Richard Quint's questions

I am testing running Ubuntu 22.04. I don't understand why when opening a gnome-terminal using a .desktop file $HOME/.bashrc is not read although when running the same command in an open terminal it is. To be more specific I have a file /home/rquint/.local/share/applications/Sage.desktop which contains the line

EXEC=gnome-terminal --class=SageTerminal -- /home/rquint/Sage/sage-9.6/sage

and I have the line

export DOT_SAGE=/home/rquint/dotsage

in /home/rquint/.bashrc

If I use the desktop file to start sage, it runs correctly but the value of DOT_SAGE is the sage default /home/rquint/.sage

If I open a terminal (where I can check DOT_SAGE and it is the value as exported in my .bashrc) and execute

gnome-terminal --class=SageTerminal -- /home/rquint/Sage/sage-9.6/sage

sage is started in the terminal and the value of DOT_SAGE is correct.

I had assumed that the terminal started by the Sage.desktop file was a non-login shell, but if it isn't, what is it? Is there a way to pass it the value of the environment variable I want?

(In the past this was unimportant, but with the change of Firefox to a snap, sage's method of displaying plot3d output as an html file in a path that contains a hidden folder doesn't work.)

Thank you @egmont (answer here...) It's a sort of "Yes and No". Your suggestion about using env was very helpful. While searching AskUbuntu I have found an old question and answer desktop file with bashrc environment that also gave me some insight. When I start sage using the desktop file I do get an noninteractive shell, which means I can set my DOT_SAGE variable in $HOME/.profile. sage provides a command line like environment in which you can run shell commands. I can do things like echo $SHELL (mine is bash) and test what sort of shell sage is running in with [ -z "$PS1" ] && echo "Noninteractive" || echo "Interactive" (mine is noninteractive). You can run pwd but you can't use cd.

SageMath uses a folder of the form $HOME/.sage/temp/$HOSTNAME/<random four digit name> to hold html files generated by a plotting routine and calls the default browser to display them. I want to keep Firefox as my default browser, but there is a problem that it now is a snap, which can not access anything in a path that includes a hidden folder. Is there a way to allow Firefox to access hidden folders or at least a path containing a specific hidden folder?

John Palmieri at AskSage explained how to change the .sage folder to one that isn't hidden, but that leads to another problem with .desktop files that involves invoking gnome-terminal in a .desktop file and the inheritance of environment variables I'll ask about in another question.

Today gedit just stopped automatically creating a backup when I save a modified file. I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 fully updated,and I verified that "Preferences|Editor|Create a backup copy of files before saving" was checked. I then tried turning backups off and on again to no avail. I've done a reinstall using Synaptic of all the gedit sources. The only change I had made recently was to create a new Snippet; it's working as are older Snippets.

Anything else I can try?

In the latest versions of gnome-shell the power-off/restart dialog has been split into separate dialogs (compare Ubuntu 20.04 with 21.10). Along with the log-out dialog they are all themed by the entries for end-session-dialog in gnome-shell.css. Do the individual dialogs have names so that they can be themed independently, e.g. the last-child could have a different background color in each?

To make my intentions clear, here are images of what I would like to have. In each case it's the background color of the last child that is different. With just the end-session-dialog modified all three dialogs will have the same background color for each component.

Trying to see if I could speed up my system boot I ran systemd-analyze plot > bootplot.svg . Everything seems normal except for dev-fuse.device that starts at 7.7 sec and then shows as activating until the entire boot process completes at 24.1 sec. Everything else is shown as active after 10.3 sec (when the various network related services are activated) until the last services related to the graphical desktop start. I've tried googling `dev-fuse.device``` but have come up with nothing.

What is dev-fuse.device? Why does it take so long to activate?

The output from the following commands that may provide necessary info is at https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/53pBp43jMH/

cat /proc/version
cat /etc/*-release
cat /proc/cpuinfo
cat /etc/fstab
free -m
sudo blkid
sudo lsblk -f
sudo lshw -C memory 
sysctl vm.swappiness
sudo smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sda
sudo smartctl -a -d ata /dev/sdb
systemd-analyze blame
df

Swap appears to be configured correctly and all the disk UUIDs in /etc/fstab match up with the info from sudo blkid and sudo lsblk -f. The machine dates from 2012 so I'm running in Legacy mode rather than EFI. Running systemd-analyze blame | grep "dev" doesn't find an entry for dev-fuse.device.

After a relativity smooth upgrade from 18.04 to 20.04.1 I have problems with some desktop entry files in ~/.local/applications.

Most of the desktop entry files are working as expected (e.g., their launchers show when Show Applications is clicked or their name is entered in the dialog that comes up when Activities in the upper left corner of the screen is clicked). But there are a few that don't show. Some, if I copy them to the Desktop and then click on Allow Launching in the right context menu work while they are on the Desktop, but still don't show in Show Applications or the Activities dialog. Others don't even get an Allow Launching entry in the context menu.

I have done what I think are all the obvious things---restarting the Gnome Shell, logging out and back in, rebooting both hot and cold. Other strange behaviour includes losing the ability to allow launching from the desktop entry on the Desktop that works after I copy one of the non working desktop entry files from ~/.local/applications that doesn't allow launching onto the Desktop.

