Broadsworde's questions

I am using apg to generate password suggestions, and am using the -M switch to include special keyboard characters:

apg -a 1 -n 1 -m 16 -x 16 -M SNCL
where:
-a, algorithm - 0 default pronounceable, 1 random unpronounceable
-n, number of passwords
-m, minimum length
-x, maximum length
-M, mode - S, Special symbol set, N, Numeral symbol set, C, upper Case symbol set, L, Lower case symbol set

A lot of online services are picky about which special characters can be used, so I want to be able to exclude the ones that are most often not allowed. But in order to do this I need to know what characters apg is using as it's 'special symbol set'. Is there a way of extracting this data from somewhere? Ideally the actual characters not a description if possible, e.g. '%' not 'Percent'

I installed Ubuntu 22.04 (normal install on hardware) soon after it was released. It came with LibreOffice 7.3.2.2.

The problem is that the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+; doesn't insert the current date into a cell anymore. Instead, it enters an underlined "e", which turns out to be a starting point for inserting emojis. If you enter Ctrl+; then press Space, up pops a menu showing different categories of emojis:

The menu Insert → Date, still shows Ctrl+; to be the keyboard shortcut, but something is clearly wrong.

Ctrl+Shift+; does insert the current time as it should.

Is this fixable, or a LibreOffice bug?

Is there a way to get the clock (top bar) to show seconds?

I looked in the Time & Date settings tab, but there is still nothing for seconds there.

Env: Ubuntu Server 20.04.3 + ubuntu-desktop

The Nautilus dialogue window that is launched when Opening or Saving a file can't be Maximized any more:

Is there a configuration to turn this on?

My gpg backup process so far is:

$ gpg --export-ownertrust > PATH/TO/BACKUP/ownertrust.txt
$ cp -u ~/.gpgrc PATH/TO/BACKUP/
$ cp -u ~/.gnupg/gpg.conf ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf PATH/TO/BACKUP/
$ gpg --export-secret-keys --armor
copy and paste/print/save output to your choice of secure place (ideally offline and offsite)

My gpg restore process so far is:

$ gpg --list-keys # make sure gpg is installed and initiated (install if necessary)
$ rm ~/.gnupg/trustdb.gpg
Copy private key to temporary file if not in file format
$ gpg --import TEMPFILE.asc # substitute TEMPFILE with your sig/asc filename
$ gpg --import-ownertrust PATH/TO/BACKUP/ownertrust.txt

This gets me up and running again, but none of the 3rd party (e.g. skype, ubuntu, archlinux, etc...) public keys or signatures that I had before are restored.

How do I modify my backup and restore processes to capture these 3rd party keys and signatures?

After a recent apt update && apt full-upgrade I started getting the following error when running apt full-upgrade subsequently:

Get:4 https://repo.skype.com/deb stable InRelease [4,502 B]                                        
Err:4 https://repo.skype.com/deb stable InRelease
  The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG 1F3045A5DF7587C3 Skype Linux Client Repository <[email protected]>
W: An error occurred during the signature verification. The repository is not updated and the previous index files will be used. GPG error: https://repo.skype.com/deb stable InRelease: The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG 1F3045A5DF7587C3 Skype Linux Client Repository <[email protected]>
W: Failed to fetch https://repo.skype.com/deb/dists/stable/InRelease  The following signatures were invalid: EXPKEYSIG 1F3045A5DF7587C3 Skype Linux Client Repository <[email protected]>
W: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Is there a way to correct this, or should I just wait for Microsoft/Canonical to produce/update the necessary key signatures?

To find files older than the newest 8 I'm using:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -rz | sed -z 1,8d

The -printf '%T@ %p\0' command applies a last modified timestamp (expressed as number of seconds since Jan. 1, 1970, 00:00 GMT, with fractional part) to the beginning of each zero-terminated filename matched, something like:

1597765267.7628475560 ./fileName2.txt1597765264.0267179360 ./fileName1.txt

In order to delete these oldest files by piping to xargs -0 gio trash, I need to remove the timestamps. So I add another sed command to do this:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -rz | sed -z 1,8d | sed -z "s/^[0-9]*.[0-9]* //g"

Now I have the correct output, but is there a better more efficient way?

Based on @Quasímodo's answer, I tried to simplify further by using the sed delete pattern format (as I'm not actually substituting anything), but I got no output:

find . -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -rnz | sed -z "1,8d; /^[0-9]*\.[0-9]* /d"

Any suggestions appreciated.

Conclusion (from multiple responses):

find $targetPath -maxdepth 1 -type f -printf '%T@ %p\0' | sort -rnz | sed -z "1,${retain}d; s/^[^ ]* //"

Where:
$targetPath, Directory to find files, e.g. current directory '.'
${retain}, Number of newest files to retain, e.g. 8

Following a regular upgrade:

$ sudo apt full-upgrade

To either 4.15.0-64-generic or 4.15.0-64-generic I started to get this pop/bang from my speakers during boot, before the Ubuntu splash screen.

