wisemonkey's questions

I want to know if there is a way to switch to console mode from the boot menu. I have an NVIDIA 1070 and every time there is an update, the GUI stops working. All I need to do is re-install the drivers; however, to do that I need to be in console mode.

EDIT: I should have added more information to this question but I'll comment on all answers. In short: I've tried text instead of quiet splash I do see booting activity in text mode; however, I don't get a login screen and ctrl + Alt + F1 doesn't help because GDM keeps trying to restart. Previously I managed to kill GDM through multiple tries but is not working since the latest update.

EDIT: After searching for runlevel, I've found How do I change the runlevel on systemd? but I think it required me to have a running system to make changes -- please correct me if I'm wrong.

I've read through bunch of similar questions and I had issue of "Out of range" while installing Ubuntu 16.04 a month or 2 back. I resolved that by starting with on-board graphics then installing Nvidia proprietary drivers (Just adding info here to avoid confusion).

Anyways yeaterday I updated bunch of packages (not sure what all, I just said install for everything available), I rebooted computer and after selecting Ubuntu it goes through boot-up process. But at login screen my monitor starts flickering (doesn't show login menu). I've tried nomodeset and GFX_MODE. I've even tried with on board graphics with same results.

I would like to know what is causing the issue or how can I debug or what other information I can provide.

I'm looking at Xorg.0.log and here are few lines (typing them since I can't copy and paste, please excuse me if I make mistakes)

(EE) NVIDIA (0): Failed to initialize the GLX module; please check in
your X log file that the GLX module has been loaded in your X server, 
and that the modle is the NVIDIA GLX module. If you continue to 
encounter problems, please try reinstalling the NVIDIA driver.

So I think I'll need to re-install drivers but how? How do I get console instead of GUI? (nomodeset doesn't work)

[EDIT2] ok so I connected On-board graphics and used ctrl + alt + f1, somehow managed to login (I say somehow because gdm3 is continuously trying to invoke again). After that issued service gdm3 stop. I'll try to install new nvidia drivers and connect card again to see how that works.

I'm trying to get my bluetooth speaker working with Ubuntu 16.04 Gnome. It connects but doesn't show up in sound output devices list.

I've tried few suggestions

sudo -i pactl load-module module-bluetooth-discover

Output:

Connection failure: Connection refused
pa_context_connect() failed: Connection refused

This question has been discussed so many times already but I've tried all those answers I still can't seem to get Steam running on Ubuntu 16.04 64 bit.

My system: i7 6700k, NVIDIA GTX 1070, Asus z170 Motherboard. I've installed proprietary Nvidia drivers (367.27)

I installed steam by downloading from steam website (first tried with repository version but that didn't work so I used website version) and I don't know how to remove/uninstall apps installed with sudo dpkg -i or similar method.

Upon running steam from command line I get:

Running Steam on ubuntu 16.04 64-bit
STEAM_RUNTIME is enabled automatically
Installing breakpad exception handler for appid(steam)/version(0)
libGL: screen 0 does not appear to be DRI2 capable
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/tls/swrast_dri.so
libGL: OpenDriver: trying /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/dri/swrast_dri.so
libGL: Can't open configuration file /home/wisemonkey/.drirc: No such file or directory.
libGL: Can't open configuration file /home/wisemonkey/.drirc: No such file or directory.
libGL error: No matching fbConfigs or visuals found
libGL error: failed to load driver: swrast

I'm trying to follow Problem with installing Steam on Ubuntu 15.04+ but it seems path mentioned in the mostly accepted answer has been changed, I've mesa related packages installed.

If this helps:

DISPLAY=:0 glxinfo | grep -i direct

Outputs:

Invalid MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 keyError: unable to open display :0

So I need to use

DISPLAY=:1 glxinfo | grep -i direct

And output:

direct rendering: Yes (with lot more info)

I understand this has been asked few times and I've read through few threads as swell but I didn't understand everything: I've read AMD graphics drivers and fglrx: No matching Device section for instance... found. how to fix it?. Both are helpful.

I'm using Ubuntu 14.04 (Gnome/KDE) -- not using Unity.

1. When I use proprietary drivers

a. in KDE the desktop looks like its zoomed in but when any app is opened it looks good

b. in GNOME everything looks like zoomed in

2. For open source drivers everything looks good.

I've a TV with speaker connected to HDMI and audio system connected to SPDIF port. I can't seem to get audio out from HDMI

a. When I switch output in KDE then I can run test and hear sound from TV.

b. In GNOME I don't even see option of master audio as HDMI.

Can someone explain these things?

There are already plenty of questions along the same lines, but I don't see them helping: netExtender vpn 6.0 works momentarily then remote hosts timeout -- Already updated but doesn't fix the issue.

