In kubuntu 18.04 the User Manager in Settings can add and delete users, but that's about it.
I need to modify groups and users so seldomly that I spend more time reading man pages and finding the commands than actually doing the changes!
This answer addresses the question for gnome (if it is still relevant after 10 years or so) but I would prefer a KDE solution. Is there one?
When I insert an SD card, it auto-mounts at /media/user/label with the user as the owner and root as the group.
I would like it to auto-mount in a non-user-specific place, say /media or /mnt, ideally with a different group so that I can allow other users to access it.
If I make a directory at /media/user/label and chown it, that is ignored and the SD card mounts at /media/user/label1.
I mostly leave the same SD card in all the time for first-line backup purposes, which is why I need other users to be able to access the mount point, but occasionally I eject it and put another SD card in temporarily for other purposes, so I don't want to put it in fstab.
I have found the Kubuntu Systems Settings which allow you to change whether it auto-mounts, but it does not allow you to specify where it automounts or with what permissions.
I currently have a one-disk ext4 NAS using Ubuntu Server 18.04 on my LAN to which I am considering attaching another identical disk in RAID 1 using mdadm. But I am wondering if, following a catastophe of some sort, I would be able to mount one of the RAID 1 disks on another computer as a normal drive, as I currently could, or is it a case of once a RAID drive, always a RAID drive?
I am asking and answering my own question here in case it is useful to someone else, as it has taken me a long time to come up with a solution!
I have a Sun Microsystems Type 7 keyboard that has a set of 11 extra keys on the right hand side, and I would like to be able to program them to do something useful in kubuntu. But when System Settings is waiting for a keypress of the key to program, nothing happens for most of the keys when I press them. The exception is Cut, Copy and Paste: these three I can assign Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+C to, and they work generally in applications (and, when I press them in System Settings, the correct key name is even displayed).
So how to get the other special keys to be recognised?
If I last modified a file 5 minutes ago, is it possible to make ls-l output something like "5 mins" instead of the actual date/time?
I would like to make a "hard-links" copy of my home directory before syncing my home directory with another computer with unison, just in case unison goes awry.
But cp -al tries to link to all files, including hidden . files, which results in many errors. I am not trying to sync . hidden files or any "system" files, just my own data.
Is there any way to make cp -al ignore . hidden files? Or another command that has cp -al functionality that can be made to ignore . hidden files?
I have been using Unison to sync my data among several computers, and I am now trying to extend my scheme to include other users' home directories (other family members).
But I would like to preserve the files' owner (and group) attributes, so I presumably need to use the unison -owner (and -group) options.
But as only the root user can chown files, do I have to sudo unison? I am a bit reluctant to do that! Or is there another way? (kubuntu 18.04 and 20.04)
If I install Kubuntu 20.04, with network disabled, from a USB stick installer that I prepared just after 20.04 was released, then my laptop suspends and wakes ok (Dell Inspiron 3793, Intel i5 Ice Lake, Nvidia MX230).
But if I use the same USB installer with network enabled, or use sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade after installing, then my laptop will not wake correctly from suspend - I get a black screen.
It is ok if I boot the upgraded installation using the old kernel using the grub menu.
Original kernel: 5.4.0-26 (working) New kernel: 5.4.0-53 (not working)
So short term I need to use the old kernel but I would still like to upgrade. Will the upgrade process ever delete the old kernel automatically? Can I make grub boot with the old kernel by default, so I don't have to go through the menu, without the upgrade process changing it back?
And I probably need to report a kernel bug. But I've looked at the kernel changelogs and there are hundreds of changes netween 5.4.0-26 and -53. (The upgrade included not only new versions of Nvidia drivers (450) but appears to have new versions of the original 440, but the old kernel works with the new 450 drivers, so it would appear to be a kernel issue) So how to proceed?
Update: output of sudo dmidecode -s bios-version is 1.11.0. (This is a new laptop that came with Windows installed; the one thing I did before obliterating Windows is a bios update from Dell's web site).
