user10853's questions

I installed Ubuntu 18.04 using the alternate server installer. During the installation no network interfaces were detected.

I could not figure out how to setup networking (neither ethernet nor wifi). For wired networking I have to use a usb Type-C adapter (Dell XPS 15).

Moreover, ifup/ifdown are not installed. How can I configure the network? I eventually want to install the Ubuntu-desktop. The reason I went with the alternate installer is because I wanted more control on the partitioning than the standard installer allows.

In /etc/network/interfaces I had added:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto wlp2s0
wpa-ssid <essid>
wpa-psk <pass>

ip add show shows:

1: lo <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu ##### qdisq noqueue state UKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopbac 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet <ip> scope host lo
        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host lo
        valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: wlp2so: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu #### qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether <mac> brd <brd>

cat /etc/netplan/*.yaml outputs:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# For more information, see netplan(5).
network:
  version: 2
  renderer: networkd

systemctl status systemd-networkd reports:

● systemd-networkd.service - Network Service
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/systemd-networkd.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:systemd-networkd.service(8)

By the way lshw shows:

network DISABLED

Why does the Ubuntu installer not offer a way to create a custom partition table for an encrypted LVM installation?

I wish to have at least /, /home, and data partitions and a swap. I used to also have /boot.

I looked a lot but not a single post or webpage provides a good answer. This one offers a guided solution (not verified) but does not mention encryption.

Is it not possible to install an older version of Pycharm community using snap?

I tried snap install pycharm-community=2018.2.5 but it does not work.

As per this question, would it work to put the NVMe disk into an external enclosure and extract the data from the encrypted data and /home partitions on an 8-year old laptop wih USB 2?

I have a Drevo Calibur 71 USB/Bluetooth keyboard that was working fine until recently.

The problem I am having is that the Super key is not functioning as it should. Actually it does nothing. It works fine on the laptop's keyboard.

I checked a couple of similar questions that involved either a keyboard key that disables the Super key (I don't think this keyboard has one) or using the Tweak Tool. None worked so far.

What might be the problem especially that this thing is recently. They key used to work just fine a few months ago.

PS: I am on Ubuntu Gnome 16.04.5

I had Ubuntu Gnome 16.04 installed with an encrypted /home.

I just installed Ubuntu 18.04 and everything goes well however when I try to login I get a black screen**. After a a minute or so it is back to the login screen.

I tried both the regular and the minimal installations.

Logging in with a tty works however It seems the encrypted /home is not accessible (ls shows a file related to Private; I do not recall the filename; I reinstalled Ubuntu Gnome 16.04).

What might be going on?

** I tried nomodeset; no difference

I am ignorant as to whether ls is capable of displaying a filetype column.

Doing a quick online search and searching the man did not reveal such a capability. Is it capable of doing this?

Clarification: This is especially helpful if files do not have an extension.

Update

As of 2018-04-28 the answers have been quite interesting however they did not provide what I was looking for. More specifically,

• file does give the actual filetypes but it doesn't integrate well with ls. Specifically, I use ls -lhtrpG --group-directories-first --color=always

• ls -F is an ls solution however it provides symbols not a column of actual filetypes.

For this reason I have not marked any of the answers as the answer I am looking for.

How can I check the specs of the installed NVME other than lshw which only shows the brand. I am looking to know the model and voltage/power.

Moreover, is there anything one should know before buying a new one to replace another (e.g. like SSDs, voltage and power)?

CPU: i7-7700HQ

I have both texlive-fonts-extra and texlive-fonts-recommended installed however I get 'multicols.sty' not found when compiling a tex file.

How do I fix this?

Update: the package is multicol without an s.

I just allowed my system to restart and install a firmware update on a Dell XPS 15 (9560) which went smooth and was successful.

Upon reboot however it shows the following message then boots to (Windows) automatic repair (non-existent; left it in case I want to reinstall windows with the restore image I made). This occurs when the first entry (in the second image) is selected (the default now).

In the boot options this is what I see. No Ubuntu entry as it used to be.

I launched a live USB (seen above) and I can see all (encrypted) partitions still there.

In the bios setup when I click add boot option I can find two relevant directories (Ubuntu and Boot). Under Boot there's only one entry (bootx64.efi).under Ubuntu there are a number of entries (fwupx64.efi, grubx64.efi, grub.cfg, shimx64.efi, mmx64.efi, fbx64.efi)

I've never dealt with similar stuff so your help is appreciated.

My best guess is that grub has been overwritten or corrupted? Or it it related to the secure boot opinion I have? How can I fix it?

The first things I did was boot into Windows and flash the bios t the latest 1.3.4.

I then made a USB stick with usb-creator-gtk (on my other laptop) and installed Ubuntu Gnome 16.04.3 with the following partitions replacing the Windows partition:

/boot: 2GB
/    : 65GB
/home: 92GB
swap: 16GB (RAM is 16GB)
rest (~340GB) left unused to make an encrypted data partition with gnome-disks.

