user unknown's questions

According to help command, the help of bash, command can be used to trigger the external program x, if x exists as a builtin function too:

command: command [-pVv] command [arg ...]
    Execute a simple command or display information about commands.
    
    Runs COMMAND with ARGS suppressing  shell function lookup, or display
    information about the specified COMMANDs.  Can be used to invoke commands
    on disk when a function with the same name exists.

When testing with time, this works as expected and uses the external program /bin/time, but when I try:

command echo --help    
# the output is 
--help

which is the expected behavior for the builtin echo.

Using xubuntu 22.04, bash 5.1.16 /bin/echo --help works as expected.

Do I misunderstand the command command? Or why doesn't it work as announced? How can I find out?

GNU bash, Version 5.1.16(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

I have 5 times the following message in my syslog:

org.freedesktop.Notifications[1801]: /home/stefan/.cache/xfce4-notifyd-theme.rc:1: error: scanner: unterminated string constant

searching for /xfce4-notifyd-theme.rc reveals a file with suffix .broken:

locate xfce4-notifyd-theme.rc
/home/stefan/.cache/xfce4-notifyd-theme.rc.broken

The content of that file is pretty brief:

cat $(locate xfce4-notifyd-theme )
include "

Well, yes, indeed, this looks like an unterminated String constant. But where does it come from?

Searching the file on the internet only gives me accidental matches, where people have the same error message in their log, but look for something else.

How do I fix the underlying problem?

Is there a xfce4-notifyd-theme.rc (without postfix .broken) which I can find and place somewhere?

On opening a new xterminal or starting bash in an already running bash, I get a surprising error message 2 times:

t201:~ > bash
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

Since I don't invoke bash with sudo, I ask myself, where this might come from.

First suspect is of course ~/.bashrc, where I often add small functions, but grep su ~/.bashrc only reveals words containing 'su' like success and support, all of them in comments.

So I used bash -v to invoke bash in a verbose fashion.

This showed me a lot of commands, directly or indirectly triggered from .bashrc, and between the lines this:

# sudo hint
if [ ! -e "$HOME/.sudo_as_admin_successful" ] && [ ! -e "$HOME/.hushlogin" ] ; then
    case " $(groups) " in *\ admin\ *|*\ sudo\ *)
    if [ -x /usr/bin/sudo ]; then
    cat <<-EOF
    To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
    See "man sudo_root" for details.

    EOF
    fi
    esac
fi
groups
To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

except from the 3 lines after fi, this is found in /etc/bash.bashrc

Ok. That's looking for a magic file .sudo_as_admin_successful . I remembered a command

 find -empty -delete 

Issued few hours ago, but in the home directory, not where it should have been issued, but empty files - who cares?

Well, now I care.

I created a new one:

t201:~ > touch .sudo_as_admin_successful 
t201:~ > bash
t201:~ > 

Error is gone. Do I need special permissions on that file? And what is .hushlogin? I don't have this either.

I like to remove most of the languages from the pluma/gedit menues, where they show up.

It's great that the editors support so many languages. But most of them I never use. So they are only in the way and I don't have enough time, scrolling the whole day to my entries.

They show up in the language type selection of the status bar, in the plugin dialog (for which kind of document), in the snippet configuration and maybe more spaces. Is it possible to edit some configuration file, to get rid of most of them?

Or do I have to get the sources, and fix the issues there? More than 90% of the time, I only use 3 or 4 languages or plain text. I guess other users have a similar usage pattern, of course with different languages.

I started an mp3 file from Thunar, which must have triggered VLC in some way, but it is not visible, not even in the Menubar, where it often shined up as little icon and could be brought to the foreground.

It must have joined a running vlc instance, where a formerly started file had come to an end, which I found out with ps:

ps -C vlc 
  PID TTY          TIME CMD
21993 ?        00:12:57 vlc

ps -ax | grep vlc  
10088 pts/5    S+     0:00 grep vlc
21993 ?        Sl    12:58 /usr/bin/vlc --started-from-file /home/stefan/audio/lnp171.oga

Since I didn't start it from a shell, I can't do an fg command. How can I get VLC in the foreground?

The file-open/save dialog can be sorted alphabetically by clicking on the column header or by manipulating ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini as described in the answers here and here.

However, I'd like to have the subdirectories sorted on top, i.e. directories a/ b/ c/ before files a.txt b.png c.svg and so on. Is there a way to do it?

I'm using Xubuntu 15.10.

With Xubuntu 15.10, Simple Scan 3.18.1, the default file type is, even for images, PDF. I would like to set it to PNG, is that possible?