Here is one that does get the Allow Launching context menu entry.

[Desktop Entry]
Encoding=UTF-8
Version=1.6.5
Type=Application
Terminal=false
Name=Math Programs
Name[en_US]=Math Programs
Exec=/home/rquint/.local/bin/MathPrograms
Comment[en_US]=Select a Math Program to run
Comment=Select a Math Program to run
Icon[en_US]=Conic
Icon=Conic
StartupWMClass=QMP
OnlyShowIn=Gnome;
Actions=MaximaDocumentation;SageDocumentation;

[Desktop Action MaximaDocumentation]
Name=Maxima Documentation
Exec=nautilus --no-desktop "/home/rquint/Hardware and Software/Software/Maxima"

[Desktop Action SageDocumentation]
Name=Sage Documentation
Exec=firefox /home/rquint/Sage/SageMath/local/share/doc/sage/html/en/index.html

I am also facing another desktop entry files-related problem Using StartupWMClass for applications running in a terminal

Up to 18.04 it was possible to install nautilus-compare to get a context menu that provide a compare later and compare to option. Now that I'm trying an upgrade to 20.04 I'm wondering how to do this in Focal. I assume it can be done using the fma-config-tool, but if someone has done it already, I'd like to avoid trying to invent an inferior wheel myself.

After upgrading non-essential PCs to 18.04, while keeping my primary PC on 17.10, I'm running into a minor problem with networking and Nautilus in 18.04.

When I select Other Locations in the Nautilus sidebar, I expect to see the other machines on my network plus my Windows network. They are all there on machines running 17.10, but don't appear in 18.04. Also in 18.04 although there is an icon for the Windows network, clicking on it doesn't bring up the existing Workgroups as it does in 17.10.

My /etc/samba/smb.conf files are identical on all machines. I can access the shares from the 18.04 machines by running:

nautilus smb://<ip address>

in a terminal, which is why I suspect it has something to do with Nautilus rather than Samba. The Nautilus version on the 17.10 machines is 3.26.0, on the 18.04 machines is 3.26.3.

I have a problem with a Tcl/Tk application, redet, and Ubuntu 18.04. I installed it in 17.04, using synaptic so that all its dependencies were pulled in. It continued to work in 17.10. After upgrading to 18.04 it failed to start with the following error messages.

Error in startup script: can't find package Itcl 3.4
    while executing
"package require Itcl 3.4"
    (file "/usr/share/tcltk/iwidgets4.1.0/iwidgets.tcl" line 18)
    invoked from within
"source /usr/share/tcltk/iwidgets4.1.0/iwidgets.tcl"
    ("package ifneeded Iwidgets 4.1.0" script)
    invoked from within
"package require Iwidgets"
    (file "/usr/bin/redet" line 27)

Although everything was unchanged, so I believe all dependencies were satisfied, I tried installing redet on a different machine with 18.04 installed using synaptic. All the same dependencies were pulled in, but when I tried to run redet I got the same error message. Googling, this problem appeared in the past on several message boards related to Tcl/Tk, but there is no obvious soution that I could understand. The only question I could find on AskUbuntu (Q: Problem to install fv tool) didn't have any responses.

Starting today, on top of a fully up-to-date version of 17.10 and Grub Customizer, when booting, first the background image and colored menu as set in Grub Customizer appears and then immediately, the grub menu appears as it would without Grub Customizer, but only occupying the upper left eighth of the screen. The menu still works correctly, so it's only a cosmetic issue. I could just delete Grub Customizer but I have grown accustomed to my splash screen at bootup and would like to retain it.

I am running Ubuntu 17.10 and I am trying to personalize the Gnome Shell theme by modifying /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css but have been finding it very slow going. There does not appear to be any documentation so I have had to resort to trial and error (lots of trial, lots of errors) and to studying other themes---e.g., Arc, Axiom, Human-NEXT and Maxim---to get the effects I want.

However, I still can't figure out many things. What is a .candidate-popup-boxpointer as opposed to a .popup-menu-boxpointer? Where is it used? Is it possible to have different values for .popup-menu-boxpointer for different uses--e.g., the notifications area as opposed to the dash's context menus? What other parts of CSS do not work in addition to not being able to define named colors using

@define-color <name> <value>;

and not being able to use nth-child in addition to first-child and last-child?

Has any one found any documentation or at least commented examples? www.gnome.org has lots of general info, but no specifics for theming the shell as opposed to gtk+ applications that I could find.

After a fresh install of Budgie 17.10 on an ASUS Eee PC 900HA netbook, when the PC boots up the left 3/4 of the display is garbled while the right 1/4 is fine. Since I can see the right side of the top bar I can select Suspend and after suspending and a resume the display is fine. This is consistent behaviour. Is there some sort of timing issue on bootup?

