maki57's questions

On my A485 running 18.04, I noticed that when I press Fn+Esc, it correctly sets the alternate function key behavior but the FnLock indicator LED on the Esc key doesn't turn on. How can I set the FnLock LED to light up on Fn+Esc?

I noticed the intended behavior when enabling the BIOS setting for "Fn Sticky keys", in which the LED correctly turns on when it should.

I tried acpi_listen, but it doesn't show any events happening when pressing Fn or Fn+Esc (with/without Fn sticky keys), even if it does for the other function keys.

Is there a way to get it to light up without having to use Fn Sticky keys?

I've had my environment fonts set up a certain way for the past year or two to be significantly smaller and easier to read (for me) along with a bunch of other gui tweaks. Forgot a lot of the things I did to do it again, though.

After a software update on some applications last night, the font for a lot of things, but not everything, changed to a larger size. The only thing font-related that synaptic updated was fontconfig, fontconfig-config and related libs.

Basically, where do applications get their default font settings from and how can I configure them?

Although, I don't have a DE or gnome-settings-daemon running, I tried setting the options in gnome-tweak-tool, assuming it's a setting for GNOME/gtk applications, but it still didn't work. Tried looking for font-related settings in dconf-editor and gconf-editor as well.

I'm pretty sure I missed something since I've forgotten a lot of what I did to configure everything in the first place. For example, I checked my gtk2 and gtk3 settings as far as I can remember how they're set yet the settings still indicate the font and font size I've set since before.

Here's a list of some of the applications I've seen which had an increase in font size:

1. gvim - I've only ever set the font and not the size in .vimrc, the size just increased from what it used to be.
2. i3 - Like gvim above, I only set the font in .i3/config, so i3bar and the window title bar had the correct font, but got bigger after the update.
3. evince - I first noticed it here. I was reading pdfs in presentation mode and noticed that the line "End of Presentation. Click to Exit" was bigger than it normally was. As usual, the font was still the correct one.
4. dunst - Notification font got bigger. I don't remember ever setting the font manually for this program, but it used to have the correct font and size I set for the system a long time ago without having to manually set the application-specific font option for dunst.
5. leafpad - Display font got bigger. Weird because I remember using it with the right size the week before.
6. dmenu - Again, the font is the same as what I set it a long time ago. It's just bigger now.
7. transmission-gtk - File list shown with Right Click > Properties shows each line to have an incorrectly scaled font. Fortunately, most of the rest of the application still has the correct font and font size I want.
8. gnome-calculator - The font in the text box (the calculator "screen") is larger than normal.

Any information on how any of these applications set their fonts in the mentioned ways would help. Some of them share a clear common thread (being GTK/Gnome applications), but I'm thinking that further up the line, something common affected all of them in a similar way.

The fact that some of these applications have only ever had their font set, but not their font-size, tells me that the only thing that probably changed is whatever setting I changed a long time ago to set the font to be "smaller than default" got changed to a larger value. Again, I just can't remember or figure out where it's set.

EDIT: Unfortunately, I might have not been clear. The fonts themselves aren't the issue, but the size in which they are displayed by different applications. I've found the solution, which I've answered below.

After installing playonlinux to test one of its scripts, running wine on any Windows executable or even winecfg does nothing. Running winetricks outputs:

------------------------------------------------------
wine cmd.exe /c echo '%ProgramFiles%' returned empty string
------------------------------------------------------

Searching that output online led to solutions that say to not run Wine as root, or to change ownership of the Wineprefix folder to the current user. That didn't help because I don't run Wine as root anyway and the ~/.wine folder and everything in it belongs to me.

I haven't even run any application yet with playonlinux, but uninstalling it and even reinstalling everything Wine-related doesn't fix the problem (I use the ubuntu-wine ppa).

However, after accidentally using tab complete on the wrong thing, I learned that running wineserver before anything Wine-related makes it run as it normally would.

What did playonlinux do on install that possibly caused Wine to not run normally?

Edit (2015/08/02) It wasn't playonlinux. It was a kernel problem. I mistakenly assumed it was the former because it was the only Wine-related package I marked for installation at the same time that I also upgraded to the problematic kernel version. See link in answer below for more details.

It's normal when using terminals that pressing up and down cycles through previous commands entered chronologically.

I learned from a site how to add to that behaviour by autocompleting what I'm typing at the cursor based on previously entered commands when pressing up and down.

For example, let's say I typed the following commands in this order:

1. ls Videos
2. ls Vids
3. lsomething
4. ls Videos/Funny/Old
5. vi file
6. ls Music

If I haven't typed anything, pressing up and down will cycle through all of the lines just like normal. But, if I've typed ls, pressing up and down cycles through all commands where the first 2 characters are ls (lines 1,2,3,4,6 above). Entering ls (with a space after) though, will only let up and down cycle through lines 1,2,4,6. Similarly, ls Vid lets the arrows cycle through lines 1,2,4 but ls Videos just allows cycling between lines 1 and 4.

It's pretty useful to complete values specific to commands that you need to enter over and over again without having to cycle through every single unrelated command you've entered between them. For example, I'm trying to test the effects of env values, like locale, on things:

env [many different values] [command]
[insert many different commands here]
env [slightly different values from before] [command]
[doing other stuff]

I'd only have to press up a few times after typing env to cycle between the values I've tried.

