Matthew's questions

I recently bought this book, which came with an accompanying CD. When I try to view the contents of the CD in Ubuntu, I don't have read permission for any of the files. ls -al in the root of the CD gives this:

dr-x------ 1 mpiroc mpiroc  4096 Sep 21  2011 ./
drwxr-xr-x 3 root   root    4096 Sep  1 18:23 ../
---xr-Sr-- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  3799 Sep 14  2011 advanced-content-and-appe.html*
---xr-Sr-- 1 mpiroc mpiroc    24 Sep 20  2008 autorun.bat*
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc    48 May 18  2004 autorun.inf
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc 12344 May 14  2004 cd-small.bmp
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  4090 Sep 14  2011 historical-perspectives-a.html
dr-x------ 1 mpiroc mpiroc  2048 Sep  6  2011 images/
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  1798 Sep 14  2011 index.html
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  5990 Sep 15  2011 readme.txt
dr-x------ 1 mpiroc mpiroc  2048 Sep  6  2011 resources/
dr-x------ 1 mpiroc mpiroc  2048 Sep  6  2011 search/
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  4098 Sep 14  2011 search.html
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  7801 Sep 14  2011 software.html
dr-x------ 1 mpiroc mpiroc  2048 Sep  6  2011 styles/
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  5230 Sep 14  2011 tutorials.html
--w---S--- 1 mpiroc mpiroc  8138 Sep 15  2011 using-this-cd.html

I must be doing something wrong--surely the CD is meant to be read! What am I missing here?

I'm trying to read The Art of Assembly Language as per this answer on Stack Overflow. When I open it on my Ubuntu 12.04 box, it looks like this:

I haven't tested it on another machine, but this can't be intentional. What is going on, and how can I fix it?

Edit: The above screenshot is from Chrome. It look like this in Evince:

Still squished and hardly readable, but better. Is there anything I can do to fix it?

As of Ubuntu 11.10, I enabling "screen" edges in Compiz (i.e., initiate scale when the mouse is moved to the top-left corner) no longer works. Is there any way to work around this? The ability to use screen edges is integral to the way I use a desktop, and one of the main reasons I use Ubuntu as my main OS.

Is it just to save disk space? Or does it affect loading time/performance in some way? You'd think that you'd want the best quality possible image for something you'll be looking at throughout the day.

I would like to try out LibreOffice, but I'm worried about messing up my existing OpenOffice.org install. Can LibreOffice be safely installed alongside OpenOffice.org?

I know that my touchpad is capable of it. I can enable glitch-free two-finger scrolling by running this script:

#! /bin/sh

synclient VertTwoFingerScroll=1
synclient HorizTwoFingerScroll=1
synclient EmulateTwoFingerMinW=10
synclient EmulateTwoFingerMinZ=48

However, in the "Mouse" preferences GUI, the "two-finger scrolling" option is greyed out. It worked fine on my old laptop.

Here is the output of sudo lshw -sanitize, if it makes a difference.

Possible Duplicate:
How do I enable automatic updates?

I would like to have Ubuntu silently install updates every day or so. It it possible to set it to do so? Are there any potential dangers to doing things this way?

Whenever I install software from the command-line using apt-get or aptitude, I see messages like this:

Selecting previously deselected package foobar-cil-dev.

I understand "downloading" and "setting up", but what does "selecting" mean? And what does it mean that the package was "previously deselected"?

I restored my banshee db as per this question. My music and listening history shows up as expected, but the cover art is missing, and Banshee won't scan for it. "Rescan music library" doesn't check for cover art. Neither does disabling/re-enabling the cover art plugin. I can't find an option to do this--is it possible?

What is the name of this protocol? Can I interact with people using other chat programs, like Pidgin on linux or Adium on OS X? Which programs recognize it, and which don't?

I would like to use sites like last.fm, but because I'm often moving from OS to OS, and mostly listen to music on an mp3 player, most of my listening data gets lost.

Is there any way I can backup Banshee's listening history, and restore it on a new install?

On my Dell Studio XPS 16, I sometimes accidentally hit this key. Wireless becomes disabled, and hitting it again does not re-enable wireless. I have to hit it an odd number of times, then restart my computer to re-enable wireless.

I can't imagine a situation in which I would want to disable wireless from my keyboard. Is it possible just disable the key all-together, so I can avoid this problem?

On a related note, what package do I file the bug against? I'm happy just disabling the key, but that's really just a workaround.

I created the following ~/.Xmodmap file as per this answer.

keysym Delete = Menu
keysym Menu = Delete

clear Lock
keycode 0x42 = Escape

In other words, swap Delete and Menu, and make Caps Lock an additional Escape.

The next time I logged in, Ubuntu asked me if I wanted to load ~/.Xmodmap as expected. I loaded it, but nothing happened (either then or on subsequent logins). If I manually run xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap, it works as expected.

I know that this worked early in the 10.10 beta, but it's failing on my fresh 10.10 install. I haven't tried in on anything earlier than 10.10. Any ideas?

Edit: I put some debugging statements in /etc/gdm/Xsession to make sure ~/.Xmodmap was loading, and everything magically started working. I didn't change anything except adding some echos, and it's still working now that I reverted my changes and restarted again. Strangest thing I ever saw.

One thing I realized is that the "remap Caps Lock to Escape" part of the Xmodmap was always working. It was just the Delete/Menu swap that failed. I'll leave this question open for now in case anyone else has the same problem, since I don't actually know why the problem stopped.

Ctrl + Shift + C and Ctrl + Shift + V are supposed to replace the normal Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V in gnome-terminal.

Sometimes they work, but usually they have no effect. What are some potential reasons for this? I'm not sure what other information to give.

Edit: It seems that manually selecting Paste from the Edit menu does not work either. Right click > Paste works, but Edit > Paste does not. Copying works, but pasting does not.

Also, I have vi-mode enabled (set -o vi in my ~/.bashrc). Could this have something to do with it?

Edit: Here is a video demonstrating the problem. I used Screenkey (in "raw" mode, to catch "shift") to show what keys I am pressing.

I know that libappindicator0.1-cil-dev is used for Application Indicators, but it doesn't seem capable of using the Messaging Menu. Am I missing something, or is there a different library I should be using?

I don't know of any Mono applications that use the Messaging Menu. Is there not yet a CIL library capable of using the it?

I'm running the Ubuntu 10.10 beta.

I found a folder called ~/.local/share/TpLogger/logs. If I just copy that folder, and paste it into a new installation, will my logs be preserved? Or will they not be associated with the new accounts? I don't want to risk it until I know for sure.