Luke's Ubuntu and Linux Hacks

OS: Ubuntu 25.10 App: Files (Nautilus) Issue: For eternity (I've been using Ubuntu Linux exclusively for 12 years) I was able to right-click on a folder in Files and select "Open in Terminal." And then suddenly, I was not able to do that. Not being able to pinpoint anything that I had done to cause the problem, I turned to Gemini for an answer.  Diagnosis:  After a considerable amount of back and forth with Gemini (which is unusual), I THOUGHT narrowed the cause down to my having downloaded the New "Console" terminal, but kept the old term terminal as my default. Thus, I had a problem of the two terminals competing for default. As it turns out, something had changed in Nautilus, it seems. Don't ask me what. The Fix: NOT! (but in include this step here, because you probably should do this, too.) I uninstalled my old Terminal, which, among other things, was blocking my switching from the old Terminal to Console Terminal, using the Console settings Preference f...

We recommend you bookmark this blog. Trying to find helpful information in forums usually just ends in making you frustrated and angry. This blog does not speculate or guess. If we post it, we've tried it and it works. As always, if you don't want to be bored by the Scenario, simply jump to the Instructions portion below. Scenario: I download a ton of public domain books and other publications that I use for research and republication. Though I try to be disciplined and meticulous in categorizing the downloads into numerous folders and sub-folders, with more than 10,000 files I find myself doing a lot of searches for certain words or phrases in certain files within certain folders. Here's an illustrative example. I have a single word I am looking for because it has been, for 75 years, a hot topic in general public discourse (let's say, so as not to offend anyone, the word is :"blooper.") Then I want to export or copy and paste the search results (list of files...

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...

(We recommend you bookmark this blog. Trying to find helpful information in forums usually just ends in making you frustrated and angry. This blog does not speculate or guess. If we post it, we've tried it and it works. As with all our posts, if you don't care about the background info, you can head straight to the FIX). SCENARIO:  Operating system is Ubuntu Linux 21.04 MyPassport USB drive attached. This drive is used both to back-up system using Déjà Dup, and to manually backup files from my hard drive. ISSUE: When moving files to Trash within the MyPassport directory, files are moved to MyPassport-created folders with names .Trash-1000, .Trash-1006, .Trash-1009, etc. Within these upper-level folders, one or more of the following sub-folders exist: expunged, files, info. One or more of the "files" folders will contain the unwanted / trashed folders and files. The unwanted / trashed folders and files cannot be permanently deleted from the MyPassport device using the...