How to set up two screens in one vertical-one horizontal formation?

I've tried to set up that configuration a lot of times, but I'm not able to make it work properly. I want to set up one of the screens as vertical and the other one as horizontal...

I'm able to use then both as vertical or both as horizontal...

PD: I have an NVidia card, I've talk with people that have ATI cards and appears to be easier...

PD2: I'm using Ubuntu 10.04

From ubuntu Khelben

• I believe the this blog post discusses the affect your trying to achieve. :)

  You also might want to check out Xinerama

  Khelben : It's not working, it rotates BOTH screens, instead of just one :-(
  From garbagecollector

• I don't have enough rep to comment yet but I'd like to mention that although @garbagecollector's link is relevant, I believe that Ubuntu stopped using a default xorg.conf in 9.10. However I'm lead to believe it will respect an xorg.conf file if it exists.

  Here's a link I stumbled upon to use an xorg.conf file again:

  http://www.osguides.net/operation-systems/217-how-to-create-xorgconf-in-ubuntu-910.html

  moberley : On my system using the Nvidia proprietary driver the vendor settings program created an xorg.conf file for me when I used it to configure a dual monitor setup.
  From Derek B.

• You can probably use the xrandr tool for this (assuming that your driver supports the xrandr extension - I guess most do).

  To check what monitors are connected and if xrandr works just type in a terminal

  xrandr
  

  On my system I get for example:

  LVDS1 connected [..] DP2 connected 1920x1200 [..]

  Now you can configure the placement etc. of the different outputs.

  For example:

  xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1280x800 --output HDMI2 --mode 1600x1200 --left-of LVDS1 --rotate left
  

  This configures two screen side by side, the laptop-sceen is placed on the right of the external TFT and the TFT screen is rotated by 90 degrees (portrait mode).

  To switch between different external monitors, often you need to switch one off, e.g. with

  xrandr --output HDMI2 --off
  

  because a lot of graphic cards just support 2 outputs enabled at the same time.

  From maxschlepzig

What packages do I need to install to compile Kubuntu themes??

What -dev packages do I need to compile Kubuntu themes like the default Oxygen? Dont want to compile Oxygen obivously but I might want to compile others from kde-look.org down the road...

Thanks in advance!

From ubuntu Martin J Hooper

• Not sure what you mean by this.

  I don't think you need to necessarily compile anything. I have found some resources which may give you an understanding:

  KDE Plasma Theme Tutorial

  Some tools:

  Quantumstyle

  deKorator

  Martin J Hooper : When I was running KDE3 I had a list of packages I installed to compile non packaged kwin themes. I am asking for the same thing so I can compile KDE4 Kwin themes - I think its Kwin I'm looking for...

  ImaginaryRobots : KDE4 works very differently under the hood than KDE3 - it sounds like you don't need to compile themes anymore, just edit SVGs (though I personally haven't tried it)

  Martin J Hooper : I used to use aptitude rather than apt-get and forgot that there was an apt-get build-dep command!
  From txwikinger

How do I output my audio input?

A few iterations ago, I think this was Jaunty but could've been before, I would plug a 1/8" audio cable from the line-out of a Windows netbook to the line-in of my Ubuntu machine, so I would have all the sound from both machines without having to plug both into a mixer which I don't have. I didn't do this much, as I was pretty-much happy with Banshee at the time. But with Karmic, and still with Lucid, I can only get the output if I'm recording with Audacity. Which I'm not going to do from my web-development and systems programming workstation.

I can tell by plugging in headphones that my netbook has audio out working. I can see Sound Preferences that the Ubuntu machine is receiving them. I just want the old behavior back. Help?

From ubuntu VarLogRant

• If I understand correctly, you're trying to stream the microphone input to the audio output? The simplest I can think of is to use gst-launch for that. Open a terminal and type:

  gst-launch pulsesrc ! pulsesink
  

  The press CTRL+C to stop streaming. You may have to install the gstreamer tools to have this available:

  sudo apt-get install gstreamer-tools
  

  Note that as I don't have any suitable audio source, I didn't actually try that so it may not work. Any feedback on whether it does would be appreciated.