When booting up with the USB the it gets stuck at the Ubuntu Gnome logo. And once I was lucky to be able to install it it also kept getting stuck at the same place.

I turned off secure boot and UEFI. I tried combinations of these as well.

The weird thing is this doesn't happen with Ubuntu Gnome 17 (and Ubuntu server) even though I installed it with UEFI enabled. Also, the grub menu includes entries for the Windows Boot Manager and System Stratup but those weren't included when I installed 16.04.3

I haven't found anything that answers my question. I think it's a kernel problem because the Ubuntu server I installed (without eth network) has kernel version 4.4.0.

Regarding graphics, the laptop comes with an NVIDIA GTX 1050 card.

Solution (use nomodeset) provided in the comments by MichaelBay. Follow this during both the installation until you update the system and install the drivers.

I have Ubuntu Gnome installed and I am using i3wm. Everytime I double click a book in Calibre to open it it opens in Mendeley desktop.

This doesn't happen under Gnome.

Could you explain why this happens and how I can fix it?

I wish to have a shortcut which switches the priority (i.e. primary, secondary) of the displays (laptop + external).

PS: I am aware that there's a dedicated button/shortcut to do this but, at least mine, cycles through all configurations (i.e. different resolutions). I want to cycle between two configurations only.

I have been using Super+M to access the notifications area then Tab followed by Space to cancel/dismiss notifications.

Is there a "quicker" shortcut (i.e. more direct/immediate action)?

I need to insert a greek letter in a diagram. Is it possible to do this and how?

I currently have Pulse Audio Volume Control and I'm using it to control audio between my laptop & external monitor as well as volume of different apps.

Is there a faster way of controlling these (especially app volumes), from the music/sound taskbar for example?

I am open to experiment with other ways.

While looking if someone asked this question before, I landed on this for Windows.

I'd like to do something similar (shortcut or terminal alias/command) on Linux/Ubuntu to be able to quickly switch the external monitor between landscape and portrait mode instead of having to go to Displays setting it and confirming the configuration.

Jacob Vlijm provided a Python script which works. If you have another idea I'd love to know about it.

Update: I have updated Jacob's script to work for two screens if they are connected.

My system is freezing when the memory used is maxed out and I was wondering why. Turns out the swap is not being used. Here's my partition table:

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63       80324       40131   de  Dell Utility
/dev/sda4           81918   909195263   454556673    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       512121690   909195263   198536787   83  Linux
/dev/sda6           81920     3987455     1952768   83  Linux
/dev/sda7         3989504   140705791    68358144   83  Linux
/dev/sda8       492589056   512120831     9765888   82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda9       140707840   492584959   175938560   83  Linux

The swap partition is not turned on and doesn't show in df but it does in the disks utility:

Filesystem             Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev                   1.9G  4.0K  1.9G   1% /dev
tmpfs                  392M  1.3M  391M   1% /run
/dev/sda7               65G   19G   43G  31% /
none                   4.0K     0  4.0K   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
none                   5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none                   2.0G   26M  1.9G   2% /run/shm
none                   100M   48K  100M   1% /run/user
/dev/sda6              1.9G   89M  1.7G   6% /boot
/dev/sda9              166G   47G  111G  30% /home
/home/my-user-name/.Private  166G   47G  111G  30% /home/my-user-name

$ sudo swapon -s
Filename                Type        Size    Used    Priority

As you can notice my Home partition is encrypted but I have not encrypted the swap.

Swap seems declared in /etc/fstab:

# swap was on /dev/sda8 during installation
#UUID=df55bf68-b824-4f21-83f3-dfa80a0b74ab none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/mapper/cryptswap1 none swap sw 0 0

I'd like to know why it's not working and how can I fix it?

Update It seems there's a reported bug on this for several releases and has not been fixed for 14.04 yet.

Here's the result of cat /etc/crypttab:

cryptswap1 UUID=df55bf68-b824-4f21-83f3-dfa80a0b74ab /dev/urandom swap,cipher=aes-cbc-essiv:sha256

And what was suggested by A.B.:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/cryptdisks reload
 * Stopping remaining crypto disks...                                                                    [ OK ]
 * cryptswap1 (stopped)...                   
 * Starting remaining crypto disks...
 * cryptswap1 (skipped, device /dev/disk/by-uuid/df55bf68-b824-4f21-83f3-dfa80a0b74ab does not exist)... [fail]
                                                                                                         [ OK ]
$ sudo swapon -a
swapon: /dev/mapper/cryptswap1: stat failed: No such file or directory

Based on David Foerster's answer I did cat /dev/disk/by-uuid/ and got 6 uuid's. Did blkid -U of each and non is /dev/sda8 which the swap is supposed to be. I got sda's 1, 5, 6, 7, 9, and /dev/mapper/luks-****. The last of which I think is the other encrypted partition that I left untouched during installation (was encrypted by 12.04).

