Kalle Elmér's questions

On Ubuntu 20.04, the screen blanking timeout when the system is locked is only 15 seconds. This is a problem since my monitor is slow to turn on. I like to press a key to wake it up before I sit down or do some other quick thing at my desk, but the screen tends to turn off before I get around to typing my password.

Is there some way to adjust the blanking time when locked? Note that this is not the same thing as the normal screen blanking time, which determines how long it takes before the screen is locked automatically.

I have a PC with Ubuntu 18.04 in a semi-public environment. There is a non-admin user account that can be used by anyone without logging in.

How can I prevent the user from shutting down the system, putting it in standby, or locking the screen?

Disabling the GUI buttons would be sufficient, if there's a way to do that.

I know that I can send a notification to the user that will appear in the top-right corner of the screen an disappear on its own, like this:

notify-send "Device detected correctly"

However, this only works if I run it in a gnome-terminal within the graphical environment.

I want to send a notification from a daemon process. It is running as a different user and it is started by systemd. How can I accomplish this?

I have an XPS 13 with Dell's own TB-16 dock. Despite the lack of official Linux support it works really well, as long as WiFi is turned off. This is okay since I have a wired connection at my desk, but if I try to boot with the dock connected it won't work since it crashes before I can log in and turn off the WiFi.

I suppose I could craft some script that detects the dock itself or maybe a specific USB device (like the keyboard) connected to it, but only if I connect the dock while the system is on. In that case I can just turn off WiFi manually anyway.

Is there some way to make sure that the WiFi is never activated in the first place whenever I boot with the dock connected? Alternatively, can it just always be turned off at every reboot? Having to turn it on manually is not so bad since my laptop is docked most of the time.

I just got my new laptop with Ubuntu preinstalled, and the super key doesn't open the dash. I have installed compizconfig-settings-manager, where I can assign a key combination like Super+X, but it won't let me assign the Super key by itself.

How can I make the super key work again?

I am running Ubuntu 13.04 on a Dell Inspiron 17R SE. It has an ALPS touchpad.

The problem is that this touchpad has backlash. By this I mean that if I move the cursor in one direction and then reverse it, I will have to move my finger a short distance before it starts moving again. I have also noticed this behavior on a Fujitsu Lifebook with Ubuntu 13.10.

The experience is very similar to the mechanical phenomenon that is nicely explained in this Wikipedia article.

Has anyone else experienced this? Is it a flaw in the hardware or something that could be debugged and corrected in software?

I have a computer running Ubuntu 13.04 with a Konica Minolta Bizhub C20 printer that's connected over Ethernet.

When I print a PDF using the built-in PDF viewer in Ubuntu, the page will be blank, even though the PDF looks perfectly okay on the screen. However, if I open the very same file in Firefox instead, I can print it just fine without any problems at all.

What could be causing this problem?

The computer in question was previously running Ubuntu 11.04, and PDFs would always print correctly. I did a fresh install of Ubuntu 13.04.

I have installed ddclient on my server and it seems to work. However, I get these warnings in my syslog:

nochg: No update required; unnecessary attempts to change to the current address are considered abusive

Obviously, ddclient fires the update even if the IP address check returns the same address as last time. How can I change this to have it do the update only if the address has actually changed since the last run?

Here is my /etc/ddclient.conf, with some information redacted:

daemon=300
syslog=yes
verbose=yes
protocol=dyndns2
use=web, web=dns.loopia.se/checkip/checkip.php, web-skip='Current IP Address:'
server=dns.loopia.se
ssl=yes
login=<redacted>
password='<redacted>'
<redacted>

I have a USB device that comes with a generic Linux driver in the form of a kernel module. It's a .ko file that I'm supposed to install. However, it was compiled for version 2.16.18-53 of the Linux kernel. I don't have access to the source.

Is it possible to get this working on Ubuntu 12.10 with Linux 3.2.0-39-generic-pae?

I'm using Google Sketchup on ubuntu 12.04 with Wine 1.4. It works flawlessly out of the box, but anti-aliasing is causing some problems.

I can override anti-aliasing settings using the nVidia X Server Settings utility, which results in a great-looking image. However, the view doesn't seem to update properly. It's a bit hard to explain, but if I do something (e.g. zooming) the changes won't appear in the view until I take another action. in other words, there seems to be a delay of one "action". Take this example.

1. The mouse wheel is moved one notch to zoom in one step. Nothing happens.
2. An object is selected by clicking. The new zoom is rendered but the selection box doesn't appear.
3. An empty area is clicked. The selection box appears.

Is there something that I can do to solve the problem? Could I force the GPU to redraw that view with a certain interval, or is there some other solution?

I really like anti-aliasing, but it's hard to use when drawing stuff.

If I'm running a program in bash, I can suspend it by pressing Ctrl+Z. If I want to leave the program running, I can then use the bg command. Is there some way to directly put the program in the background, without having to type bg?

Clarification: I want to put the program in the background when it is already running, without suspending it.

After my computer with ubuntu 12.04 has been idle for a short while, the screen will go blank, and even enter standby mode. I have tried this:

1. System Settings -> Brightness and Lock -> Turn off screen... set to "Never"
2. System Settings -> Power -> Suspend when... set to "Don't suspend"

This doesn't change anything.

How can I make sure that the screen will always remain on, forever?