  Source Lab : It works quite alright..

  VarLogRant : That it does. I got the answer on the weekend and have the problem on my work machine, so I didn't want to say OK until I tested it. And I'm testinb it right now. It does work.
  From Bruno Girin

Is there a terminal/command-line interface to the 'Appearance Preferences' dialog?

Hopefully the title sums it up, but I'm looking for a way of being able to switch the Appearance Preferences' Visual Effects option to 'None', from a terminal/script (and optionally later to be able to switch back to 'Normal', though that's not such a big deal).

I'm a total Ubuntu-noob, so I can't tell you which window manager/widget-set/whatever I am using (Gnome 2.30.0?). It's on Ubuntu 10.4 patched up to date as of late July 2010.

From ubuntu robsoft

• This might help you on your journey, best I can understand your question

  robsoft : Thanks, I'll have a look at that - but really I wanted something I could potentially script, rather than a desktop icon.
  From garbagecollector

• If all you need to do is to disable and enable effects this is fairly easy done with metacity --replace to disable effects and compiz --replace to enable effects. This is scriptable too.

  robsoft : Thanks - I haven't tried scripting this yet but the metacity --replace command certainly seemed to kill the desktop effects (and thus allow me to use VNC properly). Cheers!

  Li Lo : FWIW, if what you're trying to solve is VNC not working properly with desktop effects enabled you can set /desktop/gnome/remote_access/disable_xdamage to true in gconf-editor. The side effect will be that it will update more than just the changed regions so it will be slower and consume more badnwidth.

  robsoft : +1 @Li Lo - thanks for that. That would certainly be useful when I'm using VNC on the same local network. In this particular instance I'll be remoting into a machine across the internet, behind a slow broadband connection, so I'll stick with the 'faster' side effect.

  Li Lo : In that case I suggest you try ouy Nomachine NX, FreeNX or neatx. It's much faster than VNC.

  robsoft : Thanks, I will do.
  From Li Lo

Blank screen on boot after upgrade from 9.04 to 10.04 with a toshiba tecra a2. Fix?

I can boot into recovery via grub and the low graphics mode option works but I don't really know what to do from there to fix it so I can use a proper graphics mode. It is usuable now though some colours are missing.

According to wikipedia the Tecra A2 has 16-64 MB DDR RAM Intel graphic adapter. If that is worth anything. In Windows these are driver details listed in the video properties: Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller.

From ubuntu srboisvert

• These problem are usually seen in i8xx chips. Sadly ubuntu has not any proper solution for this. But they have published potential fixes. Just hope one of them work for you.

  Also check out this post on ubuntugeek.

  Bryce : Those are both good links.

  srboisvert : The GTT Incoherency Patch worked but for those who come later it took two reboots to get it to work normally for some reason.

  srboisvert : Actually, it is still pretty disappointing. Every second boot there is no border or title bar for the windows and I am not getting full colour. I'll probably just roll back to karmic because I only upgraded in hopes that they would have fixed the handling of projectors but failing to properly support my video chip makes that rather a moot point.
  From Rojan

• I had the same problem, I tried everything I read on the web and nothing worked. Here is how I got my laptop working (New Dell E5510 with i5 Intel GMA HD Graphics).

  • I had to (and it sounds like you already did) edit grub from a recovery console. This allowed me to actually boot up into a UI.

  • Add the xorg-edgers PPA to your apt-sources: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates

  • Update your kernel to 2.6.35-14 (kernel image is available in apt-get)

  • Change your video driver to "intel" in your xorg.conf

  Let me know if you need exact details on any of the steps. This took me about 3 days to figure out (I did multiple installs, tried multiple kernels, and used tonsof xorg configurations). The above is the only thing that worked for me.

  From mmattax

Locking updates to a specific mirror

My ISP offers a freezone Ubuntu mirror (http://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/ubuntu/) however Ubuntu is constantly pulling updates from a US server that is

• slower
• not inside my freezone

How can I force Ubuntu to use my local, freezone mirror before using others?

From ubuntu Farseeker

• Go to the menu System > Administration > Software Sources. There is a drop-down box labled "Download from:" where you can choose a mirror near you.

