google page pop up every ten minutes Since earlier today, google chrome opens an about:blank page (which is my set home page) and then several times per minute, without any reason or initiating anything on my part, the google search page pops up one every 10 minutes or so. I would think it comes from a virus, but I haven't changed anything.

Anyone else having this problem?

It also happens when I am not doing anything on the computer, including when chrome isn't open.

Thanks

Ok, strange, let's take a closed look what is starting the browser processes:

You say there are browser windows poping up on your desktop, every ten minutes or so, independent of whether you hav a browser running yourself, right?

We want to find out why it is occurring - so let's start with looking at which program runs the browsers.

If you run this command, it lists the process tree. It is similar to the more common ps auxf, but leaves much information out that we do not need here.

Please run it when you did not have a browser open, and shortly after a window poped up, while the window is still open:

ps -opid,etime,args --columns 80 xf

It lists your own processes only, as tree, so we can (mostly) see wich program has started which other.
The first column shows the process id, the second one the time that has elapsed since the programm was started.

The output is in a pretty compact form, so you can add it to the question.

[ to be continued ... ]

Based on the result, we'll continue to chase that ghost!

Found what was wrong. I had an app installed from a company I do work for and we no longer needed it. It was designed to log the activity with the other companies we interfaced with so we could get paid for the time. the contract ended and I forgot to uninstall it. I got rid of it and the problem stopped. I remembered when I did the process list.


Gimp too complicated; Pinta/GnuPaint/etc. too simple I've been looking at a few paint programs, trying to find one that I can use for simple office tasks.

Gimp is nice when I need layers or cropping, but apart from that it is a total overkill. I know Gimp is aimed at Photoshop users and it is very powerful - but for simple desktop work it's too complicated.

Simple alternatives like Gnu Paint or Pinta are on the other extreme of the scale; too simple. They seem to be aimed at kids, not office use.

What tool can I use for light office/desktop work?

update: Features would be things like rectangular selections, cropping, save-as in different formats, scale, flip, rotate, paste from clipboard into new/existing image...

There is krita from KDE, that might be worth a try.

XnView does it all, pastes clipboard as new, batch etc.


upgrading Ubuntu from 14.04 to 16.04_ Update problem After upgrading Ubuntu from 14.04 to 16.04 I got the following two problems.
1. When I do sudo apt-get update I got:

W: <http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-security/InRelease>: Signature by key 630239CC130E1A7FD81A27B140976EAF437D05B5 uses weak digest algorithm (SHA1)
W: <us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/InRelease>: Signature by key 630239CC130E1A7FD81A27B140976EAF437D05B5 uses weak digest algorithm (SHA1)
W: <us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-backports/InRelease>: Signature by key 630239CC130E1A7FD81A27B140976EAF437D05B5 uses weak digest algorithm (SHA1)
W: <archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/dists/precise/Release.gpg>: Signature by key 630239CC130E1A7FD81A27B140976EAF437D05B5 uses weak digest algorithm (SHA1)

2. There is no wifi connection.

I appreciate any suggestion.

Thank you in advance and best regards

You don't have to worry about the message. It is just a warning. SHA1 hashing algorithm is being deprecated. Below link has more information regarding this.

https://konklone.com/post/why-google-is-hurrying-the-web-to-kill-sha-1


disk space wrongly displayed after installing LVM disk I installed ubuntu server using LVM partitioning on a 1 TB hard disk. However, after installation, i can only see 10 Gig space
here is the fidsk output

`
 # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00041507

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1          10       71680   83  Linux
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda2              10      121602   976689152   8e  Linux LVM

Disk /dev/dm-0: 10.7 GB, 10737418240 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 1305 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-0 doesn't contain a valid partition table

Disk /dev/dm-1: 2147 MB, 2147483648 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 261 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Disk /dev/dm-1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
You have new mail in /var/mail/root

and df -h output

df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/system-root
                      9.9G  6.6G  2.8G  71% /
devtmpfs              1.9G  232K  1.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs                 1.9G  4.0K  1.9G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1              68M   22M   43M  34% /boot
tmpfs                 6.0G     0  6.0G   0% /var/spool/asterisk/monitor
You have new mail in /var/mail/root

`

any way to increase this space without reisntalling?

You apparently only allocated 10gb to your root fs.  You can use pvs to see how much space lvm has allocated to volumes, and how much it has left, and lvextend to increase the size of a logical volume ( does not need to be unmounted ).  After increasing the size of the logical volume, you will need to tell the fs to use the new space.  Assuming you are using ext[234], you can do this with resize2fs, which also can expand without unmounting.

sudo lvextend -L 20g system/root
sudo resize2fs /dev/mapper/system-root

Note that expanding the volume to use ALL of the unallocated space may not be such a great idea, since you won't have any left to add new volumes later, should you choose to do so, or make use of lvm snapshots.  You can reduce the size of the volume later to free up some space, but that requires the fs to be unmounted, thus you will need to boot the server from some other medium.

In all seriousness, have you rebooted? This will cause the filesystem to recalculate how big it should be. There is a command to do this live, but I can't remember what it is right now.


I am running Ubuntu 12.10 on a IBM lenovo thinkpad r51 (non pae cpu) How do I install 13.04 from live dvd I am running Ubuntu 12.10 on a IBM Lenovo Thinkpad R51. It has a non PAE CPU. I Purchased a 13.04 Live DVD. The live dvd will not boot. Is it possible to work around this without jumping through a lot of hoops?

Ubuntu 13.04 needs PAE. There is a potential workaround at Ubuntu Forums

I used a Linux Live USB with 14.10

Booting with the option "forcepae" allowed boot from USB. Subsequent install seems to be working fine thus far although I am using lubuntu and looking for all performance tweaks as this is a much older laptop.


Is someone trying to hack into my server? What can I do? A few weeks ago I posted a question here about some ssh issues I was having with an Ubuntu 12.04 box. Fast forward to today and I am trying to allow someone else access to the machine, but they keep getting password errors. I checkout out var/logs/auth.log for more info, and found this:

May 11 19:45:33 myserver sshd[9264]: Did not receive identification string from 211.110.xxx.x
May 11 19:45:38 myserver sshd[9267]: Did not receive identification string from 211.110.xxx.x
May 11 19:45:44 myserver sshd[9270]: Did not receive identification string from 211.110.xxx.x
May 11 19:45:49 myserver sshd[9274]: Did not receive identification string from 211.110.xxx.x

I have almost 10000 lines that all seem to say more or less the same thing (there are also 4 auth.log.gz files, which I'm assuming are more of the same?). Sometimes there is a random username attached to the request, input_userauth_request: invalid user bash [preauth]

I don't know much about servers, but it looks like someone is trying to gain access to mine.

Googled around for how to block an IP address in Ubuntu and ended up with this: iptables -A INPUT -s 211.110.xxx.x -j DROP, but after running that command and checking the logs, I'm still getting requests from this one IP every 5 seconds.

How can I find out more about what's going on and deal with these constant requests?

From what you describe, it looks like an automated attack on your server. Most attacks are, unless the attacker knows you personally and is holding a grudge...

Anyway, you might want to look into denyhosts, which you can get from the usual repos. It can analyse repeated attempts and will block their IP address. You may still get something in your logs, but it will at least help mitigate any security concerns.

As for getting more information, I really wouldn't bother. Unless they're an amateur, they'll be using a remote server to do their dirty work which will tell you nothing about who they really are. Your best bet is to find the admin for the IP range (WHOIS is your friend here), and let them know that you're getting a lot of access attempts from that IP. They may be good enough to do something about it.

1st. Unless you need to never open standard ports to your server to the net. Set the router up to open a random port like 53846 and forward it to that machines port 22.

Opportunity hackers can scan a wide range of IP address for known ports like 22 and tryto exploit.

2nd hit him back. Nmap him and find out what he is running. Then try to gain access to his. Just as return fire. If he knows you are on to him hem may stop.

You could also ping him like crazy like a warning shot.

3 rd. Ifn you want to have some fun, you canopen the guest account. Make sure there are no privliges at all. Confine it to guests home directory. If you wwant to get cute you can set up a fake root directory structure for a run around. Set the password as a common one or no password.let him log in.

Then you can use the write command and ask him why he insists on hammering your sever.


Setting up SAMBA server for home file sharing Is this the simplest way to enable file sharing to other computers in your home network, if they run Windows instead of Ubuntu?

When I right click a folder and click 'Local Network Share', and check 'Share this folder' as well as 'Allow others to create and delete files in this folder' I get errors

Says 'Samba's testparm returned error1: Load smb config files from /etc/samba/smb.conf
rlimit_max:increasingrlimit_max(1024) to minimum Windows limit (16384)

I then saw a tutorial online on creating a home media server with Ubuntu, and the steps said to create a smb config file (gedit /etc/samba/smb.conf)...

which I attempted to do, and it said to have the following in there:

[global]
 workgroup = HOME #(Set this to your Windows workgroup)
 netbios = HOME #(Set this to your Windows workgroup)
 security = share
 [Shared Drive] #(Set this to the name you want the shared folder to have)
 comment = entire shared drive #(Comments about the shared folder)
 path =/mnt/storage2/ #(Path to the shared folder or mount-point of harddrive)
 read only = no
 guest ok = yes
 writable = yes

After filling out the fields as they said, I got the same errors as before in addition to one saying 'Unknown parameter encountered: "netbios"
Ignoring unknown parameter "netbios"
WARNING: Ignoring invalid value 'share' for parameter 'security'
Error loading services

Is this tutorial outdated and this file no longer works with these commands?

I also noticed the name of the workgroup from the other (Windows) computers doesn't automatically show up on Ubuntu. The default name seems to just be WORKGROUP (prior to this I had been using Homegroups among all Windows). Not sure how that ties into all the rest of this.

I do believe I found the HowTo you referenced: https://www.howtoforge.com/creating-a-home-media-and-file-server-with-ubuntu

It is best to tell people what version of Ubuntu you are using when you ask a question. Configuring a Samba server has changed a bit over the years especially since Ubuntu 11.10.

For one: security = share will disable the samba server service ( smbd ) from running so that will not work today.