Preparing for the change from Unity to Gnome Shell in Ubuntu 17.10 I have installed Ubuntu Gnome on a spare PC. Most differences in default behaviour are either acceptable or can be modified to suit my personal taste, but I can't figure out how get the Files launcher in the Activities Dash to behave as it did under Unity in 17.04 (and before).to org.gnome.Nautilus.

Specifically, In Unity the context menu after a right click includes shortcuts to the folders listed in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/bookmarks. In Ubuntu Gnome these shortcuts don't show in the context menu. I tried adding Actions of the form

[Desktop Action Documents]
Name=Documents 
Exec=nautilus --new-window  ~/Documents

to org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop, but although they showed in the context menu, Nautilus never opened the folder.

Also I had to do this to the system file /usr/share/applications/org.gnome.Nautilus.desktop since when I put a copy in ~/.local/share/applications and modified it (so it also used a different icon) the system version was used in the Dash. (This technique worked with Unity.)

What have I missed?

After an upgrade to 16.10 on one machine and a clean install of 16.10 on another I have an intermittent problem with nautilus when I try to open other locations. Under the Networks part of the window I get the message "Searching for network locations" and the spinner spinning, but nothing happens. The other locations are on line, checked by pinging them, and everything is on the same wired network (tho' the same behaviour occurs when I take the laptop and use a wireless connection). Sometimes logging out and back in solves the problem, sometimes a reboot, and sometimes nothing works until a few hours later when I can connect with no problem. I'm using the same smb.conf file that worked under several previous versions of Ubuntu.

Is it nautilus or some other subtle interaction introduced with 16.10?

After an upgrade from 16.04 to 16.10 I have found that changing the size of the icons in a folder window changes the size of the icons on the desktop. This is a new behaviour AFAIK. Is there a setting to decouple the two size settings?

I use a Wacom Intuos 2 tablet. After upgrading from Vivid to Wily it won't work unless I also have a regular USB mouse plugged in. I've tried completely removing and reinstalling xserver-xorg-wacom, but unlike for previous upgrades, this doesn't fix things. I checked that the wacom module is loaded.

rquint@Maria-Agnesi:~$ lsmod | grep "wacom"

wacom 81920 0

hid 118784 3 wacom,hid_generic,usbhid

I'm using a second hard drive to hold most of my data files. Links to files and folders on the second drive from all locations on my first drive, where Ubuntu 14.04 is installed, work, except that after a reboot links on the desktop are broken. Links in my Home folder remain valid, which is strange since the Desktop is a sub-folder of my Home folder. I mount the second drive in the Startup Applications app.

This is different behaviour from 13.10 (and older releases) where the Desktop links persisted after reboots.

A little change in the Radiance theme from 13.04 to 13.10 is bugging me. If you have an icon on the Desktop and do right click -> Rename and then click on the text, the text changed to black and the background changed to white in 13.04, but now in 13.10 the background changes to transparent. Unfortunately, that is not good if the desktop is a dark colour. I've been playing with modifying Radiance to be a bit more boring (more blue-gray rather than orange) but I can't find the setting that controls this behaviour in the css files under gtk-3.0. Anyone know what it is?

I've looked at the GTK+ 3 Reference Manual but I can't find it since I don't know enough about the names of the individual widgets, et al, to work through it to my specific item.

I've done an upgrade from 12.04 to 12.10 on a PC with an i7 processor, an nvidia GT630 card video card and an Intuos 2 tablet. Everything went smoothly until I tried to also upgrade the nvidia drivers using the additional drivers tab in the Software Sources application.

Now the tablet is recognized (it shows up in the output from lsusb and xsetwacom --list devices) but neither the Wacom mouse or pen controls the cursor. By plugging in a USB mouse I do get a working mouse. The strangest part is that occasionally the tablet works but I can't find any pattern to when this happens. I've tried all the different nvidia drivers, but the problem is the same.

Possibly coincidently or they may have been there before and I didn't notice them, I now get some messages on shutdown that I don't know the meaning of:

Rather than invoking init scripts through /etc/init.d use the service(8) utility, e.g. service S35 networking stop initctl : unknown job S35networking

Since the script you are attempting to invoke has been converted to an Upstart job, you may also use the stop(8) utility, e.g., stop S35networking

Is there a way to repair my installation or should I just do a fresh install of 12.10?

This is a question that involves multiple issues involved in creating a menu tied to a Launcher icon. I'm using a fresh install of 12.04 (AMD64 version).

I've written a small yad (Yet Another Dialog editor) script which displays a dialog containing several choices for launching a set of related programs.
Some are applications installed normally using the Ubuntu Software center and some are java programs called by commands of the form java -jar JARFILENAME.jar. If I launch an application by clicking on a desktop file in /usr/share/applications it launches and puts an icon in the Launcher until I close the application.
The same happens if I run them from the command line in a terminal. However if I call them using an exec command in the script they launch by there is no new icon in the launcher.

They run fine, but if I have more than one open on different desktops it would be nice to have the icons in the launcher to switch focus rather than having to use the Workplace Switcher.

Now about the java apps--I'd like them to also have icons on the Launcher when they're running. Running them by clicking on an APPNAME.desktop file with the icon specified works, but what is the correct syntax for running them with the bash script exec command?