  If this doesn't work as planned (might not since you have a "custom mirror") then you can edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list by typing sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list in a terminal and pressing enter, if you need help you can type man sources.list in the terminal.

  A source of the unwanted traffic might be from security.ubuntu.com this is where the security updates comes from, they can be turned off, but it's not recommended!

  Farseeker : Thanks. My local freezone mirror is actually officially listed by Ubuntu as an official mirror. Bonus!
  From Source Lab

Persistent Installation to USB Stick

I want to carry around a persistent installation of Ubuntu on a USB stick with all my favourite bits of software. What's the simplest way to do this?

From ubuntu Max Power

• Use the USB Startup Disk Creator. It's sitting in System > Administration.

  There are options for persistence at the bottom.

  jfmessier : Keep in mind that this will create a startup disk, along with persistent space, but the core package resides in a compressed file system. This means that any update is downloaded separately, and the original package, which remains in a read-only file system, is never deleted.

  Max Power : I'm not sure I understand. Does this mean I can't remove packages, or just that removing a package will not free up space?

  jfmessier : It means that the original package remains in the compressed file, while the updated one is the one now pointed to once it is installed. After this, all further updates would overwrite this update, but the original package fro the squasfs file will keep consuming storage space.
  From Oli

• The Ubuntu distro (and derivatives, such as JoliCloud) can fully install on a removable media. The thigs to remember are :

  • BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP Did I say BACKUP ?
  • Start the installation from a live-booted CDROM, or start-up USB disk
  • Upon selection of the hard dis, select ENtire disk, and select the appropriate device for your to-be-used USB disk. If you only have one hard disk, your selection would be /dev/sdb or /dev/sdc. Make sure you select the right one. Check this by the brand name and size shown.
  • Go ahead with the default other options or whatever you may wish
  • On the last screen, where you have the summary, click Advanced.
  • Select to install grub on this same /dev/sdb that you selected for the disk to ERASE.

  This last step is very important, as the installation of GRUB is always on /dev/sda by default, even if you install the actual OS on another device. I lost a couple of hard disk content with such mistake. Mo data lost, I had backup. Just lost time.

  But this solution will give you a fully installed Ubuntu, which will behave just like the one on your internal hard disk.

  A friend was telling me (and I verified) that using this will take few seconds more to bit than the startup disk. However, your file system is fully read/write, and there is no compressed file system that will become outdated.

  From jfmessier

+60 processes of console-kit-daemon, why?

I have over 60 processes of console-kit-daemon that just won't stop reappearing after I've used sudo killall console-kit-daemon and I have no idea what the daemon is for.

Some clearity, please? I'm running ubuntu 10.04

From ubuntu Zolomon

• They're not processes, they're threads under one process.

  By default htop shows threads and in this case, is very misleading. You can alter this by going into Setup (F2), Display options and checking Hide userland threads. Press F10 when you're done.

  Zolomon : Oh, thanks a whole bunch!

  Source Lab : Here is some more info on what ConsoleKit actually does: http://www.freedesktop.org/software/ConsoleKit/doc/ConsoleKit.html
  From Oli

Switching between graphics cards

I've just bough an Asus laptop which is equipped with two graphics cards; one integrated in the intel i3 CPU and a Radeon Mobility HD5145.

Will Ubuntu switch between the cards to balance power/performance? I.e. only use the Radeon when the demands placed on the integrated card are too great?

From ubuntu JC Denton

• That sounds like special software or configuration needed. I wonder if tools like http://www.grano.la take that into account.

  From Dmitriy Likhten

• No, Ubuntu will not switch between the cards. This is known as a hybrid graphics system.

  If you look in your /var/log/Xorg.0.log you can see which driver is loaded (page down a few screenfuls and look for RADEON(0) or intel(0).

  The only way I know of to force which card to use is to specify the PCI Bus ID of the graphics card. You get the Bus ID from lspci. It's also usually shown near the top of your /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Then, set up your xorg.conf with a device section and put

  BusID "PCI:0:0:1"
  

  or whatever bus id you want. You don't need to specify the video driver as well (but it can't hurt).