My recommendation is to restore your original smb.conf if you have it. If you don't have it there is a copy of it which you can copy to the correct location. So:

Make a copy of your current smb.conf:

sudo mv /etc/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/smb.conf.bak

Then copy over the default:

sudo cp -a /usr/share/samba/smb.conf /etc/samba/

Save the file then restart smbd:

sudo service smbd restart

And finally run this command to see if there are any errors:

testparm -s

As for your error message when using usershare ( Local Network Share ) is there a line after the one you posted because what you posted is a statement of fact not an error. Usershare errors are remarkably specific. For example if you are not a member of the sambashare group you will get an error message telling you that you do not have permissions to create a usershare.

EDIT: As far as the Windows machines being able to "discover" or see the Ubuntu machine and since this is a home network I would suggest the following:

Edit /etc/samba/smb.conf and right under the "workgropup = WORKGROUP" line add these two:

netbios name = ubuntuserv
name resolve order = bcast host lmhosts wins

The netbios name doesn't have to be "ubuntuserv" but it does have to be 15 characters or less in length. If your host name is already 15 characters or less you can omit that line - but keep the name resolve order line..

Save the file then restart samba in this order:

sudo service smbd restart
sudo service nmbd restart

Then go and make yourself a nice pot of tea. This whole netbios mechanism is a primitive mess and when you restart nmbd a whole process starts between all the hosts on your network which gets resolved in 10 minutes or so.

Notes:

** Remember there is no such thing as a HomeGroup in Linux .. or macOS .. and eventually there won't be any in Win10 either so don't try to access this Linux machine through the HomeGroup.

** Static ip addresses are your friend here. Your router should be able to set this up for you so that at least the Ubuntu machine always has the same ip address. Then you can connect with that. Anything that bypasses the netbios mechanism is a good thing.

** And if your Windows machine is Win10 you have a further complication. It disables smb1 not only on it's server side but on it's client side. No smb1 on the client and Windows can't browse for netbios names ( which it doesn't need to do if the other machines are Windows ). You can still connect to a netbios name but you have to do it explicitly such as:
\\ubuntuserv in explorer.

I would recommend not to use Samba. I have struggled with it for years, and never got it working. If you just want to share some files, you might use Dropbox. If you need more space and advanced functionality you should consider installing a Nextcloud-Server on your Ubuntu computer. There is a Windows client, too.


HELP Failed installation of ubuntu possibly deleted windows I was trying to install Ubuntu alongside Windows 10 on my custom desktop.

During installation I chose to install Ubuntu along with Windows 10. The next option was to select drive and allocate drive space. I chose the C drive were Windows 10 was installed, and distributed the disk space equally for both windows and Ubuntu.

I pressed continue, and it started to process and it gave me a error message. I can't remember what the message said. It was late at night, so I decided to try installation next day.

Next day I booted my PC and Windows was gone from the boot manager. This seemed strange as I never got to commence Ubuntu installation. I assumed my boot manager was broken. I tried repair my PC option, and I tried command prompts that can fix the boot manager that I found searching online, nothing fixed it.

I took my PC to a repair shop and they told me my windows partition was deleted. This seemed so strange, how can I have deleted my Windows partition if I never fully installed Ubuntu in the first place? Did I actually deleted it and I have to reinstall it? What can I do? Please help

You should be able to reinstall Windows and try again.
If you have another Windows machine the easiest would be via Media Creation Tool. You'll need at least an 8GB USB drive for it to work.
If you only have a Linux machine available you can download an ISO disk image from the same link and use UNetbootin tool to make a bootable usb.

Try running boot-repair. Chances are that it will be able to fix your problem. This program has never let me down for issues like these. If it doesn't fix it, you might just be out of luck and need to reinstall windows again or use a file recovery program.


Use a DTS Connect enabled sound card in Ubuntu I recently bought a DTS Connect enabled sound card (Asus Xonar DS). I plugged it in and connected it to my AV via SPDIF. Stereo sound works and pass-through via VLC works too. The problem is that there is no option in Pulseaudio for 5.1 through SPDIF. Do I need to download a special driver or is there a configuration I need to make?

S/PDIF supports the following formats:

Single channel PCM (Mono)

Dual channel PCM (Stereo)

Compressed bitstreams up to 48Khz/16bps using AC3 (Dolby Digital) or DTS encoding mechanisms.

Surround audio across S/PSIF can only be achieved using AC3/DTS. Multichannel PCM (most desirable) is not possible over S/PDIF but is possible over HDMI.

If you wish to use your external amplifier to play games that do not have native support for AC3 (almost none on PC do as it's typically unnecessary) then you must have a soundcard that supports Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect, and an external receiver which supports decoding either one.


ethernet stopped working on ubuntu 14.04, still works on windows Everything was working fine on my Ubuntu 14.04 32 bit installation (on a Dell Vostro laptop) yesterday. I shut it down last night and since I powered it up this morning it is no longer handling the graphics correctly - it's very low resolution - and the ethernet connection does not work at all. When I reboot into Windows 7, the ethernet and graphics work fine.

The ethernet controller is detected but it's not using it ?!

lshw -C network reports:

*-network UNCLAIMED
    description: Network controller
    product: AR9285 Wireless Network Adapter (PCI-Express)
    vendor: Qualcomm Atheros physical
    id: 0 bus
    info: pci@0000:0c:00.0
    version: 01
    width: 64 bits
    clock: 33MHz
    capabilities: pm msi pciexpress bus_master cap_list
    configuration: latency=0
    resources: memory:f69f0000-f69fffff *-network UNCLAIMED
    description: Ethernet controller
    product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
    vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. physical
    id: 0 bus
    info: pci@0000:09:00.0
    version: 03
    width: 64 bits
    clock: 33MHz
    capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list
    configuration: latency=0
    resources: ioport:ce00(size=256) memory:f0204000-f0204fff memory:f0200000-f0203fff memory:f0220000-f023ffff

The commands

/etc/init.d/networking restart

and

/etc/init.d/networking force-reload

produce no output and have no apparent effect.

ifconfig shows only the loopback interface, no others.

The only new software I recall installing yesterday was the aspectj package. And the ethernet still worked fine after I installed it, until I power cycled.

the problem is solved (mostly):

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2244401&p=13122787#post13122787


How to switch from Linux Ubuntu to windows 8.1 I have no knowledge of Ubuntu at all. I don't know how to preform a system wipe nor preform a BIOS boot; all my knowledge on these are in windows OS's. I literally just built my first PC and just wanted a free OS, that is why I downloaded it in the first place. I just want to switch back for compatibility reasons. Also i don't particularly know much about computers either, for instance I was looking around and i found out about partition drives and gParting, I didn't know about these prior to looking.

It's very easy!

1) Boot your Windows install DVD

2) Progress though the screens until you see "Setup is starting". Wait till you land on the next screen.

3) At that point do not continue further in the installation screens until doing steps 4-6

4) Press SHIFT+F10

5) In the CMD Window, type the following:

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0 #Replace the "0" accordingly
clean
exit
exit

6) Continue on with the install. You disk has been wiped!


How to enable double-click I can't open folders with double click anymore. Instead I have to right click and press open. How do I reenable it? I'm running Ubuntu 13.04.

Go to System Settings > Click on Mouse and TouchPad & Check Double Click to low

open startup Application Preference -> Add

Name: Touchpad Tap Function
Command : synclient TapButton1=1 TapButton2=3 TapButton3=2

Then click Add

And reboot


How do I know which software downloads to trust? When I search for software in the Ubuntu Software Center, how do I know whether or not software is trustworthy to download?

On Windows, I came to be careful about downloading just anything because it might be packaged with adware, or possibly even malicious code.

For example, I found the Metadata Anonymization Tool (website here) in the software centre.

All of the software on the Ubuntu Software Center is safe and is maintained / verified, reviewed / developed by known developers (either from Debian or Ubuntu) and that's the reason it is in the Ubuntu repositories.

More risky business is when installing applications from third-party sources which is done by adding the Personal Package Archive (PPA) to your system. After a PPA is added it is trusted by the system and any updated software from that PPA will be updated automatically. Well, if some developer goes rogue and makes a malicious software then that application will come in as an update, if the particular PPA was added. Hence, adding PPAs should be done cautiously.

Read more in the following excellent links.

Which Ubuntu repositories are totally safe and free from malware?
Are PPA's safe to add to my system and what are some "red flags" to watch out for?
Is there any guarantee that software from Launchpad PPAs is free from viruses and backdoor threats?

Case where the user compiles and installs using make/cmake

Generally some libraries, custom compilers and customized applications which are system build and parameter dependent (need configure) are installed that way. Hence, usually these softwares come from known developers, researchers, scientists, companies, GNU developers, etc...
However, exercise caution and use your experience while building softwares from source. Don't just blindly build any piece of code !

I normally presume that all downloads through Ubuntu Software Center is safe. You can use the reviews to check the user feedback of these software.

Also, if you are using external PPA, there is a risk that you are open the doors to unsafe script. Use only the PPAs you trust.


Why did my middle mouse button stop working in firefox exclusively? For some reason I'm plagued by especially rare bugs. This time my middle mouse button ceased to work in firefox exclusively. I can use it to copy stuff in terminal or to start another instance of a program clicking on the program's icon on the unity launcher bar.

But I can't use my middle mouse button to open a link in a new tab. That's quite annoying. The button click gets recognized, as the links highlight as I middle click them. A new tab just isn't opened.

I already disabled all addons to firefox to see if it's an addon problem. Turns out it's not. Even purging firefox and reinstalling didn't help.

I own a Logitec MX510 mouse on my HP laptop that also has Synaptics TouchPad. On the touchpad the middle and left button never worked in ubuntu at all (firefox or anywhare else).

Any ideas what could be wrong? What else could I try.

Edit:
Now the problem has reached my work PC as well. After the latest firefox-update (to version 6.0.2): The right mouse button on my work PC (Desktop) does open the context menu, but as soon as I move my mouse even the tiniest bit, the menu closes. So the problems might be related to the 6.0.2 update of firefox or not, but it's certainly suspicious that both PC have mouse problems ins firefox only.

Purging Firefox removes global settings only, not the Firefox profile itself. To check whether it's an issue related to your Firefox profile settings, try creating a new, clean one:

mkdir /tmp/firefox-test
firefox -profile /tmp/firefox-test -no-remote &

/tmp/firefox-test can be removed afterwards. If the problem is persistent, you might want to take a look at your settings in the about:config URL, search for keywords like "mouse", "click" and "tab". Otherwise, you could check the prefs.js file in your Firefox profile folder which is located at ~/.mozilla/firefox/XXXXXXX.PROFILENAME/prefs.js. If you can't get any out of it, quit the Firefox instance using this profile folder and rename / remove this prefs.js file to reset your settings. If this still does not help, export data like your bookmarks and create a new profile using the Profile Manager which can be started with firefox -p.

solution is here:
https://superuser.com/questions/332782/middle-click-tab-opening-stopped-working-in-firefox/332794#332794

I simply uninstalled Greasemonkey, which I did not use anyway.


