frepie's questions

I tried to upgrade from 18.04 to 20.04 using the terminal and the process aborts without any information messages:

frepie@frepie-K55N:~$ sudo do-release-upgrade
Checking for a new Ubuntu release
Get:1 Upgrade tool signature [1,554 B]                                
Get:2 Upgrade tool [1,340 kB]                                         
Fetched 1,342 kB in 0s (0 B/s)                                        
authenticate 'focal.tar.gz' against 'focal.tar.gz.gpg' 
extracting 'focal.tar.gz'

Reading cache

Checking package manager
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree        
Reading state information... Done
Hit http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease              
Get:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB]
Get:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security InRelease [88.7 kB]
Hit https://linux.teamviewer.com/deb stable InRelease                 
Get:3 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-backports InRelease [74.6 kB]
Hit https://repo.skype.com/deb stable InRelease                       
Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexlarsson/flatpak/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable InRelease    
Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net/nixnote/nixnote2-stable/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net/obsproject/obs-studio/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net/team-xbmc/ppa/ubuntu bionic InRelease    
Hit https://packagecloud.io/slacktechnologies/slack/debian jessie InRelease
Hit http://ppa.launchpad.net/tsbarnes/indicator-keylock/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Fetched 252 kB in 0s (0 B/s)                                          
Reading package lists... Done    
Building dependency tree          
Reading state information... Done

Restoring original system state

Aborting
Reading package lists... Done    
Building dependency tree          
Reading state information... Done
frepie@frepie-K55N:~$ 

ubuntu 18.04 LTS Kernel 4.15.0-135-generic

On a dualboot laptop, normal boot was stopped because of an error message that said to run ckfs. I did it but since then, I can't connect to the wifi network. Th pc boots seemingly normally but something is blocking NetworkManager from starting.

I tried rebooting, and restart NetworkManager with:

[sudo]frepie@frepie-K55N:/var/log$ sudo systemctl start NetworkManager.service
[sudo] password for frepie: 
Job for NetworkManager.service failed because the control process exited with error code.
See "systemctl status NetworkManager.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.
frepie@frepie-K55N:/var/log$ 

I ran a few tests. Here are the results:

NetworkManager:

frepie@frepie-K55N:/var/log$ sudo systemctl status NetworkManager.service
● NetworkManager.service - Network Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/NetworkManager.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Sun 2021-02-21 06:36:43 EST; 2min 36s ago
     Docs: man:NetworkManager(8)
  Process: 27872 ExecStart=/usr/sbin/NetworkManager --no-daemon (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
 Main PID: 27872 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Feb 21 06:36:43 frepie-K55N systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Feb 21 06:36:43 frepie-K55N systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Scheduled restart job, restart counter is at 5.
Feb 21 06:36:43 frepie-K55N systemd[1]: Stopped Network Manager.
Feb 21 06:36:43 frepie-K55N systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Feb 21 06:36:43 frepie-K55N systemd[1]: NetworkManager.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Feb 21 06:36:43 frepie-K55N systemd[1]: Failed to start Network Manager.

journalctl -xe:

frepie@frepie-K55N:/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services$ sudo journalctl -xe
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: http://www.ubuntu.com/support
-- 
-- Unit NetworkManager.service has failed.
-- 
-- The result is RESULT.
Feb 21 07:52:06 frepie-K55N sudo[28881]:   frepie : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl status Netw
Feb 21 07:52:06 frepie-K55N sudo[28881]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Feb 21 07:52:06 frepie-K55N sudo[28881]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N sudo[28891]:   frepie : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/systemctl journalctl 
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N sudo[28891]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' resumed (module 'builtin:omfile') [v8.32.0 try http://www.rsyslog.com/e/2359 ]
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), retry 0. There should be messages before this one gi
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N rsyslogd[925]: action 'action 1' suspended (module 'builtin:omfile'), next retry is Sun Feb 21 07:53:13 2021, retry nbr 0.
Feb 21 07:52:43 frepie-K55N sudo[28891]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Feb 21 07:52:59 frepie-K55N sudo[28895]:   frepie : TTY=pts/0 ; PWD=/usr/share/dbus-1/system-services ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/bin/journalctl -xe
Feb 21 07:52:59 frepie-K55N sudo[28895]: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by (uid=0)

