Damn Terminal's questions

I own exactly two computers. Both of them run Ubuntu.

Since I bought the second to largely replace the first, initially I copied my home directory over to the new laptop and all was well. However, I ended up using both, and their state started to diverge.

To maintain a similar environment, I would like to sync the dot files between these two machines. Preferably without needing them to be on at the same time or in the same place.

My dotfiles contain virtually everything of electronic importance to me: passwords in pass, the GPG keys, SSH keys, know hosts, etc.

How can I simply and securely sync my dotfiles between two computers running Ubuntu?

If it helps, I do have always-on servers which could act as intermediaries but I don't trust their security enough to allow data like this on them in plaintext.

What is the proper way to configure basic IPv6 connectivity in Artful? Basically, what are the netplan equivalents to

ip -6 addr add dev eth0 what::ever/64
ip -6 route add default via what::eve0 dev eth0

Before, you could just configure it via /etc/network/interfaces but this doesn't seem to be interpreted any more in 17.10.

Redshift is a neat little program allowing you to adjust color temperature of the screen during the day and separately during the night. Is it possible to achieve this with GNOME 3 on Ubuntu 17.10?

Under Setting → Devices → Displays GNOME allows to enable Night Light which makes the screen somewhat warmer at night. However, it does not allow to adjust the color temperature, and it doesn't work during the day.

How to replicate the Redshift functionality in Gnome 3 on Wayland?

I upgraded my Ubuntu from 17.04 to 17.10 so now I am using Gnome 3 on Wayland instead of Unity on Compiz. This new setup comes with a rather underwhelming workspace management ("elevator to hell").

How can I configure Gnome 3 to have it offer more Unity-like workspace behaviour?

This would include

1. a grid of workspaces (3 columns, 2 rows to be precise);
2. the application windows remaining in the workspace I move them to;
3. miniatures of the workspaces content in the switch modal;
4. workspace switcher showing the overview of all workspaces.

A grid can be achieved partially with the Workspace Grid shell extension and some tweaking using GNOME Tweaks (package gnome-tweak-tool).

The windows however get shuffled around the workspaces after the screen saver comes on or the system is suspended. Navigation is also more difficult without any indication of what each workspace contains.

Whenever I'm on a network that is anything less than rock solid (any packet loss, pretty much anything except cable ethernet) my Ubuntu 17.04 suffers from frequent DNS issues. Not only does it fail to resolve a name but also caches that and then fails to resolve the same name until I restart the local DNS service

systemctl restart systemd-resolved.service

or just change the server to Google's 8.8.8.8 in /etc/resolv.conf.

It seems that the local resolver caches failures instead of retrying when faced with less-than-perfect connection.

How can I improve the resilience of the DNS service or disable it completely?

Flash, or more precisely Tidal (the logged in version which runs on Flash), doesn't work in Google Chrome beta. The browser constantly displays the "Restart Chrome to enable Adobe Flash Player" modal but doesn't enable it after restart while Tidal urges me to activate Flash.

This is a fresh install of Ubuntu 17.04 with Google Chrome beta 61. On my old computer with the same Chrome and Ubuntu versions and the same Chrome profile (copied over) it all works fine, so I'm missing something simple because I don't remember doing anything hacky to enable Flash in Chrome. What can it be?

I have installed both adobe-flashplugin and pepperflashplugin-nonfree. I have installed the third party addons during the system installation. What can I be missing?

EDIT: I noticed that on my older computer there is an additional button in the location bar with a second question whether to allow Tidal to run Flash.

It's missing in the new setup.

In fact, Flash seems to be present and up-to-date but not used.

I'm trying to run a game* in DOSBox. It works perfectly except the pointer which moves at different speeds along y and x axes: it moves much more quickly up/down than left/right. Simply adjusting sensitivity in dosbox.conf always makes the pointer either move too fast up/down or too slow left/right.

Note that this is not the common issue of the pointer floating one direction or getting stuck in the corner. I can move it anywhere on the screen just fine but at different speeds. When I make a circle on the touchpad, the pointer moves mostly up and down, tracing a very thin and tall 0.

I tried disabling autolock, adjusting sensitivity, and disabling joystick to no effect. I am a noob to dosbox though so it's entirely possible I missed something obvious.

EDIT: Tested it with a USB mouse and it works fine so this is strictly a touchpad problem.

What else can I try? How do I make the pointer behaviour more intuitive?

* Constructor from GOG if it matters. I tried switching from the DOSBox they provide to the one installed with apt but it makes no difference.

I want to run an old school shell server for a couple of people, ie. one where users get ssh access so they can run software (their own or provided). My concern is appropriate separation between users.

I don't want them to view each other processes, access each other's files (unless explicitly allowed), etc. It would be nice to not get bitten by every privilege escalation bug or restart the server with every minor kernel update. It would be perfect to maintain the option of running common services (like web and mail hosting) with these security measures in place.

Back in the day I used grsec but this requires staying on an older kernel and dealing with the hassle of compiling it yourself. Is there a more modern and more Ubuntu way of ensuring user separation on a shared server?