Fixing missing locales I've been experiencing some locale issues lately. I first noticed it when trying to run calibre from the terminal.

Running calibre returned:

WARNING: Failed to set default libc locale, using en_US.UTF-8

Then I ran locale which gave:

locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_MESSAGES to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
LANG=en_DE.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE="en_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_TIME=en_NZ.UTF-8
LC_COLLATE="en_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_MESSAGES="en_DE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_NAME=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_ADDRESS=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_TELEPHONE=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_MEASUREMENT=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_IDENTIFICATION=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_ALL=

After some research I found that the file /etc/environment might need something added to it, but I got confused because its content seems not related at all:

PATH="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games"

How can I fix this issue? I am running Kubuntu 17.10.

EDIT: I found the file /etc/default/locale which contains the more promissing :

    #  File generated by update-locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="de_DE.UTF-8"

Is this how it should look?

In a comment I pointed you to What is the thing in KDE that override my locale settings, but you let us know that the file ~/.kde/env/setlocale.sh is not present on your machine.

I still think this problem is related to Kubuntu/KDE somehow. The locale output includes the locale name en_DE.UTF-8, which does not exist, and that's the reason for the error message.

So I'd advise you to go to Kubuntu's language settings GUI. Probably you have stated English as language and Germany as country, which unfortunately leads Kubuntu to set this non-existing locale. Try for instance to change the country to Denmark, and then relogin. Hopefully that will set the locale en_DK.UTF-8 (which exists) instead.

The issue has been reported as bug #1322968.


Broken upgrade repair Yesterday I prepared to upgrade from Ubuntu 12.10 to 13.10, but something went wrong during the upgrade and my computer got restarted in the middle of the process (at the point of installing packages).

Now I have a unusable state of system (I still can use the command line version of Ubuntu). How can I repair this state to fully upgrade to 13.10 without losing data?

The only upgrade candidate you have from Ubuntu 12.10 is Ubuntu 13.04 which is End of Life. That is the reason why your upgrade failed. Fixing it is rather involved, however you have another chance to make things right. In another two days on April 17 Ubuntu 14.04 will be released. Then you can back up all your personal data by running an Ubuntu live DVD or USB and install Ubuntu 14.04. Ubuntu 14.04 will be a Long Term Support release that will be supported by updates until April, 2019.

In response to your question, since Ubuntu 13.04 is End of Life you can skip over Ubuntu 13.04 when upgrading. The instructions for how to do that are found in the answers to the question: Can I skip over releases when upgrading?. However to take this upgrade path you would first have to fix your problem of being stuck in the command line, so once again it would be easier and more fun for you to wait until Ubuntu 14.04 is released and then do a fresh install of Ubuntu 14.04.

To make your update work properly, you need to update in this order:

[Ubuntu] 12.10 ▸ 13.04 ▸ 13.10


Need help with Griffin PowerMate USB volume controller - new 64 bit desktop & Ubuntu 12.04 I'd appreciate some help with running a Griffin PowerMate USB volume controller on my new 64 bit 12.04 desktop - to control / mute the machine's master volume, & scroll through cbr files.

According to Google & SourceForge, something called Gizmo Daemon / Gizmod was the way to go until a while ago, but I've only found one site on it that's recent - and the method proposed is a bit too much of a leap for me at this point....

I am very new to Ubuntu so ideally I'd really appreciate some clear instructions - and a ready-to-rock package if there's one out there.

Cheers, Dave - an Aussie in Glasgow, Scotland.

http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/gizmod/index.php

http://epiguru.com/2011/11/how-to-use-griffin-powermate-with-gizmo-daemon-on-linux/

For a very long time I had been struggling to get powermate working in Ubuntu, my favourite OS. It was frustrating and finally I got it going and I do want to share with you all how I did. My sincere thanks to all the people from the references. I needed something more definitive, there is none available. Therefore this endeavour.

This is how I got my volume control with Griffin Powermate USB device working in Ubuntu Saucy Salamander 13.10 amd64. Please bear with me and do the following.

References

http://screamingroot.org/node/5
http://www.mp3car.com/input-devices/146252-using-griffin-powermate-in-linux.html
http://www.bedroomlan.org/projects/evrouter (for evrouter)
http://tomthegeek.blogspot.com/2007/05/griffin-powermate-working-with-ubuntu.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1346654&page=3
https://superuser.com/questions/471253/ubuntu-how-to-run-a-terminal-command-on-boot

HowTo

Make a file /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules with the content:

SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="Griffin PowerMate", KERNEL=="event?", NAME="input/powermate"

Command-line approach to achieve that:

echo 'SUBSYSTEMS=="usb", ATTRS{product}=="Griffin PowerMate", KERNEL=="event?", NAME="input/powermate"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/10-local.rules

Create group called powermate add yourself and other users to that group.

sudo addgroup powermate
sudo adduser "$USER" powermate

Now create the file /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions-powermate.rules and add the following:

ATTRS{product}=="Griffin PowerMate" GROUP="powermate", MODE="0666"

Command-line approach to achieve that:

echo 'ATTRS{product}=="Griffin PowerMate" GROUP="powermate", MODE="0666"' | sudo tee /etc/udev/rules.d/40-permissions-powermate.rules

Download and install evrouter from http://www.bedroomlan.org/projects/evrouter or use the repository at http://www.bedroomlan.org/bedroomlan-debian-repository.
Create /etc/evrouterrc or $HOME/.evrouterrc (I prefer /etc/evrouterrc) with the following content:

Window ""
"Griffin PowerMate" "" any key/256 "XKey/XF86AudioMute"
"Griffin PowerMate" "" any rel/7/1 "XKey/XF86AudioRaiseVolume"
"Griffin PowerMate" "" any rel/7/-1 "XKey/XF86AudioLowerVolume"

Command-line approach to achieve that:

sudo tee /etc/evrouterrc > /dev/null <<EOF
Window ""
"Griffin PowerMate" "" any key/256 "XKey/XF86AudioMute"
"Griffin PowerMate" "" any rel/7/1 "XKey/XF86AudioRaiseVolume"
"Griffin PowerMate" "" any rel/7/-1 "XKey/XF86AudioLowerVolume"
EOF

Find out the powermate input event number (in mine it is event7), by running the following command.:

sudo evrouter /dev/input/*

In the long output, you should see a line like the following

device  0: /dev/input/event7: Griffin PowerMate

Create an executable file /usr/local/bin/powermate with the content:

#!/bin/sh
exec evrouter -c /etc/evrouterrc /dev/input/event7

Command-line approach to achieve that:

sudo tee /usr/local/bin/powermate > /dev/null <<EOF
#!/bin/sh
exec evrouter -c /etc/evrouterrc /dev/input/event7
EOF
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/powermate

If you are a lazy guy like me and would like it to auto-run at start-up, you can do so by adding the script file to /etc/rc.local or any such other:

sudo sed -i -e '/exit 0/i /usr/local/bin/powermate' /etc/rc.local

Try it and see. Best of luck. I love it now. Hopefully you folks can get it working it too.

On my system, running Kubuntu 12.10, there is a device /dev/input/powermate that I can call up in the same /usr/local/bin/powermate that works correctly; I don't need to worry about the input number.  This can be useful for when the input number changes.


Avoid killing SSH in out-of-memory When my server runs into out-of-memory, it usually kills several applications.
Is there any way how can i prevent from killing SSH. Because usually, when this out-of-memory error happens, my SSH is broken like this:

I connect to ssh server.
Enter username
Enter password
and then i wait
i wait
and wait...
and waaaaaaaaaait..
and then: Connection timed out.

Is there any way to prevent this?

The renice command can be used to reset the priority of running processes or control the priority and scheduling of all processes owned by a user. Regular users can only numerically increase process priorities (that is, make tasks less important) using this command, but the root operator can use the full nice range of scheduling (-20 to 19). Lower number is higher priority. Most processes seem to run at nice of 0. If you run CLI top you'll see your running processes. The column labeled NI is the nice number. If you run CLI nice with no parameters you'll see:

Usage:

 renice [-n] priority [-p|--pid] pid  [... pid]

 renice [-n] priority  -g|--pgrp pgrp [... pgrp]

 renice [-n] priority  -u|--user user [... user]

 renice -h | --help

 renice -v | --version

I suggest you experiment as I have no infinite wisdom as to the right nice value for your purposes.

Raise the niceness. Low-priority apps are killed first.


Cannot increase MySQL table_open_cache in Ubuntu 20.04 I've read both of these related questions and still stuck:

https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/86987/mysql-open-files-limit-cannot-change-this-variable/86988#86988?newreg=71bfff05b6284cb4be6b5b5cdb6c7f45
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22495124/cannot-set-limit-of-mysql-open-files-limit-from-1024-to-65535/35515570#35515570

MySQL table_open_cache is set to 8000 in /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf and this value is not defined in any of the other loaded cnf files:

table_open_cache = 8000

Also, in /lib/systemd/system/mysql.service I have the default entry:

LimitNOFILE=10000

When I query variables from the cli I still get this:

mysql> show variables like 'table_open_cache';
+------------------+-------+
| Variable_name    | Value |
+------------------+-------+
| table_open_cache | 4745  |
+------------------+-------+

Also there's this:

$ ulimit -n
1024

Which is confusing because if the open files limit was being restricted by system shouldn't I be capped at 1024 instead of 4745?  I don't understand where 4745 is even coming from.

Can someone please explain what's going on here? Is this a MySQL configuration problem or a limit being imposed by the operating system? I just migrated from Ubuntu 16.04 with nearly identical config and this was not a problem before.

OS is Ubuntu 20.04. MySQL version is 8.0.20.

I've discovered something that will provide at least a partial answer to my question.  The LimitNOFILE setting inside /lib/systemd/system/mysql.service does play a role here but unlike other environments I've worked in, the setting is not a 1:1 relationship and needs to be much higher than your target table_open_cache limit.

