The system in question is autologged in, so to prevent Google Chrome from popping up the Seahorse dialog box, I changed the shortcut to provide the --password-store=basic option per this fine q&a: Chrome asks for password to unlock keyring on startup
This has worked for years, but it no longer works, starting with Chrome version 131.0.6778.69
Is there a new workaround?
I have three Ubuntu systems and I wish to minimize download bandwidth by setting up a cache of downloaded packages. (With only three systems, it's not worth setting up a full mirror).
apt-cacher-ng sounded perfect for this, but it doesn't work as I expected after setting up a trial with 1 server and 1 client.
When I install software on the client, it works as expected - packages are downloaded to the server and stored in the server's cache.
But when I install software on the server, the packages are not cached.
This kind of ruins apt-cacher-ng's utility for me - with only two systems, I will end up downloading the software packages twice anyway (like for kernel updates, etc). I would like it to cache the packages downloaded to be installed on the server; for me, there is a huge overlap between these packages and what the clients will request.
Is there a way to get apt-cacher-ng to cache the packages which are downloaded to be installed on the server?
Since recently upgrading to 20.04 I see informational messages after running apt update similar to
46 upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
31 standard security updates
Googling has failed to turn up the definition of the phrase standard security update. What is it? And, are there non-standard security updates? What possibilities are there?
This is an update of What is Ubuntu Advantage doing on my (fully supported) 18.04 box, what is it checking for twice a day, and can I get rid of it? for 20.04, because the answer is different.
Re: ubuntu-advantage-tools, looks like every 12 hours it wakes up, looks for something on my system, does not find it, and goes away.
I don't remember installing anything called ubuntu advantage on purpose and from what I can tell, it's used for systems that are past their EOL, which this 20.04 system is decidedly not.
Also, I can't find a service called ubuntu advantage or an entry in cron.
What is this thing trying to to do, how is it running, and how do I get rid of it?
An elderly relative uses a Ubuntu 18.04 + LXDE desktop, mostly just for internet browsing and to play a few word games. They rarely shut the PC down...last time I checked, it had been turned on for over 15 days.
I administer the system remotely over ssh.
For the occasional time that I need to reboot the system, I'd like some means to determine if my relative is actively using it so that I don't disrupt them. I've done it in the middle of the night sometimes, but they sleep poorly and sometimes get up and play their games then.
Calling them on the phone works, but there are several time zones between us, and sometimes it wakes them up.
If they are playing a game, I can see that in top, but I can't find a way to tell if they are actively using the browser.
Some kind of mouse and/or keyboard activity indicator would be awesome, but I wish to stay away from any kind of keylogger type software. I suspect such a "mouse/keyboard activity detected" thing exists - to put the system to sleep / activate the screensaver** and wake it up if for nothing else - but I can't find it.
** I don't think they actually use a screensaver, that was just an example. I think the power manager just blanks the screen.
Is there a "time since last keyboard/mouse interaction from user" tracked somewhere?
Any solutions need to be do-able over ssh.
A family user of Lubuntu 18.04 has twice experienced a problem while using Thunderbird where, while dragging an email from the inbox to a local folder, if they mistakenly touch the panel with the cursor, it freezes the entire desktop. They didn't even drop the email on the panel, just touched it.
I confirmed this problem in a virtual clone of their system.
REISUB didn't seem to work. I can ssh in and restart the computer or kill Thunderbird to recover ops.
It only happens if the cursor touches the area of the panel to the left of the rightmost red marker. If it touches the running Thunderbird icon or anything to the right of it, it is OK.
When it first happened, the friendly family IT guy (me) gave counseling "don't do that" but now it's happened again.
I'd like some protection against this happening again if possible or at least a single-user recovery method.
Addition: same problem happens on an 18.04 Ubuntu system with LXDE installed. So looks like a Thunderbird / lxpanel interaction problem.