Perhaps you can do something with AppArmor to that effect? Or maybe there is a repository of kernels pre-configured for shared environments? Or a solution based on containers? These have been en vogue lately.

How can I make other apps display the same, slender kind of scrollbar that for example Files (the default file browser for Ubuntu) uses?

To be precise I want this scrollbar everywhere, especially in Firefox

rather than this one vaguely reminiscent of Windows 98

I can successfully connect to my OpenVPN server from command line using openvpn --config client.conf. The client.conf file contains redirec-gateway directive to route all traffic through the VPN server. All this works fine.

Now, how can I achieve the same result with Network Manager and nm-applet?

I tried simply configuring the connection. It initializes correctly but doesn't route the traffic through the server. It's as if I ticked "Use this connection only for resources on its network" when I didn't.

It seems that when I connect from the command line, the VPN route is added at the top

# ip route show
default via 192.168.10.5 dev tun0 
default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0  proto static  metric 1024 

but it's added as second when connecting from the applet

# ip route show
default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0 
default via 192.168.10.5 dev tun0  proto static  metric 1024 

This is on Ubuntu 15.04 Vivid and OpenVPN 2.3.2.

There used to be a vaapi build of mplayer but it doesn't seem to be maintained any more and doesn't work in Vivid.

Default mplayer2 build from the repo uses 40% of CPU during 720p playback. Same as totem. VLC does have some hardware acceleration support and uses 13% but I liked mplayer's UI more and it used less than 5% with.

Is it currently possible to use mplayer with hardware acceleration on Intel integrated graphics?

Ubuntu 14.10 automatically adjusts screen brightness on low battery. It does so despite explicitly being set not to.

How to prevent this behaviour? I'd like the brightness to stay on the manually set level all the way to the bitter end (of battery life).

After upgrade to Trusty (14.04) from Saucy (13.10), all apt operations are very slow. Even those that do not include downloading anything, or connecting to any servers. For example, displaying the apt policy

# time apt-cache policy 

[...]

real    0m8.951s
user    0m5.069s
sys     0m3.861s

takes almost ten seconds! Mostly a weird lag right after issuing the command. And it's the same even if I issue the same command again.

On another system it doesn't take a tenth of a second

real    0m0.096s
user    0m0.070s
sys     0m0.023s

The other system is a little beefier but there was no noticeable difference before the upgrade.

It's the same with apt-get, anything apt-related. How do I find out the source of this lag and fix it?

Additional info:

# cat /etc/nsswitch.conf 

# /etc/nsswitch.conf
#
# Example configuration of GNU Name Service Switch functionality.
# If you have the `glibc-doc-reference' and `info' packages installed, try:
# `info libc "Name Service Switch"' for information about this file.

passwd:         compat
group:          compat
shadow:         compat

hosts:          files dns
networks:       files

protocols:      db files
services:       db files
ethers:         db files
rpc:            db files

netgroup:       nis

BTW is my understanding of how apt-cache works correct? It doesn't make any network connections when I run apt-cache policy, right?

In case I'm wrong and it matters, here are my sources https://gist.github.com/anonymous/02920270ff68e23fc3ec

I'm using the OpenVPN client through the OpenVPN Network Manager plugin on a dual stack (meaning configured both for IPv4 and IPv6 connectivity) Ubuntu 13.10 to redirect all traffic through the VPN (redirect-gateway). It generally works fine.

However, due to the fact that IPv6 is preferred by the system, the VPN "leaks" and when connecting to sites that are also available over IPv6 (like Google, or Wikipedia), the browser connects directly.

One solution would be to configure the OpenVPN server to provide IPv6 connectivity. While possible with OpenVPN, the plugin for Network Manager currently doesn't support it.

Since IPv6 connectivity over the VPN is not strictly necessary, I'd like to simply disable IPv6 on the client when connecting to the OpenVPN server. Is it possible? If so, how can I do it?

I have chromium-browser installed from the default Ubuntu repositories. When interrogated, it claims to be version 32.

# chromium-browser --version
Chromium 32.0.1700.107 Ubuntu 13.10

Is this Chromium up to date?

It may seem obvious that software installed from the repositories will remain up-to-date as long as the system is updated. However, chromium-browser comes from the Universe repository which is maintained by the community.

# apt-cache show chromium-browser
Package: chromium-browser
Priority: optional
Section: universe/web
Installed-Size: 142499
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <[email protected]>
Original-Maintainer: Micah Gersten <[email protected]>, Fabien Tassin <[email protected]>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 32.0.1700.107-0ubuntu0.13.10.1~20140204.972.1

Is Chromium actually maintained? The Chromium project doesn't have any stable versions but Google's Chrome seems to be on version 33 already.

I use youtube-dl to download videos for watching later offline. Usually, it works fine. However, due to frequent changes on the video sites, it sometimes requires a quick update. It wasn't a problem before on 13.04 but after upgrading to 13.10, I get

# youtube-dl -U
It looks like you installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py or a tarball. Please use that to update.

I tried updating it via apt-get but there is no new package. So the app's update mechanism has been disabled and the maintainers aren't keeping up, what is the solution? How do I update it?

