Welcome to The Linux Page

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This site is a collection of my own work with Linux. Certain things are easy, others take time to decipher and if I ever need to repeat the work (which usually happens!), then I need to remember everything by memory or... have a site with all the steps taken and to take again.

The following are my most recent posts:

Chrome Auto-update Feature & the "Could not create download directory" error

A Bug in Chrome Ubuntu—how a feature becomes a bug

The Ubuntu version of Chrome has a way to auto-restart itself which does not hide the window or loses your existing browsing. However, it clearly quits the current instance and starts a new one (well, technically, it probably starts the new instance first, grab hold of the windows, then quit the old instance).

First bug, when that happens, the Gnome icon will now open a new instance and not know anything about the old instance. In other words, if you use the icons to navigate between your applications, Chrome fails whenever it gets updated that way.

If it were just that, I would say, ...

Virtualbox to create a Computer inside another Computer

Autostart Virtualbox VMs

So... certainly things evolve quickly and others lack behind. We've got systemd since 15.10 or so and it was the prominent change in 16.04. We actually made the switch for Snap! Websites and that help tremendously as it is very reliable since then (older versions were really bad in comparison.)

At first, I found a Stackoverflow answer describing the old way and it did not work which is why I decided to switch to systemd. I found this page about it and it's already pretty good! Just a couple of things I had to tweak on my system to make it all work ...

Setting up the gparted live CD in your controller in a virtualbox installation

Problem: Small Partition in your Virtualbox Drive

By defauilt Virtuabox often tells you to setup your partition size to 20Gb. This is actually really small if you are to do some serious work with your virtualbox especially since the OS is likely to use about half of it on install.

But if you don't pay attention, chances are you end up with a tiny partition which you may wish you could exstend later...

Note that in many cases, this operation is not possible. For example, VirtualBox does not give us the ability to change the size of a fixed disk. Unfortunate because non-fixed do not ...

Low Level Formatting an HDD or SSD

Dog that shread a bed to pieces by gomagoti.
By Gomagoti
(License CC: Some rights reserved)

WARNING

Do not apply the Secure Erase on a USB Drive or a drive connected through an SAS or RAID system as it may render your drive unusable. (See Brick (electronics) for an idea of what you could end up with in this case.)

SSD Plus SanDisk — 1Tb or 2Tb at a very decent price! — click to check it out on Amazon (where I'm an affiliate)

I have three of these SSD
drives and they work nicely!
I recommend them, especially
if you have a low budget.
(I'm an Amazon.com affiliate)

Secure Erase

Modern hard drive controllers and drivers on Linux can make use of the special feature called SECURE ERASE.

To see whether ...

Many old parchements have much of their text hidden or lost...

As anyone else, I use Ctrl-C all the time.

I start writing something in my terminal and it's not what I needed, I hit Ctrl-C to Cancel that line.

This is the same as the Ctrl-C to Cancel a program. In that case it sends a SIGINT to the running process (this assumes that you are running a process that did not detach itself from your console.)

Although on the command line I often do that because I want to keep what I just typed right there on the screen because I will use it, just not right now. And when a ^C is printed in there, that's just really not practical!?

It looks like ...

Here is a picture of my old LaserJet 2550L which I use as a black & white printer.

My old LaserJet 2550L printer which I use with Linux Ubuntu.

Upgrade

I now upgraded my printer. The old one just gave up completely and only printed white pages.

My new printer is a multifunction from HP the HP Color LaserJet Pro Multifunction M479fdn Laser Printer. I don't print that much so that's a good model for my needs.

The one main issue I run into once in a while, a document just doesn't get through. The printer sits there with a message saying it's working on it, but nothing happens. Since it normally prints within seconds, that's not a normal state. The ...

Installing an Ubuntu Server & more

A beautiful table ready to be server with plates, glasses, napkins, all very elegantly set.

Getting the OS

First go to https://ubuntu.com/ and get the latest version you're interesting in. They offer server version that they support for 5 years or so. I suggest one of those if you want to run a server. This is an ISO, in generate around 600Mb so be ready to wait a few hours... Even with a really fast connection, because the transfer will be limited by the mirror in most cases.

WARNING

Unless you know better, I strongly suggest you get the Ubuntu Server version. Maybe a bit more annoying to use BUT it works on ALL computers. And ...

Sorted desktop items in various jars made of glass.

We often want to sort filenames by date. It's easy enough with the ls command we use the -t command line option.

ls -t

Then we can use the -r to reverse the list which means we see the last modified file at the end of the list.

ls -tr

Futher I tend to use the -l to see more details when listing and verify that my command does what I expect it to do.

Now there are situations where a more complex search than a simple shell glob is necessary. For example, looking for a file that includes the name '*linux*' in a whole tree of files would go like this:

find path-to-search ...

Ubuntu 18.04 Beaver

Super-be Interface: Gnome 3

This page is for me to remember what the heck I had to do to get my desktop back to normal. One main thing that changed quite a bit: the Super key is often used instead instead of the Alt key. For example, to switch between workspaces (I have 12 so I need that functionality really bad!) and also to move windows about without having to find their title bar which often are hidden by other windows anyway.

Note: I know that Gnome 3 has been out for a while, I just did not want to get a new Desktop version which may not be 100% compatible on my old server so I am ...

Lock you emails down by encrypting them properly with an SSL certificate.

Getting a Signed Certificate

In order to have TLS support for Postfix you need to setup several files.

First of all, you create a certificate and get it signed by GoDaddy. They have instructions for that purpose. At this time, it looks something like this:

openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes \
            -keyout domain.key -out domain.csr

The names "domain.key/csr" should match your domain name. If you are signing a specific sub-domain, you may want to include that sub-domain in the filename (i.e. mail.domain.key.)

When GoDaddy returns to you, they will give you a ...

Unfreeze your Mouse when it Froze

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Autostart Virtualbox VMs

Problem: Small Partition in your Virtualbox Drive

Secure Erase

Upgrade

Getting the OS

Super-be Interface: Gnome 3

Getting a Signed Certificate