DisgruntledGoat's questions

I have a Ubuntu Server currently running 13.04. I want to upgrade to 13.10 but I get an error:

Not enough free disk space 

The upgrade has aborted. The upgrade needs a total of 61.0 M free 
space on disk '/boot'. Please free at least an additional 21.5 M of 
disk space on '/boot'. Empty your trash and remove temporary packages 
of former installations using 'sudo apt-get clean'.

The boot partition is:

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5        76M   35M   38M  48% /boot

I have followed the various other questions to free more space. I ran the clean command above, and I have removed all old kernels so now I only have the latest kernel.

Looking around, it seems that 200MB is a recommended size for /boot, but the only answers I've seen say to use gparted on the LiveCD.

However, I only have SSH access to the server so this is not an option. Is there some way to repartition the hard drive over SSH?

I want to reinstall 13.04 over my current installation (while keeping my files). From various other questions here, there is supposed to be an option on the Live CD to "Reinstall Ubuntu 13.04" (as shown here and here). Here is what I see:

I tried choosing "Something else" as suggested in this question. I select the partition with my current Ubuntu installation on it, but then I get an error, "No root file system is defined". Here is the screen:

What am I missing here? How do I reinstall Ubuntu?

I'm running Ubuntu 13.04. Yesterday I tried to install updates but there was an error, and it suggested running apt-get -f install which I did.

Now when I try to boot, I get an error "Gave up waiting for root device". The text is almost identical to the text shown in this and this question. However, the "built-in shell" simply doesn't work! Nothing I type shows up on the screen or does anything.

Loading the previous kernel works (although there are a few graphics glitches) but as far as I can tell, it should be booting the exact same stuff. The new kernel is 3.8.0-31-generic and the previous working one is 3.8.0-25-generic.

I tried adding a rootdelay to grub as suggested but it just waits longer and shows the same screen. Here is my entire /boot/grub/menu.lst file, comments removed:

default     0
timeout     3

title       Ubuntu 13.04, kernel 3.8.0-31-generic
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-31-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac ro quiet splash 
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-31-generic
quiet

title       Ubuntu 13.04, kernel 3.8.0-31-generic (recovery mode)
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-31-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac ro  single
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-31-generic

title       Ubuntu 13.04, kernel 3.8.0-25-generic
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-25-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac ro quiet splash 
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-25-generic
quiet

title       Ubuntu 13.04, kernel 3.8.0-25-generic (recovery mode)
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-25-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac ro  single
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-25-generic

title       Ubuntu 13.04, kernel 3.8.0-23-generic
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-23-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac ro quiet splash 
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-23-generic
quiet

title       Ubuntu 13.04, kernel 3.8.0-23-generic (recovery mode)
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-23-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac ro  single
initrd      /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-23-generic

title       Ubuntu 13.04, memtest86+
uuid        c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac
kernel      /boot/memtest86+.bin
quiet

title       --------------------------------
root

title       Windows Vista
rootnoverify    (hd0,2)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1

With the rootdelay the line in the top section was:

kernel      /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-31-generic root=UUID=c690c1e6-beb9-46e7-85c2-145cd07d44ac rootdelay=120 ro quiet splash 

As you can see the UUID is the same for all kernels. Why am I getting this problem, and what can I do to fix it?

