GUI Junkie's questions

I recently upgraded to 18.04 and since then, I've been receiving a "gnome extensions" notification.

When I click on it, I get this screen on my browser.

My questions are:

• What are these extensions for?
• Are they extensions for the browser?
• How can I disable this particular notification ... if I decide not to install these extensions?

I have downloaded an avi with subtitles in multiple languages. I can watch the video online and choose the subtitle language I need.

However, I cannot see the subtitles with the Totem movie player nor with VLC.

Codec: MPEG-4 Video (XVID)

I'm using PyCharm and sometimes the keyboard stops working because of iBus. The latest versions of PyCharm have a warning message recommending use of iBus 1.5.11 or newer.

1) How can I check the version of iBus?

2) How can I update iBus?

3) Can I safely remove iBus if I write in Dutch, Spanish and English (sometimes German)?

Basically, the header tells it all. I have two routers configured with the same SSID. The main router is upstairs, and the secondary router is downstairs.

Where I work, normally, the portable sees both routers with about the same strength. But the secondary router is not good for me (too much lost packages, etc.)

Is there a way to assign a name (upstairs/downstairs) to the MAC address of each router?

I installed Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit side by side with my previous 11.10 32-bit.

As everything is working correctly, I want to eliminate the old partition.

According to update-grub:

Found Ubuntu 11.10 (11.10) on /dev/sda1

But according to GParted, /dev/sda1 is the boot partition!

So, how can I discover which partition should be the boot partition for 12.04? Can I safely eliminate the /dev/sda1?

Also, GParted gives /dev/sda5 as file system unknown, it's 2.93Gib and might be the swap partition (just guessing).

I've set up VMWare Player for my wife. Every once in a while (notably after a kernel update), the VMWare Player needs to be compiled into the kernel.

My spouse does not have su- activated (if anybody screws up the OS, it's going to be me). I'd like to give her permission to do this, but only for that program.

Is this possible? Can it be done safely (for the OS)? How can it be done?

Edit: I tried to add the following to visudo

guijunkette ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: /usr/bin/vmware-modconfig

When running with her user, after typing her password, the following error occurred:

So, in the end, no cigar.

Edit: I've given up on VMWare Player and moved to VirtualBox. Made a clean install.

gedit creates hidden backup files ending with '~'. I wanted to do a recursive cleanup of my directory tree.

The command rm *~ will delete all local files ending with '~'

I thought rm -r *~ . would delete all files in the whole tree, but I typo-ed rm -r ~.

There was a message some directory could not be deleted and I quit the command. The question is: What have I been deleting?

I did notice that my Filezilla configuration was gone. Does this command delete all hidden directories from the home dir?

Situation: Clean install of 12.04 and of HPLIP 3.12.4. The printer is detected and installed correctly. The problem starts afterwards.

Whenever entering the session, HPLIP starts and is shown on the menu bar (in 11.10, HPLIP didn't show until the printer was plugged in). When plugging in the printer, HPLIP gives a 'Devise communication error', and won't print.

Workaround: After much fooling around, I've found that I can uninstal the printer, then plug the printer in, HPLIP detects it and voilá, it'll print.

Sometimes, the program will show a message HPLIP already mounted, so that might be part of the problem.

Also, HPLIP creates a 'system problem', but the report never goes anywhere...

I'd like to be able to troubleshoot this problem, or should I just wait until a new version of HPLIP is released. I think this problem affects more people.

Edit: Forgot to mention. When plugging the printer in, HPLIP will add another printer instead of recognising that the printer is already installed.

Status update: Solved The problem was the HPLIP download. I downloaded version 3.12.4, but the correct version is 3.12.2... as indicated by HPLIP... but the link goes to the next version.

I uninstalled everything. Installed 3.12.2. In the end it all works.

Possible Duplicate:
How do I modify or disable the HUD's use of the Alt key?

In 12.04, the [Alt] key pops up the HUD. That's not a problem, but, when using [Alt]+... it pops up as well.

For instance on pushing [Alt]+[Left Arrow] which I use continually when navigating with Firefox (that's the 'back' functionality).

Is there a way to prevent this from happening?

I'm downloading both versions of Ubuntu 12.04 at this moment. I'd like to install AMD64 on my portable, even though it's an Intel machine. Is there a website (or another way) where I can check compatibility?

Acer Aspire 5745G-724G50Mnks, Intel i7 with 4Gb RAM

The problem: I'm sharing a directory with my wife. I've placed us both in a 'shared' group and the directory belongs to the 'shared' group as well. Whenever one of us creates a file, this file belongs to user:user, instead of user:shared...

The solution: I can do sudo chown, but my wife can't. So, I want to run a script when I logout of the session.

If I understand correctly, the startup scripts go in /etc/init.d/ and the runlevel scripts go /etc/rc0.d/ where 0 is the runlevel (0-6).

Questions: Do the runlevel scripts execute only on exit/logout? Do these depend on the user, that is, I'd like to run it only for my user (not so important in this case, mind)? Which runlevel should I choose (my guess is 5)? Should I place the script somewhere else?

Also, I imagine that the script will be run by root, so there's no need for sudo within the script, is that correct?

At this moment, ever since I installed Ubuntu on this machine, the battery status says: not present.

