Luke's Ubuntu and Linux Hacks

(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 yellow highlighted sections for the problem and the fix.) Background I recently decided that, rather than upgrading my Linux Ubuntu OS for the umpteenth time, I would do a fresh (new) install of version 24.04. As usual, everything went well, except for one minor (actually MAJOR) keyboard problem I had immediately after booting up the new Ubuntu install: When trying to type a capital "E" using the Right-Shift key, I got nothing. I still was able to use the Left-Shift key + e to form my capital E, but I am an extremely high-volume writer and that solution is not sustainable long-term.  What I Tried (aka, Useless Forums) Okay, based on my ultimate revelation...

(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 yellow highlighted sections for the problem and the fix.) The Problem: Suddenly and without warning, each time I opened a new tab in my Chrome browser (in Linux, but presumably the same problem exists in all OS's), the Developer Tools Console (window, sidebar) opened automatically along the right side of the tab. What Changed? This is the first question anyone should ask after something unexpected happens on your computer. In my case, I had unplugged my keyboard and plugged it back in, in an attempt to correct another unrelated problem.  Searching the Forums Not a complete waste of time, because I did actually arrive at the solution below, but what a mess and a ...

(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 yellow highlighted sections for the problem and the fix.) Background Rather than upgrade to Ubuntu 24.04 after many years of doing nothing but upgrades, I decided that a new, or fresh, full install might be a good idea. It was, overall, with very few glitches. One of those glitches was installing one of my favorite (and crucial to my work) applications: Calibre. What I Did I boogied over to the Calibre website and copied the code for the binary install, same as I had done for several years to both install Calibre originally, then to do version upgrades. What Happened When I opened a Terminal and pasted in the Install code, I got this result: You are missing the syst...

(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 yellow highlighted sections for the problem and the fix.) OS : Ubuntu 23.10 Browser : Chrome Issue : I download a bunch of books from archive.org. Suddenly, on my Linux computer, each time I clicked on a download button (pdf, epub, etc) to download a book, a page popped up with "500 internal server error" message.  In the Forums: Useless information with a bunch of technical gibberish, including on the message board at archive.org. Test : I went to my wife's Window's machine, logged in with my name, launched Chrome, went to archive.org, and had no problem downloading the same book that I could not download on my Linux machine. At first, I thought i...

(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 yellow highlighted sections for the problem and the fix.) The Background Recently I was going about my business as usual on my computer, when I noticed that my system sounds had been silent for quite a while. Because I rely on them heavily in the type of work I do, that is a no-no. When I clicked on Settings, Sounds, I saw that the Output Device box was pre-populated with "Dummy Output Device," and no other choice. My normal choice is my desktop speakers, which were all plugged in still and had power to them.  As always, I am embarrassed and surprised when I allow myself to search the Ubuntu forums (especially StackExhange) because I found nothing there bu...

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...

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 ...