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                  Version                 Architecture            Description
+++-=====================================-=======================-=======================-===============================================================================
un  linux-image-2.6                       <none>                                          (no description available)
rc  linux-image-2.6.28-11-generic         2.6.28-11.42            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.28 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.31-22-generic         2.6.31-22.65            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.31 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.32-25-generic         2.6.32-25.44            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.32 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.35-22-generic         2.6.35-22.35            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.35 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.35-23-generic         2.6.35-23.41            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.35 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic         2.6.35-24.42            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.35 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.35-25-generic         2.6.35-25.44            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.35 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.35-27-generic         2.6.35-27.48            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.35 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.35-28-generic         2.6.35-28.50            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.35 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.38-10-generic         2.6.38-10.46            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.38 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.38-11-generic         2.6.38-11.50            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.38 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.38-12-generic         2.6.38-12.51            i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.38 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-2.6.38-8-generic          2.6.38-8.42             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 2.6.38 on x86/x86_64
un  linux-image-3.0                       <none>                                          (no description available)
rc  linux-image-3.0.0-13-generic          3.0.0-13.22             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-3.0.0-14-generic          3.0.0-14.23             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-3.0.0-15-generic          3.0.0-15.26             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-3.0.0-16-generic          3.0.0-16.29             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-3.0.0-17-generic          3.0.0-17.30             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.0.0 on x86/x86_64
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-24-generic          3.2.0-24.39             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 64 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-25-generic          3.2.0-25.40             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-26-generic          3.2.0-26.41             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-27-generic          3.2.0-27.43             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-29-generic          3.2.0-29.46             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-30-generic          3.2.0-30.48             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-31-generic          3.2.0-31.50             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-32-generic          3.2.0-32.51             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-33-generic          3.2.0-33.52             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-34-generic          3.2.0-34.53             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.2.0-35-generic          3.2.0-35.55             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.2.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.5.0-21-generic          3.5.0-21.32             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.5.0-22-generic          3.5.0-22.34             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.5.0-23-generic          3.5.0-23.35             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.5.0-25-generic          3.5.0-25.39             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic          3.5.0-26.42             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.5.0-27-generic          3.5.0-27.46             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.8.0-19-generic          3.8.0-19.30             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.8.0-21-generic          3.8.0-21.32             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-3.8.0-22-generic          3.8.0-22.33             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-3.8.0-23-generic          3.8.0-23.34             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-3.8.0-25-generic          3.8.0-25.37             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-3.8.0-31-generic          3.8.0-31.46             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-3.8.0-32-generic          3.8.0-32.47             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.5.0-21-generic    3.5.0-21.32             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.5.0-22-generic    3.5.0-22.34             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.5.0-23-generic    3.5.0-23.35             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.5.0-25-generic    3.5.0-25.39             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.5.0-26-generic    3.5.0-26.42             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.5.0-27-generic    3.5.0-27.46             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.5.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.8.0-19-generic    3.8.0-19.30             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.8.0-21-generic    3.8.0-21.32             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
rc  linux-image-extra-3.8.0-22-generic    3.8.0-22.33             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-extra-3.8.0-23-generic    3.8.0-23.34             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-extra-3.8.0-25-generic    3.8.0-25.37             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-extra-3.8.0-32-generic    3.8.0-32.47             i386                    Linux kernel image for version 3.8.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii  linux-image-generic                   3.8.0.32.50             i386                    Generic Linux kernel image

I recently installed nemo to replace nautilus as my file manager (as detailed here) in Ubuntu 13.04. Ever since that, the update manager keeps saying I should run a "partial upgrade". (The answer here did not solve the problem.)

Is the upgrade safe to run? Here are the packages it lists:

Install:

• caribou
• cinnamon-screensaver
• gir1.2-gtkclutter-1.0
• linux-headers-3.8.0-26
• linux-headers-3.8.0-26-generic
• linux-image-3.8.0-26-generic
• linux-image-extra-3.8.0-26-generic
• python-pyatspi2
• python-pyatspi

Remove:

• gnome-screensaver

Upgrade:

• banshee
• cinnamon
• cinnamon-common
• linux-generic
• linux-headers-generic
• linux-headers-generic-pae
• linux-image-generic

If I am renaming a bunch of files in Nautilus quickly, when I hit Enter the file jumps to its proper place alphabetically. But that means I have to go back and find the next file I wanted to rename.

Is there any way to easily tab to the next file when renaming, like in Windows? I tried various keys but nothing works.

Note: I am not looking for a batch renamer like the rename command, I am renaming a handful of files with no pattern to them.

I use ssh to log onto my server. Sometimes, I leave it connected and go away from the computer, in which time the computer goes to power saving mode (or whatever it's called - the screen just goes black).

When I come back and try doing anything in that terminal window, nothing appears to happen. Though after at least 10 minutes it eventually says "write failed: broken pipe".

