David's questions

I am in the process of making a live USB for use in an IT environment, where the use will need to be very plug-and-play, with little to no interruption. I'm onto QOL development, and I am trying to remove the following screen, which shows up whenever the user signs in:

I have followed the steps listed here, which said to remove /usr/share/applications/gnome-online-accounts-panel.desktop, however that did not work. I have also attempted a full uninstall of the online-accounts package, sudo apt remove --purge gnome-online-accounts, however this did not work either.

I have also removed gnome-initial-setup from /usr/share/applications as that is what the window was named:

Again, however, this did not make the window disappear.

I am building off of Ubuntu 21.04, and am using Cubic to make the live USB.

One solution I had pondered on was; would it be possible to find the .desktop file of a running application?

System/software info

• Ubuntu 20.04
• Kernel version 5.4.0-29
• Openrazer version 2.8.0~1~524
• Polychromatic version 0.3.12

Updated to 5.4.0-29 today, and with this update, my wireless mouse's battery percentage is now periodically displayed as a notification on the top of my screen. At first, I found this very useful, as I thought the notifications were only for low battery percentage, however, they are showing up seemingly every time that the percentage changes [Edit: they also just happen on a random interval apparently, even when the percentage doesn't chane], see the screenshot below:

(Apologies for the image quality, couldn't find a great way to snap a picture of the notification dialog)

I have two questions branching from this.

1. What software is displaying this notification?
2. How can I change when it is displayed?

I'm in the process of getting 20.04 setup after having upgraded from 19.04, and part of it is getting my MM keys to work with spotify. While trying to make the custom shortcuts, I have run into a problem. On pre-existing system shortcuts, the MM keys on my keyboard are registered as valid inputs, and can be assigned:

However while trying to assign a keybind to a custom shortcut, the keypress is not recognized, and I am left on this screen:

What I have tried so far:

• As suggested in the comments, followed this post's suggestion of disabling default play/pause keys from dconf-editor. No change.
• I tried with a second keyboard (also with media keys), to no avail
• I tried to bind a key and unbind it, also no help
• Looked around in gnome-tweaks in case something got added/updated but couldn't find anything.
• Came across this post, however, the solution there now shoots an error:

david@david-pc:~$ gsettings set org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys previous ''
expected value:
  (empty input)
  ^

• After updating to kernel 5.4.0-28-generic, the media keys worked briefly, then seemingly randomly stopped again. After rebooting, the media keys started working again, then promptly stopped working after around 15 minutes.

Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong? Either way, I would love an answer/workaround.

Fresh install of 19.04, running alongside an installation of Windows 10 (different drives). I have an ethernet cable coming into my onboard port, which I use for my main connection. I also have the ANEWKODI wireless adapter plugged in. This device does not natively support Linux, so the drivers I am using are installed following this guide.

After installing a new driver, iw list lists my device, but I am no longer able to view available networks

My goal is to - using the ethernet as a source, create a hotspot using the wifi dongle.

Running lshw -c network yields this.

iw list returns this

Trying to start the hostapd service also shoots an error:

Sep 20 19:40:56 david systemd[1]: Failed to start Advanced IEEE 802.11 AP and IE
-- Subject: A start job for unit hostapd.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd

What I've tried so far:

I've followed the steps listed here, which recommended manually starting the network-manager process, here, which said to disable fast boot from Windows, and here, which was a reinstall of network-manager, none of which worked.

As we celebrate the 12th birthday of Ubuntu, I look back on the announcement of 4.10 Warty Warthog, and see that back then, in 2004 (woah), the only way to get Ubuntu was by CD, and that you could request one here, but now unfortunately, that specific site no longer exists, and UbuntuLinux.org now redirects to Ubuntu.com.

So much has happened since, and so many Ubuntu versions (LTS & not) have been published, eventually CD/DVD support would have to end, but that's a seperate question. I know that CDs are probably out of date, but it's a flash to the past to think about it. So are there still CDs made? If not, when DID CD support end?

Now I'm not sure if this is on topic or not, but if not, I have no idea where to post it, superuser does not seem appropriate because this relates to grub, but I regress.

When I restart Windows it boots to grub, and then the default grub option is Ubuntu, causing some very annoying times trying to install updates, so what I want to do is be able to edit the grub boot configuration temporarily to put Windows at the top after a restart, but after Windows was booted, it would go back to Ubuntu.

How would I do this?

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 with Java Runtime Environment 8. When I hold ctrl to sprint in Minecraft, and (while holding ctrl) try to use 2 or 7 to switch between hotbar slots, nothing happens. As soon as I release ctrl, however, the keys work again. This does not happen on Windows or MAC using the same keyboard and computer.

Does Ubuntu have a key shortcut that is causing this?

After mis-interpreting this question's meaning, I'm wondering if rootkits and other malicious programs could be effective if the user does not have root permissions.

Rootkits usually trick users with root permissions to give a virus or another malicious program root permissions, therefore enabling them to do pretty much anything. If one of these programs encountered a non-root user, could it be effective?

I've recently come to find all my desktop programs and icons thrown askew about the place, and while rearranging, I noticed that the grid system Ubuntu uses by default is (in my eyes) miserable.

On Windows for example there is a large grid, and icons are far enough from each other to read, but not too close, and Ubuntu doesn't seem to - by default - have a vertical grid, just horizontal.

The following is what I currently am facing, either icons are way too close:

Or they are way too far apart:

(Note: no icons will fit in the middle of those 2)

What I want is a icon grid identical (or at least the closest you can get) to what Windows has (see the following picture):

Is there a way I can do this, either via installation of program(s) or in Ubuntu Settings?

What I've tried so far:

1. As suggested by @KazWolfe, I should check "Keep aligned," which did activate the grid system, but again not my cup of tea.

