Will Matheson's questions

I'm running a server that has been recently upgraded in place from 16.04 to 18.04. The upgrade has generally been successful, although I am now getting an error relating to the 'distro-info-data' and 'distro-info' packages. When I run sudo apt upgrade, I get the following error as part of the output:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help resolve the situation:
 
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 distro-info-data : Breaks: distro-info (< 0.18ubuntu0.18.04.1~) but 0.14ubuntu0.2 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

Full terminal output here: https://pastebin.com/eEA8N8HQ

Now I should say that during the upgrade, when it came time to ask me if I wanted to remove the obsolete packages, I didn't get a chance to state my intent either way, because when I went to look at the list - and I was keying directly into the server, not using SSH - the keyboard and my state in the upgrade process decided to have a divorce. I couldn't get back to any kind of menu and I just rebooted and hoped 18.04 would come up. It did, and as far as the things the server needs to do to earn its keep, it is still doing them, but I would like to find a way to get this little glitch resolved.

(Well, it might be a little glitch that belies a large underlying problem... Ulp!)

Update: Running sudo dist-upgrade says that 'ubuntu-advantage-tools' has been kept back / not upgraded. This pastebin includes that as well as a grep from /etc/apt/, which indicates a lot of 'xenial' where one ought to see 'bionic': https://pastebin.com/TmCsd7qY

Thanks very much!

Running Ubuntu 16.04. I got a compact keyboard without a Menu key. They included a bunch of fluff keys, so I want to make the "web" (XF86HomePage) key be my Menu key. (One can run xev | grep keycode to find key names and codes by pressing the keys.)

I can:

• Execute xmodmap -e "keycode 180 = Menu" in a terminal. This works fine for the rest of the session.
• Save a file ~/.Xmodmap with the content keycode 180 = Menu and execute xmodmap ~/.Xmodmap. This also works fine for the rest of the session.

But I have not been able to get this to happen without my intervention at startup, which is what I want. I've tried adding a script to "Startup Applications" but no joy and I've also gone so far as to edit my /usr/share/X11/xkb/symbols/pc file to include:

key <XF86HomePage> {[ Menu ]};

but all that did was make my keyboard not work at all after rebooting, and I had to come back and undo the change with a rescue disc.

Advice and insight, as always, much appreciated.

After updating my system (with whatever was in the 18.04 repositories in recent weeks), VMWare can't update it's kernel modules. I hit Install on the VMWare Kernel Module Updater and it says it's trying to do "vmmon" and "vmnet". But it fails, saying "Unable to install all modules. See log /tmp/vmware-myhostname/vmware-1711.log for details. (Exit code 1)"

Here are the contents of this file: https://pastebin.com/hN6F6895

I'm trying to get our incoming mail set up to do SPF checks in hopes of cutting down on spoofed addresses. We run Postfix from the good old mail-stack-delivery package on Ubuntu 18.04. I followed this tutorial, but couldn't get it to work in the end: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Postfix/SPF

What happens is that soon as I enable the policy in Postfix's main.cf and reload Postfix, messages start getting rejected. Looking at the logs, it's as if the policy file pointed to, unix:private/policy-spf, isn't even found. I've tried a couple of variations like adding a 'd' and using unix:/usr/bin/policyd-spf but nothing works.

Would anyone in a similar situation care to share a working config? Where did the tutorial go off the rails?

(FWIW, I went the Python route, not the Perl route.)

Long story short: We have one of those little $100 Chinese mini PCs running 18.04 LTS. ("Wintel Pro" / "Wintel Box") It thinks it has a battery, possibly because it thinks it is a laptop. The "battery" level notifications - that I have tried a million ways to kill - are driving me nuts because I'm trying to use this machine to run a looping slideshow while the workplace is open.

(Update: It wasn't just the battery notifications on the desktop, either. Sometimes it would just shut off randomly. I have a nearly identical model without a desktop and it exhibited random shut-offs until I applied the same fix detailed in my own answer below.)

Related question: Why does Ubuntu power management set a battery as the default power supply on a desktop machine?

This is where someone asked "What is the output of laptop-detect -v?"

It is: We're a laptop (non device ACPI batteries found)

But we are emphatically not a laptop, and we don't want to be a laptop. How can we not be a laptop?

CPU is Intel Atom x5-Z8350. Do let me know if additional information is required. The fault may have nothing to do with Ubuntu but I live in hope Ubuntu might have the tools to fix it.

(Aside: LibreOffice Impress slides run fine, but I would not recommend these machines for high-resolution video playback.)

LSHW output: https://pastebin.com/e5XXp8A0

Also, thank you to @Sri for reminding me that I'd already tried turning off "Notification Popups" and it did as much good as a piece of paper towel against a flood. The "battery" notifications seem to cheerfully disregard this setting - even with notification popups ostensibly OFF, the nonexistent battery still breaks through.