How to get Netextender (VPN) working in Ubuntu 12.10 x64? -- not really a solution

How to get NetExtender VPN client on Ubuntu 13.04 working? -- I'm not very sure if I need to go through these steps (please look below)

Disconnecting Netextender VPN: No internet -- not a similar problem.

In my case, netExtender reports connection is successful, here is part of log:

Connected.
Logging in...
Login successful.
failed to retrieve epc agent version
SSL Connection is ready
Using SSL Encryption Cipher 'RC4-SHA'
Using new PPP frame encoding mechanism
Using PPP async mode (chosen by server) 
Connecting tunnel...
Client IP Address: 1.2.3.4 (example)

ifconfig reports:

ppp0      Link encap:Point-to-Point Protocol  
          inet addr:1.2.3.4  P-t-P:192.0.2.1  Mask:255.255.255.255
          UP POINTOPOINT RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST  MTU:1280  Metric:1
          RX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:3 
          RX bytes:590 (590.0 B)  TX bytes:526 (526.0 B)

Even though netEnxtender says connected, I can't access my office VPN.

whatismyip reports my ISP IP after connecting.

I'm using Ubuntu 13.10 (32bit)

[EDIT]: Ok I talked bit too early. Here is actual issue: VPN is connected, I can access all computers with IP addresses but not names, what can be the reason?

I'm trying to install Ubuntu 11.04 server on one of my machines (1U server) but graphics at the time of installation has an issue. Previously I would remove HDD connect it to other computer, install and put it back.

However I want a method to install on 1U server directly as it is being pain to do it so many times.

I read alternate CD is the only way, and alternate CD contains exactly same packages as Desktop CD. Now here is a problem I want Server packages and Text based installation.

If anyone know if there are particular boot options or some way to use alternate CD for Server packaged let me know.

BTW I've followed http://www.ubuntu.com/start-download (which says everything under link is Text based installer) but I don't think thats the case

OS: Ubuntu 11.10 with gnome-shell

I've few access points on my saved list which I want to remove and never connect to. I can't seem to find way to delete these.

How should I remove (at least not auto connect) from saved access point list?

Does anyone know a good desktop client for Soundcloud (are there any)? If not complete feature support then at least a player which can integrate and play Soundcloud account songs.

I found jamcloud, but it runs using Adobe AIR and Adobe AIR is no longer supported for Linux, furthermore if possible I want to avoid using Wine to run Adobe AIR.

I would like to know if installed app will use wine server to run:

for e.g. picasa once installed -- it uses wine to run, however I want to know that picasa will use wine before installing it.

I've tried dpkg -I but doesn't show this particular info.

Exactly what are these services / programs. Apparently they make my system almost useless. Any one of them at point of time uses at least 50% CPU and continuous access to HDD.

I'm not exactly sure what exactly caused these to start. But here are few things I've done (right before I noticed laptop being unuseful):

Starting Gwibber services for twitter. Installing mbrola (speech synthesis) Installing gespeaker (downloaded from net its not available in repos).

And I think all these services starts when I start any google page (gmail, google+ etc.) -- maybe related to google talk plugin?

I'm gonna try not opening one of these pages (not sure for how long though) Thanks

I'm trying read it loud feature of acrobat, so need a text synthesizer, I've installed espeak and libgnome-speech libraries (it didn't work for acrobat right out of the box) so when I started espeak-gui through command line it gave me segmentation fault next I tried only espeak and here is output:

    ALSA lib pcm.c:2212:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.rear
ALSA lib pcm.c:2212:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.center_lfe
ALSA lib pcm.c:2212:(snd_pcm_open_noupdate) Unknown PCM cards.pcm.side
ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1613:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5)
ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1613:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5)
ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1613:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5)
ALSA lib audio/pcm_bluetooth.c:1613:(audioservice_expect) BT_GET_CAPABILITIES failed : Input/output error(5)
ALSA lib pcm_dmix.c:957:(snd_pcm_dmix_open) The dmix plugin supports only playback stream
Cannot connect to server socket err = No such file or directory
Cannot connect to server socket
jack server is not running or cannot be started

Any ideas? or any alternative solutions for read it loud?

Thanks

So I've been trying to upgrade Ubuntu 11.10 64-bit few days back and received an error:

dpkg: ../../src/archives.c:978: tarobject: Assertion `r == stab.st_size' failed.

So I followed this Ubuntu Forums post and this one.

Removed ubuntu-docs from info folder and status file.