Through trial and error, I found that increasing LimitNOFILE only results in some fraction of the value being delegated to the table_open_cache limit, so I did a bit of experimenting and arrived at this:

LimitNOFILE of 1310 gets the first 400 to table_open_cache
Above 1310, table_open_cache increases by 50% for each LimitNOFILE
Mysteriously, if LimitNOFILE is below 510, table_open_cache appears to be uncapped by systemd.

Using the above I got the following equation:

(($table_open_cache - 400) * 2) + 1310 = $LimitNOFILE

So if you want table_open_cache of 8000, you'd need to set LimitNOFILE to 16510:

((8000 - 400) * 2) + 1310 = 16510

I can't make heads or tails of what's going on here but I was able to reproduce the same exact behaviour on different hosts with different databases and mysqld configurations.

If someone can provide an authoritative explanation of the reason behind all of this, I will be happy to accept the answer and award a second round of bounty.

You have some kind of constraint between open_files_limit and table_open_cache  and max_connections .

For each connection you need a file descriptor and for each table in the cache you need 1 or 2 files descriptor .

If you are not bellow or above some boundaries  the formula will be

table_cache_size = (requested_open_files - 10 - max_connections) / 2

All theses parameters are computed in these 3 functions .

function adjust_table_cache_size

https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/blob/7d10c82196c8e45554f27c00681474a9fb86d137/sql/mysqld.cc#L7717

function adjust_max_connections

https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/blob/7d10c82196c8e45554f27c00681474a9fb86d137/sql/mysqld.cc#L7704

function adjust_open_files_limit

from  https://github.com/mysql/mysql-server/blob/7d10c82196c8e45554f27c00681474a9fb86d137/sql/mysqld.cc#L7663

In you case you need to increase the max open_files to a bigger value .

1) run the command systemctl edit mysql and this

[Service]
LimitNOFILE=20000

2) systemctl stop mysql

3) systemctl start mysql

Check the new value of max open files

MYSQL WAY to check

Default value when you installed mysql-server-8.0 on Ubntu 20.4

mysql> show global variables like '%open_files_limit%'  ;
+------------------+-------+
| Variable_name    | Value |
+------------------+-------+
| open_files_limit | 20000 |
+------------------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

In this documentation you will find a formula to compute the right way to set this value .

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/server-system-variables.html#sysvar_open_files_limit

GENERIC WAY to check

identify the process id of your mysql daemon
check the output of /proc/THE_PID/limits by running

cat /proc/THE_PID/limits | grep -e '^Limit' -e open

And after check your opencache

mysql> show variables like '%open_cache%'  ;
+----------------------------+-------+
| Variable_name              | Value |
+----------------------------+-------+
| table_open_cache           | 8000  |
| table_open_cache_instances | 16    |
+----------------------------+-------+
2 rows in set (0.01 sec)


How to record output to speakers? Is there a program for Ubuntu that can record sounds of only the output of the speaker and not any voices from outside the PC?

If I'm not wrong, then I guess you are talking about recording "Stereo Mix" or loopback Output.

  In layman's terms, Recording Stereo Mix means recording sound from speaker output.

Here's how to do it:

Install pavucontrol from Ubuntu Software Center.
Install audacity from Ubuntu Software Center.
Select pulse* as recording device in Audacity.
Click Record Button.
Open PulseAudio Volume Control (Search For PulseAudio Volume Control in Dash).
Select Recording Tab.
Now You Should see ALSA plug-in [audacity]. If you do not see ALSA plug-in [audacity], make sure you have clicked Record Button in audacity. You should be running recording in audacity while performing next step.
Select "Monitor from *". See screen shot.

Now you should be able to record the sound you hear from speaker or headphones.

  Note: Tested in Ubuntu 12.10
  Reference PulseAudio - Ubuntu Wiki

Note: Okay this answer might seem like a cop-out but it works and its great software, especially if you want to additionally record your speaker output and microphone output at the same time. Or if you also need to video record your computer screen.
Anyways, been pulling my hair out forever googling for an answer that is simple to use and provides everything I need.
Install and use Open Broadcaster Software (OBS). Seriously, that's it. Googling it should bring up installation instructions tailored to your machine.
Just record with OBS and it will just make a video with your audio in it. If you only want to record audio, just record without a video source and it will make a blank video with your recording. If you want to record only speaker output and not the mic, simply mute the microphone with a press of a button. Intuitive.
(Note this gives you a video file. It doesn't bother me but if you need an audio file like an mp3 you would have to figure out how to convert the video file you made into an audio file (I don't know how to do that, but there are plenty of resources out there that tell you).)


Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module" Today I installed:

Ubuntu 12.04
Oracle JDK 7 and 8
IntelliJ 11.1.4

I setup my JAVA_HOME path to point to JDK 7.

When I run IntelliJ I get this message:

Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"

Is this a problem or can I over look this?

I fixed this by installing the module:

sudo apt-get install libcanberra-gtk-module

Or if it's already installed and you still get the error:

sudo apt-get install libcanberra-gtk-module:i386

happened with a qt5 application using gtk theme on Ubuntu MATE

$ ./my-application
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: Failed to load module "topmenu-gtk-module"

let's locate the libs

$ locate libcanberra-gtk-module.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gtk-2.0/modules/libcanberra-gtk-module.so
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gtk-3.0/modules/libcanberra-gtk-module.so

setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH solves the issue

$ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gtk-3.0/modules:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH ./my-application

or unset the GTK_MODULES environment variable

$ unset GTK_MODULES; ./my-application


upgrade to 12.04.2 and all *-quantal packages I have Ubuntu 12.04 installed and upgraded. I noticed lots of packages with -quantal suffix (kernel, xorg stack, drivers, etc.), which is included in 12.04.2 upgrade.  How to easily upgrade all of my installed packages to *-quantal equivalent?

sudo update-manager -d

However you are on newest stable Ubuntu edition. This command will allow you to switch to DEVELOPMENT version of Ubuntu!

Explanation of *-quantal packages present in precise edition

Ubuntu updates are split into few categories ranging from security, to back-ported.

Back ported describe package with version of software that will land in next Ubuntu version, but is deemed stable enough and can bring enough value to Ubuntu users that packages for earlier versions are released.

You can check settings in Update Manager or in Ubuntu Software Center, for all options.

Each update category is optional (yes you can even disable security updates, but its not an good idea).

All that mean that you can benefit from newest software versions any Ubuntu can offer without potential troubles of using development version of Ubuntu.

Ubuntu will provide you with notification when Ubuntu 13.04 is ready. Then you will be able to update to Quantal without trouble!


Is it safe to downgrade X? I have an old graphics-card which needs the nvidia-96 drivers. But the drivers need xorg-video-abi-10 to be installed, and my version of Ubuntu (Precise) has (i think) an newer version, because that package is not available in the repos.

I need the graphics drivers for OpenGL programs like Google Earth, Blender, etc.

Is it safe to downgrade X or will it break other programs (like Unity 2D)? And if yes, where do I get the package from?

Theoretically you can try the downgrade. Use synaptic to do this.


Change amount of time before log out Is there a way I can change the amount of time before I am logged out?

I use gnome-session-quit.

It is currently set for 1 minute.

I would like to set time to less than 60 seconds.

Try something like

at now +30 minute
at> gnome-session-quit
at> <EOT>

Install at if not already.


How can I use " inside send command I have used the /usr/bin/expect interpreter to telnet into my other system and execute some commands using send.

Telnet is successful however the problem is that I have to use the following command

send "unset vpn "TEST" "

when I run the script, it shows me the following error due to " inside send command.

extra characters after close-quote while executing

You can use escape sequence, use the following,

send "unset vpn \"TEST\"\r"

or,

send {unset vpn "TEST"}


Chrome, Firefox, Chromium not loading some websites! My computer is not loading some websites.
I've already done the following...

Disabled IPV6
...By editing the file /etc/default/grub and changing GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="ipv6.disable=1 quiet splash"
Changed default DNS to Google Public DNS

I have Ubuntu Precise 12.04
eg site. ubuntuforums.org/

UPDATE1: It is successfully pinging ubuntuforums.org and both Google DNS Servers(8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4-USED Network Tools (Ubuntu Default)!

UPDATE2: Result for wget http://ubuntuforums.org/ was as follows

    --2012-04-29 14:21:44--  http://ubuntuforums.org/
Resolving ubuntuforums.org (ubuntuforums.org)... 91.189.94.12
Connecting to ubuntuforums.org (ubuntuforums.org)|91.189.94.12|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: `index.html.3'

    [    <=>                                ] 34,891      36.7K/s   in 0.9s

2012-04-29 14:21:46 (36.7 KB/s) - `index.html.3' saved [34891]

but website not loading in any of the browsers (Google chrome, Firefox and Chromium)
UPDATE3: This website's articles not loading for eg.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/enterprise-it/strategy/Apple-and-the-innovation-dilemma/articleshow/12911256.cms

UPDATE4:http://ubuntuforums.org/ not loading in firefox --safe-mode!
UPDATE5: http://ubuntuforums.org/ loading successfully in windows 7 but not in UBUNTU 12.04! This means it is a problem with UBUNTU 12.04!
UPDATE6: Problem Solved! I did a clean reinstall of ubuntu 12.04 and now it is working perfect (no problems)!

Update Ubuntu, Chrome, Firefox and install latest flash version.
I faced similar issue, now it is fixed.

It must be forbidden by your country or your Internet provider.


Mount a VirtualBox drive image (vdi)? Is it possible to mount a VirtualBox drive image (.vdi) so the contents can be viewed in Nautilus etc.?

I have a windows 2000 .vdi which won't boot ("inaccessible boot device") after upgrading from VirtualBox 2.x to 3.1.6. I believe the IDE drive details have changed and that all I need to do is access the internal drive image and edit the Windows boot.ini to point to the new location.

Use qemu-nbd, the process is explained on serverfault and in this blog.

Basically, you'll have to install qemu if needed:

sudo apt-get install qemu

Then you'll need to load the network block device module:

sudo rmmod nbd
sudo modprobe nbd max_part=16

Attach the .vdi image to one of the nbd you just created:

sudo qemu-nbd -c /dev/nbd0 drive.vdi

Now you will get a /dev/nbd0 block device, along with several /dev/nbd0p* partition device nodes.

sudo mount /dev/nbd0p1 /mnt

Once you are done, unmount everything and disconnect the device:

sudo qemu-nbd -d /dev/nbd0

You can use vboximg-mount program which is a part of the VirtualBox's command line tools.