As requested by Deepak Reddy

Mar 06 08:21:20 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615036880.4374] policy: set 'Wired connection 1' (enp5s0) as default for IPv4 routing and DNS
Mar 06 08:21:20 frepie-K55N dhclient[1139]: bound to 192.168.1.110 -- renewal in 35851 seconds.
Mar 06 13:22:29 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615054949.3635] connectivity: (enp5s0) timed out
Mar 06 13:22:54 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <warn>  [1615054974.3071] error requesting auth for org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.wifi.share.open: Authorization check failed: Failed to open file “/proc/1451/status”: No such file or directory
Mar 06 13:22:54 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <warn>  [1615054974.3095] error requesting auth for org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.wifi.share.protected: Authorization check failed: Failed to open file “/proc/1451/status”: No such file or directory
Mar 06 13:22:54 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <warn>  [1615054974.3103] error requesting auth for org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.wifi.share.open: Authorization check failed: Failed to open file “/proc/1451/status”: No such file or directory
Mar 06 13:25:05 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615055105.1172] device (enp5s0): state change: activated -> unavailable (reason 'carrier-changed', sys-iface-state: 'managed')
Mar 06 13:25:05 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615055105.1346] dhcp4 (enp5s0): canceled DHCP transaction, DHCP client pid 1139
Mar 06 13:25:05 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615055105.1347] dhcp4 (enp5s0): state changed bound -> done
Mar 06 13:25:05 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615055105.1352] dhcp6 (enp5s0): canceled DHCP transaction
Mar 06 13:25:05 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615055105.1449] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTED_LOCAL
Mar 06 13:25:05 frepie-K55N NetworkManager[928]: <info>  [1615055105.1451] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED

Error in reinstalling network manager:

frepie@frepie-K55N:~$ sudo apt --reinstall install network-manager
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Unable to parse package file /var/lib/apt/lists/ca.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_xenial-updates_InRelease (1)
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.
frepie@frepie-K55N:~$ 

As suggested by , I removed all xenial references in the update file and run the update command but got the fallowing error message:

frepie@frepie-K55N:~$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for frepie: 
Hit:1 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Get:2 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates InRelease [88.7 kB] ...

...

Hit:20 http://ppa.launchpad.net/alexlarsson/flatpak/ubuntu bionic/main i386 Packages
Fetched 15.0 MB in 10s (1,582 kB/s)                                            
Reading package lists... Error!
E: Encountered a section with no Package: header
E: Problem with MergeList /var/lib/dpkg/status
E: The package lists or status file could not be parsed or opened.

Ok I managed to correct the issue

After receiving the error "Problem with Mergelist /var/lib/dpkg/status, I applied a solution that suggested to go fetch an older version of the file "status" in lib/dpkg folder where several older versions of that files are stored periodically. I chose one fairly recent but not too recent so it wouldn't have the same problem as the actual one.

So I extracted the older version, moved it in the proper folder then renamed the actual file then renamed the old file properly

sudo gunzip dpkg.status.6.gz
sudo mv dpkg.status.6 /var/lib/dpkg/status.arch
cd /var/lib/dpkg
sudo cp status.arch status

Then I update and tried to upgrade. Upgrading was causing the following error:

files list file for package 'wpasupplicant' contains empty filename

So I followed the instructions in https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23094737/apt-get-fails-with-following-error-linux-headers-3-2-0-58-generic-contains-empt#39359088

cd /var/lib/dpkg/info
sudo rm wpasupplicant.list

then

sudo apt-get install wpasupplicant

After the update and upgrade, the original issue was corrected.

I installed a new ssd drive in my computer and want to move my current ubuntu partition to that drive. I plan to use clonezilla to move the partition but I have a few questions that remain:

When I check my current ubuntu partition using Gparted, I find not 1 but 3 and that is where I am unsure how I should handle them: sdc4 which is the parent of sdc5 (ext4) and sdc6 (swap).

Another thing that puzzles me is that only the partitions sdc5 and sdc6 shows up with the command blkid on the terminal. Sdc4 is not there.

So what partition should be cloned?

Please see attached screen shots.

I made a backup of a folder on an external NTFS drive on an ext4 folder and it went fine. The problem I have now is that rsync ignores already existing (and unchanged) files and syncs everything even though the vast majority of files are on the backup folder.

I tried to uninstall unity-tweak-tools by the command line but while looking at removal process, I saw that it was removing way more than what I wanted. I don't know why, but it started to remove many things that had nothing to do with the app I wanted to uninstall. Now my desktop is missing many programs I used daily. I can't even find "Software" to reinstall what is now missing. Is there a way to repair what is missing or am I forced to do a clean reinstall?

