Sebastian Stark's questions

What is the recommended way of trying out the new Thunderbird 60 release on Ubuntu 18.04? I see several options:

• simply download the prebuilt package from https://www.thunderbird.net/. Will it use my existing profile or does it expect some other path?
• install some PPA (which one?)
• install some snap or flatpak version (how to get my existing profile into it?)
• something else?

However, I would like to use my existing profile for testing, so I won't have to recreate the whole configuration. In addition I would like to be able to easily revert in case it does not work for me. Of course I will backup my profile before, just thought I should mention this.

Best would be if I could switch easily between the two versions for some time.

I noticed that when I move a window to another screen and run it full screen (probably also if not), then remove the screen, then add the screen again, the window will move to the additional screen again.

This is cool! I wonder how and where those settings are stored and if this is configurable through configuration files in some way. I looked in ~/.config/gnome-session/saved-session/, but it's empty. I also found ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/application_state, but do not quite understand the format.

Where else could I look?

I just upgraded to 18.04 and wanted to try out livepatch. After reading the Livepatch Terms of Service web page (https://www.ubuntu.com/legal/terms-and-policies/livepatch-terms-of-service) I wondered a bit about these two paragraphs in the personal data section:

We may also collect certain non-personally-identifiable information, which is located on your computer. The information collected may include statistics relating to how often data is transferred, and performance metrics in relation to software and configuration. You agree this information may be retained and used by Canonical.

Canonical may disclose any or all personal data and content you have sent, posted or published if required to comply with applicable law or the order or requirement of a court, administrative agency or other governmental body. All other use of your personal data is subject to the Privacy Policy.

I understand that, in order to do the live patching, Canonical needs to know some things about my system, like the kernel version. Also, through my SSO account and the token they know my email address and name.

So far so good. But I wonder what else Canonical needs to know about my system. The above text is vague about this. "Statistics" and "performance metrics" do not sound like they are necessary for the live patch service per se. Also, if those data are really "non-personally-identifiable", why Canonical is asking one paragraph later to agree that they may disclose them to administrative agencies or governmental bodies on request?

What are the data transmitted to Canonical, once and regularly? How can I investigate what is transmitted? How can I be sure it will not change suddenly to transmit more than I want?

This is a technical question. I do not want to discuss Canonical's TOS or legal issues. I really want a technical way to find what is transmitted before I sign up.

I am left-handed and recently started using the touchscreen on my laptop more. There is even a bluetooth connected stylus available for it that works quite well for painting with applications like MyPaint or Gimp.

However, whenever there is a dialog or window that has a scrollbar, it is annoying for a left-handed person to use the vertical scrollbar, which is usually located on the right side of windows.

For instance in MyPaint, the brush selection dialog is quite hard to use with a stylus held in the left hand. Also the layers dialog in gimp and so on.

Is there a way to tell Ubuntu/Gnome that I want all vertical scrollbars to appear on the left side in general (as in "not per application")? Or at least for all GTK-based applications?

As a left-handed person I feel discriminated.

Followup:

It seems that left-handed touchscreen users are a minority out there, probably touchscreen users in general. Maybe I was naive to assume there would be simply some switch to flip. All answers so far are informative and helpful, yet not quite answering the question. I'll let the engine decide about the bounty.

If I have, say, Firefox installed both as a normal package and as a snap, they will appear in the Activities application listing and also two items will be returned by a search for "Firefox". Both show the same name and icon. How do I know which one to choose?

I know I can easily do it from the command line. But I would like to know what is the intended way from the Ubuntu GUI. Or, if that is a not yet implemented feature, if there is a GUI approach to this.