I've been messing with some things and the lock screen is not working well at the moment. Since I like the standard login screen much better anyway, I would like to change the action for the Ctrl+Alt+L shortcut. At the moment, it does the same thing as "Lock Screen" in the top-right power/settings menu. I would like it to instead have the same effect as "Switch User Account" on the user menu.

How can I do this?

FYI, I'm using 12.04 with the classic Gnome session. Things might look somewhat different in Unity.

There seems to be a process called "cslistener" on my machine that is listening on port 9000. A scan using nmap resulted in this, where 172.29.137.150 is the address of my PC.

Nmap scan report for 172.29.137.150
Host is up (0.000013s latency).
Not shown: 993 closed ports
PORT      STATE SERVICE
22/tcp    open  ssh
80/tcp    open  http
139/tcp   open  netbios-ssn
443/tcp   open  https
445/tcp   open  microsoft-ds
9000/tcp  open  cslistener
10000/tcp open  snet-sensor-mgmt

What's going on here? I'm on ubuntu 12.04.

I would like to add a folder to a Gnome panel (Gnome Fallback on ubuntu 12.04). In Windows this can be accomplished by right-clicking the taskbar, selecting "New toolbar", and browsing for a folder. I would like the same functionality in ubuntu. When I click on an icon in the panel, I should get something that looks like the "Applications" menu, but with the content of a specific folder instead.

I have a new Dell Inspiron 17R that I have installed ubuntu 12.04 on. The touchpad is recognized as a PS/2 mouse, which means that I can't use scrolling and that there is no "Touchpad" tab in the mouse settings.

How can I fix this? I've searched for the answer, but there's very little information about 12.04, and people keep mentioning this .deb package that I am supposed to download from http://people.canonical.com/~sforshee/alps-touchpad/psmouse-alps-0.10/psmouse-alps-dkms_0.10_all.deb, which is a dead link.

Is there some way to specify a custom size for a Gnome panel? I'm using Gnome Classic on ubuntu 12.04. There is an "expand" option, but I want to exactly specify the size of the panel. I'm not talking about the height, but rather the width of a horizontal panel.

Is there some way to move Windows between separate X screens in Ubuntu 12.04? With 3 monitors on 2 GPUs, using Twinview is not an option. Xinerama allows me to drag windows between all monitors, but it also means that I lose all hardware acceleration.

I don't expect to be able to drag windows between the screens and have them occupy two monitors simultaneously, but there must be some way to transfer a program while it is running. At the moment, I don't even know how to select which monitor it will use when launched.

Any pointers?

Is there some way that I can have Xinerama enabled and still use hardware acceleration? I have three monitors on 2 GPUs. I have enabled Xinerama, but now all hardware acceleration is gone. This results in bad framerates in games, and Compiz isn't working properly. In case this is impossible, is there some way to move applications between X screens without Xinerama? Here is my xorg.conf, generated by NVIDIA X Server Settings:

# nvidia-settings: X configuration file generated by nvidia-settings
# nvidia-settings:  version 295.33  (buildd@zirconium)  Fri Mar 30 13:43:34 UTC 2012

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor0"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Samsung SyncMaster"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 81.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 85.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor1"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "GML GM-QUADRANT-A"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 81.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
    Identifier     "Monitor2"
    VendorName     "Unknown"
    ModelName      "Samsung SyncMaster"
    HorizSync       30.0 - 81.0
    VertRefresh     56.0 - 75.0
    Option         "DPMS"
    # HorizSync source: edid, VertRefresh source: edid
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Device         "Device0"
    Monitor        "Monitor0"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "CRT: nvidia-auto-select +0+0; CRT: 1280x1024_75 +0+0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen1"
    Device         "Device1"
    Monitor        "Monitor1"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "DFP: nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen2"
    Device         "Device2"
    Monitor        "Monitor2"
    DefaultDepth    24
    Option         "TwinView" "0"
    Option         "metamodes" "nvidia-auto-select +0+0"
    SubSection "Display"
        Depth       24
    EndSubSection
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Mouse0"
    Driver         "mouse"
    Option         "Protocol" "auto"
    Option         "Device" "/dev/psaux"
    Option         "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
    Option         "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
    Identifier     "Keyboard0"
    Driver         "kbd"
    # generated from default
EndSection

Section "Extensions"
    Option         "Composite" "Disable"
EndSection

Section "ServerLayout"
    Identifier     "Layout0"
    Screen      0  "Screen0" 0 0
    Screen      1  "Screen1" RightOf "Screen0"
    Screen      2  "Screen2" RightOf "Screen1"
    InputDevice    "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
    InputDevice    "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
    Option         "Xinerama" "1"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device0"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTX 570"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          0
    Option  "NoLogo"    "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device1"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce GTX 570"
    BusID          "PCI:1:0:0"
    Screen          1
    Option  "NoLogo"    "True"
EndSection

Section "Device"
    Identifier     "Device2"
    Driver         "nvidia"
    VendorName     "NVIDIA Corporation"
    BoardName      "GeForce 9500 GS"
    BusID          "PCI:7:0:0"
    Option  "NoLogo"    "True"
EndSection

Is there a way to split a single monitor in two, so that the two halves will be treated as separate monitors? This means that windows should fill half the screen when maximized. Also, gnome panels should fill half the screen.