There is a related, older question for changing from JPG to PDF with the solution, to switch the scanning from image (JPG) to text (PDF) Simple Scan - Changing the default output File Type to PDF and improving Compression? but I already have used image and JPG wouldn't be a solution either.

I don't find a config file in ~/.config which looks responsible for simple scan and the settings menu is very reduced.

I use Firefox 18.0 with Xubuntu 12.04 on a lenovo Laptop T60.

I like to use the middle button above the touchpad to do a middle-click on a link to open that page in a new tab. It works with the mouse and it worked with my former laptop, a Thinkpad T41 with very similar touchpad.

I can open a link in a new tab too if I hit the left and right button meanwhile, but that's not comfortable.

I find this with synclient:

synclient -l
Parameter settings:
    LeftEdge                = 1752
    RightEdge               = 5192
    TopEdge                 = 1620
    BottomEdge              = 4236
    FingerLow               = 25
    FingerHigh              = 30
    FingerPress             = 256
    MaxTapTime              = 180
    MaxTapMove              = 221
    MaxDoubleTapTime        = 180
    SingleTapTimeout        = 180
    ClickTime               = 100
    FastTaps                = 0
    EmulateMidButtonTime    = 75
    EmulateTwoFingerMinZ    = 282
    EmulateTwoFingerMinW    = 7
    VertScrollDelta         = 100
    HorizScrollDelta        = 100
    VertEdgeScroll          = 1
    HorizEdgeScroll         = 1
    CornerCoasting          = 0
    VertTwoFingerScroll     = 0
    HorizTwoFingerScroll    = 0
    MinSpeed                = 1
    MaxSpeed                = 1.75
    AccelFactor             = 0.0398089
    TrackstickSpeed         = 40
    EdgeMotionMinZ          = 30
    EdgeMotionMaxZ          = 160
    EdgeMotionMinSpeed      = 1
    EdgeMotionMaxSpeed      = 401
    EdgeMotionUseAlways     = 0
    TouchpadOff             = 0
    LockedDrags             = 0
    LockedDragTimeout       = 5000
    RTCornerButton          = 2
    RBCornerButton          = 3
    LTCornerButton          = 0
    LBCornerButton          = 0
    TapButton1              = 1
    TapButton2              = 3
    TapButton3              = 0
    ClickFinger1            = 1
    ClickFinger2            = 1
    ClickFinger3            = 0
    CircularScrolling       = 0
    CircScrollDelta         = 0.1
    CircScrollTrigger       = 0
    CircularPad             = 0
    PalmDetect              = 0
    PalmMinWidth            = 10
    PalmMinZ                = 200
    CoastingSpeed           = 20
    CoastingFriction        = 50
    PressureMotionMinZ      = 30
    PressureMotionMaxZ      = 160
    PressureMotionMinFactor = 1
    PressureMotionMaxFactor = 1
    ResolutionDetect        = 1
    GrabEventDevice         = 1
    TapAndDragGesture       = 1
    AreaLeftEdge            = 0
    AreaRightEdge           = 0
    AreaTopEdge             = 0
    AreaBottomEdge          = 0
    HorizHysteresis         = 25
    VertHysteresis          = 25
    ClickPad                = 0

I guess LTRB stands for left, top, right, bottom - MT for middle-top is missing.

Btw: Middle Click for pasting works. I'm curious how that fits together.

To create a new directory in Thunar, I can right-click on free space in the file view, and get an entry 'new directory' in the context menu.

If the directory contains enough files to fill the whole view, there is no free space to click and get that context menu. I can only click on files then, which brings up a different context menu, depending on the file type (mime type/extension - doesn't matter here).

I'm using the detail file-view and often have too many files to solve the problem by zooming. I don't consider zooming in and out to be an acceptable part in the process of creating a directory. I don't want to perform gymnastics, but to create a directory efficiently. I'm searching for the way to do it - not for a workaround!

Versions: Xubuntu 12.04 LTS, Thunar 1.2.3

The detail view of Thunar shows the modification time as localized date (dd.mm.YYYY for my location), which is fine, but I would like to see the time, too.

And it doesn't show the recently modified files in the same manner, butnew years new years decorates them as 'yesterday, today, monday' and so on, which is a nice programming etude, but not really useful to me.

Au contraire - it is pretty annoying to have this mixture in the interface. The next version will look into my calender and mark some files 'easter 2007, moms birthday 2002' and 'third monday of last month'. Thank you!

But if ohters prefer it - I'm fine. I just want to know whether I can modify the setting somehow. This is Xubuntu 12.04 LTS, Thunar 1.2.3.

I often have to run the update manager on a slow connection, and while reading my emails, I meanwhile would like to surf for 2 minutes in the web, then have the full bandwidth again for the update manager.