A year ago, I installed KeepassXC to manage my passwords. I don't remember I installed though. Today I went on the official web page to check if new versions were available and found that there were upgrades available. When I tried to upgrade it

sudo apt-get install --only-upgrade keepassxc

I got

E: Unable to locate package keepassxc

So I installed it though the repository but I have now 2 keepassxc installations.

My question is how do I remove the old version without also removing the newest one.

Here are the answers to the requests in the comments below:

$ snap list
Name                  Version          Rev   Tracking  Publisher       Notes
core                  16-2.42.1        8039  stable    canonical✓      core
core18                0.1              19    stable    canonical✓      base
gtk-common-themes     0.1-16-g2287c87  1198  stable    canonical✓      -
htmldoc               1.9.7            283   stable    michaelrsweet   -
keepassxc             2.3.4            49    stable    keepassxreboot  -
nmap                  7.12SVN-0.6      29    stable    maxiberta       -
notepad-plus-plus     7.6.4            193   stable    mmtrt           -
shotcut               19.10.20         55    stable    meltytech✓      classic
simplescreenrecorder  0.1              1     stable    xiaoguo         -
skype                 8.30.0.50        54    stable    skype✓          classic
slack                 4.1.2            19    stable    slack✓          classic
stellarium-plars      0.18.1           29    stable    pwlars          -
wine-platform         3.0.4-4.0        88    stable    mmtrt           -


dpkg -l keepass*
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
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii  keepassxc      2.5.1-0ppa1~ amd64        KeePass Cross-Platform Community 
un  keepassxc-beta <none>       <none>       (no description available)

Regards

I had a samba shared drive that use to work fine for my ubuntu workstation but wasn't available on Windows computers. The setup allowed for anonymous users to access it and this is not permitted on Windows (unless some settings are changed) To enable access to Windows running computers, I created users and passwords for all who wanted to connect to it.

Now, Windows users can read and write on it but I can't write on my ubuntu station. I also have problems mounting it at startup, the fstab file is no longer working.

The drive fs is NTFS and I think this is the main culprit. I tried to chmod and chown the folder but nothing changed: all files and folder are 755.

But I must admit that I am very confused as to what is really happening here.

My fstab file is copied here:

//192.168.1.2/ext4tb /mnt/ext4tb cifs ,credentials=/home/frepie/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,vers=3.0,file_mode=0777,dir_mode=0777 0 0

I want to download all files in a folder with ftp. But mget *.* isn't accepted. Here is the terminal output:

ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful
150 Directory listing for /DCIM/Camera/
-rw-rw-rw- 1 system system 0 Jun 16 17:46 .escheck.tmp
-rw-rw-rw- 1 system system 164140486 Aug 26 19:47 VID_20180826_194513130.mp4
-rw-rw-rw- 1 system system 1624705 Aug 28 19:11 IMG_20180828_191133828.jpg
-rw-rw-rw- 1 system system 1426824 Aug 28 19:14 IMG_20180828_191424499.jpg
-rw-rw-rw- 1 system system 1166878 Aug 28 19:17 IMG_20180828_191700733.jpg
-rw-rw-rw- 1 system system 1372256 Aug 28 19:52 IMG_20180828_195257123.jpg
 ...
226 Directory send OK.
ftp> prompt
Interactive mode off.
ftp> mget *.*
local: *.* remote: *.*
200 PORT command successful
550 Requested action not taken. /DCIM/Camera/*.* : file does not exist

Everywhere I looked, * was a valid wildcard for all filenames. What am I missing here?

I have a samba shared drive that I use to keep files that are available to anyone on the network. This drive is mounted at boot on my computers. Here is the fstab file:

`# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
 #
 # Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
 # device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
 # that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
 #
 # <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
 # / was on /dev/sda7 during installation
 UUID=8429aa44-e70e-4fc4-8547-cafde77d1404 /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
 # /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
 UUID=4E93-0D75  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
 # swap was on /dev/sda8 during installation
 UUID=f002a1ef-f3e3-4cf0-a832-b0f683895bd2 none            swap    sw              0       0
 UUID=f002a1ef-f3e3-4cf0-a832-b0f683895bd2 none            swap    sw              0       0
 //192.168.1.2/ext4tb /media/ext4tb cifs users,guest,iocharset=utf8,vers=1.0,sec=ntlm,user 0 0`

This used to work fine until I had to upgrade to 18.04 LTS for some other reason unrelated to this issue. Before reinstalling, I made sure I had a copy of fstab since it worked just fine.

But now, the shared drive no longer automounts at boot and I need to enter my credentials even if though access is open to all.

