Johannes Lemonde's questions

I am trying to install a deb from an official webpage (in this case Klayout), and when running sudo apt install ./path-to-the-executable.deb, I get an error for specific library versions being not installable (although newer versions are available).

Note that I would like a general answer. The klayout example is only an example. This question might get marked as a duplicate, but all answers I found elsewhere were specific solutions that did not explain why the fix worked.

Example output when trying to install:

klayout                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
└── Depends:                                                                                                                                                                                                                
    ├── libruby2.7 (>= 2.7.0) but it isn't in the cache                                                                                                                                                                     
    └── libpython3.8 (>= 3.8.2) but it isn't in the cache

Thanks!

I am struggling to migrate my music library. Apparently the starring and the amount of times read are not stored within the files but in an XML file, which I was able to localise, but I don't know how to do something with it. Is there a way to convert this information according to some standard sothat other applications could use it easily ?

I already knew that Ctrl+Shift+u would allow to type a character by giving its Unicode hexadecimal representation: an underlined u appears, you type the code and hit Enter.

For example, Ctrl+Shift+u; e; 9; Enter gives the character é.

Now I've just noticed that Ctrl+Shift+e lets an underline e appear, in a very similar manner, but I can't figure out what it does.

Does someone know? Thank you in advance.

I am not asking how to do it, but if it is recommended and what is the concern about it.

I have recently seen that the 4.16 Kernel release was at its end of life and that users were urged to upgrade to 4.17. So I checked my version, and I am currently using the Linux 4.15.0-23-generic Kernel on my up-to-date Ubuntu 18.04...

Is this normal? Why is that this way? Is Ubuntu using an out of date kernel? Should I upgrade manually?

I clarify that there are similar questions, but those I found on this forum did not answer my question at all, so I ask again. I do not consider this a duplicate.

Thank you in advance.

GDM does not return to sleep mode when my session is locked. Normally, when my session is not locked, my laptop goes to sleep mode after 15 minutes, but if GDM is active, rather than my unlocked session, it just doesn't...

So for instance, if I just hit a key to watch the hour or whatever, it wakes up and stays awaken, and then drains all the battery if I forget to re-suspend it manually...

How can I change that behaviour?

I have an Ubuntu 18.04 install, upgraded from 17.10.

--

Edit :

It seems it could come from a missing configuration in /etc/systemd/logind.conf, especially IdleAction and IdleActionSec which could be set to 'suspend' and '15min' for instance. I haven't changed anything yet, if someone knows better about logind, I am taking your advices !!

Since I upgraded to Bionic Beaver, I don't see the thumbnails in list view anymore when the zoom level is 100%. I must zoom to 150% to see them. How to change that back ? I did not find any obvious dconf settings...

Update several years later: according to the link provided by @MikeDacre below, this seems to be a GNOME issue that may be a design choice, and Ubuntu is not likely to tweak GNOME to revert this behaviour.

Does anyone know why the directory at $HOME/.local/share/flatpak/repo contains so many files (69 k) and is so huge (2 Gb) ? What is that ? I hardly ever use flatpaks anyway....

I guess it is not important to include the flatpak directory in one's backup (deja-dup).

PS it looks like there are hard links inside because the flatpak folder has got twice as many files but the same total size.

I would like to set xkb to type character combinations when I press a single key. I am currently developing my own keyboard layout and I would be glad to be able to configure some keys to insert whole strings instead of chars. I want this because in my language, some char combinations are ways more frequent than some letters of the keyboard.

Thanks !

I am experiencing a bug. I am using Ubuntu GNOME 17.10 18.04 (see edit below), currently under Wayland (but the bug was already there a few years ago, under Xorg).

I have got two keyboard layouts enabled : Switzerland's French layout and Switzerland's German layout. Basically, there are only 3 keys which differ from another : éàè in French, and öäü in German. Note that the French layout is a variant from the German layout, which is default in Switzerland. Both are defined in the same file.

The issue is that sometimes, when the French keyboard layout is apparently selected, I am typing with the German layout (I only notice it when I use those 3 differing keys). In order to fix that, I have to switch to the German layout and back again. This does not happen every day and I am living with it for a long time.

What could be the cause ? How to fix it ?

PS : I unfortunately don't know which logs I could possibly provide. Comment that and I'll add them. Thanks in advance !!

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Edit : Since Ubuntu 18.04, behaviour changed : I frequently end up writing with the France's French AZERTY layout, which I haven't even selected or enabled. Thus, I add the 18.04 flag to this question, that seems fair to me.