1. It's only ever a single pop/bang, but it's loud and annoying and it wasn't there before.
2. The noise comes from my speakers even though my headphones are plugged in (no pop/bang from headphones)

Subsequent kernel updates have not resolved the issue.

There are no other sound issues or speaker/headphones crossover issues detected.

Any advice on troubleshooting this would be greatly appreciated.

Having just enabled the Livepatch feature, I notice that it uses yet another non-standard date format.

The following system apps use these given date & time formats:

Settings > Date & Time
3 September 2019, 15:27

Top Bar Wall Clock
Tue Sep 3, 15:27

Livepatch
03/09/19 15:27

Is there any way to centralise and standardise a single date format to be used across all GNOME 3 applications? If the answer is (as I suspect) no, wouldn't this be something worth considering for an update?

I have a Calc spreadsheet which I copied and pasted from Wikipedia. It has a bunch of citation links in the form of "[num]". Something like "some data I want to keep [1] [12]".

How do I use Find and Replace (CTRL+H) to replace everything that starts with a "[" and ends in a "]" with a "wildcard" or any integer between them?

I've tried the: Other options > Wildcards check box, using "." as any character wildcard, but that doesn't work.

Any assistance would be very much appreciated.

I want to customize the top panel date time format as a strftime string.

I have already achieved this by installing the very splendid 'Clock Override' extension, but looking at dconf documentation, it looks like there should be a simple way of customizing the clock myself with a keyfile and/or gschema.

I'm assuming that the top panel clock already has a keyfile somewhere, as the settings for clock-format (24h/12h), clock-show-date (b), clock-show-seconds (b) and clock-show-weekday (b) are present in dconf and can be managed via gsettings.

However the documentation doesn't seem to match the reality. For example, the gnome documentation indicates that keyfiles should be placed into the /etc/dconf/db/database.d/ directory, but that directory doesn't exist on my system, so where is dconf getting all it's keys from?

Can anyone please point me to some clear instructions or guidance on adding new settings to dconf?

Alternative

I found a simple and elegant way to adjust the top panel date time format using localisation rather than extensions or dconf keyfile/gschema:

How to display custom formatted clock in top bar on multiple displays in Ubuntu 18.04?

The media.autoplay.default setting (value=1) in about:config used to prevent video/media from playing automatically on loading a page with such content present.

Since the recent (2019-03-25) upgrade to 66.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 video just plays automatically regardless of this setting.

I have a no flash/java environment, so we're just talking HTML5 here.

There are other media.autoplay options available, but setting them doesn't seem to fix the problem completely and breaks other aspects of the browser.

Does anyone know a fix to stop media autoplay in Firefox?

Is there a way to natively add a system microphone control icon next to the system volume control icon in the Gnome top bar?

Also, why is this control not there by default as system volume is?

Is there a way using command-line/bash to safely close down Chromium (running multiple tabs), that will not cause the application to shutdown incorrectly.

Using (for example):

$ pkill -3 chromium

(man signal shows -3 indicates the signal SIGQUIT)

(which I understand is how the shutdown command would terminate an application)
Causes Chromium to give the following error message when you next start it:

Whenever I shutdown or reboot or logout of my computer with Chromium running at least 2 active tabs, the next time I launch Chromium I get the following error:

This error happens if I shutdown or reboot or logout from the UI or from a terminal.

I'm using Chromium: "Version 68.0.3440.75 (Official Build) Built on Ubuntu , running on Ubuntu 18.04 (64-bit)" But I've had the same issue with previous versions of Chromium and Ubuntu.

Just for clarity, if I quit/close Chromium running multiple tabs directly from the application, no such error occurs.

Is this expected behaviour or is something misconfigured?

Following a default minimal installation of 18.04, I now want to move my /home directory to an EXT4 formatted USB flash drive.

By default in 18.04 the /home directory is mounted as part of the / partition.

Is there a clean and safe way to move/reconfigure my /home directory to the USB flash drive, or would it be cleaner/safer to reinstall Ubuntu and configure the /home directory on USB during the install process? Or, is having your /home folder on a separate USB drive ill-advised?

I've looked at many similar questions/answers, but can't find a contemporary clean and clear solution.

GIMP 2.10 (snap version) doesn't allow me to open the /media directory, so I'm unable to access my external USB drive. I get the following error message:

I get the same error message if I try and open an image file in Nautilus from the USB drive by Right-Click image file > Open with GIMP

I installed GIMP 2.10 with snap:

sudo snap install gimp

There's obviously something I'm missing in terms of configuration, but I can't find a similar question posted yet.

Update:

I was pointed to the solution to resolve the problem:
How do I get the latest GIMP version available?

You need to give the snap GIMP package explicit permission to access external media once installed:

sudo snap connect gimp:removable-media

Why we have to do this extra step, is alluded to by N0rbert:

How to get access to USB-storage from the application installed as Snap?

"...if the application does not have auto-connect of removable-media we need to connect it manually"

My question is why would an application package be created without the ability to access external media by default?