I have a samba shares drive that is mounted at boot that works as I intend. Here is the fstab file:

//192.168.1.2/ext4tb /mnt/ext4tb cifs ,credentials=/home/frepie/.smbcredentials,iocharset=utf8,vers=1.0,sec=ntlm,user  0  0 

When this works normally, I have total read,write and execute privileges on that share

Sometimes, for reasons that I ignore, that shared drive is not mounted at boot. Trying to resolve the issue without rebooting, I used the command

sudo mount.cifs //192.168.1.2/ext4tb /mnt/ext4tb

And the command requests the root password on the samba server

Password for root@//192.168.1.2/ext4tb:  ********

The problem is the when doing so, I don't have the write privileges that I have when the mount at boot works normally.

$ mv /home/frepie/Music/Dark\ Latin\ Groove\ -\ La\ Quiero\ A\ Morir /mnt/ext4tb/media/Audio/
mv: cannot create regular file '/mnt/ext4tb/media/Audio/Dark Latin Groove - La Quiero A Morir': Permission denied

Somehow, I am not granted the same privileges when the mount is performed by fstab at boot.

I am currently attending a class on network security and we need to crack hashed passwords. To do so, we use hashcat. Since there are a lot of hashes, I am trying to write a script that would test the hashed password with all the hashes contained in the list. My script is as follows:

 1 #! /bin/bash
  2 listhsh="hashlist.txt"
  3 
  4 
  5 while read file; do
  6         echo $file
  7         hashcat -a 0 -m $file -O ~/devoir_PIII_Alice.txt /usr/lib/rockyou.txt
  8 done < $listhsh

the file contains the following values. These are codes defining the type of hash to be tested.

900
0
5100
100
1300
1400
10800
1700
5000
600

The problem I have is that the script opens the file, takes the first line that contains the code for hash type to be tested and runs hashcat with the value in $file=900. However, once the test finishes with the first value, the script executes hashcat with the same value of $file=900. So the end result is hashcat doing the same test with $file=900 as many times as there are values in the list.

I am trying to setup a pi-hole server on a ubuntu 14.04 server. Pi-hole is a dns server that blocks ads on webpage and on youtube. From what I know, it works great on a raspberry pi but I don't have one but I have an old pc running ubuntu 14.04 that I hope can do the job.

I followed the instructions given on this page: Guide: Installing PiHole on an Ubuntu Server to Block Ads on your Network but I encounter problems with dnsmasq

If everything goes according to the instructions given in the link, dnsmasq should be listening to the ip adress of the server. But in my case, the dnsmasq service listens to 0.0.0.0:53.

I edited dnsmasq.conf and changed the line

listen-adress=192.168.1.133,127.0.0.1

but when I stop/start dnsmasq I get the error message

* Starting DNS forwarder and DHCP server dnsmasq 
dnsmasq: failed to create listening socket for port 53: Address already in use
                                                                     [fail]

Even when dnsmasq is stopped,

netstat -anlp | grep -w LISTEN

gives the following:

tcp        0      0 0.0.0.0:53              0.0.0.0:*               LISTEN      4557/dnsmasq

So my question is:

how to force dnsmasq to listen to the proper ip adress?

Regards

Back from vacations, I tried to start my computer. It shows the ubuntu name for a while than falls into emergency mode. Journalctl gives a lot of gibberish I don't understand but one line in written in red:

failed to load fecs_inst

My system is a dualboot win 7-ubuntu 16.04 and it worked just fine before I turned it off while on vacation.

I just got a new nvidia graphics card that works fine at 1440x900 under window (dual boot setup). Unfortunately, my monitor is not recognized by ubuntu. Here is my xrandr -q output

Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1360 x 768, maximum 16384 x 16384
DVI-I-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-I-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DP-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
DVI-D-0 connected primary 1360x768+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1024x768       60.0 +
1360x768       60.0*    59.8  
1152x864       60.0  
800x600        72.2     60.3     56.2  
680x384        60.0     59.8  
640x480        59.9  
512x384        60.0  
400x300        72.2  
320x240        60.1  
1440x900_60.00 (0x1e7)  106.5MHz
   h: width  1440 start 1528 end 1672 total 1904 skew    0 clock   55.9KHz
    v: height  900 start  903 end  909 total  934           clock   59.9Hz

I manage to add the desired resolution (1440x900) but when I do

xrandr --output DVI-D-0 --mode 1440x900_60.00

I get

xrandr: cannot find mode 1440x900_60.00

New to rsync here. I used it to backup files on an external drive on my home drives. My rsync line is :

sudo rsync -vv -rP /inputFolder ~/backupFolder

I did 2 backups back to back to verify if rsync backed up only files that had been modified, as I understood from what I had read. But to my surprise, the second backup took as much time as the first one, even though no files had changed between both backups.