My question is, what's the deal with the massive delay? Why does it take so long to decide that it can no longer connect to the server? Is there any way to reduce that time, besides just closing the terminal and starting afresh?

I have a Ubuntu Server running 10.04 - to be precise, Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS according to lsb_release -a.

I just ran sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade and got this output:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  linux-generic linux-image-generic
The following packages will be upgraded:
  sudo
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 328kB of archives.
After this operation, 12.3kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

It seemed weird to me that only one package would need to be upgraded in a new version. I looked for a changelog on the Ubuntu site and the most recent one is for the version I have, 10.04.4, and makes no mention of sudo at all.

Is all correct here or is there something I should be worried about?

On my system, Ubuntu freezes occasionally. The entire display becomes unresponsive - the mouse still moves but nothing happens on click, and with the keyboard I can press Ctrl+Alt+F1 to go to a login prompt.

When I log in from the prompt, it appears all my programs are still running as normal. Yesterday for example I was converting some videos and running top showed the avconv process still running. I left it going for several hours and eventually it had completed the task perfectly. (What actually appeared to cause the freeze was opening Transmission from the notification area, but killing the process from the command line didn't make the system responsive again.)

Anyway, after reading through this question it seemed like restarting the GUI was the way to go. So I ran sudo service lightdm restart but it closed all the programs down when logging out.

So for future use, is there a way to restart only the GUI and go back to exactly where I was? Everything else in the linked thread is about rebooting or restarting the OS.

Whenever Update Manager runs, I am always left with these three options:

They are obviously all related to Evolution, which does appear to still be installed, but I have never used it. This has happened ever since I upgraded to 11.10 (I am now on 12.04)

Why do these items appear and how can I remove them?

I have a remote server still running Ubuntu 8.10 9.04 that I can only access via SSH.

If I run apt-get update I get a bunch of 404 errors on the packages. I've asked a few questions on Server Fault but got nowhere. Here's what I've done:

1. Run apt-get update which returns errors like:

   Err http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com intrepid/main Packages 404 Not Found
   [and same for many other packages]

2. Run do-release-upgrade which returns:

   Checking for a new ubuntu release
   Failed Upgrade tool signature
   Failed Upgrade tool
   Done downloading
   extracting 'jaunty.tar.gz'
   Failed to extract
   Extracting the upgrade failed. There may be a problem with the network or with the server.

3. Edited /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and changed from Prompt=normal to Prompt=lts (as suggested here). Running do-release-upgrade after this returns:

   Checking for a new ubuntu release
   current dist not found in meta-release file
   No new release found

4. (Updated) I have followed the advice in this question and changed /etc/apt/sources.list to refer to jaunty instead of intrepid. However, that distro is not online anymore either. A comment there says I have to upgrade in chronological order...

So basically, it seems like I cannot upgrade because my current distro is out of date and not supported. Is there a way to upgrade direct to 10.x or 11.x? Note, as this is a server I only have command-line access.

UPDATE 24/11: I have managed to upgrade from 8.10 to 9.04. Ubuntu's EOL Upgrades page provides some alternate URLs for apt sources. I also needed to update /var/lib/update-manager/meta-release to point to the old-releases server too.

However, now I cannot upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10. Running do-release-upgrade produces the same error as #2 above, except it "Failed to fetch" (the URLs in meta-release are valid). The Ubuntu Jaunty upgrade page says it's necessary to upgrade using a CD image. I followed the instructions here, but it didn't work:

A fatal error occurred

Please report this as a bug and include the files /var/log/dist-upgrade/main.log and /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log in your report. The upgrade is now aborted. Your original sources.list was saved in /etc/apt/sources.list.distUpgrade.

