cd disk of ubuntu. (you can use startup disk creator application in ubuntu).

Boot using that cd/usb. Now install gparted in live usb/cd. Issue following in a terminal

sudo apt-get install gparted

Now use gparted to create a ntfs volume. Since you are running from usb/cd the hard disk won't be mounted.

Now install windows.

to fix mbr,Again boot with live usb. Install a tool called boot-repair. Issue following commands to get it

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:yannubuntu/boot-repair && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y boot-repair

Now launch boot-repair and then use Recommended Repair

Good luck. :)

Boot-repair docs

What about using virtualbox, it work fine for me. take a look at this site
VirtualBox for Linux.


Mount error: "unknown filesystem type 'exfat'" When trying to mount an exfat filesystem, I get the following error:

Error mounting /dev/sda6 at /media/gkp/Backup: Command-line
`mount -t "exfat" -o "uhelper=udisks2,nodev,nosuid" "/dev/sda6" "/media/gkp/Backup"'
exited with non-zero exit status 32: mount: unknown filesystem type 'exfat'

Exfat is used on some USB sticks and camera sd cards. What can I do to mount this type of filesystem?

You get this error because the exfat filesystem is not installed in Ubuntu by default. exFAT is proprietary and patented by Microsoft.

Ubuntu 13.10 or higher

Since Ubuntu 13.10, this package is in the main repository. Just install exfat-fuse and exfat-utils:

sudo apt-get install exfat-fuse exfat-utils

Ubuntu 12.04

For ubuntu 13.04 and lower, you'll need a ppa to install the exfat support. Installation procedure:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:relan/exfat
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install fuse-exfat

If you see the error gpg: "tag:launchpad.net:2008:redacted" not a key ID: skipping during the apt-add-repository step, then you'll need to manually install the signing key and run the apt-get update and apt-get install steps after that:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 4DF9B28CA252A784

As of November 25, 2019, this does not work yet in Ubuntu 19.10 Eoan, probably because apt just cannot grab exfat-fuse. I fixed this problem by downloading exfat-fuse deb directly.
This is after installing a dependency.


How to find relevant log file to report crashes? In last two days, I experienced two crushes of Ubuntu 15.04 64-bit (something that was not happening with Ubuntu 14.10). I updated to Ubuntu 15.04 via software updater.

The first crush happened when I wanted to start Viber. I clicked on icon in Ubuntu dashboard... and session was restarted... I logged in again and system was working but CPU usage was kept at 30% constantly. How can I find relevant log file to report the bug?

Second bug happened yesterday. I wanted to shut down the computer and it never shut down. Screen was black but laptop indicators did not turn off. How can I find relevant log file to report the bug?

And where to submit these bugs when log files are found?

Theis is recent dmesg output:

[ 1697.914255] gdbus[1723]: segfault at 300000001 ip 00007f7cc443c6fa sp 00007f7cc20ecb38 error 4 in libc-2.21.so[7f7cc43b1000+1c0000]

[13908.183991] soffice.bin[8153]: segfault at f0 ip 00007ffb3239d357 sp 00007ffefa010500 error 4 in libmergedlo.so[7ffb31296000+3a29000]

[14483.243270] compiz[1847]: segfault at 20 ip 00007f7ed669a29d sp 00007ffd270557f0 error 4 in libpangoft2-1.0.so.0.3600.8[7f7ed668b000+14000]

You can report the bugs in Launchpad. Also read the ReportingBugs wiki to know more about bug reporting (including how to generate log files).


Installed fprint, can't login anymore Tried Fprint, was stupid enough not to backup the common-auth file before changing it.
Somehow I'm locked out of the system, trying to fingerscan doesn't do any difference. Even when I've done it 5 times and it asks for password, when it asks for password and I write it in and it says that it's the wrong password. I use the same password for root as for my user.

Tried to go into Recovery Mode -> root -> sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-auth and remove the rows saying that you need the fingerprint to login, but when I try to overwrite, it says the file is read only, even when I try to open it with root.