Maybe is it worth saying that Ubuntu does not support Switzerland's French language variety (why?). It only supports the Canadian and the French varieties of French, so I was always obliged to choose the France's French language. But the displaying language is supposed to have nothing to do with the choosen keyboard layout(s). So I show you the result of the command locale. That may help (?)

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

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Edit : Here are the results of following commands : cat /etc/default/keyboard :

XKBLAYOUT=ch,ch
BACKSPACE=guess
XKBVARIANT=fr,

and gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.input-sources sources :

[('xkb', 'ch+fr'), ('xkb', 'ch')]

and gsettings get org.gnome.desktop.input-sources per-window :

false

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Important edit : If I change the language of my laptop from France's French to Canadian French, keeping my Swiss layout, I end up, after a while, writing with the Canadian keyboard layout.... Even if I haven't it enabled...

Since I am a hobbyist polyglot and I need to write in a few languages which have extra letters, I would like to find a good way to either customise my current keyboard layout or use a new one.

For instance, I need the letters ß,ä,ö,ü in German; å,ä,ö,æ,ø in Swedish; ç,é,è,à, and some dead keys such as acute, grave, dieresis in French and Spanish, and so on. My main language is French and I am used to the QWERTZ layout with the special chars being like in the Swiss variant. Since every country seems to choose differently where the special chars are, I don't want to simply enable the country's official layout. Alternatively, I would be ready to switch to another layout such as a special Dvorak or Colemak disposition, but I just can't find one which fits my needs and include all the letters I want, even as dead keys or with AltGr+Maj...

What I currently do is modifying directly the ch file in /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/, and then adding an entry in /usr/share/X11/xkb/rules/evdev.xml, then running sudo dpkg-reconfigure xkb-data, then (extra step in Wayland) adding the entry in dconf under org.gnome.desktop.input-sources.sources, and finally I restart my session, and it works. I was advised to do so, but from times to times, the files I modify get replaced by updates and I have to do it again (pretty annoying). And moreover, I don't understand completely how it works : I tried once to create a fully new layout in a new file, but I was then unable to activate it from the GNOME Settings....

My problem is that I have to switch constantly between keyboard layouts (which isn't actually a true problem since I only use one language at a time), and my current way of customising them is pretty long and annoying. If it were easier than modifying the above mentioned files, I could go further and find better solutions.

What do you think about it ? Is there a GUI to do it ? Or does a layout for Ubuntu exist which provides support for many European languages ?

Thanks in advance !!

I would like to find a way to have my GNOME Boxes images on another hard drive because my main partition has very limited storage.

I've just done some research and it seems that GNOME Boxes doesn't support choosing/moving the images of its virtual machines. According to this source, there are three places to take into account :

• ~/.local/share/gnome-boxes/images
• ~/.config/libvirt
• ~/.config/gnome-boxes

My questions are : is it safe to replace those folders by symbolic links linking to another (external) hard drive ?

And what would happen if I try to launch GNOME Boxes with my hard drive unmounted ?

Do you have some suggestions or better ideas ? (Maybe mine is fine, I don't realise).

Thank you very much in advance !!

And eventually also when they are started and closed and how many time they have been running in the background and in the foreground.

I don't need that for every single app, but only for a few. I may use a custom launcher from a desktop file (but how?). But since I have a dozen apps to track, a general solution would be better.

Thanks in advance !!

Edit : I call foreground when a window has the focus.

I would like to configure my computer to have a session whose password would change automatically every day. The password needn't be very strong, and must be easy to reconstruct mentally (I will think about a mathematical formula to return a number as function of the date, which would be hard enough to crack). The sake of the thing is that I would be the only one to be able to reconstruct current day's password and my little brother, which is 12 years old, would have to ask for the password if he needs the computer that day, since I sometimes come back late in the evening, and I can't monitor him when I'm not at home.

I thought to add a few lines of code in a script which would be run once when the computer is turned on, even before a session is opened. Does root's crontab with the @reboot flag make the job ?

It may be a line such as passwd "example"$(date "+%w%d") (the password generated would be more complex, but that's an example), but let say that I want root to perform that action, and I don't find in the manual a way to change the password for a specific user. I would like to write something similar to echo "example"$(date "+%w%d") | passwd --user mylittlebrother, but the option --user does not exist...

How should I proceed ? Is there a better way to do that ?

Thanks in advance !!!

I have a UE Boom 2 Speaker. With Ubuntu 16.04 I was never really able to connect to it via Bluetooth (sound was awful), but when I fresh installed Ubuntu 17.10 beta (one month before release), I was able to connect easily with good sound quality.

But a few days after the official release of Ubuntu 17.10, the Bluetooth connection crashed, and I was not able to connect again, unless I reset the speaker and rebooted my computer. Then I would be able to connect again, but after a few minutes, it would break again.