From the command line, I can suspend a running process with Ctrl+Z, aka suspend. But if I didn't start the program from the shell - can I do it with some signal and the kill command?

I read the man page for signal (man -a signal), but there I didn't find a SIGSUSPEND, only SIGSTOP, SIGTERM, SIGINT and such - which is appropriate, or is there none?

When I call ps ax, I get a list of running processes.

• Some of them I know by name (firefox, java, scala, you name it).
• Most of the others, I can find with man NAME, and try to find out, what they're doing.
• If there is no man page for the program, I'm getting annoyed. But there is apt-cache search NAME, where I can find out from which package it comes, hoping to find an explanation. Example: apt-cache search wpa_supplicant yields wpagui - graphical user interface for wpa_supplicant.
• If apt-cache doesn't show anything, there is still the small hope, that file $(locate NAME) finds a script or something else with further informations.
• However, for rkit-daemon I didn't find anything useful.
• For file $(locate gvfs-gphoto2-volume-monitor) I only find a binary executable but no informations.

I might try to decipher gnome-virtual-file-sytem ... and guess, it could be a tool to detect photo-SD cards and the like, if connected to the PC, but is there a better way to find out, what the processes, running on my PC, are doing? Do I really have to google?

Why isn't there some documentation about these processes or where do I find them? Is there an organized location to search them, or do I have to search them on a case-by-case-basis?

I guess I could download the source of the whole system, and search the source, but there is rarely additional information for users, but for developers.

When logging in to Xubuntu, I get a selection list of saved sessions, most of them is outdated old stuff.

I hit the delete button in a sportive manner. I tried a click to the left, and just a click to the right - no deletion possible.

I went through system menus and menu sections (and the system section of the menu).

Note: Not related: How to remove session entries from LightDM? or Managing the login screen's sessions list which links to it - they handle session-classes like xubuntu vs. xfce, gnome, kde - not different xfce-sessions.

Note: I want to remove some sessions, not all of them. I don't want to start with the session-list deactivated. I have 5 entries and want to remove 3 of them.

I'm trying to run different java-swing programs, which used to run before, but I can't start them from the commandline, without getting this error:

java GuessGame
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class sun.awt.X11GraphicsEnvironment
at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:186)
at java.awt.GraphicsEnvironment.getLocalGraphicsEnvironment(GraphicsEnvironment.java:82)
at sun.awt.X11.XToolkit.<clinit>(XToolkit.java:112)
at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:186)
at java.awt.Toolkit$2.run(Toolkit.java:849)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.awt.Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit(Toolkit.java:841)
at sun.swing.SwingUtilities2$AATextInfo.getAATextInfo(SwingUtilities2.java:121)
at javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel.initComponentDefaults(MetalLookAndFeel.java:1564)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicLookAndFeel.getDefaults(BasicLookAndFeel.java:147)
at javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel.getDefaults(MetalLookAndFeel.java:1599)
at javax.swing.UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.java:530)
at javax.swing.UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.java:570)
at javax.swing.UIManager.initializeDefaultLAF(UIManager.java:1320)
at javax.swing.UIManager.initialize(UIManager.java:1407)
at javax.swing.UIManager.maybeInitialize(UIManager.java:1395)
at javax.swing.UIManager.getDefaults(UIManager.java:644)
at javax.swing.UIManager.getString(UIManager.java:790)
at javax.swing.UIManager.getString(UIManager.java:807)
at javax.swing.JOptionPane.showInputDialog(JOptionPane.java:476)
at javax.swing.JOptionPane.showInputDialog(JOptionPane.java:442)
at IO.input(GuessGame.java:10)
at Player.createPlayer(GuessGame.java:26)
at GuessGame.init(GuessGame.java:52)
at GuessGame.main(GuessGame.java:85)

I don't show the source, because it used to run before, as well as a dozen other programs, and wasn't changed.

You might google for the error-message, and find the advice, to start java in headless mode. This doesn't apply here, because there, the idea is, to do graphics stuff on a server, maybe to produce a chart or convert a graphic, which usually needs a display. Then you may specify 'headless', because nothing get's displayed on the server. Here it is the opposite: I want my frame to be displayed, and I have a DISPLAY=:0.0, where my xterm (xfce4 for instance) is running. I even may start ecliplse from the menu.

Similar, the advice unset DISPLAY doesn't fit form me for the very same reason. I need to use the display, and it is up and responsive - I'm using Firefox right now on that machine.

echo $DISPLAY
:0.0

Trying to run from a special input like the verve-comamndline doesn't work either.

It's a mystery to me. Xorg.0.log doesn't show something interesting either.