Christoph's questions

Firefox normally shows autocompletion entries in the address bar when you start typing a URL (say, gi). Until recently, I was able to select the appropriate entry (e.g. github.com) with my touchpad/mouse, and it would navigate there. However, I recently set up a new laptop (same OS, Ubuntu 14.04, Firefox 33), migrating my firefox profile over, and now it does not do that anymore, and instead searches for the truncated URL (in the above case gi) via google!

Selecting an autocomplete entry with cursor keys and enter works as expected.

Is this a new bug in Firefox, or is this some setting I have to adjust? How can I get the old behaviour back?

I have a working dual-boot setup (Ubuntu 12.10 and Win7) on my laptop.
I got a 320GB HDD with partitions for /, /home, swap, winsys and a big windata partition. There's more than 250GB space occupied overall.

Now I bought a 250GB SSD which I will put in my Ultrabay, and I want to migrate all the partitions except the big data partition onto the SSD, enlarge them in a controlled manner according to SSD space, leave windata on the HDD, and expand it to the whole size. I want to avoid a fresh installation of both Ubuntu and Windows.

I read quite much already, but I'm unsure what the best way to accomplish this is?

• Clonezilla disk-to-disk clone is out, because the target disk is smaller.
• Clonezilla partitions-to-partitions (omitting the data partition) seems to be a way, but I can only enlarge the partitions proportionally (even if I can), and I don't know if this will create proper SSD partition alignment. Also, what about the boot sector/boot loader, especially w.r.t. dualboot?
• The sanest way seems to be to use GParted from a live cd, create the partitions on the SSD as desired, then copy the HDD partitions into the new ones, and expand the data partition on the HDD. This seems to me the most uncomplicated way - GParted can do proper alignment, but I don't know if the boot loader can be copied, too? Also, if this works, why does everybody seem to recommend Clonezilla?
• my boot partition is the first partition (sda1), where the windows system resides on.

Will doing this purely in GParted work? Can I safely drop the extended partitions setup (which I don't need anymore because now I only got 4 partitions per disk)? Or should I keep that around anyway if I want to further subdivide in the future (for a scratch disk etc)

Bonus question: my /home is still ext2 - can I make the new /home ext4, and copy the ext2 partition over, and it won't break?

I'm aware that I'll have to rewrite the /etc/fstab to adjust the UUIDs, and that I'll probably need a Windows rescue disk to "repair" the confused windows boot system. Any further pitfalls?

fdisk -l output:

Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320072933376 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625142448 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x80d2f3ee

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *          63   104856254    52428096    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2       184538655   625137344   220299345    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       104856255   136311524    15727635   83  Linux
/dev/sda4       136311649   184538654    24113503    5  Extended
/dev/sda5       148890420   184538654    17824117+  83  Linux
/dev/sda6       136311651   148874354     6281352   82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Since one or two months ago, my laptop with ubuntu 12.10x64 hangs during shutdown. There's just a black screen, no harddisk activity, it justs sits there. I feel it happens near the end of a normal shutdown cycle, judging from time elapsed.

Only resolution is hard power-off (holding power key for several seconds) - neither Ctrl-Alt-Backspace (which normally works, I have it switched on in Settings) nor Ctrl-Alt-Del help, nor can I get into a text console with Ctrl-Alt-F1.

How do I diagnose that? It does not happen on every shutdown, but often enough to be annoying (as it forces a diskcheck on reboot, of course).

Which log files can tell me what's going wrong? More or less blindly searching in the sys log viewer reminds me of needles in a haystack.

I imagine I could pinpoint the time it happens via log timestamps, but how do I read timestamps like e.g. in kern.log: [36169.146130]? How do I get this human-readable?

Lastly, a bit of a btw, I've never managed to execute an Alt-Sysrq-REISUB to force a cleaner shutdown, but that's probably because I'm on a laptop, PrintScr is only accessible via an Fn key, and I'm not sure of the exact key sequence I need. Is there a "harmless" but user-visible magic command I could practice this with (during normal operation), so I can find out how to do a REISUB next time?

Thanks all! Comment if you need additional data...

I have the problem that on my old Acer Travelmate292 the wireless hardware switch has stopped working a couple releases ago. It worked fine in Windows.

BIOS is at the latest version, the switch is indeed in the "on" position, but this is not recognized by Ubuntu.

Earlier it was possible to switch it on in Windows, and reboot to Ubuntu, and it would work, but I have since deleted my Windows installation, so this workaround is not viable anymore.

rfkill list all says hard-blocked yes, soft-blocked no, so rfkill unblock all (as suggested in other similar questions) does not work.

How can I get a functioning wireless back? :-(

So, it seems with 12.04, they're switching back to Rhythmbox, after switching from Rhythmbox a year ago. I don't get why. They say that it's because of a blocking bug in GTK3# (if I understand that correctly), but that's just one bug, and in the same breath they say RB is not well maintained. It seems Ubuntu guys were dissatisfied with Banshee in some way, but apparently the Banshee guys were never notified of any problems.

Also, it can't be to save disc space by dropping mono, because at the same day it was announced that the install disc will be enlarged by 50MB.

Also, isn't it a bit shortsighted to push Banshee for default inclusion, and then drop it again a year later? How is that a sustainable use of dev resources, or consistent? Apparently there was quite some heavy effort by banshee devs - David Nielsen used the term "bending over backwards for Ubuntu" iirc.

In summary: Can anyone shed more light on this?

Related question: Why was Banshee chosen to be the default for 11.04?

Sources:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/banshee-tomboy-and-mono-dropped-from-ubuntu-12-04-cd/

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/rhythmbox-to-return-as-ubuntu-12-04-default-music-app/

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/11/ubuntu-12-04-disc-size-to-be-750mb/

http://summit.ubuntu.com/uds-p/meeting/19442/desktop-p-default-apps/

http://banshee-media-player.2283330.n4.nabble.com/banshee-being-dropped-from-ubuntu-because-of-GTK3-support-td3985298.html

I know there's a lot of dupes around the keyring, but I did my research, and I think my question is unique:

Is it possible to

1) lock the screen during autologin-boot (to maintain security, but have the comfortable autologin start the desktop while you fetch coffee)

2) then, when arriving at the computer, you unlock the screensaver with your password, and at the same time (by this process) the keyring gets unlocked? (to save yourself having to enter your password twice in a row, once for the screensaver, once for the keyring)

This approach would have the benefit that Alice could enjoy automatic startup without sacrificing too much security (i.e. no unlocked autologin), and save her from entering her password multiple times (by combining screen and keyring unlock - an OK approach security-wise I think). It would effectively, from a user perspective, behave like a conventional startup&login process, only that your system is fully ready once you enter the password (under the conditions of one-user systems and unattended boot up - not untypical for laptop users I maintain).

Information found so far:

ad 1): I found this brainstorm, but on adding his code to .profile, my screensaver unlock prompt just endlessly blinks on and off, so this is probably an obsolete process. Any other options or corrections to the linked one?

[edit]: OK, this part worked by adding gnome-screensaver-command -al to the startup applications. Sadly, on unlock the keyring unlock dialog greets me, so #2 is still outstanding.

ad 2): I couldn't find any hints as to if this is possible.

[edit2]: It seems there is currently no way to do this, except by disabling the keyring password.