  David Airlie has worked on making hybrid graphics work better. His blog has some interesting info about it... http://airlied.livejournal.com/70348.html

  Googling for 'linux hybrid graphics' may turn up other useful examples and details about it.

  From Bryce

• Right now you can use the GUI provided by Ubuntu Control Center to switch between GPUs, but it only works with the opensource drivers.

  http://code.google.com/p/ucc/

  http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/08/ubuntu-control-centre-0-5-brings-gpu-switching-to-linux/

  From Benjamim Gois

Use Ubuntu for a public computer in a library

How would you set up Ubuntu on a computer that will be used as public computer in a library?

I need the following features:

• On boot, a guest user should automatically be logged in.
• Only Firefox, Chrome and OpenOffice should be available for the guest user.
• The guest user should be able to write files to his/her USB stick, but never to the computer's hard drive.

Any guidelines on how to set up something like this? Is there perhaps a remix of Ubuntu created for this exact purpose?

EDIT:

I visited my local library today. I was surprised when I noticed the public computer I tried was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS! (previously they had Windows PCs and a few old Macs) I asked a librarian and she said that the branch was the first one to test a new system for the public PCs. I will send an email to the IT people and inquire about the configuration. Will update if I get an answer. The library is the Oslo public library (Deichman), Holmlia branch, BTW.

From ubuntu codeape

• 1. Setting up the Guest account is pretty straight forward: System > Administration > Users and Groups Then follow this: Ubuntu StackExchange: How can user avoid entering password on bootup?
  2. After uninstalling all the software using Applications > Ubuntu Software Center get Google Chrome from here: Google Chrome for Linux and install it.
  3. This is really the tricky part. By default they're only allowed to download to the "Guest" home folder. You could change the home folders permissions or ownership to something else (baring in mind that the settings folder should remain owned by Guest. An alternative would be to have a script which re-created the Guest home folder on each login. For the USB drive reading that shouldn't be a problem as it's allowed by default.
  txwikinger : Or guest could be added to the appropriate group necessary to read/write usb sticks

  Broam : Chromium is also available if you don't want to install Chrome.
  From Marco Ceppi

• You might want to have a look at these two programs: pessulus and sabayon

  Especially sabayon is interesting, though it is a bit confusing! It can recreate a predefined session for a user at every startup, this session can then be totally restricted with pessulus. Then you just need to setup auto-login (Through the menu System>Administration>Login Screen) and you're ready to go.

  codeape : Looks very promising, thanks.

  Source Lab : While these two programs are still really much in development i now actually got a setup that works and can only use Firefox.
  From Source Lab

• This is pretty similar to what I did for some computers in our Student Center. They were WinXP machines with admin access. On a college campus. Shudder! I'm sure they had more virii than... well, you know.

  After spending about 15 minutes trying to clean up the horrible mess, I decided to switch the machines to Ubuntu. At first we just had a "student" user that was automagically logged on, but we had some high school kids come in who had no problems standing at the computers for 3+ hours a day. So I created an .xsession script that made absolutely nothing start up except for my custom pyGTK+ script that gave them... I think it was 15 minutes, and then automatically logged them out. They could launch firefox and browse the web, but that was it. Once they closed firefox, my program would pop back up and lock the screen for 5-10 seconds (it's been a while since I've looked at it). This effectively annoys anyone who wants to stand there and just log back in, but that's about the time it takes for one user to move all their stuff, leave, and the next guy/gal to take their place.

  Marco's idea is pretty solid, though.

  From Wayne Werner

• This is a summary of an email from Oslo public library, describing their setup:

  • The public PCs run lubuntu 10.04
  • They use LXLauncher
  • The public PCs boot off a server image (using PXE, I guess?)
  • They follow the Libki and koha projects closely (I do not know how/if they use them)

  The library IT people will create a detailed description of their setup. I will edit and add links when I know more.

  George Edison : Looking forward to that!
  From codeape

• gdm-guest-session-launcher

  From juancarlospaco

When an application crash without output an error, is there a log that i can check?

Sometimes happen that some application crash without give no output error (conky in my case, probaboly is one of my configuration that is incorrect).

