Luke's Ubuntu and Linux Hacks

After a series of power outages at my house I rebooted my Ubuntu machine only to discover that my external drive, a WD My Passport Device, no longer would mount. I tried several fixes found in several forums; none of them worked. This is what finally did work: Disconnect and remove the malfunctioning (unmountable) external device. Launch "Disks" program. (That's what it's called in Ubuntu) Select the disk that fails to mount; in my case "1 TB WD...." Click on the icon that looks like a little gear: "Additional Partition Options." Select "Repair File System." A message will pop up asking you to confirm that this is what you really want to do. As I was at the end of my rope, I hit the "confirm" button. Re-connect (reinsert) your external device to the USB port. In my case, Voila!, my device is now working and all files on my external WD drive once again show up in Files (Nautilus) on my Ubuntu desktop. UPDATE:  After the multiple ...

As of the date of this post—and really, since Ubuntu and/or Gnome announced a "Star" feature for the Files function (Nautilus), it has been pretty much a useless feature. When first released, you could open up Files (Nautilus) and add Star to the file navigation bar (Visible Columns). Starting somewhere around the Ubuntu 22.10 release and continuing into 23.04, you cannot do that; which is odd, because you still have a limited ability to star folders and files, you just can't open the Files function and add "Star" to your Visible Columns.  I would really, really like to be able to star some folders and files, but the star feature is limited to folders and files under the Documents directory only, and, like I said, even if you right-click a file or folder and choose the star in the Properties dialog, after you star the item the star cannot be displayed in Files (Nautilus).  As always, there are some useless conversations in the Ubuntu Forum around this issue. You...