2. As suggested by @WinEunuuchs2Unix I took off "Keep aligned" and dragged the icons free range, but again was not was I was looking for.

When you install Ubuntu, it obviously has to install default drivers to work, such as internet drivers and video card drivers, but which drivers does it install as well?

I know that it will look for a very limited spectrum of semi-third-party drivers such as controls for video cards, but as we have all seen, not all drivers are installed by default. Is there a certain list of non-essential drivers that Ubuntu will install by default?

What I need is to 100% clear and un-format a 3TB drive. Nothing more. It seems doing this from GParted, however when I try to put information onto the drive after formatting with another source, it says the drive is full. This is not a problem with the other source because it was able to copy to my 2nd 3TB drive very well and quickly. Can anyone help me to reset this drive? I am currently away from home, but I am using the Ubuntu "Disks" app to format it, and I have it set to overwrite existing data. Will edit if that changed it.

Now, please note that this is a sub-question of my old Changing Ownership: “Operation not permitted” - even as root! question. If you do not want to visit that link or cannot, to sum up, while attempting to use:

sudo chown (...)

To change the ownership of a file inside of a USB drive, it was unsuccessful, as the file had the immutable flag set in its extended attributes. This was the solution that worked, removing the flag via:

sudo chattr -i (Path_To_File)

As this was fixed, I basically put this in the back of my mind where I would remember it in case of repetition of the error. Recently, I was formatting a USB custom, and ran into the same error, except this time, nothing that was suggested to fix said error the previous time, has worked. Here's your command output that I know you all love:

sudo chown david:david ~/USB5/Format/type.cr

Please note that I have checked this command, and neither the (~) general path, nor the specific path work. The following is my output:

Operation Not Permitted

Of course, I have tried the fix from before, and the file does not have the flag. What can I do to fix this?

Suggested answer below:

sudo mkdir /media/flash
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/flash -o dmask=000,fmask=111

This just hangs on the second command, I left the computer for over 2 hours, just hanging.

EDIT: Changing to EXT4 Did nothing, same error.

I have this .desktop file set to update my software:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=Update Software
Comment=Application
Exec=/home/david/Update_Script.sh
Icon=/home/david/Downloads/upgrade.jpg
Categories=Application;
Terminal=true

However, it launches Terminal, where I would prefer xterm. So do not mark this as a duplicate of this. I want the file to open xterm and then close xterm when the script is done. Here is what the script looks like currently:

sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -f
sudo apt-get clean

Do I need to add something to the .desktop file or to the script to make it open xterm (and close it when done)?

I am trying to create a mirror image of Chrome-OS on an Ubuntu installation starting with shortcuts. On Chrome-OS, Ctrl + Shift + N will bring up an incognito mode of Chrome. The problem implementing this shortcut is that I don't know if there is a command to open an incognito mode of Chrome. Could someone please help?

While trying to create a bootable Windows USB from Unetbootin, the process hangs on 51%, whilst trying to copy the 461st file.

I've tried giving it time, but after 3 hours of idle, the issue still persists. What is causing this issue, and how can I fix it?

I am trying to help a user solve an issue with a bootable USB drive, but there seems to be a file whose ownership cannot be edited. I thought it would have been possible with:

sudo chown user:user ldlinux.sys

When that is executed, however, terminal gives this error:

Operation not permitted

The extended chat I had with the user can be found here.

So I play Minecraft, and recently got my new AMD graphics card. I got the drivers installed but there are white lines all over the minecraft screen. I have screenshots of the AMD settings, and I'd love to know what to change to get the best quality out of my gaming. The settings are as follow:

I reinstalled Ubuntu 15.04 onto my computer, and I am receiving some strange graphical/visual glitches when I boot up. First off, there is some black terminal grub screen that comes up, tells me my graphics card, then quits. Then my motherboard screen comes up (that's fine) Then it flashes the purple Ubuntu screen. After that it says booting in insecure mode (That's not supposed to happen, right?) And finally the 2 most confusing parts. Instead of the Ubuntu loading screen, there are just dots in the middle of the screen, and the rest is black (besides a purple line).

Update:

  sudo update-grub
  sudo reboot now

That got rid of the purple line, but rest is still there

Then, after I get to the login screen, and type in my password, the following happens

It goes from that back to the normal screen. These have no physical effect on the computer, but are still VERY annoying, and I would like to fix them, anyone know how? I've read that it might be because of my graphics card drivers, so here is my graphics card:

  david@david-desktop:~$ lspci -k | grep VGA -A2
  01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.[AMD/ATI] Cape Verde XT [Radeon HD 7770/8760 / R7 250X]
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device 300b
    Kernel driver in use: fglrx_pci

So I did

  sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install fglrx-updates

and that should've fixed it, but it didn't. Help please!

I am running Ubuntu 15.04. Recently I bought GTA5, and want to play it. I got the .exe and tried to install it using PlayOnLinux but it said I needed the Windows Media Pack.

The answer I received said to change my Wine Config to Windows Vista+, Then I could install WMP (Windows Media Player) 11 + 12, which is what I'd need. The only problem is, wine, even after changing the config to Windows 8, cannot find WMP 11 or 12, only 10. 10 Not being good enough, I've hit a dead end. How should I proceed?

I've recently bough GTA5 for the computer, but through Game-stop. They gave me a code, and I got the install EXE file. I thought I could simply run it through steam, and I'd be done. However, when I try to install, it says: Unable to detect the Windows Media Feature Pack on your system. Please install the Windows Media feature Pack, then retry the installation. I can't find any way to install it! I think I've got the MSU file, but that can't be run with PlayOnLinux (Which is what I'm also using to run Steam, so It can run windows games) Please help! If necessary I can steal the pack from my old Windows XP computer, but that would be awful. Is there any way to install it?