Kernel Error during upgrade or update commands I am getting these errors during sudo apt-get update and upgrade... I tried all possible options no success. I recently upgraded to 13.04 and had problems with Broadcom WiFi. Fixed tat issues using the clean script... but looks like it did not install the Kernel properly.. Here is the o/p of the few scripts I ran:

ashesh@ashesh-HPdv4:~$ sudo dpkg -r bcmwl-kernel-source
(Reading database ... 175338 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing bcmwl-kernel-source ...
Removing all DKMS Modules
Done.
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-25-generic
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/mtd/mtd.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/mtd/mtd.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/sfc/sfc.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/sfc/sfc.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4_core.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/mellanox/mlx4/mlx4_core.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/bnx2x/bnx2x.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/bnx2x/bnx2x.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/cnic.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/cnic.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/qlogic/netxen/netxen_nic.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/qlogic/netxen/netxen_nic.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/brocade/bna/bna.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/brocade/bna/bna.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/libfc/libfc.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/libfc/libfc.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/advansys.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/advansys.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/be2iscsi/be2iscsi.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/be2iscsi/be2iscsi.ko’: Input/output error
cp: reading ‘/lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/bnx2i/bnx2i.ko’: Input/output error
cp: failed to extend ‘/tmp/mkinitramfs_8gjKwQ//lib/modules/3.8.0-25-generic/kernel/drivers/scsi/bnx2i/bnx2i.ko’: Input/output error
Bus error (core dumped)
depmod: ../libkmod/libkmod-elf.c:207: elf_get_mem: Assertion `offset < elf->size' failed.

Aborted (core dumped)

I am not a techie but I need your support to resolve this without re-installation from scratch....

Short answer: Do a fresh install.

Long answer: I know this may seem discouraging, but to date only one of my upgrades of Ubuntu has been entirely successful. I have been using Ubuntu since version 8.04 or 8.10, and I have always, except for one time, first tried upgrading and then ended up doing a fresh install after backing up everything that matters to me. I barely have anything on my computer that is not constantly synced to a cloud service or backed up on an external device.

My experience leads me to believe that my misfortune has been caused by excessive customization of my computer and user interface, so now I tend mostly to refrain from this. Good luck!


Ubuntu fails to install grub on dell optiplex 9020 I have a Dell in which there is a first drive running Windows 8.1  With UEFI, this works fine.

In order to install Ubuntu 14.04LTS I had to disable secure boot.
A second drive is in the machine, a 256Gb SSD.  I installed Ubuntu on the second drive but at the end of install, it says "failed to install grub on /dev/sda.

As mentioned in another question: "Unable to install GRUB in /dev/sda" when installing GRUB

I attempted to install grub to /dev/sdb but that fails too.
Aside from removing the Windows drive entirely so that the SSD is /dev/sda, is there anything I can do?

Other questions talked about other settings on laptops, like "fast boot" but I don't see any options like that.

Aside from telling me how to solve the problem, does anyone have an explanation as to what is actually going on?  Why should I not be able to write to the MBR of drive /dev/sdb, which is blank and on which I just installed linux?

your pc not compatible with linux
http://www.dell.com/br/empresa/p/optiplex-9020-desktop/pd

try other distribution, samble:
OpenSuse

Suse compuny belongs the Microsoft, due to this great compatibility hardware exclusive windows Platform.

att


Can't install ghc on ubuntu 12.04 I'm just trying to install ghc on my computer. I typed

sudo apt-get install ghc

into the terminal. I then was asked did I want to install, I said yes. Then I was asked did I want to install unverified files. I said yes. Then I got a bunch of error 404's and finally an error:

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

I tried installing it via the Software Center and I got a pop up saying:

  This requires installing packages from unauthenticated sources.

I clicked OK and it just stopped installing.

Can anyone help me just simply install ghc?

After running sudo apt-get update I get this:

When I type sudo apt-get install ghc I get this:

Try installing the packages on this list: http://packages.ubuntu.com/precise/haskell-platform

sudo apt-get install ghc alex cabal-install happy libghc-cgi-dev libghc-fgl-dev libghc-glut-dev libghc-haskell-src-dev libghc-html-dev libghc-http-dev libghc-hunit-dev libghc-mtl-dev libghc-network-dev libghc-opengl-dev libghc-parallel-dev libghc-parsec3-dev  libghc-quickcheck2-dev libghc-regex-base-dev libghc-regex-compat-dev  libghc-regex-posix-dev libghc-stm-dev libghc-syb-dev  libghc-text-dev  libghc-transformers-dev  libghc-xhtml-dev libghc-zlib-dev

Hope this helps!


Ubuntu won't shutdown (stuck on "Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules") When try to shutdown the computer it stays on a "Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules" message. It looks like it has to do something with VirtualBox, but happens even if I didn't use VirtualBox at all. Also it happens randomly.

This is what I see on the screen.

The system is going down for halt now
* Stopping TiMidity++ ALSA MIDI Emulation...
hecking for running unattended-upgrades:
* Stopping UPnP devices daemon minissdpd
minissdpd[1194]: received signal 15, good bye
speech-dispatcher disabled; edit /etc/default/speech-dispatcher
* Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules

And it stays here forever if I don't do the "force power-off".

My specs: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on Dell Studio 1555 Laptop

I think I found out what's causing this. It must be Apache or something, because if I stop xampp before shutdown, it all goes well. Unbelievable.


Ubuntu 15.04 flashes log-in screen then black A few weeks ago, I built a desktop and installed Ubuntu 15.04 and have been battling with it ever since. There seems to be an issue with the compatibility of the NVIDIA drivers and Ubuntu.

(After weeks of struggling with various black/purple screens, toggling nomodeset, blacklisting nouveau, and restarting lightdm/trying gdm, returning my GTX960 for a GTX750TI, installing Ubuntu 14.04 and 14.10, login loops, and a few other things I'm sure I forgot, I have the following minimal example.)

I create a boot USB with Ubuntu 15.04.
I select "Install Ubuntu" (note that I must edit the options for this, changing "quiet splash" to "quiet splash nomodeset" or else it doesn't work).
After installing Ubuntu, I am asked to restart. I can boot in recovery mode (although the resolution is strange), but not normally.
At this point, I have tried various things (reinstall nvidia drivers, permanently add nomodeset to boot options, etc.), most of which end up leading to the need to reinstall Ubuntu from scratch due to inability to see anything without removing the graphics card and plugging the monitor into the motherboard.

I have just completed the first 3 steps, which are by now muscle memory, and am begging for suggestions on a new step 4.

EDIT: I have tried the steps here (which led me to the nomodeset option that allows me to see the screen while I install Ubuntu) but when I update the NVIDIA drivers (I have tried both the proprietary and non-proprietary versions, many different version numbers), this leads me to other problems. Most often, it is a login loop, but occasionally it is a black/purple screen. When I follow the suggested to address the login loop, this invariably leads me back to a blank screen and I then reinstall Ubuntu.

$ sudo lshw -C video
  *-display UNCLAIMED
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: GM107 [GeForce GTX 750 Ti]
       vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
       version: a2
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e0000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:f7000000-f707ffff

Update: installing bumblebee allows me to escape the login loop. The resolution of my monitor still doesn't look right, and I have to click out of about a dozen "Report system problem" boxes.

Edit: My xorg.log is here.

I too built a desktop, and used the 750Ti. I had the exact problem that the OP has, and I can personally testify that the below worked for me.
I don't have a ton of time, so I'll have to summarize. When in doubt, Google is your friend.

Go to NVIDIA's website from another PC and download the appropriate driver to a USB drive.
Plug this USB drive into your desktop and boot. At the login screen, enter runlevel 2 by pressing CTRL+ALT+2
Now you will be in a terminal (fun times!). Login using your account.
Kill lightdm.
Mount your USB drive and un-tar the driver.
Run the driver installer. If there are no errors during installation, then reboot. The login loop should now be gone.

This makes it sound simple, but unfortunately, it is actually pretty difficult. It took me four tries to get it right.

Let me know how this works for you!

I have had the same problem, and you need a fresh installation, and first enter the bios and set the boot from uefi to legacy, and not a secure boot, and then install Ubuntu again.


Why does Ubuntu show slightly less RAM than my computer has built in? My machine's RAM is 8 GB. I have recently installed Ubuntu 17.04.

Why does Ubuntu show me that it has only 7.7 GB and not the full 8 GB?

This is most probably due to your graphics card reclaiming some of the RAM for its own purposes (mostly texture storage). There's also a chunk of memory reserved by the kernel, but it's tiny (a few megabytes) compared to the discrepancy you see.

On many systems, the amount of RAM reserved for graphics is configurable in BIOS settings.

Your actual RAM is measured in 8 Gigabytes = 8,000,000,000 bytes

that is, 8,000,000,000/(1024*1024)=7629.39 MeBi Bytes=7.62939 GiBi Bytes

Since it is rounded up, it is shown as 7.7 GiBi Bytes.


If an external hard drive worked on 10.04 and 10.10, will it work on 11.10? I am considering purchasing a Western Digital Elements 2 TB External Desktop Hard Drive (USB 2.0, Black) from Amazon.co.uk, and because it has over a thousand reviews, there are a reasonable amount from linux, specifically ubuntu users, and while most list as five star, some said it needed reformatting.

I am not worried about reformatting, but want to know it will be accessible at all.

Is compatibility with 10.04/10 a guarantee of compatibility with 11.10?

Compatibility with an older version is never a guarantee, but I don't see why an external hard drive wouldn't work out of the box, especially if it works on an older version of Ubuntu.

Anyway, in the worst case you can always install the drivers included with Ubuntu 10.04 or 10.10.

I assume that the drive will come with NTFS (modern Windows file sytem). If you want to use it on Linux only, I'd use ext4, which works since 2006 or so.

I have a WD Elements 500 GB drive which I use since 10.04 and it just works -- there is no reason it should not to.


Windows7 Virtualbox guest in seamless mode has bottom clipped off in Ubuntu 13.04 I recently installed Ubuntu 13.04 and Virtualbox 4.2.10-dfsg-0ubuntu2 with guest extensions installed and my Windows7 guests running in Seamless mode have the bottom part chopped off. The Windows Start button is slightly taller so it peaks out from below and that visible bit is clickable. This did not occur in 12.04.

It seems like the Virtualbox seamless boundaries end too high up (perhaps they start at the top behind the Ubuntu top panel) and the boundaries are not in sync with the Windows guest, or else the Windows Start menu/taskbar would also just appear higher up and not chopped off at the bottom of the screen.