Is there somewhere a error log that i can check to understand why it is crashed?

From ubuntu DaNieL

• Depends on the application. Different applications have different logging systems; there's no one central log that contains all the output from all the programs that run on your system.

  That being said, a lot of programs do put their log files in the directory /var/log. The file /var/log/messages, in particular, contains output from the "system logger", which is a service made available by the system that programs can use (if they choose to) for logging. But not all programs use it. Mostly, you'll find messages from low-level system services in that file, not the graphical applications you probably use normally.

  From David Zaslavsky

• crash files go into /var/log/crashes/ for use with apport to report bugs. You can extract a core dump with apport-unpack, put that core dump through gdb, and find out what's causing the program to crash.

  This is all assuming you're a programmer. If you're not...well, you can't fix the crash anyway!

  DaNieL : "This is all assuming you're a programmer. If you're not...well, you can't fix the crash anyway!" with open-source we all can try to solve our problems, at our own risk obviously ;)

  AntonioCS : @DaNiel: Not really! If you are not a programmer and you don't have a good understanding of the applications code, the more you mess with the code the buggier with will probably get :)

  : Even if you're not a programmer sometimes looking a core dump can give you idea about the problem. For example, it seems like it's crashing in some kind of graphics routine--maybe I should updated my display driver...

  DaNieL : ..and it helps describing the errors in bug reports/forums ;)

  maco : Do you know non-programmers who can use gdb? I'm a programmer and can get as far as `bt full` "oh look a backtrace...with missing symbols...guess I need to install debug symbols and try to reproduce the crash..." I once figured out how to set a breakpoint...that's the most advanced I've gotten with it though.
  From maco

• you can go to /var/log/messages or crashes then you can run the grep command on those and search for the application your looking for the files can get pretty big sometimes. It will return information relevant to your applicaton. :)

  From garbagecollector

• For conky it could also be that there are entries in $HOME/.xsession-errors.

  From qbi

• Some applications have flags that can be used to turn on debugging, such as -d, -D, --debug, etc. Check the application's man page (man [my-app]) or run the app with the -h flag to see if it has such an option.

  Many GUI apps write into $HOME/.xsession-errors so that's a good place to check for output.

  maco's right that apport is probably the most sure-fire way to get good debug info. Sometimes it doesn't capture the crash, though.

  If all else fails, you can also force the info out of it by running the app in gdb. It'd be something like:

  $ gdb my-app

  (gdb) run

  ... do whatever is needed to get it to crash ...

  (gdb) bt full

  and go from there.

  If you go the gdb route you'll also want to install symbols, as mentioned previously. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash for handholding advice.

  From Bryce

Hibernate on Dell Inspiron 1525

I'm ahving a Dell Inspiron 1525.

I installed there a stock Ubuntu 10. However I can see no "hibernate" item in the shutdown menu.

Is ACPI supported on 1525? If it is, how can I make hibernate work there?

Solved: my bad, swap wasn't on.

From ubuntu Elazar Leibovich

• Yes, ACPI should be supported on the Inspiron 1525 and hibernate should be available as an option on the shutdown menu. I don't own a 1525, but do own a variety of other similar Dells (1420, 1425, 1505) all of which have functioning (albeit sometimes buggy) hibernate.

  It is possible the hibernate feature was disabled for the particular model due to bugs. That's really the only reason I could imagine it to be missing. For instance, it might be you have a proprietary driver loaded that can't do it.

  If you're curious if ACPI is present at all, look in /proc/acpi.

  If you want to check if hibernate works manually, the kernel command to enable it is:

  echo -n 4 | sudo tee /proc/acpi/sleep

  If that doesn't work then it's likely hibernate is either disabled or not supported. Check the ubuntu kernel bug reports for your card.

  From Bryce

Can't launch Eclipse

I've been using Eclipse for quite a while. I just switched from OpenJDK to SunJDK. I went back to using Eclipse, it opened just fine. I added some libraries to my build path of a project, but the error checker was still saying I didn't have it. So I decided to restart Eclipse. After than I can't start eclipse. It doesn't give any errors or anything. If I launch it from the command line, it doesn't do anything:

joel@joel-laptop:~$ eclipse
joel@joel-laptop:~$ 

It never pops up the choose workbench dialog or anything. Has anyone heard of this? I'm using the latest version from the Ubuntu repos.