Now whenever I try to install/remove/upgrade any package I receive an error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/worker.py", line 968, in simulate
    trans.unauthenticated = self._simulate_helper(trans)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/aptdaemon/worker.py", line 1092, in _simulate_helper
    return depends, self._cache.required_download, \
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 235, in required_download
    pm.get_archives(fetcher, self._list, self._records)
SystemError: E:I wasn't able to locate a file for the ubuntu-docs package. This might mean you need to manually fix this package.

When I try to install ubuntu-docs from command line, I get this output:

 BlockquoteReading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  ubuntu-docs
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 33 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 1,408 kB of archives.
After this operation, 22.5 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ oneiric/main ubuntu-docs all 11.10.4 [1,408 kB]
Fetched 1,408 kB in 5s (265 kB/s)        
(Reading database ... 
dpkg: warning: files list file for package `ubuntu-docs' missing, assuming package has no files currently installed.
(Reading database ... 323646 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace ubuntu-docs 11.10.4 (using .../ubuntu-docs_11.10.4_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement ubuntu-docs ...
dpkg: ../../src/archives.c:978: tarobject: Assertion `r == stab.st_size' failed.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg exited unexpectedly

...which looks about the same as when I started with problem, so I looked in info -- there is no package ubuntu-docs but there is entry in status so I deleted it and tried again, but as soon as I do sudo dpkg --configure -a the entry for ubuntu-docs reappears.

Any thoughts?

Edit (not as a comment to save formatting):

This thread says I need to run sudo apt-get update after removing corresponding lines from status. So I ran sudo apt-get clean followed by sudo apt-get update. But I got a message saying:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

After running sudo dpkg --configure -a, status file contains following lines:

Package: ubuntu-docs
Status: install reinstreq half-installed
Priority: optional
Section: doc
Version: 11.10.4

Not sure if it helps.

I was wondering if keyboard shortcuts (like Alt+F1, Alt+F2) support is removed from gnome shell 3.2?

If not then I'm missing something as I can't seem to use them.

I'm not sure if it should be asked here or on forums but I'll still put it up here to get discussion started,

So 2 days back I upgraded to 11.10 64bit beta. There are few crashes which I already reported through bug reporting.

But my mouse pointer (laptop touchpad) for some reason seems to be freezing up. I'm trying to decide the reason/moment for a freeze but can't seem to come to conclusion.

1. Mostly when I press enter for first time? or ctrl+Enter? <-- these are stones thrown in dark, as those are the things I mostly do after starting up.

But yea, has anyone else seen/read/experienced something similar?

Ohh btw my USB mouse work completely fine so I think only touchpad issue, I would appreciate if anyone know how to remove and install touchpad kernel drivers (hopefully rmmod and modprobe) I'll see if that helps.

My lsusb looks something like this:

Bus 007 Device 004: ID 0a5c:4502 Broadcom Corp. Keyboard (Boot Interface Subclass)
Bus 007 Device 005: ID 0a5c:4503 Broadcom Corp. Mouse (Boot Interface Subclass)

Thanks

[edit]: Other things that I noticed, power button (on laptop) doesn't work, and shortcuts such as ctrl+alt+L doesn't work

I've looked at How do I add a user to the "sudo" group? and added user (say 'abc') to sudo group

But now when user 'abc' tries to use sudo commands ubuntu says, 'abc' is not in sudoers list, this incident will be reported.

BTW I'm using ubuntu server 11.04 if it matters.

Thanks

Here is an error I'm receiving while installing termkit:

npm ERR! Error: Not found: connect@'>=1.2.0- <1.3.0-'
npm ERR! Valid install targets:
npm ERR! ["latest","0.0.1","0.0.2","0.0.3","0.0.4","0.0.5","0.0.6","0.1.0","0.2.0","0.2.1","0.2.2","0.2.3","0.2.4","0.2.5","0.2.6","0.2.7","0.3.0","0.4.0","0.5.0","0.5.1","0.5.2","0.5.3","0.5.4","0.5.5","0.5.6","0.5.7","0.5.8","0.5.9","0.5.10","1.0.0","1.0.1"]
npm ERR!     at installTargetsError (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/cache.js:313:10)
npm ERR!     at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/cache.js:306:17
npm ERR!     at saved (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/utils/npm-registry-client/get.js:134:7)
npm ERR!     at cb (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/graceful-fs/graceful-fs.js:31:9)
npm ERR! Report this *entire* log at:
npm ERR!     <http://github.com/isaacs/npm/issues>
npm ERR! or email it to:
npm ERR!     <[email protected]>
npm ERR!
npm ERR! System Linux 2.6.39-02063901-generic
npm ERR! command "node" "/usr/local/bin/npm" "install"
npm ERR! node -v v0.5.3-pre
npm ERR! npm -v 1.0.22
npm ERR!
n    pm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm not ok

Any ideas?