Important note: the backup is on a samba network drive.

Shouldn't the second backup been much faster since no file had changed since the first one?

I managed to convert avi files to mp4 using avidemux and the result is fully satisfactory. Since I have many files to convert, I would like to batch convert them using the terminal. I found the script

#!/bin/bash
VIDEOCODEC="Xvid"
AUDIOCODEC="MP3"
for FIL in `ls *mp4 | sort` ; do
avidemux2 --video-codec $VIDEOCODEC --audio-codec $AUDIOCODEC --force-alt-h264 --load "$FIL" --save ${FIL%.*}.avi --quit
done

fom the page http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php?id=tutorial:batch_processing#command-line_only_batch_processing

but I end up with the error

./scriptAvidemuxBatch: line 5: avidemux2: command not found

I do get something working when I replace

avidemux2 --video-codec $VIDEOCODEC --audio-codec $AUDIOCODEC --force-alt-h264 --load "$FIL" --save ${FIL%.*}.mp4 --quit

by

avidemux --video-codec $VIDEOCODEC --audio-codec $AUDIOCODEC --force-alt-h264 --load "$FIL" --save ${FIL%.*}.mp4 --quit

("2" removed) but the gui still comes up and request that I click several buttons before going on with the conversion process.

My questions are:

-Is ok to change "avidemux2" to "avidemux" in the script?

-Is there a way to include the selection made when clicking the buttons in the script so the whole process can be done without my intervention?

Sorry if this question looks familiar: I tried solutions proposed by google searches but they either are not working or are too technical for me.

I messed with cups a few days ago, I don't recall exactly how and why but I ended up deleting some cups files.

I have un-installed and re-installed cups several time, through the software center and using the terminal and I also reinstalled cups-daemon but nothing changes.

Now, my local printer won't work. I get the message "printing service not available. Start service on this computer or connect to another server". The "start service" button is "greyd out"

I tried to restart the service through the terminal with

sudo service cups restart

to which the shell replies:

cups stop/waiting

and then nothing happens, as if the shell was "waiting" for something the happen. I have to do ctrl-c to get the prompt back.

I tried the troubleshoot instructions in the help menu and it says that "The CUPS print spooler does not seem to be running. To correct this, choose "System->Administration->Services from the main menu and look for the "cups" service"

I do not know where is this "System->Administration->Services" is in Ubuntu 14.04 lts

I also tried:

sudo /etc/init.d/cups start

which yielded

cupsd: Child exited with status 1

Since this morning, I can't print in full size portrait. No matter how I fiddle the printing options, reboot the computer, restart the printer, the hard copy always comes out half size, 2 pages per sheet side. This happens when I use LibreOffice Writer, Gedit or when printing PDF documents. I have seen a few questions about this topic but none of the solutions corrected the situation.

I am running on Xubuntu 14.04 and my printer is Canon Pixma MP180

Regards

I would like to know if it is possible to replace the default display of the dash from historical (last soft and files used) to list of installed software (second icon at the bottom of the dash screen).

Thank you

In an effort to use my printer, I installed a PPA but in the end, this PPA was not necessary. Now, this PPA causes an error when updates are loaded. The update error message is the following:

W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/michael-gruz/canon/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/source/Sources  404  Not Found
, W:Failed to fetch http://ppa.launchpad.net/michael-gruz/canon/ubuntu/dists/precise/main/binary-i386/Packages  404  Not Found
, E:Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I looked over the web how to remove a ppa but the answers are too technical for my level of understanding. I found this line:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:whatever/ppa

but I don't know what should be put in place of the "whatever". On top of that, I can't even remember how I installed this PPA. I know I went to this page:

https://launchpad.net/~michael-gruz/+archive/canon/+packages

and somehow, followed the included instructions, without really knowing what I was doing.

According to some help pages I found, installed file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d should give me some hints:

  jockey.list                            nvbn-rm-ppa-precise.list
langdalepl-gvfs-mtp-precise.list       nvbn-rm-ppa-precise.list.save
langdalepl-gvfs-mtp-precise.list.save  precise-partner.list
michael-gruz-canon-precise.list        precise-partner.list.save

but I don't understand what to look for in this list of files. I suspect that the culprits is michael-gruz-canon-precise.list, but that doesn't help me much.

I hope I put all the necessary info here.

Thank you for your help