I have tried enabling the 3D Acceleration Mode for the vm but that didn't help.

EDIT:

I am running the proprietary Nvidia graphics drivers (nvidia-310 310.44-0ubuntu2)
I have disabled the global menu
I am using sloppy mouse focus

I will try to put this back to stock Ubuntu 13.04 and see if that fixes the problem.

UPDATE:
 Restoring global menus did not fix the problem.

UPDATE (2013-05-02):
 I was resizing the window of a program running in the Windows7 guest and when my mouse cursor hit the bottom of the screen, it seems the entire guest desktop pans down. But this left things less usable so I had to restart the guest vm. I suspect this has something to do with the interaction between Unity's top panel and Virtualbox since the effected parts are the height of the top panel.

I had essentially the opposite problem, windows host and a Ubuntu 13.03 guest.  However the resolution to my problem may be what you need as well- perhaps setting the resolution this way on your Ubuntu host will solve the problem with your windows guest:

Screen Resolution issue on Ubuntu 13.04 installed under Virtualbox


remove pop up ad from ads.matte.com malware from ubuntu! A malware pops up http://ad.adsmatte.com/<random string> and annoys me every time i click on a link. It has also denied me access to youtube. The youtube page is completly disoriented and doesnt play any video.
I tried to reinstall the chromium browser and all, but they were futile. My browsing speed has also declined. Please help! Below is how youtube is displayed!

This does not appear to be an OS related issue. I would recommend you to read this http://www.quora.com/How-do-I-stop-AdsMatte-spam-popups-and-ads

Basically it is an attack on/via your router. You should hard reset it. A lot of computers on my intranet got affected. I got rid of it that way.

THE ONLY SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM IS:
there is no solution of removing this adsmatte without hurting your log file so it is necessary to first reset your modem if you are using a wifi router because the main problem causing by this virus is that it changes your ip address. after reseting your wifi you have to factory reset your phone or any device which has been infected because this virus launches a script which goes under the operating system's log files and cant be deleted without system format. it is totally useless to remove browser or clear cache. i was having the same problem and i did everything i can and atlast i did what i explained above. but pay attention on reseting every device which has been infected as if YOU may reset your wifi but while connectimg the same device through it will cause the problem to repeat itself. so dont worry and follow the above instructions :)


Using WiFi with 12.04 causes network to crash I just came home to my parents' house after a year abroad, during which I installed Ubuntu 12.04 on my laptop. In that year I was using wired internet via the Ethernet port on my laptop almost exclusively, and had very few problems with my laptop.
However, when I came home I started to use the wireless and the problem started.

Firstly, when I use the WiFi in Ubuntu, the connection is exceptionally weak, usually no more than two bars of signal (judging by the indicator applet) and speed is fairly minimal.
Secondly, using the WiFi for more than about an hour (I haven't actually measured it, but sometimes it's more, sometimes less) causes not only my laptop to disconnect from the network, but any other connected device to disconnect as well. The only solution is to restart the router.
Thirdly, when I do connect to the network, I get an error message telling me that there's a problem with using a .local address (I can't remember the exact wording).

Currently, I am writing this in Windows 7 (on the same laptop) with no issues whatsoever, so it is nothing to do with my laptop/wireless card. It is just a problem with Ubuntu.

This is the router we use, and these are the specifications of my laptop.

I've had a good search already, but not much seems to work.
I intend to try this next, and I will post an update when I have tried it.

I am open to just about any solution, barring buying a new router/laptop/wireless card etc.

UPDATE: This only appears to be an issue when I've used the battery at any point whilst Ubuntu is loaded.

The Acer Nplify adapter you have is most probably a rebranded Atheros card. Try installing the latest drivers and see if it makes a difference:

Type/paste the following, line-by-line, in a terminal:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-generic linux-headers-`uname -r`
wget -O- http://linuxwireless.org/download/compat-wireless-2.6/compat-wireless.tar.bz2 | tar -xj
cd compat-wireless-*
./scripts/driver-select atheros
make
sudo make install

Then reboot.

With Ubuntu you should use routers running open source software (DD-WRT, OpenWRT).  You can find them in any junk computer shop or a friend's pile of gear he has replaced with newer stuff, or on kijiji or any classified service that has electronics.

DD-WRT and OpenWRT and their derivatives like Tomatao just have no problems, ever, with a Linux driver for Wi-Fi.  You can find answers to any conceivable problem online as well, or from a knowledgeable friend who is already using DD-WRT or OpenWRT on their own router.

Even if you can't replace your existing router or modem combination for some reason, just put another router running the open source software on an Ethernet wire connected to your existing router.  Put that extension router on another floor, ideally where you have poor Wi-Fi connectivity.  Put it on "ad hoc" mode with an IP number high enough (say 200) not to interfere with your existing router's operations.  Tell it to hand out IP numbers in some high range (say .201+) that will not interfere with your main router.  Then make all your secure and high reliability connections through that DD-WRT router.  If you got one with a USB port, great, you now have a secure network drive too.

Make sure also to set your Tx (transceiver) power to the maximum.  On old Cisco/Linksys WRT54G and WRT54G2 for instance the default (which you can't change with stock software) is 71 mw, but the radio is actually capable of 251mw (which DD-WRT lets you set).  Voila triple router power.  That resolves quite a few wireless problems as well.

Seriously, are you using an operating system from the company that made your desktop or laptop?  No?  Then why are you using an operating system from the company that made your router?  Hardware companies can't do software, they can't hire the best software people.  Get your router software from people who do that, only that, all the time.

And tell your ISP to start shipping and supporting open source software on devices, not the garbage from the vendors they presently use.


How can I broadcast a local video file as a webcam feed? I want to broadcast a local video file file.avi as if it were a webcam via a flash-based broadcasting system inside Google Chrome on a public website (a-la ustream).

http://sourceforge.net/projects/webcamstudio/

Install and don't forget to run

sudo chmod 666 /dev/video*

This will allow you to use avi, flv, gif, and other animation sources as a virtual webcam.

Have you thought about using Google plus live streaming to do this?
It's easy to stream anything in your hangouts and with a screen recording software you can stream any video file that you may have.

Check these instructions:


delete all users from group In ubuntu, how do you delete all users from a group using the bash command line?

The group is called grp1 and it's at /etc/group
It don't care whether the actual group remains or not. I just want the members gone.
(Any user who is a member of that group should be removed from /etc/passwd)

First you find all files owned by said group and assign them to a new group if you so desire (probably best, but not sure)

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/159244/find-files-belonging-to-a-group ,

You then delete the group via sed sudo sed -i -e 's/group_to_remove/d' /etc/group

Let's say the group gid is 2000

To delete any user who's primary group is set to 2000

awk -F: "(\$4==2000) { print \$1 }" /etc/passwd | sudo xargs userdel

some of you might be freaking out by now seeing xargs and userdel together :)


I cannot run apt update properly - apt update hangs Version: Ubuntu 16.04

I have used it some weeks, but now it gives me this message when I'm trying to install software and update or upgrade:

Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable)
/var/lib/apt/lists/ locked

followed by this:

Could not get lock /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (11: Resource temporarily unavailable).

and another error:

** (appstreamcli:4560): WARNING **: Exception: Unable to get write lock on /var/cache/app-info/xapian/default: already locked

What should I do?

I just encountered the same issue. The solution is to delete away the lock files in the xapian/default folder:

sudo rm /var/cache/app-info/xapian/default/flintlock /var/lib/dpkg/lock

You can find out which process(es) have /var/cache/app-info/xapian/default locked with lsof, then kill them with kill or pkill. However, if the program (aptd in this case) relies on the mere existence of /var/cache/app-info/xapian/default file, you will have to sudo /bin/rm /var/cache/app-info/xapian/default before trying again.


How can I determine total Boot Time What command do I use to determine how long my actual boot time is? From the grub screen until all the start up processes are finished in the background.  I ask because Launcher stays purple for at least another minute or so after I have desktop use.  So, I wait until I see it change to the color that matches the theme in use before I begin my session.

The next logical step would be to analyse the boot time data, determine if there are errors, fix, and stream line it.

Generally 'dmesg' has the seconds-since-boot time stamp in the left hand column. So 'dmesg | head' should show that all the first events occurred within 0.000000 seconds since the kernel started. Running 'dmesg | tail' immediately after you login should give a pretty good idea. /var/log/kern.log has this same info but each seconds-since-boot stamp is accompanied by the system time as well, so logging in, running 'date' and doing some arithmetic will give you a what might be a more reliable approximation, depending on exactly what you're looking for. The number you're looking for is subject to interpretation. You may be looking for the time it takes before you are given a login prompt, or the time it takes between startup and running your first interactive command, or you may want to know how much time passes before init starts and this gives you a chance to run user-space code via the startup scripts, etc.

Type in console;

last -x | grep boot

and also you may want to use;

last -x | grep shutdown
last -x | grep reboot

For boot inf;

cat var/log/boot.log
or
less var/log/boot.log


Scan from Xerox WorkCentre 3025 I have a multifunctional printer Xerox WorkCentre. I can print and scan from my computer. However, I cannot make scans from the device, when choosing scanning to PC. Is there a way to scan directly from the scanner instead of computer? I use Ubuntu 16.04.

In order to get the document scanned you may want to follow this :

Install vsftpd

sudo apt-get install vsftpd

As root, create the directory /home/ftpscan (read only for everybody except root) and  /home/ftpscan/write (read-write for everybody).

# sudo mkdir /home/ftpscan
# sudo mkdir /home/ftpscan/write
# sudo chmod ugo+rwx /home/ftpscan/write

modify the configuration of vsftpd to include those lines :

# edit /etc/vsftpd.conf with your favorite text editor
# enable anonymous user : any password accepted
anonymous_enable=YES
# Do not need those local users
local_enable=NO
#allow anonymous to write
write_enable=YES
anon_mkdir_write_enable=YES
anon_upload_enable=YES
anon_root=/home/ftpscan
# Allows everybody to read the item placed anonymously
chown_upload_mode=0666
anon_umask=000

restart service vsftpd
Open the port 21 (FTP) for your printer (I think you may want to use UFW).
Configure your printer via the http interface : I do not know the english words, may be you can help.  We take a webbrowser and follow

 HTTP://<IP>
 -> "Carnet d'adressse"              / ? 3th item
 -> "Carnet d'addresse PC/Server"    / ?
 -> "Carnet d'adresses PC / Serveur" / ?
 -> "ajouter"                        / add
  Change those fields (<.> means that it must be interpreted)
  - Name is free
  - Type of network   == FTP server and not SMB server
  - Host Address      == <your computer hostanme or your computer ip>
  - Port number       == <empty or 21>
  - connection name   == anonymous
  - password          == <anything or nothing>
  - path to directory == write

That is very creative names. Xerox is not giving neither easy nor standard interface.  I was expecting something more admirable from this company.