Update 2: Output of sudo blkid:
/dev/nvme0n1p2: LABEL="SDD 128Gb System" UUID="eecfa2fb-0733-46f5-96a7-e050724ae2a3" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="d6f0f6e9-3d9f-48c3-bc1b-709549a864bc"
/dev/nvme0n1p1: UUID="3795-6278" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI System Partition" PARTUUID="292dce4c-e774-4a68-974e-9460f49c3409"
/dev/sda1: LABEL="HDD 1Tb Data" UUID="8dddb3ce-30e8-4356-8b34-62c340b74807" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="445e5b9a-cb9f-a04c-b062-67b2b75c4a71"
Output of grep -i swap /etc/fstab:
/swapfile none swap sw 0 0
(I don't know why it says that, the GUI Info Centre tool says I have a 2Gb swapfile. But it is not in /etc/fstab - is there another way of configuring a swapfile?)
Output of cat /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume:
cat: /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/resume: No such file or directory
A new 5.4.0.54 kernel came through sudo apt upgrade today, but no change. Nvidia MX230 - I have tried all available drivers presented to me - there were several - and a new one that came through sudo apt upgrade yesterday - but no difference (I have also tried Nuveau with and without nomodeset.) In a previous install on the same laptop while investigating this problem I configured a 20Gb swapfile and I could hibernate and resume ok. It is just resume from suspend that does not work with newer kernels.
I have a very light/occasional use computer which recently had boot problems following a power cut, resulting in a day's work fiddling around trying to fix it and eventually needing a re-install.
Are there any settings I can adjust to make (k)ubuntu more tolerant of power cuts? I am thinking of less disk write buffering at the expense of performance, no background cleanup tasks, things like that. My aim would be to be able to cut the power harmlessly if the computer has been sitting showing the desktop but doing "nothing" for 10 mins. (I realise it is not really nothing!)
I can't justify the expense of a UPS in this situation, it is just an old computer displaying the output of a USB microscope.
kubuntu 18.04.
I have seen screenshots of Gnome-based desktops with rounded window corners, which I quite like the look of, so I am wondering if it is possible in Kubuntu 18.04, preferably only using the standard themes/repositories?
I am running Kubuntu 18.04 on a Dell XPS 9370 laptop with no hard disk - just an SSD.
Should I turn off kernel logging to reduce the amount of writes to the FLASH memory on the SSD to prolong its life? And if so, how do I do that?
This question is prompted by press reports that early Tesla cars are now failing due to their SSDs because the imbedded Linux has logging enabled, and is continuously writing to SSD-based log files. I've often read that the number of writes to FLASH is limited, but this is the first concrete example of failure that I have heard about.
Or maybe it is possible to just log to RAM?
I know of System Settings/Startup and Shutdown, and I've found ~/.config/autostart and ~/.config/autostart-scripts. But what other methods can an application employ to auto-start on boot/login?
This question is prompted by accidentally running KOrganizer which then auto-started every time I logged in. I solved this somewhat brutally by removing KOrganizer but it has left me wondering what might be auto-starting in the background without my knowledge, so I would like to be able to check.
I am using sshfs mounted at boot time to sync my laptop with a ssh server. That works great but the server is not always on the LAN the laptop is connected to, so I would like a desktop icon or kubuntu plasma widget that changes colour depending on whether the server is visible. Is that possible?
I need to split a binary file into two. I was wondering if head and/or tail could be used but then I wondered...is it safe to use redirection, piping etc with binary data? Do new lines get messed about with, or nulls ignored, or backspace or delete do something special? (bash, kubuntu 18.04 LTS)
I'm in love with kate but we have a problem - it drives me mad when I have more than a few files open and only some are displayed on the tab bar. Too see the complete list you have to click on + and open a window, which for me defeats the whole point of the tabs. I can use the Documents plugin which shows a list of open files on the left, but I use a portable monitor in portrait orientation and screen width is at a premium.
At https://kate-editor.org/2011/04/25/kates-tab-bar-plugins/ from 2011 there is a discussion of a multi-line tab bar, but it doesn't seem to be listed in the plugins in kubuntu 18.04 kate.