When I ssh into my Ubuntu 18.04 box I get the motd
1 update could not be installed automatically
Which goes on to tell me to check the unattended-upgrades log.
The log shows no problems. How can I clear this bogus message?
This question Error unknown command hwmatch is exactly what I'm asking but was closed as non reproducible. Mine is very reproducible.
Ubuntu 18.04 freshly installed on a 64-bit UEFI machine. Default grub boot options work fine, but I wanted to add a brief countdown (my normal config). After editing /etc/default/grub as normal and running sudo update-grub, the countdown works, but I get the error shown in the question title.
I tried the solution (copying files) in the closed question but it didn't seem to fit my configuration. Frankly I found the answer confusing.
I also tried editing /etc/grub.d/10_linux to comment out the IF-THEN structure that uses hwmatch. After that I did a sudo update-grub but I still got the error.
How can I get my countdown and not see this error?
Edit per comments -
Stock grub as installed (all non-commented-out lines shown)
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
Edited grub to give countdown (all non-commented-out lines shown)
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=countdown
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
I find the "Restore Missing Files" function in Nautilus very useful. In fact, it's literally the only reason I have Nautilus installed! (I typically use Lubuntu or at least LXDE)
Today I was wanting to use this function on a pc that didn't have Nautilus installed...raising the question of...
Is there a way to have the same easy functionality of restoring missing files from a directory that Nautilus provides, without installing Nautilus (or another "extra" file manager)? I don't insist on a GUI though that would be nice. Perhaps it's a command that Nautilus sends to deja-dup.
This kernel update was pushed out on Monday, and I updated most of our systems to it.
Today I got around to updating the last system, and the kernel update was not available. It appears that it was yanked from the repos.
On the system I tried to update today:
apt policy linux-generic linux-generic: Installed: 4.15.0.23.25 Candidate: 4.15.0.23.25 Version table: *** 4.15.0.23.25 500 500 [my local mirror]
On the systems updated Monday
apt policy linux-generic
linux-generic:
Installed: 4.15.0.24.26
Candidate: 4.15.0.24.26
Version table:
*** 4.15.0.24.26 100
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
Also my one remaining 16.04 system got this update Monday, and now it shows local/obsolete in synaptic.
Where can I see why this was done, and what are the consequences of remaining on this LTS kernel that was bad enough to be pulled back?
Related: Strategy to deal with Canonical's increasingly poor QA?
I have scripts I run that write out a text file, then open it in an editor. If I open a terminal emulator window in my desktop session and run the script, I'd like the editor to be a graphical one such as gedit. But, if I'm logged in through ConnectBot on my phone or similar (no desktop session), I'd like the editor to be nano.
Currently I have to maintain 2 different scripts, identical except for the last step (or let the graphical one run, error off, then manually open the file in nano). Having two mostly identical scripts is inefficient from a maintenance standpoint.
Can a script detect which of these situations I'm in, and open the correct editor?
(I have found ways for a script to detect whether it's running in a terminal emulator window or by being double-clicked, but not yet found a way to detect if the window is running in a desktop...I don't think I know the correct terminology to google for)
I have a workflow like this: I fire up my Win7 virtual machine, connect my smartphone, and run Samsung Smartswitch. This worked great in 14.04 LTS.
In 18.04 LTS...not so much. There's a giant memory leak in gvfsd-mtp that hoovers up all 12G of my RAM and brings my system to a halt.
There are bugs related to this and I've reported another. My question is, can there be any mitigation for this? Is there a way to fence in gvfs so it cannot use up all the RAM?
This compiz update forced removal of unity and ubuntu-desktop on my 16.04 Ubuntu system.
The offending package that is missing, but unity needs, seems to be compiz-core-abiversion-20151010. It seems to be a virtual package, and I can't find it to download.
As it happens, I mostly use LXDE on this system, but I'd be very unhappy if I used Unity...
Since I do occasionally use the Unity desktop, is there a fix for this?