I also tried the following answer. Did not work either.

Update: I ended up reformatting the partitions and re-installing the system. It seems working fine now.

Today I rebooted my system, after an uptime of 11+ days (suspending once daily) and after an update a few days ago that invlolved fglrx, to see that the screen resolution has changed.

In "Displays" in the settings, the were only two resolution options: 1024x768 and 800x600.

Moreover, all the launcher icons were larger (I had them smaller than the default using MyUnity). When opening MyUnity I got the following message:

Your Ubuntu 12.04 is running in 2D mode. Many features will not be available.

I tried rebooting several times with nothing changing. I tried installing mesa-utils as per https://askubuntu.com/a/85322 but nothing changed either.

I finally removed the xorg config file as per https://askubuntu.com/a/407663:

sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.nvidia

When I rebooted the resolution was back to normal and the other resolutions reappeared under "Displays".

The issue that remains is that I am stuck in 2D. How can I go back to normal mode? (And yes I did logout and select "Unity" instead of "Unity 2D")

Moreover, can someone help explain why this occurred?

Technical info: NVIDIA GF119 [GeForce GT 520M], ATI RV730 XT [Mobility Radeon HD 4670, Ubuntu 12.04.4, kernel 3.2.0-58-generic.

Thanks

Update So I searched again and found out the same issue here: How to change from Unity 2D to 3D?

But my case is a laptop; I cannot upgrade my card.

Moreover, It was working normally. what happened I cannot understand. If it helps, here are some more info (lines with "..." indicate repeated lines:

    $ /usr/lib/nux/unity_support_test 
X Error of failed request:  BadRequest (invalid request code or no such operation)
  Major opcode of failed request:  135 (GLX)
  Minor opcode of failed request:  19 (X_GLXQueryServerString)
  Serial number of failed request:  22
  Current serial number in output stream:  22

User@home:~$ unity --replace
Checking if settings need to be migrated ...no
Checking if internal files need to be migrated ...no
Backend     : gconf
Integration : true
Profile     : unity
Adding plugins
Initializing core options...done
compiz (core) - Warn: failed to receive ConfigureNotify event on 0x3e00004
....

Initializing composite options...done
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
compiz (opengl) - Error: initScreen failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'opengl'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
....

Initializing decor options...done
Initializing vpswitch options...done
Initializing snap options...done
Initializing mousepoll options...done
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Initializing resize options...done
Initializing place options...done
Initializing move options...done
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'wall' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'wall'
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Initializing grid options...done
I/O warning : failed to load external entity "/home/user/.compiz/session/103b5073b092edf68e139368147689533800000024950007"
Initializing session options...done
Initializing gnomecompat options...done
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'animation' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'animation'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'fade' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'fade'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'unitymtgrabhandles' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'unitymtgrabhandles'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Initializing workarounds options...done
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'scale' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'scale'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'expo' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'expo'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'ezoom' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'ezoom'
compiz (core) - Error: Plugin 'opengl' not loaded.

compiz (core) - Error: InitPlugin 'unityshell' failed
compiz (core) - Error: Couldn't activate plugin 'unityshell'
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400090!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400093!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400096!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400099!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400096!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400093!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
...

compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x840009f!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400096!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
...
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400096!
....

compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
compiz (core) - Warn: unhandled ConfigureNotify on 0x8400093!
compiz (core) - Warn: this should never happen. you should probably file a bug about this.
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Initializing animation options...done
Initializing expo options...done
Initializing ezoom options...done
Initializing fade options...done
Initializing opengl options...done
Initializing scale options...done
Initializing staticswitcher options...done
Initializing unitymtgrabhandles options...done
Initializing unityshell options...done
Initializing wall options...done
Setting Update "main_menu_key"
Setting Update "run_key"
Starting gtk-window-decorator
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
...

compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
....

compiz (decor) - Warn: requested a pixmap type decoration when compositing isn't available
...

Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
x^[ Compiz (opengl) - Fatal: glXQueryExtensionsString is NULL for screen 0
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

I faced a "The system is running in low-graphics mode error" like the on in this question How to fix "The system is running in low-graphics mode" error?

This happened in Virtualbox!

I'll go with the answer that the root file system ran out of space since I left the system downloading some stuff & previously I was notified that the system is low on space. Dumb of me but everyone makes mistakes. I was planning on moving the files to a shared folder later on.

The screen I get is similar to the screen in the link above. If I click on Ok, I get the following screen

None of the options work. I even tried to use the shell mode to try to free some space but all I get is this screen

So my question is how can I get back to my system & move the files to the shared folder (which btw needs guest additions which is was already installed on the system!) or better (if easier) an USB?

Note: I tried a live mode (iso) but I cannot do anything (e. G; open nautilus or a terminal!); + I get a VERP_PDM_MEDIA_LOCKED_error when try to install guest additions.