I'be been running 18.04 since a clean SSD install on the day of it's official release, without issues.
Power on to login was seconds (max 10)

Then, I did a regular upgrade this morning:

$ sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade

The packages installed/upgraded were:

Install: linux-headers-4.15.0-24:amd64 (4.15.0-24.26, automatic), linux-headers-4.15.0-24-generic:amd64 (4.15.0-24.26, automatic), linux-modules-extra-4.15.0-24-generic:amd64 (4.15.0-24.26, automatic), linux-modules-4.15.0-24-generic:amd64 (4.15.0-24.26, automatic), linux-image-4.15.0-24-generic:amd64 (4.15.0-24.26, automatic)
Upgrade: gnome-control-center-data:amd64 (1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1.18.04.1, 1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1.18.04.2), linux-headers-generic:amd64 (4.15.0.23.25, 4.15.0.24.26), gnome-control-center:amd64 (1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1.18.04.1, 1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1.18.04.2), linux-image-generic:amd64 (4.15.0.23.25, 4.15.0.24.26), linux-signed-generic:amd64 (4.15.0.23.25, 4.15.0.24.26), gnome-control-center-faces:amd64 (1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1.18.04.1, 1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1.18.04.2), linux-generic:amd64 (4.15.0.23.25, 4.15.0.24.26)

I rebooted once the upgrade had completed, and noted a 2-3 minute delay on the Ubuntu loading/splash screen (prior to login) (without any progress/activity indicated on the dots).

I powered off and tried to boot again, but am getting this delay consistently now. Also close down is much slower too.

Update #1 (2018-07-03):
Analysis on systemd:

$ sudo systemd-analyze blame
3min 53.073s plymouth-quit-wait.service
    2min 20.699s snapd.seeded.service
         49.949s snapd.service
          6.186s NetworkManager-wait-online.service
          1.148s dev-sda2.device
          1.098s plymouth-start.service

Showing that plymouth-quit-wait.service (which I now believe is related to the Ubuntu loading/splash screen) and snapd.seeded.service were by far the longest running services to initiate. So I compared the times before the dist-upgrade and after:

$ journalctl -u plymouth-quit-wait.service --since today
-- Logs begin at Fri 2018-04-27 13:01:30 BST, end at Tue 2018-07-03 12:38:05 BST. --
Jul 03 04:15:43 user-laptop systemd[1]: Starting Hold until boot process finishes up...
Jul 03 04:15:46 user-laptop systemd[1]: Started Hold until boot process finishes up.
-- Reboot --
Jul 03 04:21:17 user-laptop systemd[1]: Starting Hold until boot process finishes up...
Jul 03 04:24:52 user-laptop systemd[1]: Started Hold until boot process finishes up.

Before the upgrade plymouth-quit-wait.service took 3 seconds. After the upgrade it took 3 minutes 35 seconds

$ journalctl -u snapd.seeded.service --since today
-- Logs begin at Fri 2018-04-27 13:01:30 BST, end at Tue 2018-07-03 12:42:14 BST. --
Jul 03 04:15:43 user-laptop systemd[1]: Starting Wait until snapd is fully seeded...
Jul 03 04:15:43 user-laptop systemd[1]: Started Wait until snapd is fully seeded.
-- Reboot --
Jul 03 04:22:47 user-laptop systemd[1]: Starting Wait until snapd is fully seeded...
Jul 03 04:24:49 user-laptop systemd[1]: Started Wait until snapd is fully seeded.

Before the upgrade snapd.seeded.service took 0 seconds. After the upgrade it took 2 minutes 2 seconds.

Update #2 (2018-07-06):
This morning's boot saw the return of the delay.
So I guess we're still waiting for the kernel/plymouth/snapd update.

Update #3 (2018-07-12):
The problem seems to be resolved, but I didn't see any update to snap or plymouth, and I'm still running 4.15.0-24 kernel. So I'm not sure which package update fixed the problem, or if it just resolved itself somehow. Reading the bug updates on launchpad it's unclear to me what was done (or is being done) to what package/s. If anyone can clarify that would be very useful.

Following a fresh hardware install I found "GNOME Tweaks" in the Software app and installed it. Subsequently I ran in terminal:

sudo apt install gnome-tweak-tool

To my surprise it installed another package, not an upgrade.

The Tweak Tool works fine, but I'm wondering if I now have 2 versions of the tool installed, and if so which one should I remove?

Update
I found out that gnome-tweaks is the prime package to have installed:

$ apt show gnome-tweaks
...
Breaks: gnome-tweak-tool (<= 3.27.4)
Replaces: gnome-tweak-tool (<= 3.27.4)
APT-Manual-Installed: yes
...

$ apt show gnome-tweak-tool
...
Source: gnome-tweaks
Depends: gnome-tweaks
...

In previous versions you could remove the Amazon app via the Ubuntu Software application, under "uncategorised". But in 16.04 I can't find it there, so how do I get rid of it.

Thank you please.