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/karmic", line 7, in sys.exit(main())

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeMain.py", line 132, in main if app.run():

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeController.py", line 1590, in run return self.fullUpgrade()

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeController.py", line 1506, in fullUpgrade if not self.doPostInitialUpdate():

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeController.py", line 762, in doPostInitialUpdate self.quirks.run("PostInitialUpdate")

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/DistUpgradeQuirks.py", line 83, in run for plugin in self.plugin_manager.get_plugins(condition):

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/computerjanitor/plugin.py", line 167, in get_plugins filenames = self.get_plugin_files()

File "/tmp/tmp.JLhTwVUugb/computerjanitor/plugin.py", line 120, in get_plugin_files basenames = [x for x in os.listdir(dirname)

OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: './plugins'

It does say to report the bug, but since this is an old unsupported release I don't know if it's worth doing. However, is there a way round this, to upgrade from 9.04 to 9.10 (And then finally to 10.04 LTS.)

I've been following the instructions in this answer for trying to read my iPhone from Ubuntu. I'm still getting the error in the question. Under Edit 2 of the answer it says to run

idevicepair unpair

But I tried that and just get

idevicepair: command not found

Tried installing idevicepair but no package can be located. What do I need to do to get my iPhone (3GS) working under Ubuntu (11.04)?

I have a very tall image (880x9445 pixels) which I would like to print (specifically, to PDF).

But when I print the image it always comes out as one page; there does not seem to be any way to scale its width to a page and thus end up with multiple pages.

I tried using the image viewer and GIMP, is there anything else that will give me this option?

In Google Chrome, when I go to a login page, a window pops up asking to "Enter password for keyring 'default' to unlock". In most cases, whether I click Cancel or enter my password, the login form gets auto filled anyway.

How do I get rid of the popup? I want it to auto login each time, not ask for my system password. The dialog box never appears for any other apps.

I've read through man pngcrush and it seems that there is no way to crush a PNG file and save it over the original. I want to compress several folders worth of PNGs so it would be useful to do it all with one command!

Currently I am doing pngcrush -q -d tmp *.png then manually cut-pasting the files from the tmp directory to the original folder. So I guess using mv might be the best way to go? Any better ideas?

I have a bunch of pictures I'd like to make into a basic slideshow, as a video (e.g. mpeg/avi). What software is available to do this?

I started using PiTiVi based on recommendation in another question, which seemed nice at first. However, it's very unstable - just crashed my whole system! Regardless, it won't let me do anything over 10 seconds because the timeline keeps jumping back to the start any time I try and move/resize a clip.

All I need is to fade between some images. Anything out there?

When the computer starts, GRUB shows a long list of previous kernels in addition to the usual stuff, e.g.

Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-23-generic
Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-23-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-22-generic
Ubuntu 10.10, kernel 2.6.35-22-generic (recovery mode)
[6 more similar]
Ubuntu 10.10, memtest86+
Other operating systems:
Dell Utility Partition
Windows Vista (loader)

Is it safe to delete those extra "Ubuntu 10.10, kernel" lines from /etc/grub/menu.lst? Currently I have commented-out from the third one up to (not including) memtest86. But I wonder if they are ever needed for a particular reason?

I want to remove the part in Nautilus that shows free disk space. In theory it may useful but it's so badly designed, every time I select some files my eye gets drawn to "15 GB" instead of the actual size of the files. And with no files selected, it says something like "24 items, Free space 15GB" which at a quick glance looks like the total size of the files.

I've looked through the preferences and don't see anything. I'm using Ubuntu 10.10 with Nautilus 2.32.0.

I have dragged a folder from a Nautilus window to the desktop, holding Ctrl+Shift to create a shortcut (well, a symbolic link). However, when I open it from the desktop, instead of showing /home/scott/Documents/asd/folder it shows /home/scott/Desktop/folder. But sometimes I want to go up a level or two, and can only go to Desktop, not asd.

I understand that's how symbolic links work, but is there a way to create a shortcut to the target folder directly?

Whenever I play music in Banshee, it gets to the end of a play queue or album then starts playing a seemingly random album.

For example, if I double click an album then it starts playing. At the end, it starts playing the play queue.

On the other hand, if I create a play queue and play through it, at the end it skips onto anther artist or album. It tends to be the album or artist that was last selected in the music browser but not always. Sometimes it will skip to track 2 or 3 as well (shuffle is not on).

How do I get Banshee to just play an album or a play queue then STOP?