I have a lot of schoolwork files and programs on the system, so I can't afford losing them.
Help?

Actually I don't have any idea about your fprint problem but you must mount the file system as rw on recovery mode to make some changes. After opening the system via recovery mode run this command first:

mount -o rw,remount /

Use an usb ubuntu live and edit the /etc/pam.d/common-auth and remove this row auth sufficient pam_fprintd.so

Edit the file on the hard disk where you installed linux, not the live usb.


FIrefox and Chromium use all RAM and pc freezes I have a problem that I'm trying to solve for a long time. I'm using Ubuntu 16.04 dual boot with Windows 10:

When I'm using several tabs in Firefox or Chromium, I see significant memory usage. One tab takes up to 500MB of RAM and when it gets to 3,7GB Ram usage my pc freeze and only what I can do is hard-reset my pc.

I've tried several things to solve this problem:

Disabled all add-ons in Firefox (Firefox version is 58)
Update kernel to 4.13
Disabled "Use hardware acceleration when available" and made more thing to optimize Firefox performance
Tried to use Firefox in safe mode
Increased swapping vm.swappiness=10 and swap to 8gb

I have a total 4GB of RAM.
I never had that problem using Windows before only this happens on Ubuntu.

free --human output:

              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           3,7G        1,2G        1,2G         50M        1,3G        2,2G
Swap:          8,1G          0B        8,1G

swapon output

Filename            Type        Size     Used   Priority
/swapfile           file        8388604     0         -1
/dev/sda5           partition   102396      0         -2

uname -r output

4.13.0-32-generic

What else can I try to solve the problem?

What you're running into is called swapping: You're out of RAM and the kernel swaps unused programs to disk. Setting swappiness to 10 just means the kernel is swapping later rather than earlier (as the default is 60).

As swapping to disk is 1000 times slower than using RAM it just looks like your PC is freezing, but it's not.

You have a few options:

Don't use Chromium: that's a real memory hog; stick to Firefox only!
Use AdBlock+ (advertisements eat memory too)
Use NoScript (only allow the scripts you need on the pages you need)
Use fewer tabs
set swappiness back to 60 and be patient when swapping

and the easiest solution of all:

Buy more RAM

(also the most expensive)


Copying Linux partition from an HDD to a SSD OK, I have a laptop with an HDD drive and I also have a SSD drive. I would like to replace the former with the latter without having to reinstall everything. What I found after a bit of research was to use a live disk + an external hard drive + gparted to copy the whole Linux partition (in two steps) and then edit fstab.

Now I guess when Linux is installed, it assesses computer's hardware and therefore adjusts some software parameters. So I'm afraid doing the above may 'fool' the OS and result in sub-optimal performance w.r.t. the SSD. I don't know if this is right.

When changing hardware, it's a good idea to worry about how the OS will react. For most things, you can just change the piece of hardware in the innards of your computer, then let Linux do it's magic.

Hard drives are a little different. You may copy all files, but still need to have boot instructions (grub) installed on your new drive. You also need to make sure that the identifier of your new drive matches the old one (or some drivers will be lost at sea).

Once the UUID is changed, you boot through a live-cd, copy all your precious files on your SSD, and chroot on you new drive to create the bootloader (grub).

I was going to go in details on how to do such things, but while doing a little research on the topic, I found this: http://blog.oaktreepeak.com/2012/03/move_your_linux_installation_t.html

That being said, is it a good idea? Ideally, you should reinstall from scratch. It would give the opportunity to clean all the broken files that on your drive. If you really don't want to lose your settings for all different applications, make sure you copy all hidden files in your home folder, and transfer them to your new install. If you migrate from one distro to another with the same packages, it will be no issue.

However, if time is a constraint, copying from one hard drive to another is fine, as long as you set all references from your old hard drive "pointed at" the new one. As with anything, it does have a chance to fail, but if you make backups, there is no problem with copying a drive onto another.

Linux is not windows. You don't really need to worry about such things. You can just create a raw partition using dd. And after fixing UUIDs you should be just fine.