rapt's questions

In the Unity desktop (e.g. Ubuntu 16.04) it is possible to create a shortcut (with a Unity tweaking tool) to move the selected window to "the next screen" (or "the other screen"). By "the next screen" I mean that if you arrange the available screens in a circle, the shortcut will move the window to the next screen in the circle (always in the same direction).

As opposed to the closest alternative that exists in the built-in Ubuntu keyboard shortcut settings, that allows the setting of two shortcuts: one for moving the window to the right, and the other for moving the window to the left. For example, if the window is already on the right screen, then the "move to the right" shortcut will do nothing.

The "move window to the next screen" is especially useful in case that there are only two screens, since this shortcut will always move the window to the other screen, without the need to think whether the movement is to the right or to the left.

Is there a way in the GNOME desktop, specifically in Ubuntu 22.04, to have such a "move window to the next screen" shortcut?

Or, is there a way in the GNOME desktop to make the existing built-in shortcuts move in a circular way?

I have tried the "GNOME Tweaks" application (formerly known as "GNOME Tweak Tool") but could not see any such option there.

Node.js is installed but not working. How to solve it?

$ nvm install node
Downloading and installing node v18.0.0...
Downloading https://nodejs.org/dist/v18.0.0/node-v18.0.0-linux-x64.tar.xz...
######################################################################## 100.0%
Computing checksum with sha256sum
Checksums matched!
Now using node v18.0.0 (npm v)
Creating default alias: default -> node (-> v18.0.0)
$ node -v
node: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.27' not found (required by node)
node: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.25' not found (required by node)
node: /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.28' not found (required by node)

I want to make an exact copy of the /sys directory, and tried the following command:

sudo cp -ra /sys ~/Documents/dir1

It does not work as I expected... I get a lot of error messages such as:

cp: error reading '/sys/fs/cgroup/memory/memory.force_empty': Invalid argument
cp: error reading '/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cache/index0/power/autosuspend_delay_ms': Input/output error
cp: cannot open '/sys/devices/system/clockevents/clockevent0/unbind_device' for reading: Permission denied
cp: error reading '/sys/devices/virtual/block/loop0/trace/enable': No such device or address

Why isn't sudo enough to make cp copy every file?

In a remote location there is an external drive that was encrypted like that:

https://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/2015/04/encrypt-usb-stick-linux/

Also in the remote location there is a Windows 7 machine on which "remote desktop" has not been set up.

The remote external drive is plugged into the remote Windows machine.

I have the password required for accessing the remote external drive.

My local machine is Ubuntu 18.04.

How can I access and read the content of the external drive from my local machine, preferably without making changes to the remote Windows machine, e.g. without setting up "remote desktop" on the Windows machine?

Is it possible to do it from a GUI app on my local machine?

I want to type guillemets (angle quotes, «») in Ubuntu when using

1. Russian keyboard mapping
2. English keyboard mapping

Is it possible (preferably without typing numeric codes)?

There is a discussion here, but it does not mention Linux.

As root, I run

root@myself:~# echo disable | sudo tee /proc/acpi/ibm/fan; sleep 5; echo enable | sudo tee /proc/acpi/ibm/fan

but I get

disable
tee: /proc/acpi/ibm/fan: Invalid argument
enable
tee: /proc/acpi/ibm/fan: Invalid argument

How is it possible, when I run as root?

What do I need to do to make it work?

In LibreOffice Writer Version: 5.1.6.2 - export as PDF, I try to disable copying the content.

I.e. I don't want people to open the PDF file with a PDF viewer application and copy the content (text) to the clipboard.

I follow the instructions in an older answer.

I set a "permission password".

Then I uncheck "Enable copying of content".

Then I export as PDF.

But then I open the PDF with Evince version 3.18.2 and can copy the content like a boss.

Is it a bug?

Youtube HTML5 is not working anymore after I upgraded to Firefox Nightly 57.0a1. Anyone got it to work?

On the same machine (Ubuntu 16.04) I have Chromium browser, where all the Youtube HTML5 options are working.

Also, it seems impossible to make Youtube work with the Flash player on Firefox. I tried the "official" way by turning media.autoplay.enabled to false. I also tried to change the user agent to Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:21.0) Gecko/20130331 Firefox/21.0 - both did nothing to convince Youtube to use Flash!

Here is what I have tried so far:

I have run

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras

as was recommended here https://askubuntu.com/a/436336

but it did not change the status on the Firefox Youtube page below (so why was that stuff needed?)