The default Bluetooth settings window freezes when I am trying to reconnect.

What could be the cause? Unfortunately, I don't know which logs I check to diagnose the problem - please comment if you can advise and I will add any necessary information.

I have tried with another Bluetooth device (from another brand: D-LINK), and I have the same problem.

I am using a ThinkPad T460s (which comes with Bluetooth 4.1).

My intention is to notify-send a message if an unrated song is about to come to end. I am using Rhythmbox with the MPRIS plugin and I found following scripts :

#Get position
gdbus call \
 --session \
 --dest org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.rhythmbox \
 --object-path /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 \
 --method org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get \
     org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player Position

#Get metadata such as song length and user song rating
gdbus call \
 --session \
 --dest org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.rhythmbox \
 --object-path /org/mpris/MediaPlayer2 \
 --method org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get \
     org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.Player Metadata

Output : (<int64 77000000>,) (in microseconds) for the first one, and for the second one : (<{'mpris:trackid': <'/org/mpris/MediaPlayer2/Track/4782'>, 'xesam:url': <'file:///path-to-the-mp4-file'>, 'xesam:title': <'Song title'>, 'xesam:artist': <['Artist name']>, 'xesam:album': <'Album name'>, 'xesam:genre': <['Genre name']>, 'xesam:audioBitrate': <214016>, 'xesam:contentCreated': <'2017-01-01T00:00:00Z'>, 'xesam:lastUsed': <'2017-09-12T13:41:52Z'>, 'mpris:length': <int64 189000000>, 'xesam:trackNumber': <15>, 'xesam:useCount': <6>, 'xesam:userRating': <0.80000000000000004>, 'mpris:artUrl': <'file:///path-to-an-image-i-guess'>}>,) ('mpris:length' is what matters)

But I don't know how to use the results, espetially how to parse them to check there are less than 10 seconds left (I need the remaining time as int value and don't know how to achieve it in a script...).

There over, I am not sure how to implement that. I was thinking about a .sh file, which I would run from a terminal and which would check every few seconds what the playing state is.

Can you give some pieces of advice and/or the begining of a script (which has at least an infinite loop or a recursion -what is the best?- and the remaining time refreshed in a variable) ?

Thank you very much in advance !

I would like to set my mouse in Ubuntu (on Wayland if possible) to perform two clicks instead of one single click when the alt-key is pressed. The problem is that I absolutely don't know how to set something similar...

Could you give me a clue ? Is that possible ?

I am not afraid of modifying system files on my computer.

Thank you a lot,

Johannes

I am using Ubuntu GNOME 17.04 for the moment and I am asking myself if – through the future upgrade to Ubuntu 17.10 – my Ubuntu GNOME will be exactly the same as the official main flavor, since it will adopt GNOME again, or if there will be two different flavors with GNOME.

What do you think?

I try to execute a bash script from a shortcut set from the settings (system settings > keyboard > shortcuts or analogous), but it doesn't execute, although it works just fine from the terminal...

The script is as following :

#!/bin/bash
#"$1" should be a number from 0 to 5
if [ "$#" == 0 ]; then
   echo "Ce programme nécessite en argument le nombre d'étoiles (de 0 à 5) à attribuer à la chanson qui est en train de tourner dans Rhythmbox."
   exit
fi

rhythmbox-client --set-rating $1
notify-send "$1 étoiles" "$(rhythmbox-client --print-playing)" --expire-time=1000 --icon=starred

Then I set the shortcut, but it doesn't work (Noting happens). As said before, the same code executed from the terminal works great...

Thanks for helping me !!

I want to set a combination of keys as a shortcut, which is possible in Ubuntu through system settings > keyboard > shortcuts (may be different, my laptop isn't in English).

The command line to be executed is the following :

notify-send "4 stars for «$(rhythmbox-client --set-rating 4 \
--print-playing-format=%tt)»"

which works just fine in gnome-terminal... But when I set the shortcut, it is executed as if the double quotes were replaced by single quotes, which means that the $(...) part isn't executed and renders as text...

How can I resolve my issue ? Thanks !!

I have just switched from Unity 7 to Ubuntu GNOME (3.20), and like every time I have changed my operyting system in the past, I had a long time adapting myself to the mouse movements and the system button positions. Changing the mouse's speed doesn't help so much, so I came to an idea :

Is there actually a tools which predicts where the mouse is moving to, adapting the trajectory to a certain degree ?

It would not be meant for every single link or button inside an app, but simply for some system buttons, like the ones which close the windows, or the system tabs. If I came to the idea so quickly, I'm sure, someboy already thought about it.

Does it exist ? Would it be efficient ?

Thanks to you for answering me :)