Is the multi-line plugin still available, and if so how do I install it in 18.04?
Kubuntu 18.04: I love KJots and have built up a very useful (to me) little database of notes, instructions, reminders, todo lists etc. that I would have previously kept on bits of paper, postit notes and odd pages in an excerside book.
But I am unhappy that my valuable data is kept in some rather obscure hidden directory, I would much rather it was in ~/jots or something similarly obvious. At the moment I don't fancy my chances of recovering my notes from a backup if something were to go wrong.
Is it possible to change the note datafile location? It seems tied up in some overly-complicated way that I do not understand with akonadi and sql.
I need to work with some text files (source code) that have comments in a language that is foreign to me, and I am wondering if there is a text editor available that has some built-in support to make translation easier.
I can copy and paste to google translate running in a browser in another window and then copy and paste back again, but it would be much easier if I could highlight, right click and choose "translate...", or something like that!
I'm not looking for automatic translation of the whole file, just the bits I highlight.
Kubuntu 18.01, and Kate is my usual editor of choice but I'd be happy to use another editor for this job if it had some helpful features.
Something I feel I ought to know for sure: if I ls <something>, will rm <something> remove exactly the same files that ls displayed? Are there any circumstances where rm could remove files that ls did not show? (This is in the 18.04 bash)
Edit: thank you to everyone who answered. I think the full answer is a combination of all the answers, so I have accepted the most up-voted answer as "the answer".
Unexpected things I have learned along the way:
ls is not as straightforward as you might think in its handling of its argumentsls
Is Dell pre-installed Ubuntu the same as the general release? Or does the Dell pre-installed version have special Dell drivers etc?
I bought a Dell XPS 9730 with 16.04 which I replaced with 18.04. It is working fine (except suspend-on-close doesn't really suspend but that seems to be a known problem). I am just wondering if I need to look out for a Dell-special 18.04 when Dell finally start shipping it, or do they just ship the standard version of Ubuntu? (The XPS 13 is one of Dell's "Canonical approved" machines.)
Output of fdisk -l (all the 'loop's are snap apps but each app appears twice in lsblk, but that is the subject of another Question!):
Disk /dev/loop0: 3.7 MiB, 3813376 bytes, 7448 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop1: 86.6 MiB, 90812416 bytes, 177368 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop2: 21 MiB, 22003712 bytes, 42976 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop3: 12.2 MiB, 12804096 bytes, 25008 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop4: 140 MiB, 146841600 bytes, 286800 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop5: 2.3 MiB, 2428928 bytes, 4744 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop6: 140 MiB, 146841600 bytes, 286800 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop7: 86.6 MiB, 90759168 bytes, 177264 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/nvme0n1: 953.9 GiB, 1024209543168 bytes, 2000409264 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 81530E63-3D66-4216-8090-8DA401ADA1B5
Device Start End Sectors Size Type /dev/nvme0n1p1 2048 1050623 1048576 512M EFI System /dev/nvme0n1p2 1050624 2000408575 1999357952 953.4G Linux filesystem
Disk /dev/loop8: 1.6 MiB, 1691648 bytes, 3304 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop9: 13 MiB, 13594624 bytes, 26552 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop10: 86.6 MiB, 90828800 bytes, 177400 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop11: 3.3 MiB, 3411968 bytes, 6664 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop12: 139.5 MiB, 146276352 bytes, 285696 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk /dev/loop13: 21.6 MiB, 22609920 bytes, 44160 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Writing my first script so I'm sure this is a basic question, but can someone please explain to me why I can:
cd ~
cd bin
cd ~/bin
cd 'bin'
But not
cd '~'
cd '~/bin'
I need to cd to a directory path with a space in one of the directory names, so I need the quotes (it's Windows Program Files under wine). I can get around it with two cd commands, but why can't I put ~ in quotes?
If I type cd '~' (or cd "~") I get:
bash: cd: ~: No such file or directory