Also I have set the following in Firefox about:config

media.mediasource.enabled; true
media.mediasource.format-reader; true
media.mediasource.format-reader.webm; true
media.mediasource.mp4.enabled; true
media.mediasource.webm.enabled; true

media.fragmented-mp4.enabled; true
media.fragmented-mp4.exposed; true
media.fragmented-mp4.ffmpeg.enabled; true
media.fragmented-mp4.gmp.enabled; true
media.fragmented-mp4.use-blank-decoder; false

as appears here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUfCsSch8Zk although it looks outdated: some of the preferences did not exist, so I tried to add them anyway... but it changed nothing on the Firefox Youtube page below.

What does this browser support?

https://www.youtube.com/html5

Firefox Nightly (running in safe mode)

57.0a1 (2017-08-03) (64-bit)

Chromium

Chromium 59.0.3071.109 Built on Ubuntu , running on Ubuntu 16.04

My OS: Ubuntu 16.04.

Firefox + flash player + adblock plus on Youtube: why do videos freeze after about 1 minute?

If I reload the page, the video suddenly runs fine.

(I suspect Youtube's nasty trick against adblockers).

Anyone can confirm this issue?

How to solve this problem?

How can I have Ubuntu's virtual "On Screen" keyboard with different colors for every finger, something about like is shown in the following thread?

By default the keyboard is only one color (dark), which makes it difficult to see which finger I should use for every key.

http://antix.freeforums.org/touchscreen-keyboard-ubuntu-onboard-on-antix-15-t5974.html

Using Ubuntu 16.04 64-bit, Firefox 49.

Firefox is slow to restart when many tabs are open, although most of them are not loaded by default (only one tab is loaded in each window when restarting Firefox).

Firefox responds very slowly when many tabs are open (however not loaded), when I try for example to change tabs, load a new tab, etc.

Firefox freezes for about a minute when I try to open a new window (or some malicious JavaScript does it). When I force the new window to close, it takes Firefox another minute to fully become responsive again.

All the above are much faster when only a few tabs are open or even loaded in Firefox.

As Firefox RAM goes beyond 5GB, it gets very slow to respond. However there is still a lot of free RAM on my system. So what's the point in getting more RAM?

It looks like a fundamentally bad implementation:

• Unloaded tabs should not slow down the application.

• Even loaded tabs should not slow down the application when there is plenty of free RAM.

• New window should not have to load all the add-ons (it looks like that's what it does which takes a long time).

Are there ways to correct this situation?

One of the users on my system (Ubuntu 14.04) has an encrypted home directory... after I log out of the encrypted user and log into another unencrypted user, I am getting a series of window asking me to authenticate myself. I did not use to see them before I created the encrypted user, and when I nevertheless enter the password, it keeps asking me to enter the password or about 10 more times until it eventually stops....

If I click on the "Cancel" button, I see the following error message:

What can I do to stop the authentication requirements when I log in?

On Ubuntu 14.04 I have created an encrypted home directory for a certain user A (with ecryptfs-utils & cryptsetup). However I am usually logged in as another user B. When I am logged in as user B, how could I access the contents of the home directory of user A as if it was not encrypted?

For example, since user B is an Admin, and I have user B's login credentials, I am (kind of) able to see the contents of user A's home directory from nautilus, but all I see there is some encrypted stuff.

Ubuntu 14.04. Kernel 3.13.1-031301-generic.

If I change to another folder the endless loading (*) from hard drive stops.

I don't have much in that folder.

Any idea what might cause that, or how I can investigate the cause?

Thanks!

• P.S. I don't see in the bottom right corner the "loading...", but there is an endless access to the hard drive.

I am trying to use the FireFox Windows Profile in a FireFox Ubuntu Profile in a Dual Boot Ubuntu/Windows installation.

Here is the edited ~/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini

[General]
StartWithLastProfile=1

[Profile0]
Name=windows
IsRelative=0
Path=/media/myself/4604CC4A04CC3EA5/Documents and Settings/my self/Application Data/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/l2fh3jo9.default

;http://www.jasom.net/how-to-use-same-firefox-profile-in-dual-boot-linux-ubuntu-windows-installation

But this does not work. After I restart the Ubuntu Firefox, it does not use the Windows' "Firefox profile: ad-dons, bookmarks, history"...

What might be wrong here?

P.S. I know about Firefox sync. It is not the solution I am looking for.

Trying to follow an online tutorial "Intel-phc with latest kernel on Ubuntu". My ubuntu kernel version is 3.2.0-38-generic (Ubuntu 14.04). Following the instructions I downloaded kernel 3.14.2 from https://www.kernel.org. I was able to do all the steps except for the last two ones (make, sudo make dkms_install). I get:

Makefile:29: *** Kernel version not found, maybe you need to install appropriate kernel-headers or run make with KERNELSRC parameter, e.g.: make KERNELSRC=/usr/src/linux.  Stop. 

• What am I missing here? If I understand the makefile right, it expects the compiled kernel to have the same version as my current kernel? However this is not what I read in the tutorial.