I've tried restarting my machine and reinstalling Eclipse. Nothing.

From ubuntu Joel

• there is a log in workspace/.metadata/.plugins/org.eclipse.ui.workbench/log that you can check although I don't think that's going to work in your case. Also what do you mean you reinstalled eclipse? are you using synaptic or just unzipping into a directory? try which eclipse in case you have many installed to see which is being executed.

  check if setting up the JRE manually using the -vm parameter in eclipse.ini changes thing.

  Joel : "I'm using the latest version from the Ubuntu repos." I used `apt-get purge eclipse` and then `apt-get install eclipse` and it still did the same thing. I ended up purging Sun JDK and reinstalling Eclipse and it installed OpenJDK. All works again.

  Bananeweizen : I have used Eclipse with both OpenJDK and the Sun VM. For me, the Sun VM always had the better performance (which could also be measured using profilers). Therefore you might want to give another try if you use large workspaces in Eclipse.
  From ilcavero

• UNless you have good reason to, I have found that the best way to run Eclipse is to download it from eclipse.org, and not install the one in the Ubuntu repositories. Uninstall the repository version, and download one manually and run it.

  From Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen

• I used apt-get purge eclipse and then apt-get install eclipse and it still did the same thing. I ended up purging Sun JDK and reinstalling Eclipse and it installed OpenJDK. All works again.

  However, I'm a little disappointed that it wasn't working with Sun JDK. Oh well. Whatever.

  From Joel

Window decoration of emacs23 window on fluxbox is outside screen

I am starting emacs remotely over an ssh connection.

But on the emacs window I cannot find a way to resize or move it. There is no fluxbox title bar visible, and I guess the title bar is above the visible viewport, because emacs starts vertically with more height than the screen has. The lower border of the emacs window is also below the viewport border, so I cannot resize the window.

I am starting emacs like this:

emacs23

This is the emacs version:

This is GNU Emacs 23.1.1 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.20.0)
of 2010-03-29 on yellow, modified by Debian

The remote system that runs emacs is 10.04 Lucid Lynx amd64. The local system is running 9.10 Karmic Koala 32 bit and Fluxbox 1.1.1-2

From ubuntu mit

• I found a workaround which I post as an answer, but I would prefer if someone comes up with a real solution:

  When I start emacs like this

  emacs23 -g 98x36
  

  I get a viewport that exactly fits my screen and all of the fluxbox window decoration is accessible.

  I found out the values 98 and 36 by trying different numbers.

  From mit

• One workaround I can imagine is to press Alt, left-click on the window and drag it so that you can see the upper/lower border.

  mit : I tried, but alt left-click is not recognized. The mouse ist still active inside the window.
  From qbi

XBMC - Install packages?

Where can I get XBMC for Ubuntu 10.04?

I have the team-xbmc ppa added however they have no packages, is there an older deb or is there somewhere where i can get the source and build myself?

From ubuntu rocker9455

• http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO_compile_XBMC_for_Linux_on_Debian/Ubuntu I don't know how I missed that!

  From rocker9455

• There don't seem to be stable releases of XBMC in the main PPA, but the SVN PPA (built from XBMC trunk) has .debpackages for Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid.

  rocker9455 : ah, damn, i missed that, i just built from source *face palm* Thanks anyone though!
  From lfaraone

Apply keyboard layout for control key combinations

When adding several keyboard layouts to ubuntu (lucid), I experienced that any control key combination refers to the "default" keyboard layout.

Specifically, on a machine I have to prepare for others, I would like to set a default keyboard to a common layout. Me myself, I like to type in dvorak, and therefore set this as a secondary layout (in the System/Preferences/Keyboard/Layouts menu) so that I can switch to it when i am using the setup.

Throughout the system, the control key combinations refer to the default layout. I.e. to type ctrl-r for a reverse search in a terminal, I'll have to hit the 'r' key on the common layout.

Any ideas how to fix this?