Update: Apparently there is an "axp288" device inside this miniPC, and apparently there is some discussion somewhere on the LKML about this: https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/[email protected]/

Is there a way to get this code into my instance of Ubuntu? Would it even do any good? (Maybe it's already there?)

This is more of a request for experienced eyeballs than a coherent question.

I work at a library and we use a little Intel Atom $100 computer from China to show a looping LibreOffice Impress slideshow on an HDMI-enabled TV.

I noticed tonight that the slide wasn't advancing no matter how long I looked at it. Tried to SSH in, no response. (We run the computer without mouse or keyboard attached and just use SSH and VNC.)

I'm running Ubuntu 18.04 but it might be with a newer kernel than standard. Some of the reasons for doing this: I was having issues getting sound to come out over HDMI, and I was also having issues with video playback (especially within LibreOffice Impress presentations). Right now we're down to a slient slideshow so if I have to roll back the kernel (if that's possible), it's probably not the end of the world.

I put the ~300KB of /var/log/syslog.1 logs in a Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/PiU8MnTX (Things go to pot at 16:38 Nov 18.)

But here are the last few entries:

Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051044] RIP: 0033:0x7f493aacf0b4 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051054] Code: c3 0f 1f 44 00 00 41 54 55 49 89 d4 53 48 89 f5 89 fb 48 83 ec 10 e8 3b 06 02 00 4c 89 e2 41 89 c0 48 89 ee 89 df 31 c0 0f 05 <48> 3d 00 f0 ff ff 77 38 44 89 c7 48 89 44 24 08 e8 77 06 02 00 48 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051060] RSP: 002b:00007fff197ac7a0 EFLAGS: 00000246 ORIG_RAX: 0000000000000000 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051070] RAX: ffffffffffffffda RBX: 0000000000000021 RCX: 00007f493aacf0b4 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051076] RDX: 0000000000001000 RSI: 0000560b853093b0 RDI: 0000000000000021 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051081] RBP: 0000560b853093b0 R08: 0000000000000000 R09: 0000000000000000 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051087] R10: 0000560b8529d010 R11: 0000000000000246 R12: 0000000000001000 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051093] R13: 0000000000001001 R14: 0000000000000d68 R15: 0000000000001001 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051105] ---[ end trace 3051b4539069419d ]--- Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051117] i2c_designware 808622C1:06: couldn't acquire bus ownership Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051136] axp288_fuel_gauge axp288_fuel_gauge: axp288 reg read err:-110 Nov 18 16:13:53 circtv kernel: [24890.051167] power_supply axp288_fuel_gauge: driver failed to report 'present' property: -110

Then there's a whole bunch of funny \00\00s, maybe from where it crashed or I held down the power button so it would shut off.

\00\00\00\00\00\00Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd-modules-load[339]: Inserted module 'lp' Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv ureadahead[337]: ureadahead: Error while tracing: No such file or directory Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd-modules-load[339]: Inserted module 'ppdev' Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd-modules-load[339]: Inserted module 'parport_pc' Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Starting Flush Journal to Persistent Storage... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Activated swap /swapfile. Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Reached target Swap. Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Started Set the console keyboard layout. Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Reached target Local File Systems (Pre). Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for gnome-3-28-1804, revision 91... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for gnome-system-monitor, revision 107... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for core18, revision 1265... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for gtk-common-themes, revision 1353... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for gnome-characters, revision 367... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for core, revision 8039... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for gnome-3-28-1804, revision 110... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for core18, revision 1223... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv systemd[1]: Mounting Mount unit for gtk-common-themes, revision 1313... Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] microcode: microcode updated early to revision 0x411, date = 2019-04-23 Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] Linux version 5.2.0+ (root@caaf6e0195cc) (gcc version 7.4.0 (Ubuntu 7.4.0-1ubuntu1~18.04)) #1 SMP Sat Jul 13 13:16:00 UTC 2019 Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.2.0+ root=UUID=0601cece-43b2-465d-8d21-f8f57b540383 ro quiet splash vt.handoff=1 Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] KERNEL supported cpus: Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] Intel GenuineIntel Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] AMD AuthenticAMD Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] Hygon HygonGenuine Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] Centaur CentaurHauls Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] x86/fpu: x87 FPU will use FXSAVE Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-provided physical RAM map: Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x0000000000000000-0x000000000008efff] usable Nov 19 18:27:31 circtv kernel: [ 0.000000] BIOS-e820: [mem 0x000000000008f000-0x000000000008ffff] ACPI NVS

I just finished building my own PC and I would like to install Ubuntu 18.04 LTS in a dual-boot with my already-installed Windows 10.

Here's an example of a split-screen in BIOS mode. In UEFI mode, you can't see anything at all!

Needless to say, I'm glad I picked "Try Ubuntu". Apparently there are some issues with AMD APUs / recent kernels? I'm running a Ryzen 5 2400G and HDMI out through the motherboard.

https://community.amd.com/thread/228018

Any advice appreciated!