I apologize if it's a bit of a long way to describe it. I don't know what it's called. My terminals used to have this behaviour, but they seem to have lost it and I can't find the site I learned it from. I think it has something to do with editing ~/.bashrc.

I tried to update one day and update-manager crashed with:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/update-manager", line 114, in <module>
    app = UpdateManager(data_dir, options)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/UpdateManager.py", line 113, in __init__
    self.options and self.options.use_proposed)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/MetaReleaseGObject.py", line 44, in __init__
    MetaReleaseCore.__init__(self, useDevelopmentRelease, useProposed)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/Core/MetaRelease.py", line 93, in __init__
    cache = apt.Cache()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 107, in __init__
    self.open(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 172, in open
    self._set.add(pkg.get_fullname(pretty=True))
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte

Restarting sometimes makes update-manager work and when it does, it's aptd that crashes with the a UnicodeDecodeError in the last 3 lines as above according to the apport window.

I thought updating had the same problem here. There were no dot files described by the first answer and manually going through the files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d showed no garbage text, but there were files that had nothing in them. Thinking it's a locale problem, I ran gnome-language-selector and it crashed with:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/gnome-language-selector", line 22, in on_activate
    options=options)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/LanguageSelector/gtk/GtkLanguageSelector.py", line 196, in __init__
    self.updateLanguageView()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/LanguageSelector/gtk/GtkLanguageSelector.py", line 709, in updateLanguageView
    self.openCache(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/LanguageSelector/LanguageSelector.py", line 33, in openCache
    self._cache = LanguageSelector.LangCache.LanguageSelectorPkgCache(self._localeinfo, progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/LanguageSelector/LangCache.py", line 76, in __init__
    apt.Cache.__init__(self, progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 107, in __init__
    self.open(progress)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apt/cache.py", line 172, in open
    self._set.add(pkg.get_fullname(pretty=True))
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 0: invalid start byte

Thinking it was related to this, I ran locale and got this:

LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
LC_CTYPE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_GB.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=en_GB.UTF-8

So I assume it's not the same ASCII/UTF-8 conflict problem. Is there a way to fix this or at least help me find what's wrong?

It's been happening for a few weeks, but it doesn't crash often enough for me to think it's a big problem because I could always update some other day. It might become a bigger problem, though, so I'm asking just in case.

Is there a way to manually set the skip distance in Totem when using the left/right arrow keys besides the default -15s/+60s (-5s/+15s when used with Shift) like one could on VLC (Not to mention setting the hotkeys themselves)?

According to this, pressing the screenshot hotkey will do either of 2 things:

1. For Unity users, it'll open the dialog box where you can set the picture's name, location and whether or not it'll be copied to clipboard instead.
2. For Gnome users, it'll automatically save the picture with a name that shows time and date taken to the set autosave folder (~/Pictures by default).

I've been using gnome-flashback (formerly known as Gnome Classic (No Effects) or Gnome Fallback) for a long time and have had the second outcome happen every time. For some reason, though, after upgrading to 14.04 and switching Unity to gnome-flashback, it started doing the first one instead.

Following this to make custom keyboard shortcuts doesn't work because gnome-screenshot still uses the dialog box by default.

I've already set the autosave location and the screen flash + shutter sound is enough of an indication that a shot's been taken so no need to argue pros and cons like all the bug reports that do.

Is there a setting or some way to disable the dialog box from appearing while trying to keep Ubuntu light by not having to install more things as much as possible?

My goal is trying to run .swf files through Firefox and NOT a standalone player.

When trying to run local .swf files on Firefox 29.0 (currently on 14.04), the browser opens the Open With/Save File prompt window even if the browser has the Flash plugin installed. Right-clicking on the file and clicking Open With... > Firefox just makes the browser open a new tab and then the prompt to Open With/Save File again. Selecting Firefox through that prompt window will still just make Firefox open the prompt again on a new tab.

When accessing .swf files online, though, they run normally and Firefox even shows the Lego-looking plugin indicator in the address bar saying that "Adobe Flash" is enabled for the address I'm accessing the .swf from.

In Firefox's preferences' Applications tab, SWF Files are currently set to "Use Shockwave Flash (in Firefox)", so I don't get why it won't do what it says for the case of local files.

UPDATE: Apparently, Firefox has separate "Shockwave Flash File" entries in the Applications tab of its Preferences for different mime-types. Found a workaround which I entered below.

After a fresh install of 14.04, I tried to customize the keyboard shortcuts to be similar to the customized ones I used before in 12.10 like Super+Eject = Lock Screen (Macbook keyboard).

Unfortunately, any change I do don't stick even after reboot or if I change it back to defaults. Weird thing is that even if my Super+Eject doesn't lock the screen the not-mentioned Super+L shortcut still locks the screen.

EDIT:

I have a feeling that it has something to do with how Unity handles keyboard shortcuts now. The moment I install gnome-panel (because I prefer the Gnome2 desktop), all the shortcuts I've set work now except that some items for keyboard shortcuts through System Settings are missing (but are available again once I switch back to Unity. They stop working in Unity again, though)