From ubuntu relet

• This is a known bug in GTK: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=162726 -- although it is resolved as "fixed" based on the comments it seems the problem still exists :-/

  The problem with this situation is that it is unclear whether it's a bug or a feature: In some (say, for example, Arabic) countries it is rather common to switch between two keyboard layouts during work (say, for programming vs. writing emails in your language). For these users it is more convenient having application shortcuts (like Ctrl+C for copy) always mapped to the same "physical" key, regardless of its meaning in the current keyboard layout -- most users have for example the copy&paste combination Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V deeply engraved in their "muscle memory". So, there does not seem to be a simple solution or fix that makes everyone happy...

  relet : Thanks. Definitely a bug - until there is a checkbox to toggle between physical and layout control keys.
  From Marcel Stimberg

Possible to limit the size of a window (such as a browser window) to exact pixel dimensions?

Is it possible set the size of a navigator or web browse window to exact pixel dimensions in Ubuntu?

From ubuntu Daniel Bingham

• You can right click on the lower right corner of your window and drag it. While you do this the dimension is shown and you can choose the exact size in pixels.

  Oli : This depends on `compiz` running and the "Resize Info" plugin running, no?
  From qbi

• No there isn't.

  However for FireFox as part of the Web Developer add on there is a window resize menu item for testing pages on different screen resolutions.

  That resizes the FireFox window to an exact pixel size.

  From Richard Holloway

• If you use Mozilla Firefox, you can also use the addon Firesizer. It has a small menu where you can select the size or customize your settings:

  

  From qbi

• For Nautilus you can also change the settings with gconf-editor. Go to apps -> nautilus -> preferences. On the right side there is an entry navigation_window_saved_geometry. Double-click on it and enter a number which fits you most.

  From qbi

• If you're using Compiz (installed by default) there is a Window Rules plugin that can do this. If you need this for web development, then you will be better off with various plugins specific to each browser; otherwise you may find this helpful.

  Open CompizConfig Settings Manager (not installed by default, install the compizconfig-settings-manager package) from System > Preferences. Navigate to the Window Rules plugin in the Window Management category (you'll see #1 below). In the "Size rules" tab, add a new rule (#2), grab the criteria by clicking on the window (#3, #4). Enter the size (you can see I previously added an example rule for Opera at 800x600), and this size will be used when matching windows are created. You can prevent resizing in the Matches tab ("Non resizable windows" option) of the same plugin with similar matching rules (i.e. class=whatever).

  The related and handy Place Windows plugin can be used to specify initial locations for windows.

  

  From Roger Pate

• Many X applications also have a --geometry option that lets you specify the height/width and x/y position. For instance:

  gnome-terminal --geometry=114x40+1920+547

  Another tool that can be used is 'wmctrl'. This allows you to alter properties of already running windows, including position and size. For instance:

  chideok:~$ wmctrl -l -G | grep Possible

  0x02339ca2 0 558 111 1216 1006 chideok Possible to limit the size of a window (such as a browser window) to exact pixel dimensions? - Ubuntu - Stack Exchange - Mozilla Firefox

  chideok:~$ wmctrl -i -r 0x02339ca2 -e 0,100,100,100,100

  chideok:~$ wmctrl -lG | grep Possible

  0x02339ca2 0 110 146 100 100 chideok Possible to limit the size of a window (such as a browser window) to exact pixel dimensions? - Ubuntu - Stack Exchange - Mozilla Firefox

  From Bryce

Change partition sizes after windows removal ?

Hello,

Let's say we install ubuntu side by side with a windows installation. At that time, we will NOT have much space to play with so:

/ - 5gb /swap - 1gb /home - 5gb

After that, we decide to remove windows. And we have much more space to play with.

Question: What program can we use, in order to easily change all partition sizes after windows removal ?

Thanks in advance, MEM

From ubuntu MEM

• QTParted should do the trick for you.

  http://qtparted.sourceforge.net/

  From Toby

• If you think you're going to end up in this situation, I'd recommend installing from an Alternate CD to start with so that you can use LVM. LVM will let you add & resize logical volumes later, even while running (except for / which can only be resized from a live cd).

  If you're already installed and in this situation, boot from a live cd and use GParted, which I think is included on the live cd.