Solution for Windows:
Scan to Network PC

Open the Xerox Easy Printer Manager application. Select

Start -> Programs or All Programs -> Xerox Printers -> Xerox Easy Printer Manager -> Easy Printer Manager.

Select the Switch to Advanced Mode button at the top of the window.

Select your machine in the Printer List and add it, if required.

Select the Scan to PC Settings button. The Scan to PC Settings screen appears.

Select Enable Scan from Device Panel.

Select your required settings for Scan Settings:
• Output Color
• Resolution
• Original Size

Select your required settings for File Settings:
• Save To
• File Format
• OCR Language
• Delete Original Image after OCR


How can I add PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) to the Date&Time panel I would like to add PDT to the list of locations in the Date & Time panel.

I have UTC, so I think that in general, abstract locations are working. But when trying to add PDT, I only get this unresponsive stop-icon.

SO: is there a way to add PDT to the list?

AFAIK, Only UTC is supported as an abstract 'Location'.

If your city uses PDT, typing in the name of your city should give it as a suggestion, and the time will be adjusted properly to include Daylight savings effects.

You can probably specify a city like Los Angeles, and it will give you the time in PDT.


Line in only comes out of front speakers and subwoofer on a 5.1 surround system My 5.1 surround sound seems to work just fine except anything I plug in to the line in jack of my sound card only comes out of the the front two speakers and the sub woofer.

Is there a setting in PulseAudio or Alsamixer that I'm missing?

Yes i agree with xjonquilx.

your line in is most likely stereo which is different than 5.1, because stereo is analogue and 5.1 is digital. But it is odd that your sub would work when your playing stereo.


How can I programatically determine which Ubuntu Versions are still supported? I was writing a script and needed a list of all currently supported versions of Ubuntu.

If any of you guys know of either a downloadable files which contains all versions with dates or a simple list of all currently supported versions. That would be great. Obviously they would have to be locations where Canonical keeps them up to date so the scripts continue to work into the future.

And it should be something which works on older versions of Ubuntu, say any supported version (lucid+) etc.

You can use launchpadlib to do this. For example, in python:

#!/usr/bin/env python

from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad

lp = Launchpad.login_anonymously('series-support-check')
for series in lp.projects['ubuntu'].series:
    print series.name, series.supported

For more info about the launchpad API, check out the web services API help or the API reference.

It is not hard to see the pattern in release dates. If you go to Wikipedia, you can see that the normal releases are supported for 1 1/2 years, while the LTS (Long Term Support, released in April of every other year) are supported for 3 years. As there is a release every 6 months (in April and October) it is easy to build a script from that information.


Using UFW with ipsets I am running Ubuntu 14.04 on a VPS for business purposes.  The firewall is setup using ufw; testing reveals that it's working well.  I'd like to further secure my server using techniques described here:

http://blog.ls20.com/securing-your-server-using-ipset-and-dynamic-blocklists/

Are there any known conflicts between UFW and ipsets that might cause problems if I were to use ipsets to block malicious hosts attempting to probe my server for vulnerabilities?  I understand that ufw makes configuring iptables simpler.  My primary concern is the impact on ufw.  Are there any known issues with using multiple apps to setup iptables?

This might not answer your question directly, however...

Why not use PFsense or IPfire rather? They can do all you need and more.

PFSense

Ipfire


ubuntu 14.04 black screen when installing I'm new in this forum.

I know, that this is an old problem and I have been reading other questions regarding this. However, I've been unable to find the solution.

I've been trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 on my Asus Vivobook F200MA machine from USB, but the screen goes black, if I choose any of the options. It is a new machine, with only freedos on it.

If I follow the instructions on

My computer boots to a black screen, what options do I have to fix it?

it still doesn't work.

SATA is set to AHCI,
Secure Boot is disabled,
CSM is enabled.

Do you have any ideas, how I could install it?

Edit:

I have tried:

checking the usb for errors (no errors),
verified the integrity (alright),
disabled the secure boot
enabled csm
set SATA to AHCI from the menu (try without installing, install and
check for defects) because the screen goes black.

I had this problem and solved using the nomodeset mentioned by @Xubu-Tur along with the nolapic. This last one was necessary otherwise it woudn't work, but I am assuming you can get to the installation window (it is not clear in your question), like shown below:

EDIT:

I see. I think the options beneath allow you to edit the boot parameters. If that is the case, then you can set the boot parameters adding "nomodeset" and "nolapic" to the same place of the "quiet" and "splash". In the end it should be something like (...) quiet splash nomodeset nolapic (...). In the link you provided in the question there is an example (the guy removed the quiet splash, but I don't think that is necessary).

You should use vga=normal nomodeset before the --. That should disable the frame buffer. Removing only quiet splash doesn't help.


Any file browser well integrated into Ubuntu 14.04LTS desktop able to open desktop folders in tabs instead a new window? Double clicking on folders in the desktop interface of Ubuntu will open them in Nautilus. This is a briefing of my research so far:

I have installed PcManFM. I like it because it very quick. However, I have not been able to configure Ubuntu 14.04LTS to open the folder placed in the desktop. The answers in this post either don't work (for folders placed in the desktop) or make my desktop disappear (as PcManFM seems to be able to manage the desktop like Nautilus or Nemo).

I have installed Nemo. I like how it manage the files in the desktop. However, it has the same issue than Nautilus: it doesn't open the folders in the desktop in a new tab.

I have installed a newer version of Nautilus. It has the option to open folders in a new tab. Unfortunately that option is not shown in the folder placed in the desktop. I have not find anything related in the Nautilus settings either.

Is there any file browser both able to integrate perfectly in Ubuntu 14.04LTS, and open folders in tabs instead new windows? Ideally, it will detect if the tab of that folder is already opened, so we won't have several tabs with the same folder opened.

PCManFM is now my default Desktop Manager in Ubuntu 14.04LTS. I followed the following tutorial: http://linuxg.net/how-to-install-pcmanfm-1-2-1-on-ubuntu-14-04-trusty-tahr-and-derivative-systems/

I'm going to copy and paste the commands of that tutorial. Visit the above link for more information.

Install or update from repository:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:lubuntu-dev/lubuntu-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pcmanfm

Set as the default directory manager:

xdg-mime default pcmanfm.desktop inode/directory

Backup (instead removing) Nautilus Desktop Manager:

sudo mv /etc/xdg/autostart/nautilus-autostart.desktop /etc/xdg/autostart/nautilus-autostart.desktop.bak

Go the the autostart folder:

cd /etc/xdg/autostart

Create a file (copy and paste the full command below)

sudo sh -c 'cat > pcmanfm-autostart.desktop <<EOF

[Desktop Entry]

Type=Application

Name=File Manager PCManFM

Exec=pcmanfm --desktop

OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;Pantheon;

NoDisplay=true

EOF'

Configure PCManFm Desktop Settings:

pcmanfm --desktop-pref

Reboot Ubuntu

I don't have sufficient rep to add a comment to the previous Krusader answer so I'm forced to put it here (it probably wouldn't fit in a comment anyway).  From the Krusader "package blurb" (https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/+package/krusader)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Krusader is a simple, easy, powerful, twin-panel (commander-style)     file
     manager, similar to Midnight Commander (C) or Total Commander (C).
 .
     It provides all the file management features you could possibly want.
 .
     Plus: extensive archive handling, mounted filesystem support, FTP,
     advanced search module, viewer/editor, directory synchronisation,
     file content comparisons, powerful batch renaming and much more.
  .
     It supports archive formats: ace, arj, bzip2, deb, iso, lha, rar, rpm, tar,
 zip and 7-zip.
 .
 It handles KIOSlaves such as smb:// or fish://.
 .
 Almost completely customizable, Krusader is very user friendly, fast and looks
 great on your desktop.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm about to install it myself right now.


Gnome Boxes unable to connect to internet on VM I am trying to set up a Lab for RHCSA and have 3 virtual machines running Centos 7. I can't get the machines to see each other on the network, I also can't ping anything from the VM as well as I can't reach any VM from the host running Ubuntu 16.04. How do I configure the network card? I have tried modifying my existing connection of my ethernet card on my local host to Share connection but it still does not work. How do I connect my VMs to internet?
I have tried this:

nmcli device connect eth0
nmcli connection down eth0
nmcli connection up eth0
nmcli device status # connected
ip a s # 10.0.2.15
ping www.o2.pl
<no action>

All virtual machines get the same IP address of 10.0.2.15/24. What am I doing wrong?

I've just worked out a very simple solution to my problem:

sudo apt-get remove gnome-boxes
suod apt-get install virtualbox


How to fix "No Soundcards Found" I was trying to get IEC958/SPDIF optical out working on my ASUS P8P67PRO V3 motherboard running Natty and I seem to have wiped out a crucial part of my sound setup.

Here is the output from some relevant commands (I hope):

sudo aplay -l
aplay: device_list:240: no soundcards found...

ls /cat/asound*
ls: cannot access /proc/asoun*: No such file or directory

lspci -v
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 6 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 05)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 8469
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 22
Memory at fe720000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: oss_hdaudio
Kernel modules: snd-hda-intel

pactl stat
Currently in use: 1 blocks containing 63.9 KiB bytes total.
Allocated during whole lifetime: 41 blocks containing 1.8 MiB bytes total.
Sample cache size: 0 B
Server Name: pulseaudio
Server Version: 0.9.22-24-g67d18
Default Sample Specification: s16le 2ch 44100Hz
Default Channel Map: front-left,front-right
Default Sink: auto_null
Default Source: auto_null.monitor
Cookie: bed7e0b0

Any advice greatly appreciated.

I had the same problem. I solved it by running the following command

sudo modprobe snd-hda-intel

Inside a terminal window (Ctrl+Alt+T to open one).

TL;DR: On a Dell XPS laptop, it may be a BIOS thing.

I've had the same - all of a sudden, Ubuntu stopped playing sound and no player could recognize the sound card, no soundcards found... from aplay -l, although all drivers were installed.