Looking at this answer, however, I find that /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/info (sometimes its /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/info, use tab complete to help) has the following info:

present: yes
design capacity: 4400 mAh
last full capacity: 4400 mAh
battery technology: rechargeable
design voltage: 11100 mV
design capacity warning: 300 mAh
design capacity low: 132 mAh
cycle count: 0
capacity granularity 1: 32 mAh
capacity granularity 2: 32 mAh
model number: BAT1      
serial number: 11        
battery type: 11        
OEM info: 11        

In accordance to this answer, I've checked the /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state file:

present:                 yes
capacity state:          ok
charging state:          charged
present rate:            unknown
remaining capacity:      unknown
present voltage:         10000 mV

The acpi -b command returns:

Battery 0: Unknown, 0%, rate information unavailable

Any suggestions on getting the battery info updated?

I'm shocked at how slow Sound Juicer rips audio CD's. My machine is an Intel i7 with 4Gb RAM, so I thought that ripping would take just a couple of minutes. But the program takes it's time and lasts about 20' for each CD.

Is there a way to configure Sound Juicer to make better use of the available hardware?

Is there another program available for faster ripping?

The DVD is a Super Multi DL Drive. I guess it's faster than single speed. No serious errors on the command line after the extraction starts. Before that, gtk errors and glib errors. Running it from the command line is much faster.

Warnings on command line:

(sound-juicer:1285): WARNING **: Widget (GtkEntry) has more than one label 
(sound-juicer:1285): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: invalid cast from GdkX11Window' to GtkWidget' 
(sound-juicer:1285): Gtk-CRITICAL **: gtk_widget_get_display: assertion GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed 
(sound-juicer:1285): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_cursor_new_for_display: assertion GDK_IS_DISPLAY (display)' failed 
(sound-juicer:1285): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_cursor_unref: assertion `cursor != NULL' failed 

I've monitored the system, and the memory use stays below 800Mb, also, the processors stay mostly below 20%.

Now, if a CD has 700Mb max, wouldn't it be possible to read the smallest song (in bytes) into memory, start processing that with one thread, read the next smallest song into memory and spawn the next process, etc?

With 4Gb RAM, and 8 processors, the computer should not have any problem ripping and encoding 4 CD's in memory at the same time. Or should it?

dd: reading `/dev/cdrom': Input/output error
0+0 records in
0+0 records out
0 bytes (0 B) copied, 0.0258942 s, 0.0 kB/s

real    0m12.087s
user    0m0.000s
sys 0m0.004s

Every once in a while my SO-User (significant other user) leaves the computer but doesn't hibernate it. I want to push the power button to save some energy, but as I'm not in her session, the computer doesn't respond.

Is there a way to configure Ubuntu 11.10 to hibernate whenever the power button is pushed?

I already applied this solution, but that only works inside a session.

I'm sharing a directory with another user. This directory is called /home/Shared.

When I was setting up the home network (that's another question), I found the 'Shared' directory with read access in the "Browse Network" part of Nautilus.

I'm not aware of having shared this directory on the network, it doesn't show up in /etc/fstab, nor in /mnt on the Server.

How can I remove this directory? As a side note, I'm not seeing my own home directory in the share.

I've installed a new printer on the server and on CUPS, I checked the 'Share printers connected to this system', but not 'Allow printing from the Internet'.

The client finds the printer and configures it with a

dnssd://printer-location._ipp._tcp.local/cups

But the printer is Idle - "The printer is not responding."

I've read that to install the (any) printer correctly the IP address is needed.

Anybody has any idea how to obtain the IP address of a printer? My printer is not listed in HPLIP (yet).

Edit For ipp to work, do I have to set 'Allow printing from the Internet' on the server? Also, Is it possible to allow only a specific client per IP or MAC?

Solved So easy. I forgot to check the 'Show printers shared by other systems' on the client machine. I choose the printer I was looking for and bingo! No need for the IP after all.

This is a new computer and a new install of 11.10. I've launched 'keyboard' from Dash and try to change a keystroke, but no cigar. Nothing happens.

This has happened ever since I installed 11.10 on my other computers as well (but those computers were upgrades from 10.10 with custom keystrokes).

Is there another way to change keyboard shortcuts that I'm not aware of?

When a user locks the screen and another user tries to enter, the system first paints the white space for the password textbox, but doesn't put the cursor in it. Afterwards, no textbox appears, so the first user cannot enter the system neither.

System shutdown or restart doesn't seem to work neither, so the only option is a hard reboot (maintain the power button pushed until the computer powers down).

The question is if there is a way to prevent this from happening (without having to logout every time)?

Just filed a bug report in Launchpad.

Is there a way to create small caps in GIMP?

There was a reference to Freetext.org at GIMPTalk, but the plugin doesn't exist. I've installed Freetext on my computer, but don't know how to proceed to make it work with GIMP. Is there a file I should copy to some GIMP directory?

There was also a reference to a small caps plugin, but that doesn't seem to be available anymore.

I've read this Q&A and I'm ready to try it with Xubuntu. That is, I'll go from Ubuntu to Xubuntu.

At this moment, my laptop is slow, even after the various optimizations. My question is whether this is the correct way to proceed.

sudo apt-get upgrade           # upgrade all existing packages to newest version
sudo do-release-upgrade        # upgrade system (takes some hours)   

sudo apt-get xubuntu-desktop   # switch to Gnome on login

Remove the ubuntu-desktop package (Which command should I use?)