Edit: related questions are rolling in. Looks like a major quality escape
"Kept back" packages for update , want to uninstall unity?
compiz upgrade uninstalled unity
Ubuntu TaskBar is gone. Launcher is missing
What did you guys just DO! Updates to both my 16.04 environs killed the desktops!
My installed (local or obsolete) category is filling up because Canonical lately has been pushing out updates and then pulling them back. It's happened with two kernels in the recent past and it happened again with cups this morning. I've been using Ubuntu for about three years now and I do not remember this happening as often as it has this year.
So, how to rationally deal with this?
I thought about only installing updates once per week, but that would not protect against grabbing that bad update that they pushed out right before I checked that week.
Is a good strategy to only install updates on the weekend? It seems that system updates are not often pushed out on weekends. I suppose they could push a bad update on Friday afternoon and pull it on Monday morning.
Or, somehow not install updates until they have been pushed out for a certain time period - like two days? Is there an automated way to do that?
Edit: One of the affected systems runs Lubuntu 16.04 with the linux-generic kernel, the other runs Lubuntu 16.04 with the linux-generic-hwe-16.04 kernel. Both were affected by a cups version 2.13-4ubuntu0.2 update that was pushed out and then pulled back on March 27th, 2017. The linux-generic machine received a kernel update version 4.4.0.67.12 that was subsequently pulled back. This update also orphaned snapd version 2.23.1 The linux-generic-hwe-16.04 machine received a kernel version 4.8.0.42.14 that was then orphaned.
This morning I installed some updates that asked me if I wanted to replace configuration files:
Configuration file '/etc/apache2/envvars'
==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation.
==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
What would you like to do about it ? Your options are:
Y or I : install the package maintainer's version
N or O : keep your currently-installed version
D : show the differences between the versions
Z : start a shell to examine the situation
The default action is to keep your current version.
*** envvars (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? N
I kept my current configuration, but after that, I started wondering:
Is there a way to see what the new config file would have looked like, after the fact?
I've been googling in vain to turn up a general explanation of how cron and anacron work together. The man pages are a bit too deep of a dive for me at this point.
I get confused because I add tasks to crontab, and that works, but when I delete them out of crontab, they still run under anacron. I see the tasks in /etc/cron.daily, but I am not sure how they got there. cron is running on my system always, but not anacron. In fact, I see anacron is started by cron!
Basically I'd like a user-level intro on how to add and remove tasks, since the easily googleable answers that tell you to edit crontab clearly are not complete. A link to a tutorial would be fine.
Just got the Firefox 49 update (yay!)
But Netflix still wants to install Silverlight (boo!)
How can I watch Netflix in Firefox, as has been advertised?
Per the LTS Enablement Stack wiki, "to install the newer HWE kernel derived from 15.10 (Wily)" there is a different set of packages to install depending on whether a system is multiarch or not.
How do I tell if my system is multiarch or not?
The wiki is "hinty", saying "you may find you need" to do this.
How do I automatically unlock the keyring at login on my Lubuntu 14.04 system?
There are a lot of answers to this problem on this site and Ubuntu Forums, but none are applicable to a 14.04 Lubuntu system - it appears that the Passwords and Keys dialog has changed significantly since those answers were supplied.
SO -
answers telling me to tick the box for "Unlock the keyring at login" in the Seahorse app do not work, because it is not there.
answers (like this one) telling me to tick the box on the "Unlock Keyring" dialog box to unlock it at login do not work, because it is not there
auto-login was never set on this system, so that is not a contributor, and this answer does not apply
the issue does not arise with Network Manager (like this one), but rather with Deja-dup
I do not want an answer that involves removing the keyring password entirely - like this one
How can this rather basic requirement be met on a Lubuntu 14.04 system?
[edit] - here is the dialog box requesting the keyring unlock.
I haven't seen this message from Update Manager before, and I have not been able to google up any info. What will be installed when I click Install? (Clicking "Description of Update" got me nothing...)