This happened on a Dell XPS 15 9560 with Ubuntu 16.04 dual booted with Windows 10.

After trying every troubleshooting step, including re-installing and booting into different kernels, I realized sound stopped working in Windows, too.

Eventually, it was something in the BIOS that suddenly gone haywire... After a BIOS update, the problem was solved.

On another occasion, when the problem repeated, I entered the BIOS, disabled Audio completely, applied, then re-enabled it, and on reboot, sound was back.

My takeaways:

If running a dual-booted system, and basic troubleshooting steps are not working, check whether sound is working on the other installed OS, too.
Make sure BIOS is up to date, and try to disable/enable Audio for getting the sound back.


How can I download lubuntu with nothing more than dial-up? This my very first experience with Ubuntu and I'm very much interested in downloading and trying it , but I only have a dial-up internet connection and am limited to a few hours per day , so how can I download such a big file over many days ?
Is there anyway I can get a CD ?

If you can stall at a local coffee shop or fast-food restaurant for an hour, you can probably download it in that time.

If you have a library nearby, they often have computer you can work on stuff with. You can probably download the iso to a USB in that time.

Last resort would be to buy a USB-stick with the iso already on it. You can do that at the Canonical Store.

If you want to stick with dialup, you can torrent the iso, and it can be downloaded over many days. You can also get the direct link and use wget -c <url of iso>. You can cancel this command and re-run it to -continue the download from where it left off.

Your best bet is to use something other than ubuntu. For example:

http://tinycorelinux.net/ - 16mb

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ - 50mb

http://puppylinux.org/ - 100mb

Even on a 28.8 Kb dial-up, you should be able to get tiny core linux within two hours, and if you've got 56 Kb available, damn small linux can be downloaded in just a little longer.


How do I set Deluge to open .torrent files? In Xubuntu, I can't locate Deluge with the "Open With" option. How can I associate Deluge with .torrent files so it automatically opens them in Deluge?

You must do a secondary click over the file and select the Open with another application option.
then select the Show others applications button below this window. As you can see in the following image:

Do not take as reference the text (is in spanish), but the image.

There you will see the all the applications installed on your computer.

Do u have any other torrent clients in your system. If u have; then remove it and the Deluge will become your default client.


Making sense of Time in dmesg I know the time in dmesg is the time since boot. But my specific question is this time is calculated at the start or end of the process mentioned in the line?

Why this is important?
take this example:

[    4.352025] floppy0: no floppy controllers found
[    5.718270] random: nonblocking pool is initialized
[   94.134265] Adding 2094076k swap on /dev/sda5.  Priority:-1 extents:1 across:2094076k FS**
[   96.988453] init: bootchart main process (274) terminated with status 127

If the time, is calculated after finishing the process, the process in the 3rd line should be taken responsible for slow boot.
But if time is calculated from the beginning of the process, the 2nd line should be taken responsible for it.

But it become more complicated when we check dmesg long after boot.
Take this for example:

[28047.749604] wlp3s0: associated
[28941.112855] [drm:intel_pipe_update_end [i915]] *ERROR* Atomic update failure on pipe A (start=757985 end=757986)
[31407.938694] cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:
[31407.938699] cfg80211:  DFS Master region: unset

This 2466s gap shouldn't have any useful meaning.

I see many times there is confusion about which line in dmesg should be hold responsible for a slow boot.

How can we make sense of time in dmesg?

dmesg is not a reliable test of how long a boot-up process goes or where there are bottle-necks. According to Wikipedia page:

  When initially booted, a computer system loads its kernel into memory.
  At this stage device drivers present in the kernel are set up to drive
  relevant hardware. Such drivers, as well as other elements within the
  kernel, may produce output ("messages") reporting both the presence of
  modules and the values of any parameters adopted

In other words, dmesg itself  merely collects information, it's the drivers and other system processes that output those messages, and they can output them at any point in time. Between those messages there may or may not have been other processes spawning, so it is not an indicator of how long system boots.

dmesg also collects messages continuously from the ring buffer, so your 2466s delay does not indicate some hanging process, merely an event occurred 2466s later and whatever process was active at that time just output a kernel message.

What you do want, however , is bootchart , which is used specifically for the purpose of finding bottle-necks in the boot process. I've only seen it being referenced across multiple forums and on this site, but never used myself, so cannot give you more information than that

Read man dmesg, especially:

   -d, --show-delta
          Display the timestamp and time delta spent between messages.  If
          used together with --notime then only the time delta without the
          timestamp is printed.

   -T, --ctime
          Print  human  readable  timestamps.  The  timestamp   could   be
          inaccurate!

          The  time  source  used for the logs is not updated after system
          SUSPEND/RESUME.

The timestamp value is "microseconds since boot/1000000" (looks like "seconds to 6 decimal places). The timestamp is set to 0 at boot.

Like @cmks said, the "microseconds since boot" value is copied into the log entry when the log entry is inserted into the kernel's buffer. dmesg interprets this value several different ways. dmesg -T -d | less will show the deltas. I did read the Question, and the answer from @cmks


Install Dvorak International I would like to install the following Dvorak International Keyboard Layout.

I have tried adding the file to /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/

and editing the file xfree86.xml but it is not selectable in xubuntu.

Is there a place I can file this as a bug?  Ideally this should be modified to be just like Macs such that you simply need to drop in the file.

// Dvorak interational extended keyboard layout for linux
// version 1.01
// http://arjenvankol.com/dvorak.php
//
// Install instructions:
//
// Copy this file to your /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc directory.
// You may need root privileges to do so.
//
// Add the following line to /etc/X11/xkb/rules/xfree86.lst
//
// dvorak_intl  Dvorak international extended
//
// In order to make the keyboard layout available in GNOME,
// you should also modify /etc/X11/xkb/rules/xfree86.xml
// accordingly (this is an XML file and the format is mostly
// self-explanatory).
//
// 2007/12/19 23:25 +0100 Arjen van Kol

partial default alphanumeric_keys
xkb_symbols "basic" {

    name[Group1]= "Dvorak international extended";

    // Alphanumeric section

    key <TLDE> { [       dead_grave, dead_tilde ]   };

    key <AE01> { [      1,  exclam, exclamdown, U00B9 ] };
    key <AE02> { [      2,  at, U00B2 ]     };
    key <AE03> { [      3,  numbersign, U00B3 ] };
    key <AE04> { [      4,  dollar, currency, U00A3 ] };
    key <AE05> { [      5,  percent, EuroSign ] };
    key <AE06> { [      6,  dead_circumflex, U00BC ]};
    key <AE07> { [      7,  ampersand, U00BD ]  };
    key <AE08> { [      8,  asterisk, U00BE ]   };
    key <AE09> { [      9,  parenleft, U2018 ]  };
    key <AE10> { [      0,  parenright, U2019 ] };
    key <AE11> { [ bracketleft, braceleft, guillemotleft ] };
    key <AE12> { [ bracketright, braceright, guillemotright ] };

    key <AD01> { [  dead_acute, dead_diaeresis, U00E4, U00C4 ] };
    key <AD02> { [  comma,  less, U00E5, U00C5 ]    };
    key <AD03> { [      period, greater, U00F6, U00D6 ] };
    key <AD04> { [      p,  P, paragraph, degree ]  };
    key <AD05> { [      y,  Y, U00FC, U00DC ]   };
    key <AD06> { [      f,  F       ]   };
    key <AD07> { [      g,  G, U00E7, U00C7 ]   };
    key <AD08> { [      c,  C, copyright, U00A2 ]   };
    key <AD09> { [      r,  R, registered   ]   };
    key <AD10> { [      l,  L       ]   };
    key <AD11> { [  slash,  question, questiondown ]};
    key <AD12> { [  equal,  plus, U00D7, U00F7 ]    };

    key <AC01> { [      a,  A, U00E1, U00C1 ]   };
    key <AC02> { [      o,  O, U00E5, U00C5 ]   };
    key <AC03> { [      e,  E, U00E9, U00E9 ]   };
    key <AC04> { [      u,  U, U00FA, U00DA ]   };
    key <AC05> { [      i,  I, U00ED, U00CD ]   };
    key <AC06> { [      d,  D, U00F0, U00D0 ]   };
    key <AC07> { [      h,  H       ]   };
    key <AC08> { [      t,  T, U00FE, U00DE ]   };
    key <AC09> { [      n,  N, U00F1, U00D1 ]   };
    key <AC10> { [      s,  S, ssharp, section ]    };
    key <AC11> { [  minus,  underscore, yen ]   };
    key <BKSL> { [  backslash, bar, U00AC, brokenbar ]  };

    key <AB01> { [   semicolon, colon,ae, AE ] };
    key <AB02> { [      q,  Q, U00F8, U00D8 ]   };
    key <AB03> { [      j,  J       ]   };
    key <AB04> { [      k,  K       ]   };
    key <AB05> { [      x,  X       ]   };
    key <AB06> { [      b,  B       ]   };
    key <AB07> { [      m,  M, U00B5    ]   };
    key <AB08> { [      w,  W       ]   };
    key <AB09> { [      v,  V       ]   };
    key <AB10> { [      z,  Z       ]   };

    include "level3(ralt_switch)"
};

I'd suggest to go the Ubuntu way first instead of following instructions from 2007.

Have you tried to go to System Settings - Text entry and add your keyboard layout there?  I can see several Dvorak entries there and one might just be the one you are referring to in your question.

If you cannot find that setting, please tell us what window manager/Desktop environment you use for X.


Where does NetworkManager store WiFi passwords on Ubuntu 15.10? I had previously learned that NetworkManager stores WiFi passwords in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/<wifi name> file. But in my case on Ubuntu 15.10 I can't find any password in that file.

I tried this:

sudo cat /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/cig | grep psk
[sudo] password for edward:
key-mgmt=wpa-psk
psk-flags=1

here does NetworkManager store WiFi passwords?

If you choose to only enable your user to use that wifi network, then the wifi password is stored in the gnome keyring of your current user.

If you let every one use that wifi connection, the password is stored in the file you mentionned.

You can also manually change where that password is stored in network manager settings for that wifi network, security tab, click the hdd+green arrow icon in password field and make your choice.

If you just want to SEE the passwords and other info and not edit, and you prefer doing things gui style, in a terminal window type:

sudo nautilus

then enter password at the prompt and you can navigate with the nautilus file manager to the file and read it.

Displaying in the terminal is more straightforward and probably more secure but some WinDOHs converts will prefer the pretty windowsy interface.