And why was it changed at all? It was updating a package manager version just fine in raring.

I'm already running into compatibility problems.

$ youtube-dl "http://vimeo.com/55784152"
[vimeo] 55784152: Downloading webpage
[vimeo] 55784152: Extracting information
ERROR: Unable to extract info section; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output. Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  to update.

QUICK UPDATE:

As requested,

# type youtube-dl
youtube-dl is hashed (/usr/bin/youtube-dl)

# apt-cache policy youtube-dl
youtube-dl:
  Installed: 2013.08.29-1
  Candidate: 2013.08.29-1
  Version table:
 *** 2013.08.29-1 0
        500 http://pl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ saucy/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I'm trying to set an L2TP/IPsec VPN. I have installed openswan from the repository on Ubuntu 13.04

Section: universe/net
Architecture: amd64
Version: 1:2.6.38-1

and configured it following the community docs.

# cat /etc/ipsec.conf 
config setup
    nat_traversal=yes
    virtual_private=%v4:10.0.0.0/8,%v4:192.168.0.0/16,%v4:172.16.0.0/12,%v4:!192.168.23.0/24
    oe=off
    protostack=netkey

conn L2TP-PSK-NAT
    rightsubnet=vhost:%priv
    also=L2TP-PSK-noNAT

conn L2TP-PSK-noNAT
    authby=secret
    pfs=no
    auto=add
    keyingtries=3
    rekey=no
    # Apple iOS doesn't send delete notify so we need dead peer detection
    # to detect vanishing clients
    dpddelay=30
    dpdtimeout=120
    dpdaction=clear
    # Set ikelifetime and keylife to same defaults windows has
    ikelifetime=8h
    keylife=1h
    type=transport
    # Replace IP address with your local IP (private, behind NAT IP is okay as well)
    left=my.ip
    # For updated Windows 2000/XP clients,
    # to support old clients as well, use leftprotoport=17/%any
    leftprotoport=17/1701
    right=%any
    rightprotoport=17/%any
    #force all to be nat'ed. because of iOS
    forceencaps=yes

It starts fine but fails the verification

# ipsec verify
Checking your system to see if IPsec got installed and started correctly:
Version check and ipsec on-path                                 [OK]
Linux Openswan U2.6.38/K3.8.0-29-generic (netkey)
Checking for IPsec support in kernel                            [OK]
 SAref kernel support                                           [N/A]
 NETKEY:  Testing XFRM related proc values                      [OK]
[OK]
[OK]
Checking that pluto is running                                  [OK]
 Pluto listening for IKE on udp 500                             [OK]
 Pluto listening for NAT-T on udp 4500                          [OK]
Two or more interfaces found, checking IP forwarding            [FAILED]
Checking NAT and MASQUERADEing                                  [OK]
Checking for 'ip' command                                       [OK]
Checking /bin/sh is not /bin/dash                               [OK]
Checking for 'iptables' command                                 [OK]
Opportunistic Encryption Support                                [DISABLED]

even though forwarding seems to be enabled

# cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
1

What's wrong and how do I fix it?

I have a ~/photos directory where I keep all my photos. I'd like it to be automatically sync'd to flickr (with their recent generous expansion...) -- all pictures in this directory automatically uploaded to Flickr (visible to me only and without any manipulation/resizing).

Is there a tool for this job? Preferably, not some hacky python script in cron.

Right now, I'm using Shotwell to organise photos. And it works fine. It also has a Flickr plugin but requires the pictures to be "published" manually and doesn't seem to offer any way of organising them once on Flickr. Can it be somehow done with Shotwell?

I would be perfectly happy with uploads happening only when I run Shotwell, or even only when I prompt Shotwell to sync, but so that I don't have to figure out which pictures haven't yet been uploaded.

After using the integrated webcam, it never fully turns off and keeps hogging the battery. From powertop:

The battery reports a discharge rate of 22.6 W
The estimated remaining time is 0 hours, 41 minutes

Summary: 369.6 wakeups/second,  60.7 GPU ops/seconds, 0.0 VFS ops/sec and 7.9% CPU use

            Usage       Events/s    Category       Description
          100.0%                      Device         USB device: Laptop_Integrated_Webcam_HD (CN0T3NPC724871BBK5P1A00)
           11.8%                      Device         Display backlight
            5.7 ms/s      58.1        Process        /usr/bin/pulseaudio --start --log-target=syslog

How can I properly turn it off? All the tunables are "good."

It's a Dell V131. I don't know about the camera. This is the only device I cannot account for in lsusb output:

# lsusb 
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 8087:0024 Intel Corp. Integrated Rate Matching Hub
Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 8086:0189 Intel Corp. 
**Bus 001 Device 004: ID 1bcf:2880 Sunplus Innovation Technology Inc.**
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 138a:0011 Validity Sensors, Inc. VFS5011 Fingerprint Reader

Is there a utility providing similar functionality to Anything sync daemon for 64bit Ubuntu? Preferably in the repository or with a PPA.

In particular, I'd like to stop Firefox from constantly waking my disk up so even an equivalent to the Profile sync daemon would suffice.