  From maco

• I can really recommend gparted, at their homepage you can download a live-cd or live-usb image that can do it all in a nice easy to use gui tool. You have to boot from some live disk since you cant resize a partition that is already mounted.

  There is some generel documentation/guide to gparted here

  From Source Lab

Nautilus video thumbnails without totem

I've removed totem and installed VLC instead. Now video files thumbnails are gone. Is there any way to get thumbnails back without reinstalling totem?

I know I can have both totem and VLC, but I really don't want to have more soft than I need :)

From ubuntu Oleg Yaroshevych

• Open file manager and go to Edit -> Preferences -> Preview. Change preferences as required. Then close file manager and open terminal. Run the following command to install the necessary packages.

  sudo apt-get install ffmpeg ffmpegthumbnailer gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg

  Then remove the old thumbnails

  rm ~/.thumbnails/fail/gnome-thumbnail-factory/*
  rm ~/.thumbnails/normal/*
  

  Open the file manager and enjoy your new thumbnails!

  koushik : When I tried this the video files (.avi for example) don't have thumbnails anymore)
  From garbagecollector

byobu and ssh-agent

byobu cannot connect to ssh-agent socket well. actually I can make just one connection via ssh-agent but if I try to establish another ssh connection using the agent, it doesn't work. I've tried

setenv SSH_AUTH_SOCK `echo $SSH_AUTH_SOCK`

in ~/.byobu/profile but it didn't work as well.

From ubuntu ubik

• There is a bug report #616899 which sounds similar to your problem. They suggest to download byobu v3.1 and manually install it.

  From qbi

Can't seem to get my login screen back after installing slim

At one point I switched from GDM to slim and now I can't seem to get past the splash screen. After pressing Esc I can see that it is stuck on Starting X Display Manager: Slim. I need to get back to GDM or just figure out what it is doing.

Thoughts?

From ubuntu nyxtom

• Assuming GDM is still installed:

  sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm
  

  will let you select what your default display manager is. If it's not installed...well, install it.

  It'll go into effect on reboot.

  From maco

• I would drop into a command prompt - You can switch at any time by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F2 and login. Then you can sudo apt-get remove slim. Once you've done so - if you already have GDM installed then just sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm otherwise run sudo apt-get install gdm

  From Marco Ceppi

How to stop acpid restarting /etc/acpi/lid.sh restart unnecessarily?

On my Acer Aspire One netbook, I have noticed that acpid starts /etc/acpi/lid.sh multiple times a minute. This script should only be started when the lid is closed or opened. How can I stop theses unnecessary starts from happening without switching off acpi or disabling the lid event?

From ubuntu txwikinger

• Is this the same issue as this bug

  If so there is a description of the cause here and the solution is here

  Like the man says

  [this] involves recompiling the kernel. Don't do this unless you're familiar with the process. Back up your machine beforehand. Follow this guide at your own risk. Etc, etc

  txwikinger : sounds quite similar. Unfortunately it looks like a BIOS bug, so applying the patch would nor really help since it would have to be done with every kernel update.

  Oli : Or poke an Ubuntu kernel developer until they add it to the Ubuntu patch-set. Might need a bit more work to stop it attacking other systems (I haven't looked at the code) but otherwise, it's not hard to patch the Ubuntu kernel... Just takes a bit of time to compile.
  From Richard Holloway

Can I log how long resume (un-hibernate) takes?

This question has been spun off from my question about hibernate being slow.

I know I can run a script when I resume the computer by putting it in /etc/acpi/resume.d, but that will only run it once. What I was hoping for was a "starting wakeup" script and a "finished wakeup" script, so each one would log it's time somewhere and I could see how long resume works.

I figure this is a long shot, since the "starting wakeup" script would have to run really early, so even if it was possible, there might not be a disk to write to.

From ubuntu Steve Armstrong

• You can look in /var/log/syslog for a general system log, it will contain messages from the kernel about the hibernate process.

  The delta from when processes start being frozen to when there are no more kernel log messages (until it starts at 0.0000000 on reboot) is the time your computer took to hibernate.

  From lfaraone